Page 24 of One Little Favor
“Yes. Can you get ready now?”
She leans up on her toes again and plants a kiss on my cheek. “Well, aren’t you pleasantly unexpected, Tom Shepherd?”
* * *
What a weird twist of fate it is that three days ago I got a dreaded phone call from my brother, then dropped everything to redecorate my office in some stupid attempt to impress him, and somehow ended up here, sitting on a chaise lounge in St. Thomas, watching Avery walk out to our balcony in a bathing suit so small it should be illegal.
I should send that asshole a goddamn thank you gift.
She’s standing at the stone railing of the balcony and must sense me come up behind her because she sighs and says, “This is legitimately the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen.” She’s looking out at the turquoise water of Great Bay, with the peaks of St. Thomas dotting the horizon.
I look at her, standing there in her string bikini. It’s so different from what I’d assume she’d pick given how conservatively she dresses at the office, but it’s perfect. “Yep, sure is.”
She glances over at me and catches me staring at her. “Did you really just do that cheesy thing where I said the view is beautiful and you looked at me and agreed?”
“Is it cheesy if it’s true?”
In that moment, the realization hits me like a hammer to my forehead: she is everything I didn’t know I needed, and I’ll stop at nothing to make her mine.
I run my hand along the skin of her lower back, then dip one finger under the fabric of her bikini bottom and trace it around her hip bone and along the lower part of her belly.
That same shiver runs through her that I saw at the restaurant last night, and now I know it means she wants me. When I step behind her, she halfway groans as she leans back into me. As I slide my fingers farther into her bathing suit bottom, she sucks in a sharp breath.
“We’re standing on a balcony above the pool area, Tom. Anyone could see us.”
“There’s no one on either side of us,” I say. I’ve already scoped out this balcony and one of the things I love about it is how we have our own very private room out here. It’s bigger than Avery’s entire apartment.
I dip my head down so that my mouth is right at her ear. “And no one’s going to look up here unless you’re loud. But maybe we should step away from the railing, since I fully plan on making you scream my name over and over.”
She turns and wraps her arms around my neck, straining on tiptoe to trail her lips along my jawline. When she reaches my ear, she says, “I’d like to see you try,” then nips my earlobe with her teeth before letting go and walking past me toward the open doors to our room. I easily close the distance between us in one step and reach out to simultaneously pull the ties on either side of her bathing suit bottoms. She’s mid-step when the fabric falls to the ground between her legs, and she freezes in place. She turns her head over her shoulder toward me, but my eyes are trained on her perfect peach of an ass.
“Like what you see?”
I look up to find her smirking at me. “You know I do. And I plan on seeing a lot more.”
I want to reach out and pull her back to me, but I also need her to come willingly. I need there to be no doubt whatsoever that this is whatshewants.
Still looking at me over her shoulder, she pulls the tie at the back of her bathing suit top, then drags her finger through the crossed strings of fabric until they come apart. It takes both her hands to untie the strings around her neck, and then the top is falling to the ground next to the bottoms.
She turns to face me and I let my eyes roam from her muscular legs to her flat stomach, to her chest and then her face, where her nerves are plain to see.
“Come here.” My voice is more raspy than normal, but even getting those words out is a chore because it feels like all the blood in my body has rushed to my dick and I can hardly think straight.
She takes two steps toward me. “Youcome here.”
I take another step toward her, then scoop her up with one arm and throw her over my shoulder. She doesn’t yelp in surprise as I stride through the wide open glass doors to our suite. Instead, she wraps her legs around my chest, and slides down me until we’re face to face. She cups my cheeks in her hands and kisses me. The way she tentatively parts my lips with her tongue is gentle and searching. This is a kiss for the sake of kissing, and I couldn’t have imagined that I’d have ever wanted this, but this woman makes me want things I didn’t think were possible.
I break off the kiss to make it through the living room without running into anything, and walk right past the beautifully decorated Christmas tree that has Avery sighing every time she looks at it.
In the bedroom, I set her ass on the bed and push her back into the mattress with my body. My hands grip her sides, my thumbs running small circles along her hipbones, and when I stroke her tongue with mine and she moans into my mouth, I’m done waiting.
She sighs when I break off the kiss, but opens her eyes and looks up at me, questioning. “You’re sure this is what you want?” I ask her.
“I’m positive.” Her words are a whispered plea. She’s done waiting too.
I push my swim trunks to my ankles and sink to my knees. Sliding my hands under her ass, I grip her hips and pull her to the edge of the bed.
She lets out a small sound of surprise. “Tom, you don’t have to do that.”
