CHAPTER 3
Jimmy
She was gone. She must have snuck off the ship when I’d been distracted docking. I’d checked and she wasn’t in the bathroom, or in the galley, or the cabin. After my third search of the premises, I was beginning to wonder if the entire morning had just been a figment of my imagination.
Had Bella even existed?
I checked the towel that I’d shot my load in, and that was definitely real. But was any of the rest of it?
In what world does a beautiful woman show up out of the blue, ask to go out on the water without any sort of reservation, basically not speak the entire cruise, then fall into your lap, literally, and proceed to give you one of the hottest blowjobs in the world?
That wasn’t real life, that was a porno. It had to have been a fantasy. Maybe I needed to get my head checked out. I’d been a little more tired than normal lately. Maybe there was something seriously wrong with me.
Although, if the side effect of whatever was ailing me was to have some sort of virtual reality X-rated encounter with the woman of my dreams, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be cured.
I might’ve continued thinking that me getting head had just been in my head when something sparkled and caught my attention in between the cushions. I lifted it up and saw that it was a diamond stud. I’d noticed Bella wearing it, she’d fidgeted with it several times during the trip. As I held it up, the sun caught its reflection in the stone, shining a rainbow light over the deck of the boat.
I wasn’t someone who believed in signs, but I couldn’t help but feel that this was a good one. This earring was like Cinderella’s slipper and it meant that I’d see Bella again. Sure, in this fairytale the princess left the ball after blowing the prince, but hell, that didn’t make it any less romantic in my book.
I finished securing the boat and jumped onto the pier with the earring in my pocket.
“Hey, Jimmy Boy! Was it nice out there?” Earl called out from his houseboat, The Dirty Oar, which docked two stalls away from the Vitamin Sea.
“It was, Earl! The best!”
As I walked up the dock, I noticed I had an extra pep in my step. And during the drive out to the house, my mind kept playing the past few hours over and over again. And not just the naughty part.
From the moment I laid eyes on that woman, she’d captivated me. There was something so special, so different about her. I’d never reacted to another woman the way I had to her. And it wasn’t just her beauty, although that was other-worldly.
It was her entire being. The way she spoke, moved, smelled. It was the look in her eyes. It was the way she’d mouthed the words as she read the pamphlets she’d taken out of her purse. It was the way she’d twisted her earring when she got nervous. It was the way her cheeks would blush when I’d catch her looking at me. It was the way she was somehow so innocent and yet so sensual at the same time.
It was the way she looked at my dick like it was the first one she’d ever seen in person. The way she’d touched it, studied it—and the way her face had flushed, and how clear it was that it turned her on. It was the tentative way she’d pressed her lips to my crown and then licked me like I was a lollipop.
Fuck, I was getting hard again just thinking about it.
I’d been with my fair share of women, some more experienced than others, but none had ever behaved like she had. She was a contradiction of innocence and seduction.
I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but damn if I didn’t love it.
When I pulled up in front of my childhood home, I still had the feeling like I was gonna walk in and see Pop sitting in his chair, a half-empty bottle of Jack on the floor beside him, the fan blowing on him as he complained about the prices of cigarettes.
Logically, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Emotionally, I wasn’t so sure I’d accepted it yet.
I took the steps up to the porch two at a time, and out of habit, I turned the doorknob but it didn’t budge.
There’d always been an open-door policy in my family home, meaning the door was always open. But since Pop had passed away and my oldest brother Hank inherited the house, he’d changed the locks and started using the deadbolt. He said it was to keep out “unwanted visitors,” so it made zero sense for it to be locked now, since he had called the damn meeting.
I’d lifted my fist to knock when the door opened.
“You’re late,” Hank stated before turning and walking toward the kitchen.
I checked my phone and sure enough, it was ten past noon. I’d gotten a little distracted by a blue-eyed angel who’d dropped straight out of heaven.
If it had been anyone other than my brothers I was meeting, I would’ve apologized for my tardiness, but as the youngest alpha in the pack, I’d learned that apologies were seen as a sign of weakness.
So instead I took a seat beside Billy on a stool at the kitchen island. I checked to make sure that the earring hadn’t dropped out of my pocket when I did. It was still there. I was gonna guard that baby like it was the Hope Diamond because that’s how valuable it was to me.
It was the only tangible connection I had to Bella… Hell, I didn’t even know the woman’s last name. But chances were, she’d be coming back at some point to claim her earring, and when that happened, she wasn’t going to get away without me finding out some more information about her.