“I plan to do more tonight,” he said, lowering his head to kiss me. I melted against him, one hand on his chest. I didn’t know what weird power he had over me, but I felt as free and untroubled as I had years ago, meeting my enigmatic, sexy boss in his hotel room at the W. The same giddy intoxication filled me, this time without the help of champagne. Over half a decade of comfortable familiarity with each other, getting used to the day-to-day had made us feel more like a single unit than two separate people. And sometimes, being two separate people could be exciting and mysterious.
Then, El-Mudad came back and announced, “The toilet flushes so quietly!”
I lowered my forehead to rest against Neil’s shirtfront and sighed in dismay.
“Did I interrupt something?” El-Mudad asked, laughing.
“Just Sophie’s regrets about being in a relationship with two men,” Neil explained wryly. “But good news about the toilets.”
“You know, I think I’m going to go upstairs,” I said with a grim, closed-mouth smile. “Enjoy the plumbing.”
“I would rather enjoy your—” Neil cut himself off and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Nope.”
“You heard the way it sounded as you were saying it, didn’t you?” El-Mudad asked. He waved me on. “We’ll be up in a moment. Once we figure out how to salvage the mood.”
I pointed my finger at both of them in turn, scolding, “You’re both gross. You are super icky gross boys.”
I turned all the lights on in the sitting room of our private suite and used the controls to open the glass wall wide. Though the jets were turned off in the hot tub, steam rose from the crystal-clear water, and my skin broke out in goose bumps at the thought of submerging myself. I let my fingers drift across the surface of the water as I walked onto the deck. I’d never really taken much of an interest in astronomy before—I had been fully twenty-seven years old before I knew that there was a difference between astronomy and astrology—but the stars were so hypnotic I wasn’t sure I would ever stop looking at them. I wondered if we could take the yacht to Iceland, to see the Northern Lights. I supposed we could really go anywhere that had water. And we wouldn’t even have to be away from home since the boat was kind of a house.
I laid down on the deck in my cream-colored Jenny Packham chiffon halter jumper so I could see even more of the sky. We could just live on the boat, like explorers. We could travel around the world and never have to think about what other people thought of us or what someone might say about the way we lived.
That would be so cool.
And so unrealistic. Obviously, we couldn’t uproot Olivia and keep her on a boat all the time. And just because things were strained between my mom and me, I didn’t want to end that relationship forever. I loved the people in our lives. It was the actually having to deal with what they thought of us and the fact that we would probably always have to hide a significant part of our lives that sucked.
There were so many things I wanted to do. So many things I had to get started on. But I didn’t know how.
I heard Neil and El-Mudad’s voices as they came up the stairs.
“Sophie?” Neil called into the bedroom.
“No, I’m out here,” I said, climbing to my feet. “I was looking at the stars.”
El-Mudad came out to join me and slipped his arm around my waist, looking up at the sky. His eyes met mine again, and he brushed my hair back from my bare arms. “What a coincidence. So am I.”
The corniest, most saccharine lines somehow always sounded unbelievably sexy coming from him.
He leaned down and kissed my shoulder, reaching for the clasp of my jumper’s halter top. It released, and the deep v-neck fell the short distance left to my waist, baring my skin right out there in the open.
I loved being naked outside. Neil and I had spent hours of our honeymoon lying naked under the sun, floating nude in the waves and making love on an outdoor bed under the stars. We skinny-dipped all the time in our own pool. But something about being so isolated out there on the sea made me feel more exposed. My nipples hardened as he kissed his way up my neck, and he covered one breast with his palm.
“Starting without me?”
“Just making conversation,” El-Mudad said, lowering his head to take my nipple into his mouth.
I ran my fingers through his soft black hair. “Waiting for you.”
“Five more minutes and you would have already been fucking right here on the deck,” he said with a knowing half-smile.