Stormy Love (Wet & Wild 1)

“Part of learning how to surf is understanding how to move like the waves. Bob and weave like them. Undulate like them. If you go dancing and dig your toes into the sand, it throws you off balance. It helps you to practice all the things we worked on in the water today.”

“That seems like a bit of a stretch,” she said with a grin.

“And yet it’s got you smiling,” he said. “Come on. There’s a bonfire and there’ll be lots of music, drinks, and food. It’ll be a good time. I promise.”

She giggled and the sound filled Ash with a latent joy. He watched her mull the proposition over in her mind as her gaze turned back out toward the water. He wanted to know why she was so hesitant. Why she kept pulling away from him when it was so obvious she didn’t want to. Was it conditioning? The way she was raised? Did she have her heart broken recently? Or maybe a friend was pushing her? He wanted to know what made her tick. What made her journey out to St. Barts in search of

a vacation.

There was always something with every person, and he wanted to know what drove her to the island.

“I admire your inventiveness,” Kallie said.

“In your world, is that a yes or a no to tonight?” Ash asked.

“If you want to go dancing with me, why don’t you just say so?”

Her head panned back around to him and he saw a fleeting glimpse of pain in her eyes. He reached for her hand and to one of her fingers, slowly inching her back toward him. He laced his fingers with hers and studied the pain behind her eyes.

Heartbreak.

A broken heart had sent her to the island he loved so dearly.

“I want to go dancing with you,” Ash said. “I want to hold you close and look into your eyes and talk with you like I did at lunch. I want to watch you smile as I twirl you around and I want to feed you drinks until you’re stumbling with elation and joy. Can we do that, Pretty Kallie? Will you let me give that to you?”

He watched her eyes dance between his for what seemed like an eternity. There it was. The truth behind his playful ways. He wanted to spend time with her. To talk with her. To hold her close to his body. She felt too good in the water and that damn table at lunch had put too much distance between them.

He wanted her like he had her. With their fingers laced and his arm tightly adhered around her waist.

“I’ll meet you at the Cabana around eight?” Kallie asked.

“Then I’ll definitely see you there.”

Ash walked the two of them back to his car before he dropped her off on the side of the road. He watched her walk back to her villa and noted which one she was in. He sped back to his place so he could get ready for the night, and he was strangely nervous. As he put on a pair of board shorts and buttoned down his polo shirt, he found that his hands were shaking.

Sure, he’d had plenty of women in his life. Plenty of conquests and one-offs to warm his bed with. But he never made anything serious. A bit of flirting, a bit of sass. Possibly a meal or two. Or maybe some drinks. The women came flying out of their bikinis and he would be there to catch their naked bodies against his. He enjoyed the fleeting flings. The women in every place he went. They all had something new to give, and he wanted to explore the beauty of their bodies.

Like Italian women with their fluid tongue in bed. Or Australian women and their need for dominance. Or Hawaiian women and their thick asses that bounced luxuriously against his hips whenever he pounded into them from behind.

But never had he made things serious. Perhaps he was worried that women would target him for his money. For the trust fund he’d be able to live off of for the rest of his life. His parents had set one up for him to be released when he turned thirty, and right on his birthday, he packed up his shit and left. He grew tired of his family’s antics. Of the constant need to project their fortune onto those they found below them. His father was a stickler for tradition and his mother was never allowed to leave the house without being perfectly pinned up. It made him sick, and all because his father could trace their fucking lineage back to some bullshit European royalty.

He came from old money, and when old money talked, people listened.

Women especially.

As soon as they figured out who his family was, dollar signs appeared in their eyes. Always. Their charms and tunes changed, and suddenly they were throwing themselves at him. Willing to change anything and everything about themselves to garner a life of luxury for the rest of it.

But maybe Kallie was different.

She seemed different.

Maybe that was why he was so nervous.

He shrugged at himself in the mirror before smoothing out his shirt. It didn’t matter anyway. She was a good time, and in a couple of weeks she would be gone, and he would be on to his next adventure. Maybe he’d fly to the Maldives and see what they had to offer. Spend a few days in Bora Bora soaking up the waves. Or maybe he’d fly back to Hawaii and do some night surfing before burying himself into a toned, thick-thighed surfer with tits that overflowed her wet suit.

He went down to the Cabana and left his bungalow behind. Ash was a guest of the island in the more exclusive bungalow that sat away from everyone and everything else. Completely private with all of the amenities anything like that could offer. Jetted tubs. Walk-in, steam-mist showers. The perfect view of the sunset from his infinity pool and a hot tub he could infuse with essential oils to help him relax.

Not that anyone else had to know that, of course.