A Place Without You

“Let’s eat before we leave. I’m sure there’s quite the spread downstairs.”

“Rich people breakfast?” I ask.

She furrows a brow for a few seconds. “Yes. I suppose so.” Rolling away, she swings her legs around and stands up, stretching like a cat.

“Do you eat rich people breakfast every morning?” My curiosity has been piqued.

After a long yawn, she cocks her head to the side, lips slightly twisted. “Shredded Wheat with cut-up banana and almond milk. Is that a rich person’s breakfast?”

I sit up, doing a bit of my own stretching, loving the way her gaze roams along my bare chest, her lips parting ever so slightly. “No. I think that’s a solid middle-class breakfast.”

“Middle. That’s average. Average is good, right?”

“There’s nothing average about you, Henna.” I stand, following her into the bedroom.

“I’m going to shower quickly, and by quickly I mean I need an hour. Do you have an hour?”

“To shower with you?” I try to play it cool, like I’m serious.

I’m a little serious.

The color leaves her face. “Oh, um …” She twists her fingers together, drawing her shoulders inward.

“I’m kidding.”

A little kidding.

Henna’s posture relaxes as her cheeks pink up again. “We could.” Her gaze darts around the room before landing on mine for two seconds only to wander around the room again.

“My clothes are at my hotel. I’ll shower there. I need to get going.”

A slow sigh deflates her chest as she tries on a smile that misses the confident mark by a few centimeters. “Okay.”

“But thanks for the offer.” I wink.

More color paints her cheeks, and it looks stunning on her. “I kinda sorta thought we’d have sex last night, but we didn’t, and that’s fine, but now I don’t know what comes next.”

Does that make me the world’s biggest idiot for not taking what she was planning on offering? Or does that make me a gentleman? I’ve already fucked her a hundred different ways in my head, so I’m going to shy away from the gentleman label.

“How about you put my number in your phone and I’ll call you later today? That feels like a good next, don’t you think?”

Henna nods and turns, walking toward the bedroom door. Digging through her purse, she retrieves her phone. When she pulls it out, a string of three condoms comes out with it. “Oh jeez.” Quickly snatching them off the floor, she shoves them back into her purse.

I don’t respond because I’m not sure what the correct response should be.

“I was conceived at Coachella.” She hands me her phone with the contact screen open, ready for my information.

Taking her phone, I give her an expectant look, but she withholds all elaboration.

“And by conceived, you mean physical conception, not merely an idea kind of conception?” I hand her phone back and give her mine.

“In the shadows behind a stage. I know more details than most people should actually know about the moment they were conceived.” She lifts a shoulder in a small shrug. “But Juni is my best friend. She’s the absolute coolest mom ever, and the story of how she met my dad is my favorite story ever.”

I nod as she keeps her chin tipped toward the screen to my phone. “Why is that?” I take my phone back when she holds it out to me.

“Yin Yang. Opposites. Laws of the universe.” She wears a satisfied smile. “My parents were temporary. I was permanent.” Holding out her arms, she inspects her henna tattoos as if seeing them for the first time. “My mom had henna tattoos on her body when she met my dad. Henna grows in intensity over a few days before fading to nothing. It’s magical and beautiful and then it’s gone. My parents say that about their love for each other. It grew quickly into something deep and intense, but over time it faded. Their love—like most everything in life—was temporary.”

“We’re temporary.”

Her empty stare shifts to meet my gaze and she nods. “Don’t sweat it. Everything is temporary. But today…” she walks into my chest, and my arms wrap around her as she looks up at me “…we should be at our brightest, our most intense.”

“Intense?” There is a hyperawareness of every feeling in my body—my heartbeat, my quickening breaths, a tingle in my fingers eager to touch her in new places.

“Intense.” She lifts onto her toes, wrapping her arms around my neck and guiding my mouth to hers.

Our kiss grows into something demanding. She hums into my mouth as my hands slide down her back to her ass, grabbing it with both hands to bring her body flush with mine. Her fingernails claw at my neck, my back, and my chest. Filled with desperation from many months of not being intimate with a woman, I lower my grip on her backside and lift her up.

“Bodhi.” Her breathless voice unravels me as her mouth devours mine.

I walk us to the nearest wall, letting my itchy hands explore the rest of her body. When her back hits the solid surface, she releases the sexiest grunt and rocks her pelvis into me, grazing the head of my swollen cock uncomfortably confined behind my jeans.

“Henna …” I come up for air, but she fists my hair and pulls me back in for another mind-blowing kiss. With her pinned to the wall, I let my right hand slide under her top and cup her braless breast. It’s so fucking perfect.

Latching her ankles behind my back, she grinds herself into me again. I’m ready to die right here on the spot. I pinch her hardened nipple.

“Bodhi!” Her head falls back against the wall as I suck and lick the skin down her neck to her bare shoulder. “Condoms … I have lots of condoms …”

“I saw that.” Grinning against her delicate flesh, I press my body harder to hers, allowing my other hand the chance to claim her other breast.

She arches into me, hands tugging my hair, encouraging me to keep going.

It’s funny how my mind went from feeling guilty about her age to working overtime to justify everything I want to do to her in this moment. She’s an adult. A consenting adult.

With condoms.

Lots of condoms.

I only need one, and if she continues to make those desperate little noises while rubbing herself against my dick, I’m not going to need any condoms.

The girl makes me so weak in the knees, I fear I might drop her. I lower both of our bodies to the floor. There’s a king-sized bed, a sofa on the balcony, even a chaise lounge in the corner of the bedroom, but I’m so damn desperate and high on Henna, the floor is as far as I can get us.

I settle my body between her open legs and push her top above her breasts with one hand while supporting my body over hers with my other hand. “You’re so fucking beautiful.” My attention lifts to her blue eyes.

The tip of her tongue darts out to wet her swollen lips. I want that tongue tasting me. My hips rock into her.

Fuck … I need inside of her.

“Take …” She swallows hard, her cheeks filled with heat. “Take off my shorts, Bodhi.”

Stealing a few moments to let those words sink in, I dip down and taste one of her nipples with a slow slide of my tongue over it before flicking it several times then sucking it hard.

“Jesus, Bodhi!” Her back bows off the floor, her hands clawing my back and my shoulders.

I do the same thing to her other breast, making her squirm and pant beneath me as I inch down her body, teasing her navel with the tip of my tongue, tracing the swirl of henna leading me even lower. Her hands return to my head, making claim to my hair, her bracelets clinking together.

Biting the material of her shorts, I tug it until the button comes undone. “What do you taste like, Henna?” I run my tongue along her skin just above her delicate polka dot panties.

Her heavy breaths fill the space around us as she lifts her pelvis from the floor. I run my nose along the inseam of her shorts, torturing myself as much as her, yet loving every second of it. God … I don’t want it to stop.

“Henna? Henna’s sexy friend? Breakfast!” Lauren calls from some place relatively close to the bedroom door that I feel fairly certain is not locked.

I freeze.

“In a minute,” Henna says in a voice so weakened by lust, there is no way Lauren hears her. “Don’t stop.”

I wince as Henna tugs my hair, trying to keep my head between her spread legs. She pushes her pelvis an inch higher.

I want to keep going—so much it hurts in very restricted places. Looking for my watch that isn’t on my wrist because she stole it last night, I’m reminded that I probably don’t have time for breakfast, and if I don’t get back to the hotel, I’m not going to have time for a shower and clean clothes—a ketchup-free shirt.

But … I only have two days left with Henna.

“Bodhi, please.”

Closing my eyes, I grip her ass with one hand, holding her to me while my lips brush the soft skin of her inner thighs, my tongue teasing her so close to the top I about lose it when she jerks and moans, lifting even higher onto her tippy toes. Her desperation multiplies mine.

“Acai bowls, fresh juice, croissants.” Lauren’s words come from a farther distance, but they still dampen my resolve.