I forgot all about being late, and not talking to Joel, and everything else outside of our lips merging. His face was freshly shaved, and I rubbed my palms there beneath the curve of his cheeks. Fingers wound in his hair, relishing the softness. Joel was soft everywhere. Soft lips, soft skin, soft hair. I opened my eyes and watched those long, brown eyelashes sweep against the dip above his full cheekbones. He looked sweet from this angle. Every bit of the playboy I’d seen that night and discovered over a week ago was gone. Before me stood a boy that kissed like it was his first time. When kissing still felt like the gateway to another’s soul and all you had to do was reach for it.

His eyebrows quivered and the few groans that escaped his mouth were swallowed by my lips, but we continued kissing as if it were the last thing our lips would touch. We kissed like we were searching for answers. I didn’t know if I had the answer for Joel, but I liked to think that if I did, he found it in that kiss.

Joel’s hands trailed down my back until his hands found my waist. He wrapped them around me, holding me in place as his lips finally broke away from mine. His forehead rested against mine as we both came down from the high we were just on. I stared into his eyes as if looking at them for the first time. He didn’t move, didn’t blink. He simply stared back, holding me there in my driveway. The whole world could have passed down my street in those few minutes and I wouldn’t have noticed. More importantly, I wouldn’t have cared.

His hands fell from my waist and whatever spell his touch had tied me up in was broken. I took a step back and continued putting distance between us, each step marking the return of my sanity.

“What are you doing here, Joel? And don’t say it was to send me off to work. I get to work just fine. In fact, I’d be there already if it weren’t for you.”

“Blaire. Don’t be this way. I want to see you. Will you just meet for lunch? Please?”

“I can’t. And you shouldn’t be here. Please leave, Joel.”

“You don’t want that,” he said taking a step closer. I threw my hands up, forbidding him to come closer. “That’s not what that kiss said, Blaire. Do you know what I heard? Lick me, taste me, fuck me. Does that sound familiar? It should. It was the same thing you said the first night.”

“I don’t remember. Please, Joel.”

“You said that a lot, too,” he laughed. His smile was bright and his eyes sparkled, and I knew he was working his charm on me. Oh, how I wanted to remember the things that he could recall so easily. I wished I could remember those things so I’d have more memories to recycle. The ones I had were becoming too predictable.

“I have to go, Joel. Please don’t come here again.”

“Blaire. Blaire, please,” he pleaded, reaching for me.

I didn’t turn my back on him as I returned to my car, and he didn’t chase after me. We watched each other as the distance between us grew. We watched each other until my car turned right and escaped his view.

Chapter Five

The week flew by, and I let Kerri convince me to make Saturday a girl’s day out with her and Piper. The three of us went and had pedicures done before getting down to our swimsuits for some tanning and swim time over at the Cosmopolitan. The temperatures had just reached the hundreds—the first of the year—and everyone was sprawled out on lounge chairs to officially welcome summer.

“Ohh, my godddd. I love summer,” Kerri said ripping her sarong off and throwing out her arms as if offering herself up to the hot rays and cloudless sky.

“You always say that,” Piper giggled next to me.

Compared to what everyone else was wearing poolside, I felt a bit frigid in my carefully placed sarong that bared very little, but compared to me, Piper looked like a Buddhist Monk—nearly covered from head to toe in a muumuu that was a bit too thick to technically be considered a swimsuit cover-up. Kerri didn’t respond, simply sighed as if she were truly content with all life had to offer her. If only something as simple as tanning under a warm sun could take away all of the worries of the world, maybe then I wouldn’t be stressed about my predicament with Joel. In a perfect world.

Even with the loud bass of the music thumping overhead and the girlish squeals and masculine yells, I was more relaxed than I’d been in days, weeks even. Pretty much ever since I woke up and found Joel still in my house.

“What do you think they do for a living?” Piper asked from the lounger next to me. I looked over to see her staring at a couple of buxom blondes in bathing suits that barely covered the important bits—which looked like they were going to be making an appearance soon if they didn’t stop bowling over in laughter.

“I think you’re looking at it.”

I wondered what Piper was thinking of when she saw those women. Was it the face of the women she knew her ex-husband had cheated with? For someone who was trying so hard to move on, sometimes I couldn’t help but look at her with pity. She was still young, cute, and sweet to a fault, maybe a little sheltered, but an honest and good woman. The longer I lived in Vegas, the more I realized those qualities didn’t come around very often.

“What are you two yapping about over there?” Kerri chimed in, almost groaning, as if our voices somehow carried above all the other surrounding noises, interrupting her idea of oasis.

“Piper was curious about their professions,” I replied, subtly pointing in the direction of the women now dipping their toes into the pool and kicking up drops of water onto the men that seemed to have permanent slack-jaw when looking at the women before them.

“Those are our future clients. Blaire, tell princess of Persia over there to take off her burka.”

My lips quirked to the side as I shrugged my shoulders at Piper. I was more thankful that my sarong hadn’t offended Kerri enough for her to want to strip me down, too.

Kerri was rough around the edges, abrasive on a good day and downright bitchy on a bad one, but I’d been around the two of them enough to know that was Kerri’s version of tough love. She didn’t want to pity Piper anymore. She was on a mission to get Piper laid, and she dedicated herself to the cause like it was volunteer work that came with a tax write-off.

Piper groaned. Kerri lifted up her sunglasses as if that were something she had to see—the turtle literally taking off its shell. When Piper pulled off the afghan-like drapes, Kerri kicked up her own roar of laughter and yelled, “This calls for drinks!”

Piper smiled inwardly, probably shy from all of the attention that Kerri’s yell garnered, and I laughed underneath my breath at the three of us. We couldn’t be more different if we tried. Though, funny enough, Kerri was the glue that seemed to bind us all together. She made my endless hours and time away from my family worth it. I didn’t know what I would do without her boisterous personality, no matter how many times she made me cringe by her sometimes obnoxious flare for the dramatics.

“I’ll go get the drinks.”

Kerri and Piper both rattled off their drink orders, and I walked behind the row of loungers until I found the bar on the other side. The bar was relatively quiet, considering how many people were flooding the pool. I looked around taking stock of the servers in their skimpy bikinis who were flitting from loungers to cabanas, which were packed with people who looked like they should be cut-off with their pumping fists and testosterone-filled shouts.

“What can I get you?”

“One 7 and 7, and two margaritas on the rocks.”

The man behind the bar hid his lithe body behind white board shorts and a blue shirt. Standing alone at the bar amongst a smorgasbord of men wearing nothing more than shorts (or Speedos, for the absolutely daring) made me think of a certain body that made my already heated skin feel like molten lava, burning with just the thought of how it felt to clutch on to skin so firm and unyielding. How soft his skin was and how his wisps of hair danced with the tenor of his voice. And if that wasn’t enough to incinerate panties, he was a filthy talker with a capital “F.”