Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
There’s an invisible tug between us, a magnet drawing us together.
My gaze drops to his mouth, stained red from the wine. There’s a little flutter of anticipation; like everything we do, all the teasing and taunting is just one big drawn-out foreplay session. It’s maddening.
Cole looks like he’s prepared to draw blood. Under the table, his hands must be biting into his thighs to keep from touching me. We’re about to lose our heads. He’ll swipe the contents of the table onto the floor and then hoist me up onto the tablecloth. Forget the fillet. He’ll have me for dinner. I can imagine it. I’ve had his mouth on me before. I know how good it feels. How little I’d resist if he . . .
Then, plop. Cole’s dinner gets dropped on the other side of the table.
“Here you go, man. I double-checked, and everything’s in there, nice and warm.”
Our moment is reduced to rubble.
Like we’ve been doing nothing beyond idle chitchat, Cole retrieves cash from his wallet and drops it on the table. I fold, then refold, my napkin in my lap, trying to regain my composure. Just before he stands, Cole pauses like he’s mulling something over. I think he might draw us back to the conversation we were having . . . all that delicious tension hovering just on the periphery. Instead, he leans in close, his voice like a soft feather lightly touching my skin, and tells me, “Enjoy your date.”
Then he walks out of the restaurant with his dinner.
Bereft doesn’t cut it. I’m a hollowed-out shell as I watch him leave, wishing, for some inexplicable reason, that he was taking me with him.
Chapter Eleven
PAIGE
I don’t have to wait long to see Cole again. He comes to find me the next morning as I’m manning the excursion desk in the main lobby. Of all my weekly tasks, the excursion desk is not the most exciting, but I don’t mind it. I take pride in my position here, more so than anyone else on my team. Not to throw my friends and coworkers under the bus, but most of them are only here as a means to an end. I plan to be at Siesta Playa for the long haul. I’ve found my home here among people I truly care about, and hopefully one day, if I keep my head down and work hard, I’ll get promoted. My friends, meanwhile, enjoy the perks of working in paradise, but they don’t feel the need to go above and beyond for the sake of the resort. I understand where they’re coming from—“Why care about the corporate machine, it doesn’t care about you,” yada yada—but it just so happens that I’m the one weirdo who actually really loves my job. Even this, manning an information desk, isn’t so bad when I get to chat with guests and encourage them to try something new.
Splayed out in neat rows in front of me are informative pamphlets detailing every excursion we have to offer here at Siesta Playa: kayaking trips, meditation sessions, horseback rides—the list goes on. Guests can come to the desk and get up-to-date information, ask me questions, and reserve their spot for the week’s activities.
I see Cole approaching out of the corner of my eye, and I make myself busy, straightening each individual pamphlet stack.
If this were a normal relationship, he’d keep it moving while throwing me a nod on his way to his office.
Since we’re as far from normal as you can get without being officially labeled “deranged,” he strolls right over and stops in front of the desk, too tall for his own good. I couldn’t see around him if I tried.
I lay down one stack of pamphlets and grab another. I enjoy the sharp rap of papers as I force them to fall in line.
He drops something on the desk.
Coffee.
And not the burned motor oil they brew from dirt and pencil shavings down in the break room. He’s ordered me something from the fancy resort coffee shop, the one I try to avoid so I don’t get in the habit of spending eight dollars on a latte every morning.
“What’s this?”
He nudges it toward me.
“Not poison, if that’s what you’re wondering. You have to pay extra for that sort of thing, and I’m short on cash.”
I take a small sip to cover up my smile.
The taste of vanilla wraps around me like a warm hug.
Damn it. It’s good.
“Thank you,” I mutter with a hefty amount of reluctance.
Maybe he knows he owes me an apology after last night. Crashing my date? That’s low even for us.
“So? How was the rest of your night? Did your spreadsheets fall in line?”
His dimple comes out to play. “They’re getting there. What about you? How was your dinner?”
“My date? Great, thank you for asking. I’m so used to dealing with difficult people”—my gaze on him hopefully drives home my meaning—“I forgot how pleasant it can be to share polite conversation.”