Page 34

“I don’t know. Can we?”

Beneath the water, his free hand strokes over my bare stomach and down between my legs. It’s getting late, and faint stars are coming out overhead. My head falls back, and my eyes find each bright spark.

“I’m gonna try,” he says.

“Maybe I can, performance dependent.”

“Oh?”

He leans in and kisses my neck. I shiver as his teeth skim my skin. We’re floating in a slow circle, and with the enormous sky overhead, it’s the most relaxed I’ve been in years. Like a sensory deprivation tank, except I have a gorgeous man touching my pussy at the same time.

“Let’s go inside and find out,” he murmurs.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

JAMIE

I drag myself out of bed early. Technically, she’s supposed to go home today.

I pull on my pants and grab a busted pack of Marlboros from the dresser. In the doorway, I pause and look back at her. She’s naked, sheet coming up over the rise of her hip to her narrow waist. Her arm is across her breasts, body curled in a fetal position. Her ribs rise and fall as she breathes. This is the most at peace I’ve ever seen her, no trace of a scowl. The urge to go back and sink down at her side is strong. To tuck the strand of hair from her face and touch the silky curve of her jawline.

She is a beautiful woman.

A complicated woman. And I make her even more complicated.

My phone buzzes. It’s been buzzing since she arrived. That’s nothing new. What’s new is that I’ve been putting it on do not disturb for the first time in my life.

Everyone needs something from me, all the damn time. That’s the nature of my job. But just this once, I want to be left alone long enough to feel like a human again. Truthfully, I haven’t felt like that in a while. I thrive while working, but ever since I noticed Coen wasn’t doing well mentally, I started evaluating myself. I noticed I’d never used my kitchen, that I hadn’t been out to Dad’s grave in years, that I slept in hotels more than my own bed. The sex thing was what really got me.

Was I having sex?

Yep, a lot of it. After I sent Coen to Wyoming over a year ago, I had a brief hookup in the bathroom at a work event. Post-fuck, I was washing my hands when I realized I hadn’t had sex lying down in ages. That was a startling realization. It sent me into denial.

So that’s not that weird, right? I said that to myself again and again. Until I asked a few friends on a night out, when we’d had some drinks, what positions they were fucking in. Turned out, I was the odd one out, who had so little time he was doing drive-by fuckings with his phone going off in his back pocket.

I stopped, because that’s embarrassing.

No sex for a whole damn year. I thought it would be hard but then I met Serena and didn’t really want anyone but her, anyway. After that, I was still fucking vertically, but it was all into my own hand.

She stirs. I blink, returning to reality.

I feel like I’m losing my mind. But I feel like that even more when she’s not in my bed.

What if…she stayed? For a few more days, a few more nights.

Softly, I leave the room and go downstairs, my phone and cigarettes in hand. In the kitchen, I make a cup of black coffee. Then, I take it out to the front porch and stand by the railing. In the distance, the ocean is clear and brilliantly blue. The mug burns hot on my fingertips. I wonder how long it has been since I got to do this, and how long until I get the next opportunity to stare blankly over the cliffs.

I take my phone out. It’s buzzing.

Swiping the screen, I hit the speaker button.

“Hey, Marion,” I say.

“I got some problems,” she says, in her bright, quick voice.

Marion Lazlo is the other half of the agency. She’s a sharp, experienced agent in her mid-sixties. When I worked at my first agency, we met during a disaster of a contract and bonded over the sheer misery of it. When we found out we’d both been thinking of leaving the agency, we started talking a lot and ended up with Iron Talent Agency, named for my side because I brought the most clients in. Marion is technically the co-owner, but I’m the one who does most of the actual management.

“I’d be shocked if you didn’t,” I say. “What’s happening?”