I tangled my fingers in her windswept hair, pulling her down for a passionate kiss as she grinded against me, teasing my cock. I worked my fingers under the fabric of the skimpy bathing suit, stroking her while she played with her nipples.

  I leaned up and took one of her freckled tits in her mouth, making her moan, the sound lost in the sea breeze.

  Her pussy was wet and hot, aching for my cock.

  I couldn’t wait any longer. I grasped her hips, pushed that skimpy little thong aside, then sheathed myself in her. Her head tipped back, and she cried out. Pumping my hips, I had her ride up and down my cock.

  She was captivating. Her breasts bounced as I fucked her, and her lips were slightly parted as she panted in the humid air. She was small enough that my thumbs could hold her hips and I could tease her clit at the same time. Being in her felt decadent, forbidden.

  I didn’t deserve a woman like her. But she was everything I wanted.

  I wrapped my arms around her, my thrusts more erratic.

  “Come for me, Lexi,” I murmured, feeling her thighs tremble.

  She leaned back to balance her palms on my legs, giving me a better angle to fuck her tight pussy. I pounded into her, driving us higher and higher until we both came, crashing like waves on a beach.

  Lexi collapsed on top of me. The heavy breathing was the only sound between us.

  “I’m addicted to your pussy.” I kissed her swollen mouth then picked her up and carried her to the warm ocean to wash off the signs of our lovemaking.

  “Thank you for bringing me here,” I told her honestly as we floated in the warm, salty water.

  “This is the most fun you’re going to have all trip, I’m afraid,” she said. I kissed her, wrapping my body around her in the water.

  The sunset was deepening to an indigo as we walked hand in hand back to the house.

  On the porch, her parents saw us and started singing some duet from what I assumed was another Disney movie.

  “Ah, young love.” Cindy sighed. “I remember when we fell in love.”

  “I’m still in love with you, my Ariel,” Barry said to Cindy, giving her a peck on the lips.

  I could see why Lexi loved Florida and just loved life and people in general. Her parents were so unlike anyone I’d ever been around.

  “Come, eat, eat!” A plate piled with grilled fish and heaps of arugula salad with fresh orange slices and a drink with its own umbrella were set in front of me.

  “So,” her parents said, smiling at me. “Where did you and Lexi meet?”

  They don’t know.

  Fuck.

  49

  LEXI

  What a tangled web of lies we weave.

  I didn’t know how my parents were going to react to the fact that I was dating the company CEO. My mom and dad had always been very firm with me when I had gone off on my Disney summer jobs and internships, emphasizing that I could not, under any circumstances, become romantically involved with my superiors in the Disney hierarchy.

  “The Mouse will not approve,” my dad had said solemnly.

  “We met at an iguana meetup,” I said in a rush.

  “You have an iguana?” my dad asked Grayson.

  “No, I do not,” he said slowly.

  “He was walking past,” I interrupted, “and saw the iguanas. It was love at first sight.”

  “Yes, it was quite the sight,” Grayson said smoothly.

  I speared a scallop. “Nothing like fresh seafood.”

  “It is delicious, Mrs. Collins.”

  “Please, call me Cindy. We like to be casual here. This isn’t Manhattan. Relax! Put your feet up.”

  “It is nice not to have to wear a suit.” Grayson leaned back in his chair.

  My dad toasted him with a mojito.

  Grayson was the poster boy for polite, handsome, corporate boyfriend. He wasn’t snooty and hadn’t said a bad word about the town. He even kept his cool as my parents peppered him incessantly with questions about his childhood, which he masterfully deflected.

  Meanwhile, I could barely keep it together.

  “I’m sure Grayson is tired,” I finally said. “He’s been in Europe on a big important work trip, and he’s still jet-lagged.”

  “You poor thing. I remember when Disney flew me out to Euro Disney to help train the French Ariels,” my mother said. “My sleep schedule was off for a month. I’m going to make you some orange-and-mint tea. It’s my own special blend, herbal, no caffeine. Lexi, show Grayson where he’ll be sleeping.”

  “Oh my gosh, I’m not going to survive another day,” I whispered as Grayson padded behind me to my bedroom.

  Wait, my bedroom.

  I stopped short.

  “You can’t come in here.”

  He paused in the doorway. “Do your parents not want me to stay in here? I can sleep on the couch.”

  “Of course you can sleep here. You two are adults.”

  I screamed as my dad’s head appeared in the open bedroom window.

  “Your mom and I are fine with it. I left condoms on your bed.”

  “Dad, please.” I slammed the window shut.

  “There is a Motel 6 in the next town over. We can stay there.”

  “Alexandra.” My mom appeared in the doorway. “You cannot put that man in the Motel 6. There are bikers there, and they do not wash the sheets. What has gotten into you? I didn’t raise you to be like this. You’ve been in Manhattan too long. Grayson, here’s your tea and some toast with orange marmalade on it.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “It smells delicious, Cindy,” Grayson said in that rich voice.

  She beamed at Grayson and kissed him on the cheek. “Sleep tight!”

  I flopped down on the twin bed shoved in one corner of the room.

  Grayson sat on the fussy pink chair in front of my small desk. The already-small room seemed cramped with the huge six-foot-five man in it.

  I had not put a lot of thought into the sleeping situation. Between all my stuffed animals and novelty pillows, there was barely enough room for me on the bed. There was no way I was going to fit him on there too.

  I think this might have been a mistake.

  Grayson wordlessly set down the plate with the tea and the toast on the desk and picked up one of the many notepads I had lying around.

  Confused, I watched as he opened a drawer and took out a pink gel pen. The nib scratched on the notepaper, and then he held it up.

  The walls are paper thin. We should be cautious.

  I felt my mouth lift in a smile.

  He flipped to another page.

  I bet you’re glad we already had sex on the beach because I don’t think I could manage it with an audience.

  I stifled a laugh as he scrawled on a new page.

  Glad to see you turn that frown upside down.

  He smiled at me.

  I held out my hand for the notepad.

  I’m sorry my parents are so crazy.

  He took the notepad back, hesitated, then wrote.

  I’m jealous.

  I drew him a heart.

  But in a good way, he added.

  Not too late to go to the motel, I scrawled.

  He raised an eyebrow and took back the pen.

  I’d rather eat you out surrounded by the cold, soulless eyes of a thousand abandoned stuffed animals.

  He quickly looked outside then held up a finger to his lips.

  Almost gracefully, he knelt in front of me, hooked his fingers in the waist of the shorts, and slid them down.

  I lay back against the mound of stuffed animals.

  One of his large hands covered my mouth as he pulled at the thin straps of my bikini. His mouth was on me, licking my breast and sucking on my nipple. It was good thing he had my mouth covered because I would have cried out when his fingers slid under the swimsuit bottoms.

  He suckled my breasts while he stroked me, then he pulled the fabric down.

  I lifted my legs so he could slide the thong bikini bottoms off of me. He flung them to the carpet. I spread my legs for him as he dipped his head down to lick me, sucking on my aching clit, his tongue swirling down to dip at my opening then back up.

  He sucked and licked me to a frenzy while I held onto the arm that covered my mouth, my nails digging into his sun-kissed forearm. The muscle and sinew flexed under my hands as he held me down while he licked me, his tongue bringing me to the cresting wave of pleasure.

  A groan escaped through my nose as he milked the last of the pleasure.

  After he released me, I grabbed the notebook and scrawled in shaky handwriting, Damn.

  He left me there and grabbed the tea to take a sip as he regarded me.

  Then he wrote on the notepad, If your parents weren’t here, I’d fuck you ’til you screamed.

  Grayson had his sleeves rolled up and a pair of sunglasses on and the top few buttons of his dress shirt undone as we walked through the farmers market the next day. He was carrying a basket for my mother while she showed him around the market, telling him about how lots of restaurants from Orlando came here to purchase for their fine-dining menus.

  “Grayson seems like a good man,” my dad said casually. We were staffing the family orange stand where we sold orange scones, orange marmalade, orange juice, and of course oranges.

  “He is,” I agreed, still watching him with my mom.

  “Do you love him?” my dad asked after a moment.

  Did I love Grayson? I loved everything—the cute dog that the guy in the subway was carrying in a backpack, the chocolate-filled croissants at the bakery around the corner, the guy at the bodega who always sang the song from The Little Mermaid when he saw me, my favorite dark-pink sparkly gel pen that had the perfect flow rate and didn’t smear. I loved stickers, cake with lots of buttercream frosting, and the beach.

  But Grayson? It seemed a little trite to put what I felt for him in the same category. Grayson, with his notes, and the hat he bought for his pet rock, and the expression on his face when he talked about his mother, and the voice he used when he was having a conversation with Gizzy and he thought I wasn’t listening.

  “He’s—I—we’re …”

  My dad gave me a knowing look.

  “Words just don’t quite cut it. You need a song then. That’s what I feel for your mom—it’s bigger than love. It’s a whole song with dancing seashells singing the chorus.”

  “I need a whole Broadway musical for Grayson,” I said longingly.

  My dad squeezed me to him then said with forced cheeriness, “I hope you come and visit us occasionally. I know Dudley Grove isn’t as exciting as Manhattan, but we always love it when you’re here.”

  “I’ll come visit. I’ll come visit more,” I promised, feeling my throat close up.

  “You’re growing up, Lexi,” my dad said kindly. “This is how things go. You meet your Prince Charming, fall head over heels in love, and then he whisks you off to his castle even if that castle is in Manhattan.”

  I hugged my dad, suddenly feeling horribly homesick even though I was right here.

  “I’m thinking we’ll do fishing after this,” Dad said, giving me another hug. “Grayson seems like he’s up for anything.”

  “It’s a recent development,” I admitted, looking across the market to him, only to see a woman hurrying up to my mother.

  “You need to keep that monster away from Lexi,” the woman said loudly. “Don’t you know who he is?”

  50

  GRAYSON

  This was how it was going to be, wasn’t it? I would never be able to escape it—escape my father, escape the cellar, escape my past.

  “Now that is just plain rude, Mary Louise,” Cindy scolded the other woman.

  “You can’t allow poor little Lexi around him,” Mary Louise argued. “Look at him. He’s a brute. She’s your only daughter.”

  “This is none of your business.”

  “I just borrowed Emily Ragner’s book from the library,” Mary Louise pressed. “I was listening to that new podcast about unsolved mysteries, and they mentioned the case.” She flipped open the library book. There on the cover was my brother Aaron’s mother. I could still see the hatred in her eyes when she screamed at me, holding his bruised and broken body.

  I tried to steady my breathing. Don’t make a scene.

  Then Lexi was there, grabbing my hand.

  “You know what?” Lexi said to her parents. “I think we’re just going to go.”

  “No, you were going to stay another night here,” my mother protested. “Your dad had a big fishing afternoon planned.”

  That’s where my father had said he was taking me when—

  “I actually do need to get some work done,” I said to Cindy.

  “Do you have a girl trapped in your house?” Mary Louise demanded.

  Lexi’s mom turned around, opened up the top of her large water thermos she was carrying, and dumped it all over Mary Louise.

  The other woman screeched and sputtered.

  “How dare you?” She wagged her finger in Cindy’s face.

  “How dare you?” Cindy slapped her hand away. “Grayson is our guest. Grayson, I am so sorry.”

  I was already texting the pilot to ask him to get the plane ready.

  “Thank you for your hospitality,” I choked out, “but I don’t want to cause any more of a scene. You can stay, Lexi,” I added. “I’ll send the plane back for you.”

  I couldn’t be here any longer.

  “I’ll come with you,” she told me, though the sad look she gave her mother wasn’t lost on me.

  Lexi still seemed sad in the plane. The cloud cover was low as we flew into the city. The plane jostled us as the pilot navigated into Manhattan’s airspace.

  “I’m sorry I made you leave.”

  “You didn’t. It was my choice.”

  “I could have been more insistent that you stay.” I let out a long breath.

  “Oh, it’s not you,” she said, combing her fingers through her hair. “Even if I’d been there three months, I’d still feel homesick. Also doesn’t help that the Manhattan weather is giving London a run for its money. Besides that, must have been a shock.” She took my hand. “I can’t let you deal with that alone.”

  You cannot allow your father to ruin her life too, I told myself.

  I was trapping her with me—not in chains in a basement, but emotionally. Lexi felt obligated to shoulder my pain, and it would crush her. I knew, because I lived with it. Sure, she was bright, Florida sunshine now, but eventually, in a few months, years, a decade if I was lucky, it would be too much. The darkness would smother her, and she would be just as miserable as me.

  “You can stay in Florida. Not just for the weekend but forever if you want,” I said in a rush. “Don’t feel like you have to stay here for me. I don’t need you here.”

  It was clumsy and not what I meant.

  Lexi seemed slightly hurt, but then she replied, bright and chipper as always, “Like I said, you can’t get rid of me that easily. I do need this job.”

  “I can find you a new one,” I pressed. “A better one.”

  “Maybe,” she said, sounding unsure.

  Then the plane was landing.

  You suck at this, at everything.

  “Do you want to just get pizza?”

  “I’ll just take you home then.” We both spoke at the same time.

  “Oh, uh, sure. I guess you have work to do.”

  “No, we can get pizza,” I said quickly.

  “No, I should check in to see if I need to organize a fundraiser for Grenadine.”

  “So this is me,” Lexi said when the town car pulled up in front of the crumbling brick apartment building.

  I stepped out of the car and pulled out her bags from the trunk.

  “I’ll carry this up for you.”

  “I can do it,” she protested.

  “Do you have an elevator?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  I tipped my head. “You’re going to drag fifty pounds of oranges up three flights of stairs.”

  “Four, but fine. Just let me make sure my neighbors aren’t out,” she muttered.

  “Why, Lexi? I thought every stranger was a friend you just hadn’t met yet?” I teased.

  She grimaced. “In this instance, more like a busybody grandma you didn’t know you were related to.” She slowly twisted the key in the lock of the front door, poked her head inside, and silently waved me in.

  We took two steps before doors were flung open and people streamed into the lobby.

  “Mr. Richmond,” an elderly lady cried throwing herself into my arms. Two young women with her were crying.

  “Bless you, bless you.” They kissed my cheeks.

  “I have tamales for you to thank you for the food. What a blessing!”

  “Please keep your food for your boys,” Lexi told them, handing the foil-wrapped plate back to a young, dark-haired kid.

  Another elderly woman pinched my cheek.

  “Such a handsome man, and you’ve been so generous sharing groceries with us. I’m old and don’t have any children, and I think of you like a grandson,” a teary-eyed, blue-haired little old lady said. “A very hot, handsome grandson.”

  “Connie,” Lexi hissed.

  “Yes, please do keep her under control,” another elderly but more well-dressed woman said. “He’s very well-bred, as you can see. Good sir, I have a great-niece you may be interested in.”

  “No one wants your ratchet niece, Mrs. Turner,” another elderly woman hollered as McKenna, one of my assistants, helped her down the stairs.

  We pretended not to see each other as the woman, who I assumed must be her grandmother, railed at the other elderly woman.

  “Grenadine, please,” Lexi begged. “Grayson doesn’t want to hear all of this.”

  “He should have stayed out of the swamp if he doesn’t want to get dirty,” Grenadine declared.

  “Can I make a small request on the next grocery order?” Martha asked, pulling several coupons out of her pocket.

 

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