What To Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection Part Two (9 page)

“I can’t get enough of you.” His voice was raspy and low.

“Me too.” I turned my head and kissed his hard chest before snuggling back into his arms.

We laid there for a while in comfortable silence. I had no idea where I was or who might walk in, yet it didn’t bother me. Somehow I knew nothing would happen to me while I was in Jack’s arms.

“As much as I’d rather take you upstairs to my room and start round two now, I’m going to take you out as I planned. I know you didn’t come all this way to see the inside of my suite, so I’m going to show you some of my favorite places on the island.” He gently kissed the top of my head and I felt my heart swell a little.

We drove in the dark for almost a half hour, half of the time spent winding our way up and around a narrow road. I was glad I wasn’t driving, because I was barely able see the road and I knew we were getting higher, as I felt my ears pop as we made our slow ascent. Jack pulled to the side of the road as we reached flat land. He came around and opened my door and took my hand to help me from the Jeep. He reached in the back and pulled out a blanket and laced my fingers through his, tugging me to follow.

We walked through the darkness onto a grassy field. There were no other cars in sight and we were far from streetlights and noise. Jack spread the blanket out and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me gently down to the blanket. I wasn’t sure where we were or what we were doing, but I didn’t care when Jack’s arms were wrapped around me.

“Close your eyes.”

I did as instructed and closed my eyes, although it was so dark outside that the view didn’t actually change that much. Jack positioned me on my back and then I felt him lie next to me, holding my hand.

“Okay, open.” I opened my eyes slowly and gasped at the sight. A million stars danced and twinkled, so close it looked as if I could reach my hand out and grab one.

“Wow, this is incredible.” I stared up in awe of the lights that were dancing in the sky.

Jack held my hand and lifted my arm pointing to the sky, slowly tracing the trail between the brightest stars. “The Big Dipper.” He connected the dots to seven bright stars with our joined hands. There were four shaped together to form the bowl and three to form the handle. “The Little Dipper.” He connected the dots to trace the next picture, close to the first one. He pointed out all the named constellations he knew and then we took turns finding our own pictures in the sky. I found a heart and a tree; he found a dog and a bike. We lay there together, both of us on our backs, hand in hand for hours talking and drawing pictures in the sky.

“Tell me about your last girlfriend,” I asked softly as we studied the sky.

“Question number nine. This one was wasted, Syd” Jack chuckled. “I was sixteen and we went out for three months. She dumped me when I got caught making out with her best friend.”

I laughed; surely he was kidding, but he didn’t say more. “Are you saying you haven’t had a girlfriend since you were sixteen?”

“Yep.”

I turned on my side, propping myself up on my elbow to look at him. “You don’t expect me to believe that a gorgeous man like you, who is incredible in bed, has only had one girlfriend, when he was sixteen?”

“I’m glad you think I’m incredible in bed.” His voice was so damn sexy.

“Don’t try to change the subject, Jack, we agreed that we each got to ask ten questions that got ten truthful answers. You told me you had 500 to 1,000 partners?”

He took a deep breath in and exhaled loudly. “I told you the truth both times. I had one girlfriend, but lots of partners.”

“So all of the others were one night stands?” I knew he had to have had lots of casual sex in order to have so many partners, but something about only having one girlfriend freaked me out a bit.

“No, Syd. Some of them were more than one night stands. But I wouldn’t say that any of them were my girlfriends, other than when I was sixteen.” His tone was getting stronger and more defensive.

“Define girlfriend.” I thought maybe we had different definitions of the terms.

He was quiet for a minute. “Someone you see on a regular basis that you care for and have a mutually exclusive relationship with.”

Okay, so I couldn’t chalk his answer up to a difference in a definition. How could this gorgeous man who had just taken me to his favorite spot to show me the stars not have found someone to have a relationship with? There must have been women clamoring at the opportunity. “I can’t imagine you lacked the opportunity. Is it the mutually exclusive part that you weren’t interested in?”

He was quiet for a long moment. I liked that he didn’t just spit out an answer for the sake of hearing himself speak, as many men would have done. He seemed to give my questions due consideration before he responded. “I enjoy sex and spending time with women. But I have my business and a life and I guess I never found anyone that made me want to complicate things.”

“Complicate things?” You see having a girlfriend as a complication?” I couldn’t hide the appall in my voice.

His tone changed and I could tell he was getting more defensive. “How did your relationship end? I’d call that complicated.”

I rolled back on my back and took a deep breath. He was right, relationships were complicated. A week or two of fun with someone like we were doing now was probably much more simple.

Jack lifted himself and brought his face close to mine. “I’m sorry, babe, I didn’t mean that to come out the way it did.” He kissed me chastely on the mouth.

“It’s okay. I think it only bothered me because you are probably right. I always believed in happily ever after, but maybe those endings really are only for fairytales.”

“No.” I jumped at his booming response, startled; his voice was stern and unexpected. “You deserve a happily ever after, don’t listen to my shit.” He lifted himself up and reached out his hand to help me up. My stupid questions had upset him again. Jack had given me a great day at the beach, a fun dinner with friends, and a sweet evening under the stars, and I had ruined it with more prodding.

The drive home seemed longer than the drive there. We both were quiet and our conversation was limited to discussing the radio station and Jack pointing to a few landmarks as we passed by. It was the first time since I met him that there was any uncomfortable silence.

I could hear the music blaring and people having fun at the outdoor poolside bar as we passed through the open air lobby. “Do you want to go have a drink?” I wanted to change the mood, but wasn’t sure how to do it.

“I have to get up early in the morning. The guys and I are taking a day trip over to the island of Paui for an all day fishing trip. Our flight leaves at 7am.” His voice was distant and my heart sank at his response. He was ending our fling. I knew what it was when it started, but we had so much fun and chemistry I had let myself get lost in it. I couldn’t let him see me get upset.

“That sounds like fun.” I did my best perky and carefree impression.

Jack walked me to my room and I tried to hide my disappointment. He kissed me and watched the door close before leaving. It was the first time since I met him that we didn’t make any plans to see each other again. Inside my room, I didn’t cry, although I was sad. Sienna had been right, I had started to have feelings for Jack and needed to be careful and see it for what it was, a rebound fling.

I
woke to the phone ringing the next morning. The hotel manager had heard about Sienna and I singing at the bar a few nights ago and wanted to know if we would fill in for the lead singer at the resort’s nightly themed party. The band’s lead singer had come down with the flu and the backup they usually used was in Maui working a wedding that night. I wasn’t really in the mood to sing, but the manager’s desperation made me feel guilty knowing that I could help him. Plus, technically, the hotel was my employer, and it wouldn’t look good if anyone heard that I’d refused to help out with a singing gig when I was available. I reluctantly agreed and told him that we would come down and rehearse later in the afternoon with the band.

Sienna was in surprisingly good shape that morning and seemed genuinely excited about our gig when I told her about it. We decided to spend the day at the beach before our rehearsal. We both put on our bikinis, sarongs, our big floppy hats, and filled our straw bags with tabloid magazines and iPods.

The beach was quiet and we found two loungers near a straw hut. We positioned our chairs to face the sun and both tilted our chairs down to lie on our backs.

“What happened with you and Jack? I was surprised to find you in our room when I came in this morning.”

“He said he had to get up early for a fishing trip to an outer island this morning.” I wanted to hide the disappointed in my voice, but Sienna knew me too well.

“Oh. I didn’t think that man was going to let you out from underneath him the whole week. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I guess I just assumed it was going to last the whole week too, but I think the fling has flung and we are done.” I tried my best at casual.

Sienna smiled at me. “Well, whatever it was it seemed to work. You didn’t spend the first few days of our honeymoon talking about that asshole Michael at least.”

She was right. I had barely even thought about Michael the last few days, unless I was comparing him to Jack and he was landing on the light side of the scale. I’m sure she had expected me to be sad and reminiscent about my years with Michael on our trip. After all, we were on the honeymoon that I had planned to spend with Michael. The odd thing was that I missed Jack more than Michael.

I smiled. “Who could think of Michael with Jack as a distraction?”

“Well, I’m glad you enjoyed yourself with him. If you’re done, can I have him now?” Sienna teased.

A quiet day on the beach was just what I needed. We soaked up the sun, went for a swim, drank pina coladas and read trashy magazines together. It was girl heaven. By early afternoon the sun was scorching and Sienna decided that we needed to go shopping for our show that night. We hopped on the hotel shuttle bus and headed to the downtown shopping district that rivaled most big cities.

As was our tradition since sixth grade and we were allowed to go to the mall ourselves, we spent the first hour of our shopping excursion picking out outfits for the other to try on. I always found frumpy things for her to try on and she always made me try on the sluttiest dresses she could find. We wandered in and out of stores, our arms linked, and smiling, as we got lost in our own little world.

We eventually settled on coordinating outfits. We didn’t match our outfits when we performed together, but we always coordinated something between what we wore. Sometimes it was a similar color, or a similar style. This time we found a coordinating flower and skirt length. I picked out a simple white strapless dress that hugged my curves. It was short, but not too short where I would be giving the front row a private show if the stage were more than a foot off the ground. Sienna picked out a black tank dress, with a dozen chains around the waist that hung as a belt around her hips. We bought two large hot pink flowers to put into our hair and tie our outfits together. The flowers gave us an island look.