by Alexis Anne
So, here we were on a tropical island with no worries and no work, and all I could think about was what else she had on her list.
“Please?” I’d already tried commanding and teasing, now I was on to begging.
“Nope,” she replied as she read her book. We were sitting on the porch, enjoying the sounds of the morning and our breakfast.
It really did rain regularly. I knew rainforests got their name for a reason… but I was still surprised by the regular drizzle that fell from the trees above. It made cuddling up with Eve a helluva lot easier. It was a total accident that we picked a place that rained every day to spend our honeymoon together.
It was like fate. Me and Eve and rain…
“How can I properly plan to pleasure you beyond your wildest dreams if you keep them from me?”
She grinned without looking away. “You seem to be doing just fine so far, cowboy.”
I puffed up a little at the compliment. “Are there really three challenges on your list, or are you just making them up as you go along.” I was teasing her on purpose. I knew Eve well enough to know she had a list. She probably made it out before she even brought the game up in the first place.
Evil. She was just evil.
“There are actually five.”
I groaned. “You are killing me, woman. Killing me!”
She finally turned toward me. “That’s the point. You can’t tell me you aren’t having fun, Jake. I can see how happy you are.”
I was my own worst enemy.
I decided to let it go. Instead, I studied my new wife. She had her nose stuck in a book with a small smile on her lips. I wanted to keep her like that forever. I could already feel this little window of time slipping away from us.
Maybe that’s sick of me, but when we got back home there would be work and obligations, illnesses and arguments. I didn’t want our lives to ever get so bogged down that we couldn’t find our way to a moment like this… where nothing else mattered but the wind and the salt water and being together.
Work, friends, and crazy schedules seemed to be conspiring against us more and more often. The bigger my company got, the more I was lured into projects. I loved my job and being damn good at it was so satisfying, but I wanted more of a hands-off approach. I wanted to oversee and tell other people what to do. I’d quickly slipped down a slope and gone from invisible boss to hands-on employee.
I wasn’t so sure I was happy with that change.
On the one hand, I was using my talent and creating a successful business. But on the other hand, my life was getting so busy and complicated, I was frustrated. If I couldn’t find a middle ground I was going to go crazy.
“You are lost in thought…” Eve drawled. I was so lost in my head I’d missed her getting up. She slid her hand along my bare abs and chest before sitting sideways in my lap. I could tell by the look in her eyes she was thinking dirty thoughts.
“True enough. I’m sorry.” I wrapped my arms around her and we sat just like that for a while.
“You know the best cure for thinking too much?”
I shook my head knowing exactly where she was going—at least I thought I did.
“Sex.”
Yep, exactly what I thought.
“Stop thinking, Jake.”
I loved it when Eve was motivated. “Now?”
She nodded slowly with one of those mischievous grins on her face before standing up and grabbing my hand.
I followed Eve as she walked over to the little couch. Her hips swayed as she walked and I zeroed in on the little hint of skin that peeked out the bottom as her shirt as she moved.
God, I loved her ass.
She pushed me down onto the couch, standing over me with her hands on her hips. “What’s on your mind?”
I shrugged my shoulders and grinned up at her, “I can’t seem to remember at the moment.”
She arched her eyebrow and pursed her lips, but didn’t smile.
My heart rate skyrocketed.
“Tell me…” she drawled.
I was so turned on I was honestly finding it hard to think of anything but the hint of Eve’s nipples under the white t-shirt. “Come here.” I wanted to touch her. My brain was going haywire having her so far away.
“Not until you tell me what’s got you so upset.” She honestly looked worried and that brought me a little bit of focus. Not much… but a little.
“Something about life and work,” I saw Eve’s muscles tense at the mention of work so I hurried up my explanation. “You know, philosophizing about the meaning of life.”
She relaxed a little, but the focus of her eyes was still intense. She stepped up to me, her knees brushing mine. I was too large for the little couch. My knees were jacked up a good two inches even when I was sitting all the way back in the seat. But Eve trailed a finger down my bare shoulder and over my chest and there was nothing I could do to stop my body from relaxing and leaning back against the cushions no matter how small the seat.
“Think you could get those boxers out of my way?”
I think I broke the land speed record getting that tiny bit of fabric off of my body.
“Excellent,” she said with a sexy grin.
I swallowed because I was so damn excited my whole body was vibrating. I loved never knowing what she was going to do next.
Eve kneeled down in front of me, pushing my legs open and licked her lips. Watching her tongue move was almost as good as feeling it on my skin.
Almost.
She leaned in with her hands first and that initial contact of her palms against my cock and naked thigh was enough to shoot me from aroused to fully erect. My blood was pumping so hard I felt lightheaded for a moment.
Then her warm tongue stroked up my length as she wrapped her hand around me and paused, “What else were you thinking about?”
She. Was. Evil.
Eve quite literally had me in the palm of her hand, looking up at me seductively, with that look that said I will make you come so hard you will forget your own name. All I had to do was confess—but that was easier said than done.
“I was thinking about how much I resent it when work takes over.” I ran my hands through her hair as her eyes softened.
“Keep talking,” she whispered and started to move her hands up and down.
I groaned and closed my eyes for a second, enjoying myself and trying my hardest to focus. “You work hard, I work…” my voice fell away as her lips kissed the tip of my cock.
“You work hard,” she whispered.
Her breath felt so good… “And I’d rather work hard on you,” I finished.
She stopped and I felt her grin a split second before she pulled back and said, “Well, you should do that.”
I grabbed her and swung her up into my arms. “Let the record show,” I said as I stepped back inside, “you asked for it.”
Eve was laughing and breathless all the way up until I entered her. All I heard after that was the sound of her calling my name.
It turned out to be a good morning.
Chapter 19
~Eve~
I was so satisfied it was ridiculous. Honeymoons were awesome. It was like a reward for putting up with the complications of a relationship. Rewards were nice.
After all these years I could honestly say I was in love with Jake and we were happy. That was it. No “but” or “except” or “if only…” There were no ex-lovers or business deals. No crappy childhoods or demons to slay. My heart wasn’t broken.
Just happy.
I probably would have saved myself some heartache over the years if I’d let myself realize how heartbroken I really was over Jake’s disappearance. But instead, I’d buried it down deep and covered it up with a mask of strength. Strength was good, but it didn’t fix the broken crack underneath. And because I denied that heartache for so long I let a lot of other things take the brunt of my pain.
It was only now, with my heart so happy, that I realized what Sebastian was telling
me that night at the party. He was angry and I was embarrassed so it was hard to hear his words at the time, but I’d had a while to think about it since then. He said there was always a wall I was hiding behind, and he was right. I didn’t want to feel my broken heart so I ignored it. I was hiding from my pain and my broken heart, pretending it didn’t exist. But pretending doesn’t fix things, it only makes them last longer.
I wasted more years than I’d realized in hiding.
It felt good to be free. I hoped I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. I couldn’t ever let myself hide again.
“Spill it. What’s going on?” Jake asked.
I realized I’d been staring at the wall. “What do you mean?”
Jake glared at me. We were sitting on the porch watching the sun set above the trees. It was beautiful outside and the sunset was casting everything in a pinkish glow. “You’ve been gone all afternoon—and not in a good way. You look upset.”
I took a small sip of the water I was holding and eyed him. He had his determined face on. It was really, really unlikely I would convince him to talk about it later. Not that it was going to stop me from trying. I didn’t want to talk about heavy stuff when we were having so much fun. “Any chance I could interest you in some sex?”
Jake scoffed, crossed his arms, and propped his feet up on the little wicker coffee table that matched the chairs and bannister. “You must be deep in that head of yours if you’re obviously deflecting with sex.”
I stared at him.
He stared at me.
We were in a stare-off and I had a feeling I was going to lose.
“I’m not moving, Eve. I’m not letting anything derail our fun, not even your brain.”
I swore under my breath and looked back out at the horizon. Jake was such a pain in the ass sometimes.
“Excuse me?” he asked. “I couldn’t hear you over the sarcasm. If you are gonna swear at me, please do it loud enough so I can hear you and properly defend myself.”
I glared at him and set my water back down. Loudly. “You are such a cocky bastard sometimes. It pisses me off.”
He grinned from ear to ear, his white teeth popped against the tan on his skin and his eyes flashed. “It’s not cocky when you’re confident, darlin’.”
“I think we’re talking semantics when it comes to you,” I muttered.
“Talk,” he said it louder this time. “Or we will have sex.”
I perked up at that idea. But then I saw Jake’s scowl and realized it wasn’t a good thing.
“Oh no, Eve. You won’t like this sex. It will be the slow, torturous kind where I try to pull every last detail out of you and won’t let you come until I get all the sordid details of what is going on in that head of yours.”
Damn it all… he was using my own move against me. Why did I marry such a cocky, demanding, asshole? I was my own worst enemy.
“Please?” he added with a very soft smile that made my heart flutter.
Oh, that’s right. Because he was probably the sweetest, most caring bastard I’d ever met. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and blurted it out. “I was thinking about my mistakes.”
Jake’s eyebrows shot up with surprise. “Mistakes?”
I nodded and sighed. We were having this conversation whether I liked it or not. “Don’t worry about it. I just got all contemplative. It must be all the relaxing we’re doing.”
He sat forward. His brows were pulled together with real concern, which only made me love him more. He genuinely cared about me, I’d never doubt that. “Contemplating? What mistakes? Talk to me.”
“Seriously, Jake. It’s not a big deal! I just…” I sighed, blowing my hair out of my eyes and shaking my head. “I just realized how happy I am right now and how not happy I was for the last ten years because I couldn’t admit to myself I was heartbroken.”
Jake’s face fell. I hated how talking about me managed to hurt him in the process. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but there was no other way to talk to him. “I’m so sorry, Eve.”
“No. This isn’t about you or how the last ten years went down. I’m simply evaluating something about myself I want to change in the future. I was an idiot. I refused to deal with my feelings for you and that led me to be less that ridiculously happy. Driven? Yes. Focused and successful? Absolutely. But happy? Not completely. Definitely not satisfied.”
Jake studied me with those beautiful green eyes of his and I wanted to run my hands along the stubble on his jaw, pull him into my arms, and kiss his lips. But I stayed where I was.
“You weren’t happy?”
“I was. I just wasn’t as happy as I could have been. I could have been more open and let the past go, but I didn’t. I held on to it and used it as an excuse any time I got scared. I don’t want to ever do that to myself again. So while we’re sitting here relaxing, I took a few minutes to evaluate my life and make some resolutions. Nothing more, nothing less.”
The muscle in Jake’s jaw flexed a few times as he burned a hole through me with his eyes. “You promise that’s all it is?”
I was in his lap in under two seconds, straddling him and wrapping my arms around his neck. “Promise.” I kissed him, wrapping my hands around his face and sliding my tongue against his while I squeezed my thighs around his waist. “I’m ready for one of my challenges,” I breathed between kisses. It turned out Jake’s challenges were really rather sweet. He told me honeymoons were for romantic adventures, not hardcore porn. His list was a non-stop roll call of sweet sexual fantasies like making love in a bubble bath and sex under the stars.
Jake grinned up at me, “Which item would you like to check off tonight, Mrs. Spencer? Perhaps sex under the stars?”
I tightened my fingers as he pulled me down against his quickly hardening erection. “Yes, please.”
I felt him smile against the skin of my neck, “Your wish is my command.”
Chapter 20
-Jake-
Two days later Eve was in the shower and I was back on the porch listening to the rain, thinking about how I’d gotten to where I was right then. I wasn’t so sure I’d be sitting on an island in the Caribbean with an amazing, sexy woman who loved me and married me if I hadn’t gone through all the shit along the way. I certainly wouldn’t appreciate it like I did. I knew that much about myself.
As much as it sucked, I learned something from each and every shitty situation along the way. It either taught me a lesson or gave me a skill. I learned who I was by how I handled those situations. In a lot of ways I felt like I only got to truly see myself for who I was inside when things were at their worst. When the rain was pouring the hardest, the wind was howling, the lightning was everywhere—those were the times when I really knew who I was. It was like the rain storm took everything I thought or believed, washed away the lies and the crap, and showed me what was left—for better or worse.
Some of those times it was nearly impossible to accept what I saw in that reflection. I hated the years when I languished and let life pass me by. I never wanted to be the guy who didn’t take his life head-on. But that was exactly who I was back then.
It was only when I had the courage to look at myself that I realized I hated what I saw. I changed it and I liked who I was a helluva lot better now, but it took all of that to get to where I was.
I wondered what role Ashley played in all of that. She probably dragged me down a lot of the time, but I don’t know if I would have realized what I wanted without her. She was me in a lot of ways. Broken and clawing to survive, but she was a taker. She liked the pain.
I didn’t.
I wanted to leave my past in the past. She made it easy to see what I didn’t want.
My mind was buzzing and one of the only ways I knew to calm it down was to write. I’d already grabbed my black journal out of my luggage. It only took a minute before the words started to flow. Sometimes it was hard to get started, but once I did, I couldn’t stop. Everything that was so mixed-up in my head would
start to unravel, and piece by piece, my mind would clear.
I was so lost in my thoughts I didn’t hear the shower stop or Eve come out to stand across from me, so I jumped when she said, “Hey.”
“Hey,” I said back.
She was studying me very carefully. I could feel the uneasiness in her mood. She moved in front of one of the wicker chairs and carefully sat down. She had a towel in one hand that she was using to dry her hair. “What are you doing?”
She had her eyes fixated on my journal.
“Writing,” I said casually.
“Is everything ok?”
I snapped the book shut, set it down on the table, and leaned forward. “Not everything in these journals is bad, Eve. I write to work things out.” I moved the journal around unconsciously as I spoke. “It helps me think.”
“What are you writing about?” she asked.
I shrugged, hoping it made things seem less intense. Because to me, they felt intense. “Order of events.”
Her eyebrows shot up, “What?”
I chuckled and patted the cushion beside me. “Come over here and let me explain.”
Eve reluctantly moved across and I turned to the side so she could sit between my legs. I massaged her neck and shoulders while I talked. “You’ll hear me out?”
She tensed a little, I massaged harder. “Sure.”
I gave her a moment before I dove in. I knew how it was going to sound, but I didn’t know how else to phrase things. “I was going over some things and realized I wouldn’t be here with you now without the tough times in between.” Eve nodded slowly and turned to the side to glance up at me.
I smiled and kept talking. “I know how much you hate Ashley, and I totally get it.” I clamped down on her shoulders when she tried get up. “Please, let me explain.”
She huffed and stopped fighting me, but crossed her arms over her chest in defiance. “Make it fast.”
