The Pleasure Of His Company

Her words made Adah blush and turn away from the water. She wasn’t much better than this girl, ogling the man just because she was looking for a source of distraction from her own problems. But that awareness didn’t stop her from sending one last lingering look across the water to where the man was making a loop in the sky and flying back toward the edge of the beach.

Although watching him made her feel vaguely uncomfortable in her own body, tingly and aware of long-ignored wants, it also felt good to be distracted from thoughts of the phone call she’d had with her mother earlier that morning.

“You have to make up your mind about this marriage, Adah,” her mother had said. “You’ve already said yes to this. Just make it official so we can start making concrete plans for the wedding. Let’s at least agree on a date.”

A date to join her life with another person’s to help save the family business.

Her mother made it sound so simple. Confirm the day for the arranged marriage she’d agreed to when she was a junior in college, depressed from a recent breakup and fixated on the idea that she’d never find a man to love her the way her father loved her mother. Back then she’d been convinced they didn’t make men like her father anymore—honest, romantic, ride or die. To her, males of the species were all boys and would mature only enough to treat a woman like another notch on their bedposts.

And now, at twenty-six, she was still single but less sure she was willing to give up any chance at passion and love to rescue the family business. That was what she should be willing to do. That was what her twin sister, Zoe, would probably have done. But what-ifs didn’t matter. Zoe was dead. It was Adah’s responsibility to step up.

Seawater rushed over her sandaled toes, and she hissed at the coolness of it. Without realizing it, she’d walked to the edge of the sand and into the waves. Adah skittered back, annoyed with herself for getting water on the expensive leather sandals that had been a gift from her best friend. She should have just worn her plastic Old Navy flip-flops.

Farther up the beach, the tournament continued. Adah was out of the way of the kiters assembling on the beach as their competitors helped them get into their complicated-looking gear. It was a beautiful display of cooperation and partnership.

“You going to walk into the water with your clothes on?”

She jerked her attention from the beach only to find herself immersed in seductive brown eyes. It was the man who had danced in the air above the waves. Up close he was a gorgeous thing. Tall and sun-browned, white teeth blazing in his handsome face, radiating as much heat as the sun overhead. He still wore his loose T-shirt and board shorts, both wet from his time in the water. Mirrored sunglasses hung from the neck of his shirt.

“Things aren’t that bad for me yet,” she managed past a tight throat. Why was he talking to her? Men this good-looking never went out of their way to engage her in conversation.

“That’s looking on the positive side.” He grinned again, then came close. “I’m Kingsley.”

His mouth was a firm curve, the top lip slightly smaller than the lower, both glistening with some sort of sunscreen or lip balm. Adah licked her own lips, which tasted like cherry Carmex, and imagined his tasted the same.

“Pleased to meet you.” She almost slapped herself on the forehead at the inanity of her reply. But she felt completely undone. Her heart beat quickly in her chest, and her tongue felt too heavy for her to speak.

“A mystery woman, then?”

She shook her head but didn’t correct him. Better he thought she was being mysterious and coy than an idiot who lost all her cool points just because a hot guy smiled at her. He shoved his hands in his pockets, seemingly unbothered.

“I saw you earlier,” he said, eyes moving quickly over her body in a way that was both appraising and appreciative. “I had to come by and say hello.”

“You saw me when you were in the air? You must have really good eyesight.”

“That’s not the only thing good about me,” he said. Then he laughed at his own bad joke. “I’m sorry,” he said as the last of his laughter faded. “I’m really not that corny.”

“Somehow I have my doubts.” But he still managed to charm her anyway. Adah felt herself responding to more than just his physical appeal. His eyes were warm with humor and his above-average height made her feel secure instead of intimidated. She could easily imagine cuddling into his big body after sex, her body humming with contentment as he stroked the length of her back in a soothing rhythm.

But there was something destructive in that. Something that made Adah’s stomach clench in warning. This wasn’t what she’d come to Aruba for.

As if he’d read her mind, Kingsley’s look became downright seductive. Heavy-lashed eyes and an intimate smile like the door opening to a softly lit bedroom.

“Would you like to have a drink with me sometime?” he asked.

Adah automatically shook her head although she desperately wanted to say yes.

I’m in a situation. The words from the old Erykah Badu song rang ridiculously in her ear. That was one way to put it. And that was even assuming he felt even a little of what was thrumming over her skin. Pure and undiluted attraction. Lust and the urge to smile back at him just to see those compelling brown eyes narrow even more from his grin, the corners crinkling in the simple pleasure of sharing space with someone attractive. She couldn’t remember the last time someone’s mere presence had made her want to stay in his company and enjoy the ease of his smile, the comfort of his body. Because it was undoubtedly desire. It coursed through her veins just from looking at him. His undivided attention felt like hands running over her bare skin.

“I can’t,” she finally said. Not I don’t want to.

And he seemed absolutely aware of the difference, judging from the way he looked at her, hungry and with the knowledge that the thing he wanted was within reach.

“I...uh... I have to go. Hope you win...whatever it is you’re going after.” She gestured to the kites still in the air, the stage and the people watching the action from the beach.

“And still no gift of your beautiful name?”

She shook her head again, this time not hiding her smile. “My name doesn’t matter.”

“I disagree.” He paused, his gaze amused and thoughtful. “I have to call you something in my dreams.”

Adah rolled her eyes. Cute and corny. “Call me whatever you like.”

“I think I’ll call you Doe Eyes.” Then he grinned at her, apparently pleased with himself.

She shook her head a third time. “It was nice to meet you.”

“It’ll be even nicer to see you again,” Kingsley said. Before she could tell him the island wasn’t small enough for them to run into each other without agreeing to a time and place, his smile flashed again. “This won’t be the last time,” he said. The sand pulled at her sandals, and she stumbled, blushing as she righted herself under his amused regard. “Be careful until I see you again,” he said with another quick scan up and down her body.

When he turned and walked away, she shamelessly watched him, the loose fit of the drying shirt over his muscled back and the shift of his butt in the long shorts. She bit her lip. There was joy in Kingsley. She thought about what sex would be like with him—undeniably hot, uninhibited—and knew there would be a spontaneous delight about the encounter, a pleasure at living and breathing and being able to gulp deeply from the cup of life. He was a man worth knowing. And touching.

“I know you’re looking,” he called over his shoulder without turning around. Laughter threaded through his voice. The sound of it should have made Adah blush and look away like a thief caught with her hands in the cookie jar, but she only grinned and kept looking until she could no longer make out the finer details of his physique.

She was still smiling when she walked across the sand and through the beachfront entrance of her hotel. The lavish hotel, though stretching the limits of her budget, was one she was glad to have found. Her room overlooked the water, the entire reason for her visit to an island in the Caribbean.

“Welcome back, Ms. Palmer-Mitchell.” The woman at the front desk spared a smile for Adah as she looked up from her computer screen.

“Thank you.”

“There’s a visitor here for you. She’s already in her own room, which she requested next to yours.”

Adah stopped. “A visitor?” A bad feeling made her footsteps stutter. The leftover warmth from the encounter with Kingsley leached from her. She shivered.

“Yes. She arrived about thirty minutes ago.”

Adah had been walking the island for nearly two hours, trying to clear her mind and find a solution to the unsettled feeling that had yanked her out of her sleep nearly every night for the past six months. She was desperate for a good night’s sleep.

Adah pressed her lips closed and sucked them between her teeth. “All right, thank you so much for letting me know.”

After wishing the woman a good morning, she crossed the tiled lobby, each step feeling heavier than the last as she imagined who was waiting for her upstairs. She knew only one person with the means and motive to come to Aruba and turn her peace upside down. When the elevator doors slid open on her floor, there was someone waiting to get on it. The woman, elegant in white linen with her iron-gray hair on top of her head in a simple French twist, smiled at her in equal parts relief and triumph. Adah released a quiet breath.

“Hello, Mother.”

Chapter 2 (#uc6591998-6abf-5807-ac14-d2c9aa564f91)

“Surprise, darling!” Thandie Palmer-Mitchell rebounded beautifully from the surprise of seeing Adah in the elevator.

Adah wished she could say the same for herself. Her suspicion had turned into grim certainty when the elevator doors opened on her floor. She felt scattered to the four winds at the sight of her mother, gorgeously styled and smiling in the last place Adah wanted her to be.