“What was that for?”
“This morning.” His tongue swept over my jaw. “For getting us those jet skis from your brother’s spot on short notice.”
“He owed me a favor,” I replied with a shrug.
Rico didn’t let me downplay it. “You still got that shit done for me and I appreciate it.”
“It’s your birthday, you know I’ll always find a way for you.” The same way he always made it happen for me without thinking.
“I fucking love you,” he swore before his tongue found mine again. “It was perfect. Just like you.”
Birthday Behavior Pt. 2
“Working on your birthday?” I took a seat on Rico’s lap and melted into him when his arms tightened around me. He buried his face in my neck, inhaling like he’d been waiting for this moment for hours.
The nap we all laid down for after our showers this morning turned out to be just for everyone but Rico.
When I woke up for lunch, he’d been in his office, and had stayed tucked away in here even after Christian brought him food. Now it was time for us to leave for dinner, and he was still in here.
“This morning got my mind going and I couldn’t relax until I got it out.”
I turned on his lap to face his workstation, his hold on my waist steadying me as I got comfortable. “Can I see?”
Rico reached around me to open his sketchbook.
The page in front of us had a series of coral, fish and conch shell motifs in black ink. It was beachy and cute. Two things Rico tried to distance himself from, whether he admitted it or not. His signature style was coastal and whimsical, with fluid, overlapping motifs. But this one was distinctly different, and the longer I looked, the more details I picked out. A Jeep. A dolphin. The outline of a wave. A scalloped border encased each sketch, making them look like limited-edition stamps someone had crammed onto a postcard.
It looked like home.
More specifically, a visual love letter to Onyx Cove, and now I was smiling.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know.” He moved behind me again, pulling up the Photoshop window on his desktop. The scanned design was there, enlarged but still in its raw form.
“It’s nostalgic, I love it,” I complimented, tilting my head to take it in. “You did a good job.”
He kissed my shoulder then rested his chin there, studying the screen with me. “Don’t tell me shit like that when we’re supposed to be leaving in an hour.”
“You don’t want me to tell you how talented you are?” I turned on his lap so I could look at him, spurred on by the way his lids lowered under my attention. I grabbed his face, staring directly into his eyes. “I love you and I’m so proud of you.”
When I dipped my head for a kiss, he sucked my bottom lip into his mouth, taking over before the thought could cross my mind. Then he closed his eyes to whisper, “I love you too.”
“Enough to license me that design for an upcoming project?”
The man underneath me went rigid before he looked up at me with curiosity. “What project?”
“I want to start a hometown series on my page. I was talking to Soul about it last night.” His softening features squeezed at my heart. “I already know I want to start with Mr. Tiny. Then Christian. And Lyric...”
I trailed, searching his face for any sign of approval. His rapt look made words flow from me, until I was telling him everything me and Soul fell asleep talking about on the balcony last night.
There were ten businesses on my list and if they all said yes, I’d spend a minimum of six weeks shadowing them to curate their story and what made Onyx Cove special to them.
“Six weeks with each business owner?” Rico asked when I came up for air.
“Yeah.”
“Like a month and a half with ten different companies?”
