CHAPTER SEVEN
JADE
After shamelessly coming on Baxter’s hand, I thought seeing him later would be awkward.
It wasn’t. Though the memory of it stayed with me all throughout dinner. I’ve never done anything that crazy before. Anyone could have walked by and seen us.
I squirmed in my seat just thinking about it, the pleasant throb between my legs my guilty secret during the meal.
When I could finally speak again after that intense orgasm, my plan was to invite him inside my cabin. Before I could, he carefully rearranged my clothes, gave me a breath-stealing kiss, and told me he couldn’t wait to see me later. I probably looked like a fish out of water gaping at him when he cheerfully walked down the pathway toward his cabin and away from me.
While getting dressed for dinner, I realized he was right to walk away. If he hadn’t, we would have holed up in my cabin all night and I would have missed out on the dance. That was something I looked forward to the most when daydreaming about this trip.
Coming here alone, I hoped someone would take pity on me and ask me to dance. I never dreamed the most handsome man at the entire resort would be my date and be whirling me around in his muscular arms, his bright blue eyes gazing down at me with an intensity that made me hope for more.
It was so easy to close my eyes and imagine Baxter as my boyfriend. But that fantasy only lasted as long as we were here. The moment I tried to picture him back home in my tiny town, doing mundane things like mowing the grass, having lunch with me at the local Friendly’s, or heaven forbid drinking a cheap beer with my dad at a cookout in my parent’s dinky and weed choked backyard, I couldn’t.
Because he didn’t belong in that world.
I made the mistake of searching for him online before getting ready for dinner, and what I found made my head spin.
Saying he was a director was him being modest. His pleading for me not to think differently of him was even more laughable. He’s responsible for three of the last five major blockbusters. A genius and an epic asshole seem to be the main consensus of the articles about him. Oh, and a womanizer. Let’s not forget the endless parade of gorgeous women on his arm… and in his bed.
That part hit me hardest.
I’m cute. I get that comment a lot back home. Just a regular brown haired, brown-eyed girl, nothing special.
Baxter made me feel beautiful. He made me feel special.
The way he looks at me like I’m something rare and extraordinary makes me swell with warm and fuzzy feelings that I have no business having toward a man I just met and don’t even know.
It was only this morning that he stumbled into my life, and yet it’s getting harder to think that in a few days I’ll never see him again.
The brush of his fingers on my cheek break into my spiraling thoughts.
Opening my eyes, his face is taut with concern, making me ache a little more.
“Jade?” He murmurs, his deep voice turning my name into an intimate caress. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” I lie, stretching my lips into a wide, fake smile.
His frown says he doesn’t believe me and that makes me hurt even more. How can this man sense my moods and see through me so easily?
I thought life was unfair before when everything in mine fell apart. Now I know that was nothing. Finding the man of my dreams on a once in a lifetime trip and knowing I can’t have him is truly heart-wrenching.
Even if I could afford it one day, I will never return to the resort. This place will forever hold the memory of my time with Baxter. So best to make the most of it and stop wasting it on tears.
Reaching up, I trace his high cheekbone, feathering my fingers down over his smooth chin to cup his strong jaw. Rising on my tiptoes, I lightly press my lips to his in a brief kiss, breathing in his scent and tasting the mint on his breath. “Let’s go back to my cabin,” I whisper against his mouth.
His arms holding me tighten for an instant and I catch his sudden sharp exhalation in a kiss. We stop moving on the dancefloor and the world fades away, the music a pleasant buzz in the back of my head. Tenderly, his lips move over mine, his tongue teasing at the corner of my lips. I chase after his tongue with my own, slipping between his lips.
How long we stand there lost in a haze of desire, I can’t say and don’t care. When we stop kissing, the world is still going on around us, the other dancers moving slowly in their own little bubbles of togetherness.
I don’t wait for his answer. I grab Baxter’s hand and take off for the exit.
I want my beloved movie’s wonderful ending. It wasn’t a perfect one and left a lot to the imagination. And ultimately, I don’t think they ended up happily ever after. They were two people who cared deeply and briefly, forever leaving an imprint on the other’s life. And that is what my relationship with Baxter will be. I want to think I’ll be more than a faceless woman in his memories. That he’ll think of me fondly and by name and though our time together was short, it was life changing.
For me, it will be.