Wallbanger (41 page)

“So what happened to your dad’s company? Parker Financial?” I asked, spooning up a bite of berries.

“Benjamin took over some of the clients for a while, and over time he quietly closed up shop. The assets were transferred to me, per the will, and he manages it for me.”

“Assets?”

“Yep. Didn’t I tell you that, Caroline? I’m loaded.” He winced, looking out to sea.

“I knew there was a reason I was hanging out with you.” I topped off his coffee.

“Seriously. Loaded.”

“Okay, now you’re just being an ass,” I said, trying to lift the tension that had settled over the table.

“Well, people get weird about money. You never know,” he said.

“When we get home you’re buying our building and installing a hot tub on the landing, that’s all,” I joked, which earned me a small smile.

We sat and looked at each other, deep in our own thoughts. He’d done so much alone. No wonder he always seemed a little lost to me. Living out of a suitcase, not allowing himself to be tethered to anyone, no real sense of belonging—could it really be that simple? Wallbanger had haremed because he couldn’t stand to lose anyone else? Paging Dr. Freud…

Freudian or no, it made sense. He was attracted to me,
had been
attracted to me since the beginning. But what was different this time? Clearly he’d been attracted to all the other women as well. Wow, no pressure at all…With a toss of my head, I tried to change the subject.

“I can’t believe I’m leaving tomorrow. I feel like we just got here.” I leaned forward on my elbows. He smiled, likely noticing my not-so-subtle way of changing the subject. But he seemed grateful.

“So stay. Stay with me. We can spend a few more days here, and then who knows? Where else do you want to go?”

“Pfft. You’ll recall that I’m leaving before you because it’s the only flight I could get. Besides, I have to be back at work, organized, and in the right time zone on Monday. You know how many jobs Jillian has lined up for me?”

“She’ll understand. She’s a sucker for a good romance. Come on. Stay with me. I’ll stash you in the overhead bin for the flight home.” His eyes twinkled over his coffee mug.

“Overhead bin, my foot. And is this what this is? A romance? Shouldn’t you be embracing me on the beach? And ripping my bodice?” I placed my bare legs in his lap, and he took full advantage of this, massaging between his warm hands.

“Lucky for you, I’m a bodice-ripper from way back. I could probably even throw together a pirate costume, if that’s what you’re into,” he replied, the sapphires beginning to smoke.

“It has been quite a romantic tale, hasn’t it? If someone would’ve told me this story, I doubt I’d have believed it,” I mused, groaning as I finished my last bite.

“Why not? It’s not that strange how we met, is it?”

“How many women do you know who would voluntarily go to Europe with a man who’d been banging the plaster right off her walls for weeks?”

“True, but you could also spin me as the guy who played you all those great records through the wall, and the guy who gave you, and I quote, ‘the best meatball ever’?”

“I suppose you did begin to wear me down with the Glen Miller. That got me.” I sunk into my chair as his hands did delicious things to the bottoms of my socked feet. Socks I had also appropriated from his side of the room.

“I got you, huh?” He smirked, leaning closer.

“Oh, shut it, you.” I pushed his face away, smiling big as I contemplated what he said. Did he have me? Yeah. He totally had me. And would have me, sometime later that night.

At that thought, a whoosh of nerves hit my tummy, and I felt my smile falter a bit. Nerves had set up shop big time, and no matter where Brain went, eventually Nerves invaded every thought, every idea I had about where the night would go. I was ready, Lord knows I was ready, but I was damn nervous. O would come back, right? I knew she would. Did I mention I was nervous?

“So, are you almost done with your work? Do you still have a lot to do tomorrow?” I asked, changing the subject once again. As was always the case when he talked about his work, Simon’s eyes lit up. He described the shots he still needed of the Roman-style aqueduct in town.

“I wish we had time to go scuba diving. I hate that we ran out of time.” I frowned.

“Again, something that would be solved if you stayed here with me.” He frowned back, making a big deal of mimicking my eyebrows.

“Again, some of us have nine-to-five jobs. I have to get home!”

“Home, right. You know there’s gonna be a firing squad to face when we get home. Everyone is going to want to know what happened here between us,” he said seriously.

“I know. We’ll handle it.” I cringed at the grilling I’d receive from the girls, to say nothing of Jillian. I wonder if a kitchen blowjob was what she had in mind when she said
take care of him in Spain
.

“We?”

“What? We what?” I asked.

“I could we with you.” He smiled.

“Aren’t we already we-ing?”

“Yeah, we’re we-ing on vacation. It’s quite a different thing to be we-ing back home, in the real world. I travel all the time, and that takes its toll on the we unit,” he said, his brow knit together.

It took all my power, all of it, not to make a joke about the
we(e) unit.

“Simon, chill. I know you travel. I’m well aware. Keep bringing me pretty things from faraway places, and this girl has no problem with your we, okay?” I patted his hand.

“Pretty things I can do. Guaranteed.”

“Speaking of, where are you off to next?”

“I’ll be home for a few weeks, and then I’m headed down south for a bit.”

“Down south? As in LA?”

“No, a bit more south.”

“San Diego?”

“Souther.”

“Stanford educated, right? Where are you going?”

“Promise you won’t be mad?”

“Spit it out, Simon.”

“Peru. The Andes. More specifically, Machu Picchu.”

“What? Oh, man, that’s it. I officially hate you. I’ll be in San Francisco, planning rich people’s Christmas trees, and you get to go there?”

“I’ll send you a postcard?” He looked like a kid trying to get out of trouble. “Besides, I don’t know what you’re so pissy about. You love your job, Caroline. Don’t even try to tell me you don’t.”

“Yeah, I love my job, but right now I wish I was headed south.” I huffed, snatching my feet away.

“Well, if you want to head south, I can think of something—”

I placed my hand in front of his mouth. “No way, buddy. I’m not machuuing your pichu now. Huh-uh,” I stated firmly, not wavering one bit when he began pressing open mouth kisses against my palm. Not one little bit…

“Caroline,” he whispered against my hand.

“Yes?”

“One day,” he began, removing my hand and leaving tiny kisses up the inside of my arm. “One day…” Kiss. “I promise…” Kiss kiss. “To bring you…” Kiss. “And my woo…” Kiss kiss. “To Peru,” he finished, now kneeling in front of me and dragging his mouth across my shoulder, peeling the fabric away to linger along my collarbone, his lips making me hot and shivery.

“You wanna woo me in Peru?” I asked, my voice high and stupid and not fooling him for a second. He knew exactly how he was affecting me.

“True.” His fingers tangled in my hair and brought my mouth to his. I tried for a second to come up with something that rhymed with true, but I gave up and kissed him back with all I had. And so, I let him make out with me on the terrace, overlooking the ocean. Which was…blue.
Ahem.

All week long, we’d been seeing signs of a festival coming together around town. It started tonight, as if celebrating my departure, and we were headed out to dinner, to somewhere considerably more fancy than the places we’d been eating all week. I’d discovered Simon and I were very similar in many of our tastes. I was all for getting dressed up from time to time, but I much preferred smaller, casual places, as did he. So tonight, getting dressed up and going out someplace a little fancy, and then maybe hitting the festival, had a special feel to it. I was definitely looking forward to this evening, in more ways than one.

They say when a soldier loses a leg in battle, sometimes, late at night, he can still feel twinges of that leg—phantom pain, they call it. I lost my O in battle, the battle of Cory Weinstein—that machine-gun fucker—and I was still feeling the aftershocks. And by aftershocks I mean nothing at all. But there was an end in sight. I’d been feeling twinges of the phantom O all week long, and I was very much looking forward to her return later this evening. The Return of the O. Of course I would see it as a title of some kind of action film in my head—but truly, if she was returning, I would capitalize anything. Any Thing.

Because tonight, sports fans, I was gonna get me some. Not to put too fine a point on it, I was ready for some serious Simon Wang.

I ran my fingers through my hair once more, noticing how the strong sun had brought out the natural honey tones. I smoothed the front of my dress, white linen with a little swing to the skirt. I paired it with some turquoise jewelry I’d bought in town and little snakeskin sandals. I was the most dressed up I’d been all week, and—undercurrent of nerves aside—feeling pretty good. I took one last look at myself in the mirror, noticing that my cheeks were pretty pink, and I hadn’t even added blush tonight.

I went to the kitchen to pour myself a quick glass of wine and wait for Simon. As I poured the Cava, I saw him on the terrace, facing the ocean. I smirked when I saw he was wearing a white linen shirt. We’d be quite matchy-matchy tonight. Khakis completed his look, and he turned just as I was walking out to meet him. My heels clicked across the stone as I sipped my bubbly wine, and he leaned back on his arms across the wrought iron railing. As a photographer, he was innately aware of the kind of imagery he was creating, I felt certain. Anytime he leaned, he oozed sex. I just hoped I didn’t fall in my heels…sex ooze could be slippery.

I offered my wine to him, and he let me bring the glass to his lips. Slowly, he sipped, his eyes on mine. When I removed the glass, he quickly wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me to him, kissing me deeply, the taste of wine heavy on his tongue.

“You look…good,” he breathed, pulling away from my lips to press his mouth against the skin just below my ear, his scruff tickling me in the most fantastic way.

“Good?” I asked, tilting my head back to encourage everything he was doing.

“Good. Good enough to eat,” he whispered, grazing my neck with his teeth, just enough to make me aware of them.

“Wow,” was all I could manage as I wrapped my arms around his neck and sank into his embrace.

The sun was beginning to set, casting a warm glow all around, making the terra cotta blaze red and orange, coating us in fire. My eyes were drawn to the cool blue of the sea crashing against the rocks below, the salt in the air actually present on my tongue. I clung to him, letting myself feel and experience everything. His body, hard and warm against my own, the feel of his shaggy hair against my cheek, the heat of the railing against my hip, the rush of every cell in my body curling toward this man and the pleasure he would surely bring me.

“You ready?” he asked, his voice gruff in my ear.

“So ready,” I moaned, my eyes rolling back in my head at the nearness of him, the feel of him.

And then Simon took me to town.