He dumps out more lotion then moves his hands to my legs, starting from my toes. He smoothes his palms over my ankles and calves and up…up…up… He moves between my legs, ostensibly to make it easier to apply the sunblock. My throat dries as hot shivers run through me. We had sex, like, how many times last night and this morning? But somehow it doesn’t seem nearly enough.
“You smell delicious,” he says, and kisses me.
“Mmm. So do you.” And I could melt into his firm, skilled mouth and forget everything except the stirring of pleasure inside me. Part of me even encourages it, tugging at me to let Court set the pace. But the more logical part—the one that made me study when everyone else in my class was out partying late at night—says sex isn’t on the agenda at the moment. “But I really do have to work on my résumé,” I say, albeit half-heartedly.
“I know.” He gives me a final peck, then pulls out a laptop from a bag set under a small drink table and places it on one of the loungers under the parasol.
I settle down under the shade and take the laptop. “What’s the password? Or if you want, you can just type it in,” I say.
“No password.”
“Seriously? Why not?” Doesn’t he have important stuff on here? Or things he doesn’t want people to see?
He snorts. “What’s there to steal? My thesis?”
He watches me open a Word doc. For a second, I wonder if he’s going to hover, but he pats my shoulder. “If you want, I can reward you for your hard work with sex.”
My lips tingle at the offer, and I swear I can taste him again on my tongue. “Isn’t that more like a reward for you?” I say primly.
Laughing, he turns and dives into the pool in one smooth move. I admire it—and the way his lean body effortlessly cuts through the clear water. I’m not a bad swimmer, but he’s something else.
He makes quick work of one lap, then grins at me. “When you need a break, you can always join me.”
“I don’t have a bathing suit.”
“Yeah, I know.” He gives me a grin. “Don’t let that stop you. If you’re just feeling a little shy, I can always take off my trunks, too.”
“Haha,” I say to cover up the naughty excitement that sparks through me. I’ve never been skinny-dipping. Never even considered it. But now it sounds like it’d be fun as hell. And illicit, too. “We’ll see.”
After shooting him an exaggeratedly stern look, I start working on my résumé. It’s a lot harder than I thought. To start, I type out all my accomplishments in bullet points, but no matter how I try to word things, I can’t hide the fact that I was at my dad’s firm for four years without a single promotion or official recognition.
Damn it, Dad. If you’d just let people give me the credit I deserve, I wouldn’t be in this situation.
The laptop pings. A small alert box pops up about a new email from Tulane Blackwood. That’s Court’s dad, if I remember correctly. The subject line reads: URGENT.
“Court, you have an email,” I call out when he breaks the surface and runs a hand over his face. “It’s your dad. Says it’s urgent.”
Court’s expression freezes for a moment, then goes back to normal. But his shrug is stiff and unnatural. “Ignore it.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. It’s really not that important.”
I frown at the tight tone of his voice, but what he told me yesterday clearly showed that his parents are a complicated topic for him. Court’s in such a good mood today that I don’t ruin it by probing. If he says it’s not urgent, it probably isn’t.
So I focus on making my SFG years sound as impressive as possible, then finish the résumé and draft a simple cover letter template. By the time I’m done, it’s lunchtime.
Court comes out of the pool and starts drying himself off with a sun-warmed towel. “I’m starving,” he says.
“Me too.” I email both documents to myself and hand the laptop to Court. “Wanna grab somethin
g?”
He tosses it carelessly on a lounger. “Sure. There’s a cool little Japanese place we can try, if you like sushi.”
“I love it. Can I grab a quick shower first?”
“Excellent idea,” he says with bright eyes. “I’ll join you.”