Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 103530 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103530 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
“Pools don’t have sharks,” I immediately countered.
“Is that really a plus, though?” she mused, squinting her luminous blue eyes slightly. “Sharks are cool.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “I actually swam with sharks once,” I said as I set about rolling up our joint. “In the Bahamas.”
“At another one of your resorts?” she asked.
“That time? No. But I was in town to check out someone else’s resort.” My completely one-sided rivalry with Glynn properties had driven me to visit several of their resorts around the world. The Nassau one had nearly made me weep with envy.
“So, you go around and scope out the competition?” She asked suspiciously.
“It’s not that weird.” It was probably very weird. It’s not like I had a ton of fellow resort-chain-owning friends I could compare behaviors with. “And it would be chintzy of me to only take vacations at my resorts because they’re free to me.”
With one notable exception that I wouldn’t discuss with her at the moment. Ascend properties were the destination swinger resorts and kink clubs worldwide. I needed to pay a visit to one, badly, and soon. But I hadn’t invited her up to my room to talk about kinky stuff. In fact, I was pretty sure Scott would kick my ass if I told her about the place.
Unless she already knew about them, which seemed like a distinct possibility, if the cruise story hadn’t been exaggerated.
“I would honestly live at a place like this. I know people do that all the time.” She motioned around us. “Live in hotels.”
“I’ve heard similar. But it seems like they do that… mostly in big cities…” I tried to split my concentration between the task in my hands and the task in my mind, and my hands were winning out.
“Tell me about the sharks.” She whipped from topic to topic at a speed I had a difficult time keeping up with now. What the hell would happen when I was stoned?
Since she’d offered me the chance to brag, though, I would take it. “Well, I was very brave, obviously. It was a guided scuba tour where they drop this big chunk of bait and you go and dive down and let them circle you. Watch them eat. Hope they don’t eat you.” I paused before wetting the glue strip on the paper. “I’m sorry I’m going to put my tongue on this.”
“Billionaires don’t have special moistening apparatus for cannabis cigarettes?” She affected a snooty accent as she said it, then dropped it, laughing. “It’s okay. The fire will burn up whatever awful pathogens are in your saliva. Continue with the sharks.”
“There isn’t much else to say.” I racked my brain. “The water was nice.”
“What kind of sharks were there?” she asked, leaning forward like a journalist who’s gotten an interview subject to open up. “Tiger sharks? Great white? Those ones who look worried all the time?”
“You’ll have to forgive me, but I don’t remember. It was enough that they were sharks. I didn’t need to know the species of every single one of them.” But I wished I’d paid attention, now. Apparently, trivia was a great way to impress her.
Trivia, and not a fucking awesome hotel suite. On a resort that I personally owned.
I handed her the joint and pushed a lighter across the corner of the table. “Ladies first.”
“Okay, but I’m not a lady,” she warned, lighting up.
“Your brother mentioned that.” Maybe she wouldn’t want to know that her brother had mentioned it. I wouldn’t want my sister to talk about my sex life to everyone she knew.
“I’m sure he did. I’m sure he warned you all about me,” she said, her voice tight as she held in her inhale. She passed the joint to me and exhaled. “And my body count.”
“He did warn me that you were a heartbreaker.”
She scoffed. “That’s not fair. I rarely have serious relationships. I’m not out there breaking anybody’s heart.”
That, I couldn’t believe. Because serious relationship or not, if I had a woman like Charlotte for even a week, I’d mope about losing her.
That’s exactly what Scott was talking about, dummy.
“Well, I’m not going to be the first,” I joked, taking a hit.
“Good. As long as we’re on the same page about that.” We made another pass and she paused before inhaling. “But I do want to swim in your pool.”
“Should have brought your suit.” I would have loved to see that.
“I don’t need a suit.” She exhaled a cloud of smoke. “It’s a private pool. Who’s going to see me?”
“A security guard?” There wouldn’t be any security guards up here, and I didn’t allow the cameras to be turned on while I was staying.
She shrugged. “Oh well. I know the owner and he’s not going to kick me out.”
My high began to overtake my horniness and inject some common sense into my screaming brain. “Yeah, but if I let you get naked up here, then I have to go confess to your brother, and the friend code says he gets to punch me in the face. I don’t want to have a black eye in the wedding pictures.”