CHAPTER 11
Lia
It took me until our last day of our trip to realize that I’d always been in love with my best friend.
After Zeke’s humbling rejection of me on my twenty-first birthday, I’d just never wanted those emotions to see the light of day ever again.
Any guy I would have ended up with would have been the wrong one, even if he’d treated me better than Stuart had.
If I wanted to be honest, I’d known for a very long time that I’d never really love anyone but Zeke, but since he hadn’t wanted me, I’d been determined to bury those emotions so deep that they’d never rear their ugly heads again.
Zeke had proved to me, over and over again, that there was nothing wrong with me. In fact, he seemed to enjoy demonstrating it on every surface of our gorgeous suite.
Every time he touched me, I became bonded just a little deeper to him, and even though I was scared, I didn’t regret letting it happen. If I was only going to get one shot at being with him for a little while, I was going to take it.
“You look deep in thought, beautiful,” Zeke said as he came out onto the balcony where I was having my morning coffee.
I shook my head. “I was just enjoying the view. It’s so beautiful here.”
We had a glorious room that faced the ocean, and it was calming to wake up to the turquoise-colored Caribbean every day.
My eyes ran lovingly over his commanding form, wondering if I’d ever get used to the fact that this beautiful man was temporarily mine. His hair was mussed up because he’d just climbed out of bed, but he’d never looked more gorgeous.
I watched as he poured himself a coffee and sat down at the table with me.
“How do you manage to look incredibly hot when you just rolled out of bed?” I asked him with a smile.
He shrugged his strong shoulders as he replied, “Probably the same way you manage to look so beautiful right now.”
He said the words so sincerely that they flustered me. I reached up and ran a hand through my messy hair. “I have bedhead. You don’t,” I argued.
“I’m too damn distracted to notice,” he grumbled. “All I can think about is how you look when you come.”
I laughed. For some reason, Zeke could always throw me off-balance with his blunt comments.
“Mind out of the gutter, Mr. Conner,” I teased.
“I guess I’m still disappointed that I woke up without you in my bed,” he answered.
“Don’t you ever want a reprieve?” I joked.
“Hell, no,” he said with a grin.
God, I loved his wicked smile. It made me want to take my clothes off and drag him back to bed.
But I knew we had plans for the day. We had a full day planned, consisting of swimming in underground caves, and zip-lining.
“I’m going to miss all this,” I said wistfully. “It’s been so perfect.”
Being in Playa had been like a fairy tale. It mostly had to do with the man I was visiting here with, but the setting had been…magical.
Maybe I was afraid that everything would change once we were back in Seattle. It wasn’t like we were going to separate right away, but it was bound to happen once we’d gotten our fill of mind-blowing sex.
I always knew this was temporary.
I just wished that knowing all this was happening for a limited time didn’t hurt so much.
“Nothing is going to change,” Zeke said. “We can still have sex in Seattle. But I’ll miss it here, too. Things will be crazy once we get back.”
I nodded. “I’d still like to open a second store once I pay you back.”
“You don’t need to pay me back, Lia. We’re married. What’s mine is yours.”
Until we aren’t together anymore.
“I want to,” I argued. “Please.” It was important to me to be able to hand him a check. I’d been giving him installment payments off my profits, but he’d trusted me when he’d turned over that much money to help me achieve my dream. And I wanted to make good on the loan.
“If that’s what you feel like you need to do to be happy, I’m not going to stop you,” he said, sounding slightly disappointed.
“It is,” I confirmed. “If there’s one person in the world I don’t want to let down, it’s you.”
“You never have, and you never will,” he said huskily. “Come here.”
His eyes were beckoning, and I couldn’t ignore the temptation. I rose, moved to his chair, and he promptly sat me down onto his lap.
I put my arms around his solid, massive shoulders to support myself, and his strong arms wrapped tightly around my waist.
“Thank you for this trip,” I said softly. “It gave me a chance to get my head on straight.”
“Damn! I thought you were thanking me for all those orgasms.”
I laughed. “Do you ever think about anything except sex?”
“When you’re around…no,” he answered bluntly.
I savored the feel of his body against mine. Just being with him felt so…right.
Maybe it should have felt weird because we’d been friends for so long. Instead, things actually flowed like a natural progression of our relationship.
I’d known Zeke for so long that there was very little I didn’t know about him. And vice versa. Adding the sexual element had just made it seem new.
I tilted my head down to look at him, and my heart skipped a beat as our gazes met and locked.
There was something incredibly personal about the moment, a message in his stare that I couldn’t quite understand.
“Are you okay?” I questioned in a shaky voice, unable to stop trying to figure out the silent communication.
His eyes seemed to suddenly shutter, and the moment was gone. “I’m good.”
“I guess I should go jump in the shower and get ready to go,” I said, unable to keep the longing I felt out of my tone.
He let me go as I stood. “Need somebody to wash your back?” he asked hopefully.
“Pervert,” I accused.
“Tease,” he shot back in a teasing tone.
I folded my arms in front of me. “All I said was that I was going to get ready.”
“Which means you’re planning on taking off those pajamas. Any time you’re getting naked, I want to be there,” he replied.
“You’re hopeless,” I said in an amused voice.
“I like to think I’m hopeful.”
I snorted, unable to resist him when he was in a playful mood. The need to be close to him was so strong that I said, “We won’t get out of here early.”
“I can be quick.”
I rolled my eyes. If there was one thing Zeke Conner couldn’t do, it was hurry an orgasm. The man tormented me until I couldn’t take it anymore before he finally pushed me over the edge.
He said he never rushed a good thing.
And I had to agree with him. He never did quickies.
“Now that’s something I might have to see to believe.”
It was hopeless. I couldn’t get enough of him, even if we had spent half the night burning up the sheets.
I slid through the door of the balcony.
Zeke rose and followed me so fast that he grasped my hand on his way, and ended up pulling me toward the master bedroom bath.
Turned out that I was right.
He didn’t rush anything.
But it was certainly worth being late to our planned destinations for the day.