Counting On You (Counting the Billions 2)

“Not trying to impress you,” I promised her, even though that was only half-true. “I had actually arranged for this before we even got here.”

“How did you know we were going to end up in bed so quickly?” Abby asked in mock surprise. “What if I’d wanted to go out exploring?”

I grinned at her and shook my head. Just then, there was a knock on the door. “Let me get it,” I told Abby, giving her a soft kiss.

She settled back against the pillows while I went to the door, directing the hotel worker inside with his cart and tipping him to make him go away. I took the cart the rest of the way into the bedroom where Abby was waiting, first popping open the bottle of champagne and pouring her a glass.

Abby giggled as she accepted it. “I don’t think I’ve ever had champagne with lunch before,” she said. “Unless you count mimosas with brunch.”

I snorted and shook my head, holding out a tray of chocolates to her. “This isn’t the kind of lunch that your mother would ever approve of,” I told her, and I was rewarded with the slow grin spreading across Abby’s face.

I dragged the cart closer to the bed so that we could reach it from there, and then I got back into the bed. I curled up next to Abby, wrapping my body around hers, and slowly fed her a chocolate-covered strawberry while she giggled, her eyes gone dark with lust.

Slowly, I raised my glass of champagne, looking seriously into her eyes. “Thanks for going away this weekend with me and letting me spoil you,” I told her.

Abby’s eyes flared briefly wider, and I could tell

she liked the sound of that: me spoiling her. Then she shook her head. “Thank you for spoiling me,” she said softly. “And I just hope that you’re getting as much out of this as I am.”

I kissed her again, but my mind was focused on the words she had said. She hoped that I was getting as much out of this as she was? Couldn’t she tell how happy I was to be here? How relaxed I was around her, in ways that I never got to be with anyone else? If anything, I was the lucky and spoiled one here.

I thought back to the other women I had dated before Abby, though. None of them had been as grateful. No, most of them had acted like they deserved for me to spoil them. Especially Ivy. She had acted like if we weren’t having weekends away like this, then I was doing something wrong. I shook my head, trying to forget about those memories, but Abby was frowning up at me.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked me, and I could hear the worry in her voice.

For a moment, I thought about lying to her. Telling her that it was just something to do with work, maybe. But I didn’t want to lie to her, especially not on a weekend like this. A weekend that was about us. I finally shrugged. “I’m just thinking that no one I ever dated before really cared about things like this,” I told her. “They just expected it.”

Abby snorted and shook her head. “You should know by now not to compare me to the rest of them,” she said, looking amused.

“I don’t,” I told her. “I don’t compare you.” She’d be the easy winner if I did, but I wasn’t comparing them. It was just interesting, the differences. I had never expected to meet someone like Abby. It made me wonder if we really were destined for something more together. Or if those differences would serve to be the undoing of all of this. Because after all, maybe I needed to be with a woman who was happy being in the spotlight. Maybe that was the only kind of woman I could possibly be with, in light of who I was.

I tried to put those thoughts out of my mind right now, though. I wanted this to be a nice, relaxing weekend, just the two of us. No pressures or stress. We could worry about the rest of it later, but for now, the press couldn’t get to us.

Abby smiled easily back at me. “I believe you,” she said. For a while, it was silent as we ate the food that had been brought up. I could tell Abby was turned on, her lusty eyes never leaving mine as she sucked errant fruit juice off her fingertips. But then, she slipped fluidly from the bed, her eyes never leaving mine. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s check out this pool that you were so excited about.”

I laughed and followed her out of bed, stripping off my robe and leaving it in a pile on the floor. “Oh now you want to swim?” I asked teasingly. I was already half-hard, but it wasn’t anything she hadn’t seen before. I wanted nothing more than to haul her back to bed, that was the thing. But I wasn’t really complaining. This weekend was about her, and I wanted to do whatever she wanted us to do while we were here. Even if I didn’t totally understand her impulses.

To be honest, that was what I liked about her. I liked that she knew what she thought and what she believed in, and that she wanted to go with it, whatever it was. I wanted to follow her in business. I wanted to follow her in everything.

It wasn’t a feeling I had ever had with anyone else before. Even with Ivy, I had tried so hard to find a balance between her personality and mine. And it wasn’t that I wasn’t looking for any sort of balance between me and Abby. It was that it didn’t feel like I had to try so hard for that balance. Somehow, we already complemented one another.

She was beautiful, special, incredible. The best woman I had ever met in my life. And she had already broken up with me before. But now, I was determined to show her just how special I thought she was. Just how perfect I thought she was. No, I didn’t want her to get away from me this time. This weekend was all about her, her wants and her needs. If I was able to play my cards right, then we weren’t going to have to worry, this whole weekend. We were going to have the place to ourselves to do whatever we wanted.

I loved that idea. And it seemed like Abby, now that she was overcoming her initial shock, was just as on board as I was.

I slipped into the water of the pool, watching for a moment as Abby floated on her back in the center of the pool. I couldn’t draw my eyes away from the easy way she put her body on display. She was totally comfortable with my eyes roving over her naked skin.

And that was a heady feeling indeed.

I slipped in the water myself and then reached for her body, out there in the pool. She came towards me, wordless, something hot burning in her eyes. I pulled her naked body against mine, the caress of the water an easy friction between the two of us.

I kissed her, pulling her body against mine, supporting her above the water, holding her close. My hands slid effortlessly down her sides, smoothing along her skin. I couldn’t help but smile at the way she grinned shyly up at me.

Abruptly, I pulled back, grinning at her. “You said you wanted to swim,” I reminded her, pushing myself back away from her body, swimming off toward the opposite end of the pool. Abby stared at me for a moment as though she didn’t understand, as though it took her mind a second to catch up to what her body was doing. I laughed as I watched her. Then, I sent a large wave in her direction, watching it crest and fall just before it could cover her.

But the water licked at her bare breasts, stirring something inside of me. I grinned at her. She laughed and shook her head, splashing water back in my direction. “You’re terrible,” she informed me. Then, with a wicked grin: “I thought this weekend was all about me.”

I laughed and splashed more water toward her. What followed was a full-out splash fight between the two of us, until we were both laughing and gasping for air.