AllFreeNovel
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Champagne dinners at five-star restaurants. Jet skiing. Scuba diving in a reserved cove. It’s been her world for the last couple of days, yet none of it holds a candle to Nathaniel.
Their time together is bliss. Paradise.
While she packs up her beach tote, the sheets rustle. He sits up, chest bare, frowning as he checks his phone. He’s been waiting for an acceptance from the rig in the North Sea. It’s had him in a mess for days.
He ducks his head, types out a response. It feels like there’s a switchblade in her chest. She wants to grab the phone from his hands, fling it out to sea.
Still, she plays it cool. “You hear back?”
A shrug. “No. Not yet.” His eyes are distant, his attention fixed on his phone.
Thank god. The knot in her stomach loosens. She never thought she’d want Nathaniel Whitford safe on shore, but here she is.
Ash chews on her bottom lip, then decides against saying more. She shoulders her bag. Walks toward the door. Pauses. On the minibar is the rock from their trip to Rainbow Falls. Shiny, bright and jagged.
Her heart hammers a warning in her ears. “You kept my rock.”
He quits scrolling. Smears a hand over his whiskered jaw. His eyes clear out as he focuses on her. “Of course I did.”
She gives a bobblehead nod. Takes in his stern, handsome face. His hair thrashed by her nails. His calm stance, leaning back against the headboard, watching her.
Fuck. There’s too much of her in his eyes. Adoration and lust and…and…
Butterflies automatically swoop into her stomach. It’s just green flag after green flag with him.
And then her stomach drops.
Too much green.
Too many feelings.
Noncommittal. They have to be noncommittal and cavalier about this.
It’s just sex. Her mantra the last few days. What she tells herself so she doesn’t detach and freak out and self-sabotage. Sleeping over, spending the night, is too intimate. It leads to attachment. And she needs to be very unattached. Even if she is starting to crave him on a level that is no longer strictly carnal.
The first sign of impending doom should be that they’re no longer playing the truth/lie game. There’s no need. Everything is truth. There’s a comfortableness now. Her truths, her musings just spill out.
She is not in the market for a relationship. She and Nathaniel go together about as well as serial killers and normal brain waves.
Mouth suddenly dry, she swallows. “Well, okay. I’ll see you.”
“You better,” he says solemnly, eyes heated.
Her heart somersaults. Perfect response from the perfect man. Good thing she hates it. Good thing it means absolutely nothing.
She slips out of the room, and instantly, she freezes.
Tater’s coming down the long hall, headed toward the room she’s sharing with Augustus, a carton of cigars in his hands.
Fuck.
Although she supposes it’s about time they got caught. The last two nights, she made great lung-sputtering sprints down the hall. Trying to beat the sun and Augustus’s alarm in the great race to fuck Nathaniel’s brains out. She hasn’t snuck around like this since she and Tessie hitchhiked to Burning Man.
“Oh shit,” Tater drawls. He holds up his hand and the cigars and gapes at Ash.
Ash narrows her eyes. “Are you sneaking cigars to your cancer-afflicted grandfather?”
Tate darts a look at Nathaniel’s door. His shoulders straighten with bravado. “Are you sleeping with my brother?”
