Even his come face was beautiful, like one of Michelangelo’s tortured slaves.
We lay on our backs horizontally across the bed, and I brushed a damp lock of hair from his forehead. He caught my hand and kissed my palm.
He opened his eyes to look at me. “You’re incredible, Selah.”
“Likewise.” My smile was lazy and sated. “We should do that again.”
“Right now?” He laughed. “I’m not eighteen.”
“Lord, no.” I sighed. “I don’t even know my last name right now.”
With a smirk, he said, “Mission accomplished. You’re not only silly, but stupid.”
I laughed. “Congratulations.”
“What’s my prize?” He stood up and headed to the bathroom.
“We get to do it again?”
The water in the shower drowned out the sound of his laughter.
Mmm, shower sex. My body responded. I wondered how long until he would be ready to claim his prize.
I WASN’T SURE if his stamina was due to his super-human genes or the copious amounts of dairy I imagined he ate growing up, but Kai had the recovery period of a race horse. Assuming race horses had quick recovery times.
With its ultra-hot water and amazing pressure I could stay in his shower forever. The hot naked guy added to my bliss.
After the shower, we collapsed into bed for a few hours, until Gerhard brushing against my ass woke me up again. By Gerhard, I meant his penis, not the man. Gerhard was too perfect a name not to use. I would never tell Kai I named his penis. Who does that? Teenage girls in Judy Blume books and weirdos. Obviously, I was neither.
Round three ended with my shoulders hanging off the bed and an inability to remember the day of the week.
“Coffee.”
“What?” he mumbled from his position with his face in the pillows.
“Coffee. I need real coffee.” I lifted my head.
“Cappuccino?” he asked, his voice muffled by the down.
“You have cappuccinos?” Rolling myself as gracefully as possible, I twisted my body to lie next to him on the pillows.
He faced me and nodded. “Room service?”
I sighed. “Even if this is some alternative reality, I’m saying yes and drinking all of the cappuccinos I can until I wake up and realize it was a dream.”
He pinched my arm.
“Ouch!” I rubbed the spot and batted his pinching fingers away from me. “Why did you pinch me?”
“To prove you’re awake.” He grinned and jumped off the bed before I could retaliate. Grabbing a fresh pair of boxers from a drawer, he put them on, and sauntered into the living area while I enjoyed ogling his ass. “Do you want breakfast?”
Of course I did. I had a week. I wanted whatever he would give me.
If said giving included cappuccinos and croissants, even better. Neither were the best I’d ever had, but they beat the watery instant coffee at Ama’s. Wealth and privilege had their bonuses.
I wasn’t expected at the museum until the next day, so we spent the morning on the couch watching TV. I wrapped a thick white hotel robe around myself, and after some pestering, Kai wore one too. We resembled marshmallow-people hybrids. Decidedly unsexy, but somehow he overcame his marshmallow-ness to still be handsome. I wish the same could be said for me.
“Pool?”
I looked at him from the corner of my eye. “What about it?”
“We should go downstairs and sit by the pool.”
Naked and sexual with Kai was one thing, but would I parade myself around in a bathing suit in front of him? I mulled it over for a minute until I realized my one and only swimsuit sat safely tucked away at Ama’s.
“No suit. Do they frown on skinny dipping?”
He shook his head and smiled. “I’m one-hundred-percent certain they don’t approve of skinny dipping.”
“Well, if we aren’t having sex in the pool, then I guess I’ll be happy to sit on a lounger and watch you swim.”
He choked on his cappuccino, causing a cloud of foam to break free and land on his hand.
“Was that an option?”
“Obviously not here.” I stared at him, willing my face to remain serious.
“Someday we’ll travel somewhere with a pool where such things are encouraged.”
“Ew, can you imagine the chlorine needed to swim safely in that pool?” I shuddered.
“I meant a private pool. Or a lake.”
“Lake?” I screeched. “With fish? No way.”
“You’re making it difficult to fulfill the fantasy.”
“You want to fulfill my fantasies?”
Meeting my eyes, he nodded. “Of course.”
I stared at him for a beat or two. “Who are you?”
“Didn’t we clear that up yesterday?”
“We cleared up the name, but really, who are you?”
“I can’t tell if you want me to answer you literally or if you’re being funny.”
“It’s kind of rhetorical.”
“Why?”
“I’ve never met anyone like you.”
“Is that good?”
He sat at the far end of the sofa and I briefly studied his face before nodding. “It’s good. Disconcerting, but good.”
“Let’s quit while I’m ahead. You get dressed and I’ll grab my trunks for the pool.”
Outside, sunshine blazed down, but a light breeze blew fronds of palm trees surrounding the pool area. I sat under an umbrella on a chaise lounge watching Kai swim laps.
Everything went into slow motion when he exited the pool. His blond hair darkened by water made his eyes more striking against his tan skin. Not that I stared at his eyes. I was too busy envying every water droplet racing over the muscles of his chest and abs, drawing my eyes further down his body to where his swim trunks clung to his thighs and Gerhard.
Droplets of cool water sprinkled my bare legs. Looking up, I met a smiling Kai with his hand still near his hair where he had shook the water onto my skin.
“Hey now!” I scooted out of the way.
“You looked lost in a daydream.”
“Kind of. Did you swim competitively?”
“How did you guess?”
“Besides your classic swimmer’s body?”
He smirked at me. “I did. I swam on the Harvard team. Long distance.”
“Mmm.”
“You approve?”
“I do.”
“I didn’t figure you for the type who dated us jocks in school.” He reached over me for a towel, deliberately dripping water on me again before wrapping white terry cloth around his hips. From the clear outline visible beneath the thick pool towel, it looked like the water wasn’t cold enough to cause shrinkage.
“Oh, never. We didn’t even have football at my college. But I’ve grown up and matured. Become more open-minded.”
“What were you like when you were younger?” His aviators blocked his eyes, but his body language showed his interest.
“Angry. Goth. Black spiky hair. I wanted to rebel against everything.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Sounds like someone else I know.”
“Really?”
He nodded and sat on the lounger next to mine. “Why so angry and rebellious?”
“Probably because I had a completely normal and uneventful childhood. Parents are still happily married. My brothers and I got along, besides the normal teasing. I did well enough in school to be bored. Classic American middle-class life.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“California.”
“Los Angeles?”
“No, nothing as glamorous as that. A suburb near San Francisco. Close enough to go into the city and see the hippies and punk rockers, but far enough away that the mall was the main social hangout.”
“We didn’t have malls in Amsterdam.”
“I imagine not.”
“And you? You didn’t want the happy life in the suburbs?”
I observed him while I figured out how honest to be. I’d had various parts of his body inside of me, but emotional honesty existed outside my comfort zone.
“I didn’t. I never wanted the husband, or the kids, or the dog, parakeet, turtle, guinea pig…” I let my list and sentence fade away while I studied him for a reaction. “I know it’s odd, and most people, mostly women, think it’s a lie, but I didn’t.”
“Didn’t past tense?”
“Don’t. Present tense. Did part is a done deal at this point.”
He arched an eyebrow.
I waved my hand in a circle over my torso. “Older woman. Like the HMS Virginity, that ship’s sailed, too.”
“Oh.”
In the silence that fell between us, I waited for him to speak.
“Wow, that became heavy quickly,” I said after an awkward moment.
“No, don’t worry. You were being honest.”
“And you probably didn’t expect to have this conversation today.”
He reached over and entwined our fingers. “I didn’t expect you to spend the night with me last night either. Everything with you is unexpected.”
“Unexpected in a good way?”
“Unexpected in the best way—like a surprise you never dreamed of, but the best surprise you’ve ever had.”
If we weren’t sitting by the pool, I’d have kissed him then and there. Instead, I led him up to his room to have my evil way with him.
THE NEXT NIGHT Kai took me out to one of the beach resorts in Labadi to see a band he first heard three years ago. I hadn’t been out at night since my arrival, unless I counted dinners at Ama’s. Tonight felt wild and adventurous, and very much like a real date.