“I know where I’m not wanted. And I’ll walk out of here happy, Jett. You want to know why?”
He lifted one shoulder, but he watched me like I finally wasn’t a joke to him or just a one-night stand. All of a sudden, I had his attention. His sapphire eyes held mine, and they didn’t look away. It was almost like he wanted my disdain. When most people would have shied away from being reprimanded, he reveled in it.
“I’m thankful I enjoyed a couple orgasms from you and now I get to leave you and all your negativity behind. I thought you might be deeper than it, that you just saw this world differently from me, but you’re only searching for grim places, and I’ve been down that boring road before. I want the light, and I’m good enough at finding it that I can honestly say”—I slipped my shoes on, glancing at him while I did—“this will be one of my better mornings because I got to leave misery—you—in the dust.”
With that, I swung open his front door and flipped my hair over my shoulder as I walked out.
Smiling.
4
Jett
That girl was something.
I smiled as she turned to leave. I waited for her to turn back and catch one last glimpse of me. I wouldn’t have minded one last look at her too.
Sleek and well-packaged woman that she was, her body would drive any man insane with her long legs, tiny waist, and curves in all the right places. I wanted her to turn so I could see her face and the smooth, soft skin right where her jaw and neck met, the place I now knew drove her fucking crazy when I bit at it.
I wanted to see those honey-colored eyes burning with resentment and fight in them. She bled confidence when someone cut her. Surprisingly, I found that blood attracted me.
I prided myself on not caring about the women I brushed off. I never gave them a promise, just like I hadn’t given Vick one. Yet, she targeted the jugular by calling me on my flaws and leaving me to think about them.
Normally, women knew what a one-night stand looked like.
A shiny outlook on the future blinded her to all we had last night. I wasn’t the one at fault, but there I was questioning myself.
She was the best I’d had in a long time. I practically got hard just watching her walk away. My body wanted her in a way I didn’t want a lot of other women, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew I could find someone to fill her shoes any day of the week. There were billions of women in the world and she was only one of them.
She was only one, and yet, when she didn’t look back at me, I almost went after her.
Almost.
She flipped her long blonde hair like it was waving goodbye and good riddance. I had wrapped that hair around my hand and owned her last night. Saying goodbye shouldn’t have been that easy for her. To most of the women I slept with, it wasn’t.
I shook off our encounter and got to work. Businesses had to grow. Money had to be invested. I had to focus. The world my family built had to run and run well. People depended on that. I wasn’t in Kauai to play around.
I took breaks here and there.
Jax and Jaydon would have killed me if I didn’t.
But I wanted to take my own life when I found out that day one of our excursions was a paddleboard lesson on a private beach across the island. We sat in a large van, piled on top of one another. And our driver looked completely incompetent.
I surveyed the van. “Put your seatbelt on, Jaydon.”
He smirked, “Sure, Dad.”
Everyone else complied without me pushing further. If I had to be the one with the stick up my ass so that everyone would live, so be it.
Somehow, Vick ended up next to me. We didn’t talk because, thankfully, I’d brought my laptop so I could catch up on emails.
I lost my patience after watching cars take turns to cross a one lane bridge though.
“Who booked this?”
Vick jolted a little at my tone, and Brey answered meekly from behind me, “I did. I didn’t know there would be so much traffic or that there was only one lane.”
Jax’s hand was on her thigh and he smiled like we had all the time in the world. “It’s fine, Peaches.”