“Is that why he isn’t on this trip? Because he caught something from his one-night stand?”
“I don’t know why Cayden isn’t here and I don’t care. All I care about is the fact that she’s now staring at me.”
“What?” he asked.
It was true. Andrea’s eyes had locked onto my body and she was blatantly scanning me. They drifted up my legs and over my abs. Her gaze slowly trickled over my chest and down my arms. She made an absolute show of it. There was no denying what she was doing. The heat that rose of the back of my neck set me on a course that would alter my life forever.
Our eyes connected and for a split second, I thought there was a smile on her face. Deviousness in her eyes. She called to me. She pulled me into her orbit and refused to let me go. Her emerald eyes attempted to swallow me whole as her body laid out on that lounge chair. Spread out for the taking of anyone who walked by.
But no one else would have her.
No one except me.
“Everett!” Flynn called out.
I shooed my brother away with my hand as I started on my path toward her. I walked around the pool while Andrea tried to play off the fact that she hadn’t been staring. She looked over at Jessica and Lucas making out in the pool. Over by the gross couple in the hot tub. She even looked back behind her at the hotel. Or the bar. Or something else other than me. I grinned as I approached her as I replayed Flynn’s conversation with me on the plane in my head.
Then take her out to drinks and get to know the kind woman she is.
“Care to get a drink inside?” I asked.
She whipped her head around to look up at me, her big sunglasses staring back. I cocked my head and stood there, trying so hard not to caress her darkening skin with my eyes. She was a dream. An absolutely breathtaking woman. Her tan called to my fingertips and her thighs begged me to sink my teeth into them.
“Hello, Everett.”
Her voice was smooth. Like velvet against my ears.
“Are you enjoying yourself so far?” I asked.
“I was until someone came over to talk,” she said.
“Who are they? I can politely tell them to back the fuck off.”
I watched her eyebrows raise as she rose her hand to her sunglasses. She peeled them off her face as her eyes fluttered up me one last time, and I got a wonderfully good look at her eyes. Her red bikini contrasted them perfectly, making them pop from underneath the brim of her hat. She brought her bright green drink to her lips and sipped down the rest of it before she cleared her throat.
“I think I could use a break from this sun, actually,” she said.
“Then allow me. We can get you a drink, help you cool down, and maybe get to know one another outside of our first chance encounter that apparently left you with a very sour taste in your mouth.”
I held my hand out to her and she looked at it carefully. Her eyebrow quirked into the air, and just the small gesture had me wanting to know more about her. What other kinds of quirks did she have? Was there a chance I could turn my first impression around?
I wiggled my fingers and smiled down at her, hoping she would take my hand. But instead, she rose herself from the chair and stood to her feet.
“Lead the way,” she said.
I walked ahead of her, keeping track of her steps in the tinted windows of the hotel as we approached. I grinned when I saw her eyes fall to my ass. Oh, she was trying very hard not to trip over herself and trying incredibly hard to keep up this angry facade she still had in regard to me.
But she was failing epically, and it was a joy to watch.
I walked us into the bar and placed my hand onto her lower back. I felt her twitch at my touch, but she also didn’t pull away. I pulled out her chair and ushered for her to sit, then I raised my hand to get someone over to take our drink orders.
“Sir. Madam. Could I interest the two of you in a drink? Possibly a light cheese plate?” the woman asked.
“I’d enjoy a whiskey sour, and the lovely lady here would enjoy…?”
“An appletini, please,” Andrea said.
“And your cheese-and-meat plate sounds fantastic,” I said.