“Do you love her?” I don’t know why that makes my heart ache, but it does. It shouldn’t.
“I love her the way my sixteen-year-old self can love her.” He shakes his head. “But I’m not in love with her. It was just assumed that we would marry. We were thrown together from the time we were in diapers. I didn’t have a choice.” His eyes meet mine. “But she was my friend.”
He sits quietly. The sound of birds chirping is the only thing that disturbs the heavy silence that cloaks the car like a water-logged blanket.
“I just want to see if she’s okay. That’s all.”
I nod. “Okay.”
“Thank you for coming with me.” He smiles at me. Then he cups my face in his palm and drags the pad of his thumb across my lower lip. “I really like you,” he tells me. “But if you want me to put you on a plane back home, now that you know the truth, just say the word. I’ll make it happen.”
“I want to stay here. With you. Please.”
He smiles and puts the car in gear. “Okay then.” He pulls away from the curb, but he suddenly hits the brakes when a woman comes out onto the veranda of his old house. She shades her hands with her eyes. He stares at her.
“Is that your mom?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
But he doesn’t wait. He pulls away and drives off. I catch him staring into the rear view mirror. He doesn’t know that I see him. And I’m not even sure he realizes he’s doing it, but his eyes are trained on his mother. It’s not anger I feel in his glare. It’s hurt. But I’m sure he doesn’t want me to know, so I turn up the radio and start to sing along. Loudly. He jerks his eyes from the mirror and looks at me, then smiles broadly. He shakes his head and then he starts to sing along too.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Hotel.” He doesn’t say more. Just that one word. My gut twists, but it’s not an altogether unpleasant sensation. Not when I’m with him. For the first time ever, I’m not afraid of the flip in my belly when a man looks at me.
Josh
Star doesn’t try to get my wheelchair out of the backseat when we get to the hotel. That both surprises and elates me, all at once. As a disabled man, I find it really common for people to want to do things for me. And as just a man, it makes me resent them—or at least resent the fact that they might think I can’t do for myself.
I transfer from the car into my chair, after dragging it out of the backseat by myself. Star has her bag slung over her shoulder by the time I join her on the sidewalk, and mine is sitting in the trunk. She doesn’t reach for it, but I see her eyes slide to it over and over again while she waits. “I’m guessing you’ll tell me if there’s ever anything you need help with, right?” she says quietly.
I grab my bag and set it in my lap. “Right.” I smile at her. She makes me feel more like a man than anyone has in a really long time. Then she takes her bag off her shoulder and sets it in my lap too.
“Good,” she says. “Carry mine, too.” She grins and walks toward the door.
I bark out a laugh and she looks over her shoulder at me.
“What?” she asks.
“Nothing.” But my heart is beating a quick rhythm in my chest. It’s happiness.
She opens the door and steps to the side so I can go in front of her, and I don’t resent it in the least, since I’m carrying both my luggage and hers.
“This place is swanky,” she says, looking around the lobby.
“Nothing but the best for you, Star.” I cup my hands around my mouth and whisper, “Just wait till you see the selection of porn I brought with me.”
She giggles and her cheeks turn red. The guy behind the counter looks at her, even after she steps out of the way. She jerks her thumb toward me and he finally notices me. “May I help you, sir?” he says.
Star wanders around the hotel lobby while I check us in. She’s so fucking pretty with her hair rolled up in a messy knot. One leg of her pants is pushed up over her calf, and I remember her raising it to scratch an itch when she was in the car. She hasn’t pulled it back down yet.
“She looks like…” the clerk says. But then he shakes his head. “Never mind.”
I’m guessing Star doesn’t want anyone to find out who she is. When she and her sisters are together, they get mobbed by fans who want a piece of their clothing or a lock of their hair. Frantic fans are not opposed to jerking the hair right out of their heads.
“She’s not,” I say.
He looks at me and raises his brow.
“She gets that all the time,” I tell him, forcing out a fake laugh. “Crazy, isn’t it?”
He gets us checked in, and then he sends a bellhop up with our luggage. “Did you make a wish?” I ask Star when I find her beside a fountain.
She shakes her head. “I don’t believe in fairy tales.”
I reach into my pocket and take out a quarter. “I believe enough for both of us.” I pass her the quarter.
She takes it, her hand hesitant. “So, how does it work?”
“Close your eyes really tight and wish for your heart’s desire.”
She closes her eyes, pinching them closed, her brows furrowing. She opens one eye. “Am I doing this right?”
“Make the wish and throw the fucking quarter,” I pretend to growl.
She mouths something really quietly, and I wish I could read lips so I’d know what her heart’s desire might be. But I have no idea. She tosses the quarter into the air and it goes plop into the water.
She looks at me skeptically. “That’s it? That’s all it is?”
“Did you expect a genie and smoke and shit?”
She throws her hands up. “Well, yeah! Or at least some whimsical music.”
I start to hum the theme from The Twilight Zone and she punches me on the shoulder.
“You don’t have to get violent,” I tell her. I pretend to be wounded, rubbing at my arm.
“I’ll kiss it and make it better,” she tells me, and blows me a kiss across the palm of her hand.
I go hard immediately. “We had better get to the room.” I turn toward the elevator and push my way toward it.
“Why are you in such a hurry?”
I waggle my brows at her. “Because you just promised to kiss something of mine, and I’d like to be in the room when you do it.”
“Oh,” she breathes. Then she smiles at me.
We go into the room and she stops when she sees there’s only one bed. “Is it okay?” I ask.
She nods. It’s a quick jerk.
“I can get you a separate room, if you want.”
“I’d rather sleep with you,” she says quietly.
“I’d rather you sleep with me, too.” She hides her face in her arm and goes to look at the bathroom.
“There’s a Jacuzzi,” she says.
“You want to use it?” I hold my breath.
“Maybe,” she says softly.
My heart jumps. I didn’t start this with any expectations aside from getting here and closing some doors to my past that I left open once upon a time.
“You want to use it with me?” I ask. I hold my breath again.
“Maybe,” she says again.
She falls back onto the bed and covers her eyes with her bent arm.
“I’m not very good at this kind of thing,” she says. Her voice is muffled by her arm. “I might be really bad at it.”
“I haven’t had sex since I was sixteen, so I’m probably worse.” God, it hurts to say that out loud.
“I’ve never done it on purpose.” She blows out a breath.
“What?”
She sits up, leaning on her elbows. “I kind of lied. I told you I never met a dick I liked. And that I’ve met my share. I lied.” Her brown eyes meet mine. “I lied. I’m sorry.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the only intimacy I’ve ever known is intimacy that was forced on me. Against my will.” She blows out a breath.
“But I thought you said—”
br /> She cuts me off. “I lied. Even my parents think that I sleep around. I don’t want them to know that the very idea of sex scares me.” She shrugs. “So I let them think it.”
“So you’ve never…”
She shakes her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
I toy with a string on the bedspread while I try to put my thoughts together. I can’t think of a damn thing to say that won’t sound stupid. “You want to go swimming?” I ask.
She sits up all the way. “Swimming?”
“There’s a pool.” I roll to the window and point. I saw it on the way in. It has handicapped lifts. And it’s in a sunroom-type enclosure, so it should be warm.
“You can swim?”
I scoff. “Mad skills, woman,” I say. I flex my muscles at her and she laughs.
“I didn’t bring a suit.” She looks disappointed.
I unzip my bag and pull out a big T-shirt, and toss it to her. “I won’t look.”
“Okay,” she says quietly.
She goes into the bathroom and changes. She comes back out and I’m already wearing the trunks I brought. “Do I look all right?” she asks.
I let my eyes roam up her naked legs and higher. Her nipples pebble against my shirt. “You look good enough to eat,” I tell her.
She looks away, but she’s grinning.
“I’m going to get you so wet,” I whisper to her in the elevator.
She giggles and hides her face.
The pool is completely empty when we get there. The sun is just going down and the sky is painted in shades of purple and pink.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she asks me.
“Yes, you are.” And, good God, she is. She takes my breath away.
She grins at me again and I can’t take my eyes off her. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Only the ones who have pants I want to get into.”
“Race you to the deep end,” she suddenly yells, and she runs down the steps of the pool, right into the water. It reaches up to grab her and envelops her. She stands up and brushes her wet hair back from her face. “Chicken,” she calls. Then she dives in and swims for the other end of the pool.
Damn, but she can make me laugh.
I don’t even wait for the lift to get set up. I set the brakes on my chair, and go right over the side into the water. “It’s fucking freezing,” I tell her when I surface.
She splashes me. “You looked like you could use a little cooling off.”
“I’m not the only one. The whole way here, you looked like you wanted to have me for dinner.” I push my palms against the water and throw a wall of water her way.
She blows air out through her wet lips and wipes her face. “That wasn’t very nice.”
I chuckle. “I think the idea of you having me for dinner is a very nice one.”
She shakes her head and starts to swim in the other direction. “You’d have to catch me first.”
I reach out and grab her ankle. Then I jerk her back against me. Her legs wrap around my waist, and I think she’s about to start getting frisky with me, but she just tips her hips and dunks me under the water.
“That wasn’t very nice,” I tell her, mimicking her earlier tone when she told me the same thing. I wipe my face.
She unwraps her legs from around me but she doesn’t move away. I can feel the heat from her body through the cold water.
“How did you learn to swim?” she asks.
“My parents used to take me.” I shake my hair, showering her with water drops, and she squeals.
“How’d you re-learn to swim?” She nods toward my legs, which are under water.
“Rehab. But it wasn’t too hard. What about you?”
“Emilio wanted something to keep us all busy during the summer, so he got us lessons at the pool.” She snickers. “He wasn’t quite used to having five girls underfoot at once. It took him a while to get used to us.”
She pushes off the side of the pool with her feet and slides across the surface of the water. The end of her T-shirt lifts up, and I can see her panties.
“Do you have paw prints on your panties?” I ask.
She grins at me over her shoulder. “That’s for me to know and for you to find out.”
I hook her foot and draw her back to me. She paddles as hard as she can, but she can’t get away. She squeals when I throw the edge of the T-shirt up and palm her ass. “Nice,” I tell her. I look into her face. “Is it all right when I touch you?” I ask her quietly.
She goes still, floating on the surface of the water. “I’ll let you know if it’s not.”
“Promise?”
“Promise,” she replies.
“I kind of need for you to say yes.”
She sputters. “To what?”
“When I touch you, I need for you to let me know it’s okay.”
“Yes.”
“Deal?”
“Yes.”
I palm the back of her head and push it underwater. Then I take off for the deep end of the pool. One thing I can say for sure: this is the most fun I’ve had in a long time. And I hope it doesn’t end. At least not anytime soon.
Star
I’ve never seen a pool lift in action, so Josh has to tell me how to lower it down to him and how to lift him up. It’s a lot easier than someone might think. When he’s up, he transfers to his chair and wraps a towel around his shoulders.
He holds out a towel to me.
“I’m okay.” I wave him off.
His eyes linger on my boobs. “I can sorta kinda see through your shirt,” he tells me, his voice quiet and rough.
I look down. He’s right. “Sorry.” I snatch the towel from his hand and wrap it around myself.
“No need to apologize.” He laughs. “Any time you want to give me a peek at the goodies, you go right ahead. But I’d rather you not show them to anyone else in the elevator.”
My teeth start to chatter.
“You should get in the Jacuzzi when we get back to the room. It’ll warm you up.”
Words tumble from my lips before I can even think. “I will if you’ll join me.”
I want to bite it back immediately when he doesn’t respond.
“Or not,” I say, just to close the space.
“Okay,” he says. He grins at me. “You talked me into it.”
I roll my eyes. “You needed so much coercion.”
“If you tell the Reeds how easy I am, I’ll never live it down.”
“I’m going to tell them you put out on the first date.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “This isn’t our first date.”
“Okay, third date.”
“Putting out on the third date is okay.”
We go into the hotel room and I go straight to the big tub and start the water. “Are your legs sensitive to hot and cold?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No. Why do you ask?”
I shrug. “I’ve been doing some research.”
He grins at me. “Seriously?”
I nod, heat creeping up my cheeks as embarrassment paints my face. “A little. I know some people have sensitivity to hot and cold.”
He shakes his head again. “Not me. So make it comfortable for you and I’ll deal with it. I plan to have you between my thighs in two seconds flat.”
I startle. “You do?”
He looks uncertain. “Unless you’d rather stay on the other end.”
I shimmy out of my panties and he eyes them where I kick them across the room with my toe.
“Those are so hot.”
I giggle. “They’re kitten paw prints.”
“Hot.” He doesn’t say more. Just that one word. “Or maybe that’s in my head because they touched your pussy.” He shrugs. “I don’t know.”
My heart starts to thump. “You say the dirtiest things.”
He lays a hand over his chest. “I do try.”
I test the water with my toe and then sink down in it. I had added bubble bath,
so I don’t feel strange at all about pulling the wet T-shirt off my body when I get in. I let it thwack against the floor. He looks at me, hidden beneath a mountain of warm bubbles. “You sure it’s okay if I join you?”
“You can join me,” I tell him. I point to the other end of the tub. “Over there.”
He transfers to the edge of the tub and then lowers himself into the water using the handrails. He gets in with his bathing trunks still on.
“You can take those off,” I tell him, letting my lips play against a lump of bubbles.
“I’m good.” He splashes me and I blink the water from my eyes.
“I mean, really, I’ve already seen it. Had it in my mouth and everything.”
He groans and throws his head back. “Will you stop talking about it?” He pretends mock outrage.
He reaches into the water and pulls my foot into his lap. He gives it a little jerk and my bottom bounces along the bottom of the tub as I scoot closer to him. He starts to knead my foot. “Does this feel good?” he asks.
I nod. “Yes.”
His thumbs press into the softy, meaty arch of my foot and I let out a little whimper. “Can I assume that still feels good?”
“Yes.” I close my eyes. His hands leave my foot for a second and I open my eyes to find him reaching for a bar of soap. He lathers his hands up with it, and my insides clench up tight. I can barely breathe.
“Just for your feet,” he explains. Then his soap-slickened hands start to slide around my foot. He slips between my toes and rubs down my heel. “Your feet are so damn pretty.”
“Don’t tell me you have a foot thing.”
He growls again. “I have a thing for every part of your body.”
I bend my head and play with a mound of soap bubbles with my lips, for lack of anything earth-shattering to say.
“Does my chair bother you?” he asks suddenly.
I glance over at where he left it. “It’s not in the way.”
He shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?” His fingers dig into the soft part of my foot and it feels so good that I let out a little mewling sound. He must like it because he starts to smile.
“My legs. My paralysis. Does it bother you? Make you feel strange at all?”