Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 128211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
With a long exhale, I surrendered to the music. I was dizzy from drinking all day, but not in an unpleasant way. My buzz vibrated through my sore muscles, and I let it carry me, humming through my bones as I moved in time with the smooth, slow melody.
I’d needed this.
We’d all needed this.
Six charters behind us and just three more to go, and the long days were catching up with everyone. We were still working together nicely, but there were small moments when the little nit-picky things slipped — like Eli making a joke about Cameron taking yet another coffee break, or Leah muttering that she never got to see the light of day from being stuck in laundry, or Palmer popping back at me when I asked for his help on service and he pointed out that he hadn’t had a break all day.
We were all strung tight and exhausted, and without this day off, we likely would have snapped.
There was still the chance even after a break, if I was being honest.
But I chose not to focus on the what ifs.
I swayed with the rhythm of the music, hips rocking, hair sticking to the back of my neck, my smile widening with each passing second. My eyes slipped shut, the world narrowing to the pulse of the song and the fizz of liquor in my veins. And I let go — of the tension, of the stress, of him.
Just for a moment.
When the band ended the song and introduced another, I finally peeled my eyes open, and the scene around me had shifted.
Gisella and Palmer were gone. I assumed they’d gone off to get new drinks or take a break from the crowd. Eli was at the bar with Bernard and a gaggle of locals, slamming back shots and howling with laughter. Cameron and Leah were still nearby, though they’d moved closer to the front of the stage, and they might as well have been alone with the way they were tangled up in each other.
One camera duo was with Eli and Bernard at the bar, the other had tired of the endless footage of Leah and Cameron drunkenly making out and was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if they’d taken off with Gisella and Palmer.
I scanned the space, registering it with the kind of lazy awareness only alcohol and exhaustion could bring.
And then I felt it — the faintest touch on my left hip.
It was the graze of a knuckle, rough and warm, curling just under the tie of my bikini like a question mark.
Feather-light, so much so that it was almost nothing at all.
But it seared my skin like a branding iron.
I didn’t have to look to know who it was.
My heart lurched into my throat, strangling me as it stalled out. I froze. I couldn’t will my hips to sway to the music anymore, not with that touch anchoring me to a past I realized I’d never escape.
Finn’s warmth invaded my space even though he was still a safe distance away. I chanced a glance, secretly, tilting my head to the left like I was looking at the bar when really I was cataloging him in my peripheral. And there he stood, his eyes on the band, head bobbing a bit to the beat like there was nothing out of place.
But his knuckle dragged along the skin beneath my bikini, from the front of my hip to the back, and then he slid his finger beneath the tie.
That was the spark.
I went up in a blazing inferno, heart stuttering back to life before it kicked hard and fast like a snare drum in my chest. I swallowed, keeping my eyes on the band, but I felt it when Finn moved in closer, when he slid to stand behind me.
His finger toyed with my bikini again.
Oh, God.
I should stop this.
I should walk away.
But I was rooted in place, drunk off hours of alcohol and the heat of his forbidden touch.
There was no question — he knew what he was doing. It didn’t matter that he kept his eyes on the band and pretended to be innocent. His halo was askew, flickering and threatening to burn out altogether with every millimeter of space he annihilated between us.
We were hidden by the crowd, tourists and locals dancing all around us with their hands in the air. I once again found myself scanning for the location of the cameras, and when I found them focused elsewhere, my insides liquified.
Because I knew Finn noticed their absence, too.
He slid up fully behind me, confident and careless all at once as his other hand found my hip, too. He had me framed in his grasp now, and his fingers bit into my flesh as his hot breath washed over the back of my neck.