On Her Terms (The Arrangement Duet Book 2)

by Madison Quinn

  “I think I’m going to grab something to eat. They said there was fresh fruit in the fridge and bread on the counter. Did you want something?” Kenzie pulls me from my thoughts.

  “Coffee would be good. I’m going to set up my laptop over on the desk,” I gesture to the small work area set up off the living room. “I don’t expect to need to do much work this week, but—”

  “It’s fine, I didn’t expect you to be completely unavailable to Alex and Melody if something came up,” she quickly interrupts.

  We spend the morning on the patio, Kenzie reading in the hammock while I answer a few emails on my phone from the small day bed that is set outside for star gazing. I like that while we are here alone, we are not completely left on our own. After we both agreed we would rather spend our first full day on island in the villa, I arranged to have our meals delivered.

  “I think I’m going to go for a swim,” Kenzie says.

  “Are you going to be beach or the pool?”

  “I think the pool for now. Maybe the beach later,” she giggles. “Then there’s the hot tub too.”

  “Pool today, beach tomorrow and hot tub at night when it gets chilly,” I suggest.

  “Good idea! Are you going to swim?”

  “I just might do that.”

  We both go into the bedroom and pull our swim suits out of the dressers where the staff had unpacked our clothes. Kenzie goes into the master bathroom while I take my swim trunks to the guest bathroom to change.

  “I forgot to grab towels,” Kenzie says when we reach the pool.

  “I’ll grab them; there should be some in the cabinet,” I gesture to the wicker shelving area against the villa. Walking over there, I confirm the staff has it fully stocked with plenty of towels for the pool, beach and hot tub. I grab two towels, nearly dropping them when I turn around and see Kenzie.

  FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!

  She has taken off the colorful wrap she had over her bathing suit, revealing how little she is now wearing. Once again her bathing suit is a two piece which makes me nearly fall to my knees at the sight. Although compared to most bikinis you see at stores, Kenzie’s is quite modest. Yet, it still manages to drive me crazy. When she turns to face me I nearly groan, the fabric hugs her perky breasts firmly, but the style of the suit shows plenty of her cleavage.

  I can’t help wondering what she is hiding underneath that top. What do her nipples look like? Are they dark in color or lighter? Are they overly sensitive? I desperately try to draw my attention away from her chest knowing that if I don’t, it’s going to become very apparent to Kenzie what I’m thinking about her. As I lower my glance, I follow her flat stomach down to the matching bikini bottoms that tie just below her hips. How easily do those knots come undone?

  “Nicholas?” she pulls me from my wandering thoughts.

  “Uh… I found the towels,” thankfully they are covering my dick which has decided it wants to be noticed.

  “Can you leave one on the chair for me?” she asks just before diving into the pool.

  Holding the towels over my raging erection, I awkwardly make my way to the lounge chairs at the side of the pool. I try to focus on anything other than Kenzie’s gorgeous body moving through the water—there’s no way I can go into the water like this. Swim trunks do absolutely nothing to hide an erection apparently. After lying Kenzie’s towel on the chair, I grab my phone and focus on emails. Sure enough after a few minutes of reading through a few emails, I have calmed down enough to be able to go into the pool without making Kenzie uncomfortable.

  “Are you coming?” she pops up from the side of the pool.

  Why is it those three words take on a completely different meaning for me right now?

  “Put your phone down and come in!”

  Kenzie takes a gulp of water and sprays it all over my legs, laughing as she swims away. I can’t help but chuckle; no one else in their right mind would think to do something like that to me. Even Cara and Austin wouldn’t dream of spraying me with water when I have my phone in my hand. Yet, Kenzie does it. Of course, she’s careful enough not to get water on my phone but still…

  “You asked for it,” I put my phone down before running and jumping into the pool. I land a perfect cannon ball right next to her, effectively drenching her with water.

  “Nicholas!”

  She laughs and tries to spray me with water, but considering I’m already soaked it does nothing. Kenzie tries to swim to the other side of the pool, but instead I grab her ankle just as she is about to swim away. I pull her under the water, down to the bottom, before finally letting her go. When we both pop up from the water, she surprises me yet again by spraying water in my face!

  This time, she takes advantage of my momentary surprise and swims to the other side of the pool. The pool really isn’t that large; it’s big enough to swim short laps across, but not big enough for Kenzie to have many places to swim to. I dive under water, quickly following her to the other end of the pool. When she tries to move away from me, I put both of my hands on the edge of the pool surrounding her. She giggles in the realization that I have her trapped and instead of trying to escape, she takes to splashing water at me. She takes a step backwards, putting her hands between us. I step closer to her again, her back is against the wall, and there’s only a matter of inches between us.

  She stops laughing and looks up at me with a smile on her face that makes me forget anything else in the world exists. Seeing her this happy right now is more than I could have hoped for. After everything that she has been through, she deserves to be this happy.

  When Kenzie’s hands find my arms, I realize just how close we are to each other. Our eyes meet, her breath hitches and she bites her bottom lip almost anxiously. I gently pull on her chin, releasing the lip from her grip. When she looks up at me, I don’t know if what I’m seeing is me being hopeful or if she is actually asking me to kiss her. I take a chance and slowly lean into her, giving her the opportunity to move away if I misread something.

  I don’t know who makes the next move, but when our lips meet once again, all I can think about is getting closer to her. I wrap my arm around her back, and pull her against me for the first time, feeling her nearly bare skin against mine. Her arms are around my neck, tugging me closer to her as the kiss deepens. I run my hands over her body, enjoying the feel of her soft skin for the first time. She moans when I grasp her ass and pull her against my hard dick in between us.

  Our bathing suit bottoms are the only thing separating us, the only thing stopping me from sliding into her. Immediately, I wonder what she’s like in bed. Does she scream when she comes or is she quiet? Our kiss becomes more urgent than it has ever been, even more so than the other night. The memory of that night brings reality back to smack me in the face. As if it’s not enough that fucking her would complicate our arrangement, I could hurt her. What if I did something when we were fucking that sent her into another flashback?

  “Wow,” Kenzie pants, and it’s only at that moment do I realize she is breathing just as fast as I am.

  “Yeah,” because my brain can’t think of anything else to say.

  There are no words to describe what just happened; ‘wow’ seems to be the only thing that comes to mind right now. I know I should move away, and if I was a better man I would, but I’m not ready to let her go yet.

  “I think I’m going to grab a bottle of water; did you want one?” she asks quietly.

  “Sure, thanks.”

  Neither of us moves for a few more minutes, but eventually she takes her hands down from my neck and squeezes my arms before I finally release her. It takes me a few more minutes before I manage to get my dick under control again. I don’t know how I’m going to last this week with Kenzie. We haven’t even made it through our first day without ending up in each other’s arms.

  “They brought dinner in while we were swimming,” Kenzie pulls me from my thoughts.

  I get out of the pool and wrap a towel around my waist before
heading inside to change. I’m tempted to take an ice cold shower, but I don’t think it would help right now. I can’t remember ever wanting a woman as much as I want Kenzie. It’s like a big ‘Fuck You’ from the universe, because sleeping with her would risk everything.

  “Did you want a drink? The wine fridge is stocked, but the card at the table has a recommendation on it that it says will pair well with dinner,” Kenzie says as I enter the kitchen. I’m relieved to see that she has also changed out of her bathing suit. She is now wearing a simple sun dress, but as always it’s one that complements her body perfectly.

  “I’m sure whatever they recommended is fine.”

  We eat a delicious dinner and over the course of the next two hours we manage to finish the bottle of wine. The conversation between us flows easily, but neither of us brings up what happened in the pool. I’m grateful it hasn’t seemed to make things awkward between us.

  “I think I’m going to go down to the beach,” Kenzie says after placing the dishes back on the cart that the resort staff will come by later to take away.

  “Would you like some company or…” I don’t know if she prefers to be alone right now.

  “If you’re not too busy… I didn’t want to keep you from your work if you need to do something?”

  “No, I don’t need to do anything,” I assure her. “I’ll be checking my emails a few times each day, but hopefully nothing will come up that requires too much of my attention. If it does though I will let you know.”

  “I’m going to grab a pair of flip flops.”

  We walk out back toward the pool, this time walking past it and down the small sand trail which eventually leads to a beautiful beach. Each villa has its own private beach, but they’re open to the other villas relying on guests to respect the boundaries.

  “It’s really beautiful out here,” Kenzie sighs as she looks out over the ocean.

  “It really is,” while my eyes are only on her.

  We walk up and down our little section of the beach before heading back up to the villa. We rinse the sand off our feet in the outdoor shower before heading back inside. When we return, I’m surprised to find that I’m exhausted despite not really doing a lot today. Catching Kenzie yawning I realize I’m not the only one.

  “I think I’m going to head to bed,” she says a few minutes later.

  “I was just thinking I might go to sleep as well.”

  “Are you… I mean…”

  I know she’s trying to ask where I plan on sleeping tonight and until this moment I hadn’t actually decided. Although last night we both slept well and neither of us had a nightmare, I still worry what will happen when I have one tonight. I never go more than two consecutive nights without, so that pretty much guarantees it will happen tonight. I’m ready to tell her that I’ll be sleeping on the couch, but when our eyes meet the decision is already made.

  “I need you to promise me that the moment it starts, you will leave the bed. I can’t… I will never forgive myself if I hurt you. I just… I can’t…”

  “I promise. If you have a nightmare, I will leave the room immediately; I won’t try to wake you up.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Her eyes light up when she realizes what I’m agreeing to. I can only hope that I’m making the right decision, because if I’m not, this could cost me everything. I hurt her, it could ruin everything.

  “I’m going to get changed then,” Kenzie heads off into her… our bedroom. I follow her, grabbing a pair of shorts and a shirt to sleep in before heading to the guest bathroom to change.

  I’m ready for bed before Kenzie, which isn’t a surprise since I didn’t really have much that I needed to take care of. I tried stalling as long as I could and even considered getting some work done for PFS so I could come to bed after her, but in the end I decided I needed to just do this. I need to find out if I can trust her enough to do as I asked.

  I don’t know that she understands what she is asking of me. She hadn’t seen my nightmares—she has no idea how bad they get. When I saw the look in her eyes, I could tell that for whatever reason this was important to her, so I agreed. I just hope…

  “Fuck!”

  It’s only when Kenzie giggles that I realize I said that aloud. She comes out of the bathroom wearing… I don’t even know what to fucking call it. She is wearing this dark blue… nightie I guess it is. The top portion… it’s all lace, fuck… it covers more than her bathing suit did yet it so much fucking sexier. The lace is obviously placed just in the right areas so that her nipples aren’t exposed, but I can still see the curves of her breasts. Once I tear myself away from her breasts, I see that the rest of the nightie is all silk, thankfully no longer see through, and falls just to the point that I can’t tell if her panties match the nightie.

  “I’m going to assume that Susan was told you were taking me on a honeymoon?”

  “Er… yeah she was. Why?”

  “Well, let’s just say my pajamas are all very… much what you would expect a bride to bring on a honeymoon.”

  “All of them are like that?” I gulp realizing that I’m doomed if I’m going to be sleeping next to Kenzie wearing something like this every night.

  “No, not all of them,” thank goodness. “A few are… more revealing.”

  “Fuck,” I hiss.

  “You said that already,” she laughs but slides into bed next to me before turning the light off.

  Tomorrow I need to send Carter somewhere to buy Kenzie pajamas; if he can’t find something, she can sleep in my T-shirts every night. Maybe I should insist she change tonight—

  “Good night, Nicholas.”

  “Night, Kenzie.”

  I’m screwed… I’m fucking screwed.

  Chapter 13

  Nicholas

  Curled up next to me is Kenzie: her head is next to mine, her chin resting on my shoulder and her leg is just over mine. When I finally managed to fall asleep very late last night, I was as far over on the one side of the bed as I could possibly be without falling out. I wanted to avoid touching her at all costs—it was hard enough to know what she was wearing under the blankets, I don’t know how I would have handled actually touching her. Yet as I take in the bed this morning, I realize that we are both now lying in the middle of the bed, and her beautiful body is now wrapped around mine. I should get up; I should go start coffee or something and let her sleep. I should get out of bed before I do something stupid. I should—

  “Hmmmmm,” Kenzie moans in her sleep and cuddles even closer to me. Her arm is across my stomach, her hand resting on my hip as if she is trying to hold me to her. It doesn’t sound like she is having a nightmare, but I still worry nonetheless. I wrap my arm around her back, wanting to comfort her if it starts, but thankfully she doesn’t moan again or cry out.

  Every time we have slept in the same bed, I’ve woken to find her in my arms; this is the first time that I’ve woken to find myself in her arms. When I hear Kenzie’s breathing change a few moments later, I realize that she is awake and probably taking in our sleeping positions just as I did. I gently rub her back with my hand, letting her know that I’m awake but not saying anything either. I glance at the clock, surprised to find that it’s already after nine and that’s when it hits me.

  I didn’t have a nightmare last night.

  “No, you didn’t,” she confirms which is when I realize I had spoken aloud.

  I can’t remember ever going two consecutive nights without having a nightmare—it’s never happened. For years the nightmares were every night, sometimes multiple times a night, especially when I was younger. Nothing helped: sleeping pills, different types of therapy, medication–nothing. Was last night a fluke? Was I just over tired from all the traveling? Could the time change have affected the nightmares somehow? Could it have been—

  “Did you sleep okay?” Kenzie asks.

  “I did, you?”

  I don’t admit that I
slept fucking fantastic for the second night in a row. I can’t admit that, not until I know the reason. I need to figure out what was so different about last night and the night before that caused me to sleep so fucking good. I need to figure it out so once we get back to New York I can continue doing it. I haven’t slept this good… ever.

  “I slept really good; it was nice hearing the ocean in the middle of the night,” she says.

  “It was.”

  “Nicholas,” she leans up so she can look at me. “Thank you again for bringing me here, this is… so much more than I ever could have imagined for a honeymoon. I know I keep saying thank you and it doesn’t seem like enough—”

  “Shhhh, you don’t need to thank me.”

  “I just want you to know how much this trip means to me. I really appreciate—”

  I cut her off by kissing her. I’ve told her to stop trying to thank me, but she won’t stop, so I end it by kissing her. I don’t know why I kissed her instead of just telling her to stop. I wasn’t thinking; I just did it. She giggles against my lips when she realizes what I’ve done, but she doesn’t make any attempt to stop me from kissing her. In fact, instead of stopping me she deepens the kiss. Her tongue is quickly at my lips, seeking entry which I immediately grant her.

  My arm naturally tightens around her waist, bringing her even closer to me. I can’t help but run my other hand up and down the side of Kenzie’s body, feeling every inch of her that I can reach from this position. When I reach her bare leg, I slowly slide my hand up her thigh until I reach the hem of the nightie she is wearing. I pause, not knowing if this is what she wants… Hell I don’t know if this is what I want.

  “Mmmmmm,” I moan, I fucking moan, when Kenzie cautiously takes my hand and urges me to continue exploring her body on the path that I was on.

  Her breathing hitches when my hand slips under her nightie, and I grasp her ass gently, loving the way it feels in my hand. Needing to feel her closer to me, I know I need to adjust how we are lying. I roll onto my side, gently moving Kenzie so she does the same. I don’t know where the boldness comes from, but she wraps her arm around my lower back and gently pulls me closer to her as she rests her leg on mine. Our bodies are so close, there is no way that she can’t know how turned on I am right now. My dick is fucking begging to come out, but I don’t dare do that. I don’t know where this is exactly going right now, but I know fucking her isn’t an option. It would complicate things far too much… besides what if I did something that freaked her out again?