After her shower, Wil came out of the bathroom with wet hair, wrapped in a fluffy white bathrobe. I laughed, standing up from the lounge chair as she lowered herself onto the big King-sized bed and spread out, with a low, lingering moan.
“You have to go experience that shower,” she implored, with her eyes closed.
“Damn, experience the shower?”
She nodded at the ceiling. “Yes, experience it. You were so right about me going alone. I’m pretty sure I still had an orgasm.”
“Well shit, let me hurry up,” I chuckled, turning my phone off before I tossed it onto the coffee table. I bent to kiss her forehead before I headed to the bathroom myself, stripping off my clothes as I went. After a twelve hour flight from New York to Qatar, then another ten hour flight to get here to Bali, I felt grimy too.
There was a stone seat built into the shower, and I absolutely took advantage of it, sitting down and letting the spray of the rainfall-style shower head wash over me. By the time I was done in there, I understood what Wil meant. I wrapped myself up in the other bathrobe, then ventured back into the bedroom to find her exactly where I’d left her.
I grinned as the sound of her soft snores met my ears.
Instead of waking her, I climbed in beside her, and closed my eyes too.
Everything else could wait.
“I’m sorry, you think I’m about to do what exactly?”
Wil busted out laughing at the question, but the shit wasn’t funny at all to me. As I stared up at the ladder I was supposed to climb up to an obscene height in the surrounding trees, my stomach flipped and twisted in knots.
“You’re not… scared, are you Ram?” she teased, wearing a devilish grin.
I shook my head. “I didn’t say I was scared, it’s just… when you said you wanted to go to the adventure park, I didn’t imagine… this.”
This was a 20-meter high treetop obstacle course, that looked a little too flimsy for my liking. It was full of people screaming and having fun as they traversed the rope courses, color-coded by varying degrees of difficulty. The one Wil wanted to do, of course, was color-coded black.
Adrenaline Black Circuit.
“I just signed an NFL contract, remember that? I shouldn’t be out here risking my ankles in these damn ropes.”
Wil crossed her arms. “So… you’re scared.”
“Nah, I’m just saying…”
What I wasn’t saying was that the idea of being up that high made me want to throw up. I could be in an airplane just fine, but being all the way up there, with nothing protecting me from impact with the ground… I looked up at the sky, sending up a silent prayer.
“We’ll be harnessed the whole time,” Wil said in a soothing voice as her hand rested on my arm. It was like she’d read my mind, and was trying to provide some comfort, but that little rope I saw attached to the harnesses on other people didn’t do much.
“Looks thin as fuck.”
“It will hold you, fool.”
“What if it’s too long? You trying to have me out here like Trevor from Fresh Prince?”
“Oh my God, stop,” she laughed. “You have nothing to be afraid of, it’s totally safe. And they’ll come out and get you if you get stuck.”
I rolled my eyes. “Nobody said shit about being scared, chill.” I raised my shoulders. “I’m not scared, I’m just… being practical. If it’s “totally safe” why isn’t everybody on that one?”
“Because everybody isn’t a super-athletic, strong, sexy football player like you, Ramsey,” she said, easing in close to me to speak into my ear. “I don’t want to do this by myself. I need you… please? I’ll make it worth your time,” she purred, then flicked her tongue along the edge of my ear. “Packed my banana stickers…”
Shaking my head, I backed away from her. “I need a refund.”
She frowned. “On what?”
“On you,” I told her. “Item not as described. You’re supposed to be sweet. Warm and fuzzy. Not a damn… seductress, with your banana stickers, talking me into risking my life.”
She grinned. “You said talking you into risking your life – not trying to talk you into it. So that means you’re going to do it?”
“That’s all you heard?”
“The important part, yes. Besides,” she whispered, slinking up to me again. “This was always here. You’re just now bringing it out.”
Before I could give a rebuttal to that, she’d grabbed me by the hand, dragging me toward the “start” station. A few minutes later, we were both hooked into harnesses, and waiting at the base of that damn ladder.
“See you at the top!” Wil said, perky as hell, and I shook my head as she grabbed the ladder and started up. I prayed again, for both of us, since I doubted her crazy ass saw the same danger I did, then started up behind her.
The obstacle course itself wasn’t the problem – it was the fact that it was up in the damn trees. Every gust of wind sent things swaying and rocking, and I was suddenly glad we’d just grabbed fruit for a snack on the way out of the hotel.
At the top of the ladder was a wood climbing wall, and I was actually impressed with how quickly Wil finished both of those. I was right behind her, close enough to see the huge smile on her face as she effortlessly moved to the next thing – flying trapezes, which were basically a line of logs tied to a rope. You held on to a rope at the top, while you essentially shimmied down this line of logs as they swayed back and forth in the air.
Craziness.
That was followed by two different sets of “monkey tracks”- grown-up monkey bars that you might die if you fell off of. After that was a tarzan jump into a net, more monkey tracks, and then another ladder taking us even higher into the trees.
Wil was having a blast.
I… was still breathing.
I made it through a zipline, a flying trapeze, and… some more shit that I just got through as quickly as I could. But by the time we made it to end, and I was still alive, successfully managing not to embarrass myself while completing the course… I actually felt good.
Wil, however, was ready to move to the next thing, dragging me right back to a cab for another destination, like we hadn’t been on airplanes for the previous twenty-four hours.
“What are you in such a rush for?” I asked her, as we headed in the direction of the Telaga Waja river, according to the driver.
She grinned. “You’ll see, really soon.”
“Is it some more daredevil shit?” I asked, and she gave me a sly grin.
“I mean… just another tiny zip line,” she claimed, then avoided my eyes to look out the window. “You’ll be fine, just like the last one.”
It was not a tiny zip line.
It went so far, in fact, that I couldn’t even see the endpoint, traveling across rice fields and trees and all kinds of… other shit.
“Hell no,” I told her, shaking my head, and she grabbed me around the waist.
“Ramsey, it’s just—”
“Hell. No. Have you lost your mind?”
“It’s the only way to get to where the boats are, for our rafting tour!”
“Then I guess I’m not getting on a fucking boat today either, the hell?!”
“Ramsey!”
“What?!”
“Please?” she whined, holding on to my hands as she bounced up and down. I made the mistake of meeting her gaze, and as soon as I saw the pleading in those big brown eyes, I shook my head.
“Shit, man,” I grumbled. “Why are you doing this to me? I thought we were coming here to be lowkey, and relax.”
“We are,” she insisted. “We’re just… getting the high energy stuff out of the way first. I thought you would be into this stuff!”
I shook my head. “I don’t know why the hell you thought that! I like the ground. The water. Shit I can’t fall off of and get crushed by gravity. You have something like that on your itinerary?”
“I promise, we’ll relax tomorrow, if you give me today. I’m sor
ry you’re not having a good time.”
Something about that grated on me. Because… “It’s not that I’m not having a good time, it’s just… shit. I’m noticing that you really seem to enjoy pressing me.”
She smiled. “Uhh… maybe just a little,” she said, looking cute as hell as she held up her thumb and forefinger to emphasize her point. There it was – that adorable factor that balanced her sexiness, but also made it a lethal combination that might – literally – be the death of me.
A few minutes later, I was hooked in for the damn zip line.
And I had to admit… it was pretty exhilarating.
I had to go first, to prove I wasn’t a punk, and those few minutes flying through the air, wind in my face, were… kinda cleansing. My adrenaline was still pumping when Wil came flying up a few minutes after I landed, with another big smile on her face. We were quickly ushered off to the river, where I soon realized that the “rafting” tour was actually white-water rafting, but… I couldn’t even bring myself to complain. Now that I’d done that zipline, extreme rafting seemed lightweight.
It was not.
But, it was still cool as hell.
I got a good workout with my paddle as we passed mountains, trees, waterfalls, flowers, cliffs, and rice fields, all working together to create a peaceful natural setting that was, simply put, beautiful.
Wil was glowing. Her face and cheeks were blushed red with the effort of steering the boat, and her hair was a wild mess under her helmet, sticking out and sticking to her face, but she looked pretty as hell.
Exhausted, but pretty.
By the time the two hour rafting tour was over, I basically had to drag her to our cab back to the hotel. She fell asleep in the back seat, with her head propped on my shoulder. We made it to our room with just enough time to shower off the day before the butler arrived with his assistants to deliver our dinner.
Wil was still in the bathroom while they set up everything on the outside dining room for us. Shades up so we could see and hear the ocean as the sun set. Torches lit to provide ambiance, and later, once the sun finished setting, light.
I didn’t really know what any of the food was, so I listened as the butler uncovered the dishes, explained the contents, and then covered them again while I waited for Wil. Wok-fried prawns, lemon-basil fried rice, spring rolls, vegetable curry, and a couple of different salads. Dessert was a lychee panna cotta with a mango compote, something I was sure Wil would love. Just as he was placing the cover back on the last dish, Wil appeared.
As soon as I laid eyes on her, I ushered him out.
She was wearing a thin, spaghetti-strapped dress that she couldn’t have been wearing anything underneath. I could clearly see the sway of her breasts beneath the sage green fabric, and it was so short that it barely skimmed her thighs. Her hair looked damp, but all curly and fluffed out as she padded up to the table on bare feet.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, blushing under my gaze.
I approached her, making her shiver a bit as I gently tugged the hem of that itty-bitty dress. “Because… I don’t want a damn thing on this table more than I want you right now.” She let out a moan as my hands went under her dress to confirm my suspicion that she wasn’t wearing any panties. Her lips parted, chest heaving a little as I slipped my fingertips between her thighs. Her body responded with immediate wetness as I dipped into her, first one finger, then a second.
Her eyes closed as I stroked her again, pressing my thumb to her clit as I moved. She propped her hands up on my shoulders, holding on to me I plunged deeper, faster, harder, until I had to hook an arm around her waist to keep her upright.
When the tremors from her orgasm stilled, I raised my hand to my mouth, licking her off one finger before I put the other one to her lips. Her eyes were hooded with lust as she opened her mouth, accepting the offer.
“Good girl,” I murmured to her as she closed her eyes and licked it clean, then brought her mouth to me for a her-flavored kiss that really had me ready to say “fuck dinner”.
But then her stomach growled, and we were laughing too hard to keep kissing.
So we ate.
We both tried everything, some things we liked and some things we didn’t, but it was cool to experience. We talked, and laughed, and I couldn’t speak for her, but my mind wasn’t on anything except that dinner. On her. Not on my grief, or the job change, or my concerns about the impending season, just… the moment.
Afterwards, we migrated to the lounge area next to our private plunge pool. Instead of taking separate ones, we stretched out together on the same chaise, with her practically on top of me – not that I minded. It felt like the most natural thing, laying there with her head on my chest as she drifted off to sleep with her arm hooked around my waist.
In fact, what felt strange was thinking about us ever having a different dynamic than this. Being “just friends” felt completely foreign, and her almost marrying somebody else? That was a distant bad dream.
I wasn’t even stressed about her declaration of not being ready – or at least not ready to define – anything deeper than the friends with benefits thing we had going. I was comfortable here, with us doing the same damn things we’d been doing anyway, just with the added element of sex – something I hadn’t realized I missed until she and I started doing it.
After my mother passed, my interest in casual flings had dissipated. Before that, after Lena, casual was the only thing I would entertain, because I wasn’t willing to give another woman a chance to get her hooks in me the way Lena had. Negative aspects of the relationship aside, it had been hard to let go of. We had history, and loathe as I was to admit it, we had chemistry. Regardless of what happened between us, there was love there, and it hadn’t disappeared overnight.
Which was why I was more than willing to give Wil time – I still needed it too.
This was really a great decision.
That thought kept playing in my head as I glanced beside me to Ramsey, who was holding an animated conversation with our driver as we headed back to the hotel.
We’d spent the morning at a shark conservatory – something I’d almost chickened out on. But Ramsey went in on me, reminding me how I’d been all over him the day before about the obstacle course, and the ziplining. So I went, as planned, and loved it. Touched and fed the sharks, had lunch, got to talk to new people. When we got in the car to leave, our driver had recommended a trip all the way into central Bali, to visit the holy spring at the Dalem Pingit Sebatu Temple. I didn’t want to spend two hours in the car just to get there, but again, Ramsey insisted.
And it was amazing.
There was a little bit of a hike to get there, but once we made it, it was worth it. We were both mindful of being respectful of the local Hindu religion, but I only knew God by one name… and to my surprise, I felt him there, in that water, like it was cleansing to me. We stayed longer than we probably should, and then changed into dry clothes again for the drive back.
It was there, in the backseat, that I found myself very grateful that Ramsey had been with me. Not that we hadn’t had a great time the day before – we did, despite his complaints. But today was notable because of those two experiences I wouldn’t have had without him pushing. Because of him, I now had those memories to treasure.
Back at the hotel, we changed into swimming clothes and headed to the beach for the first time since we arrived. We found a cabana, ordered drinks, and settled in, soaking up the sounds of the ocean and basking in the sun.
“You having a good time?” Ramsey asked, drawing my attention away from gazing out at the water.
I nodded. “I’m having a great time. What about you?”
“Grudgingly.”
I laughed. “Why grudgingly?”
“Because I’m still salty about yesterday,” he said, taking a long swig from the Hennessey and Coke in his hand. “Would you have still wanted to be my friend if I’d gotten stuck on the obstacle course some
where?”
“Are you kidding? I would’ve come to save you.” I reached up, lowering my sunglasses a bit to look at him over the top. “I accept payment in the form of sexual favors, for future reference.”
He scoffed. “So I would’ve added to my debt? No thanks. I still owe a lot more dick to pay for this whole thing, since you won’t let me reimburse you.”
“You don’t owe me anything, but I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give. But… hey… I hope you don’t feel weird about not paying for this. Seriously – it was already paid for, and going to waste. And besides, you paid for your plane ticket.”
“Right, because grown men are supposed to pay their way in the world. I may not have A-list actor money, but I do okay enough that I could pay you for this trip, Wil.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh my God, please. You were a pro football player, and I know for a fact that you have Tariq Evans managing your money. Do not act like that.”
“I’m not acting like anything, but I’m saying… I was on a rookie contract, as a running back. Four years, five million dollars. It wasn’t like today, where they’re giving rookies twenty million out the gate. That’s why they were so pissed when I left – they wanted to hurry and sign me to another shitty contract, and that didn’t work out for them.”
Wow.
“I had no idea they’d undercut you like that. You were like, their star.”
He scoffed. “I know. But that’s how it goes, when you’re a poor kid from the hood, desperate just to get your mother somewhere safe, you know? It didn’t even occur to me to negotiate – that I could negotiate. And again, big contracts weren’t such a norm for a running back in those days. The Kings, however, know how to treat a man,” he laughed.
“Well, I’ll drink to that,” I said, holding up my own fruity cocktail for us to clink glasses. “But, to backtrack a little – please don’t feel weird about me having paid for this trip, okay? I just appreciate you coming with me. There’s no way I would’ve had as good a time by myself.”
Determining Possession (Connecticut Kings Book 3) Page 19
