Until We Fly (Beautifully Broken 4)

She thrusts her chest out and her perky tits are in my face, perfect, young and lush. My dick is rock hard by this point.

“You can do your own front,” I growl. “In fact, put your suit back on. You’re not a stripper. You don’t know if someone will show up here.”

She cocks her head and keeps her chest thrust proudly out. “No one will. It’s just you and me.”

“For now,” I tell her firmly. “But you never know. Stop acting like a bar whore and put your clothes on.”

The words come out before I can stop it, a reaction to my own frustration, to my own gut reaction at her nakedness.

Her face falls and her eyes shutter closed, she’s expressionless now, sullen as she reaches for her top.

“I didn’t realize I was so offensive,” she mutters. “I’m sorry. I’ll just leave you alone out here.”

She stalks away and I can hear her heels clicking on the pier with every step she takes, as she gets further and further away.

I feel awful for crushing her. And I did crush her. I saw it in her eyes before she guarded them. I saw it in the way her shoulders fell, the way she sucked in her breath at my words.

I don’t know why I said what I said… except that I want her to find her dignity.

I know, somehow I know, that this isn’t really Nora. Nora Greene

doesn’t act like this. So why she feels the need to act like a bar whore around me, I have no fucking clue.

All it’s doing is making it harder on me. Harder to not take her up on her proposition.

With a start, I realize that’s exactly what she’s doing. She’s making it harder on me to say no.

With a groan, I roll my eyes and cast my line again.

Fuck. Like I need that. I’m having a hard enough time saying no already.

***

Nora

Fuck him.

I don’t need this shit.

I storm into my room and yank a t-shirt and yoga capris out of a drawer. I’m here to help him, out of the goodness of my heart, and he wants to treat me like a common whore?

What the hell?

What is wrong with him that he won’t just take me up on my offer? Jesus.

And there was no need to be so mean.

His words made my hands shake… I’m not a whore.

I pull on my clothes and twist my hair into a bun at my neck. I’m just starting to throw my clothes back into my bag, when I catch sight of a picture sitting next of the lamp… an old photograph, framed in sea shells.

It’s Brand, Gabe and Jacey.

Brand and Gabe must be around twelve, which means Jacey is just a bit younger. They’re tanned and smiling and lying on the beach with popsicles. Their mouths are red and Jacey’s got her arms wrapped around Brand’s waist.

Something about that picture gives me pause, and makes me stop packing.

Being only twelve, I’m sure Brand hadn’t even begun to notice Jacey yet… she was a couple of years younger after all. But it does show that even way back then, Jacey was clinging to Brand.