Page 249 of Tease Me


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“Whenever it’s necessary. It’s beautiful. Have you ever been?”

“No,” she said, almost laughing at him. “I’ve never left the lower forty-eight.”

“Oh, we’ll definitely be changing that.” His hand slid onto her waist as the rest of him came closer. “Friend of mine has a place south of Hawaii… If we asked, he’d let us have it to ourselves for a few weeks.”

“A place?” she asked, enamored with his gold flecks. “A condo? A time share?”

“An island.”

It took her a second to really hear that. “He has an island? Like a whole island? Your friend owns an actual island?”

“He’s spent a lot of time, money, and favors getting that place up to scratch. It’s amazing now. Full infrastructure. Corporate complex… There are two private houses on the island… a resort building too. He can have it fully staffed for us or completely deserted… After tasting your cooking, I vote for the latter.”

“So with a corporate complex, you could work all day and I’ll just wait around to cook your dinner?”

“And put out, yeah,” he teased, somehow sliding lower. “An island all to ourselves. And if the Pacific doesn’t appeal, another friend has a Bahamian island.”

She scoffed a laugh. “Of course, yeah. How many rich friends do you have? Let me guess, all of your friends are rich.”

“Depends what you define as rich. Most of my real friends do okay financially.”

“Financially?”

“Rich doesn’t have to mean money. Some of them are getting their lives together in other ways too. Meeting women, getting engaged. Planning a future beyond their businesses.”

“And their women don’t want their islands to themselves?”

“A bunch of them just got back from the Bahamas about ten days ago. One girlfriend in particular ripped me a new one for this, our situation.”

She grinned. “I like her already.”

“We met up here in town when they got back. You and Roxie would get along great. She’s a Chicago girl too.”

Surprise sat her up. “Roxie?” She almost couldn’t process. “You mean—you don’t mean…?”

“Roxie Kyst? Yeah,” he said and smiled. “Zairn and I were at school together.”

“Oh my God,” she said and socked his shoulder as she lay back down. “Are you going to their wedding?”

He shrugged. “That’s up to Jane.”

“Who’s Jane?”

“Their wedding planner,” he said, laying an arm across her. “Roxie’s former roommate, now Knox’s girl too.”

“Knox…?” Her mouth opened and just hung loose for a second. “Collier? He and Zairn were—”

“In the Bahamas together, yeah.” He laughed. “If I’d known name-dropping was your thing, I could’ve got in your good graces a lot faster.”

“Is that what this is about?”

“This?”

“Us. You see your friends getting married and engaged, so you want what they have?”

“More of my friends are single than married. But I won’t deny that since meeting you, I understand their relationships better. For the first time, I get why they went all in. What it is to care about a woman and be so sure of a relationship.”

What was it like from the other side of that? From Roxie and Jane’s points of view. From being a regular nobody to being catapulted into super stardom. It didn’t matter that they weren’t actresses or models, people in the street knew who they were. Roxie especially, the woman had become a star in her own right.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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