Rusty Nailed (Cocktail #2)(3)
Author: Alice Clayton

Once again, being Simon’s girlfriend had proved to be a windfall. He’d invited me along on a trip in Southeast Asia: Laos, Cambodia, and ending in Vietnam. I couldn’t join him for the entire journey, but I was able to meet him in Hanoi and spend a week with him as he photographed for National Geographic. We toured cities and villages, sandy beaches and quiet mountaintops. We ate amazing food every day, and loved our way through every night.

Our current state of amazing found us floating in Ha Long Bay, eating a wonderful meal that had been cooked on the houseboat we were staying on. I gazed at the tiny islands, which broke the surface of the water like the backs of dragons swooping up from underneath. The sun was setting, and to cool off from the sweltering heat, Simon had taken a dive off the back of the boat. Water trickled off his skin, his cargo shorts stuck to his legs, and his shirtless torso made my mouth water even more than the pho, so life was good.

Of all the trips I’d taken with him—the quick weekend getaways or the weeklong journeys to exotic places—this was the one that had taken me truly outside myself. Vietnam was magical, intoxicating, and magnificent. I already wanted to come back. I wanted him to bring me back.

I continued to slurp my noodles while he popped open a Tiger beer, and we grinned at each other. Our months together had created a shorthand where no words were necessary. As I turned to watch the sunset, he pulled me back into his lap. We were warm and sticky, salty from the water and our sweat. I had lived in my green bikini top and sarong for almost two days now, and his hands spanned my hips, thumbs dipping just under the fabric.

“It’s good, right?” he asked.

“It’s so good.” I watched the sun dive into the bay, then I turned back to kiss him, feeling the butterflies that had never gone away. I hope they never do.

September

“Hey.”

“Hey, you.”

“You awake?”

“Not really. Wait, what’re you doing here?”

“I caught an earlier flight back. I missed you.”

“Mmm, I missed you too.”

“My, my, Caroline. What are you wearing . . . or not?”

“It’s too hot for clothes.”

“That’s a very good thing,” he whispered.

Lying behind me, his warmth felt welcome in spite of the heat. Hands moved across my ribs toward my hips, angling me backward as I moaned at the feel of him, my body always ready to respond to his hands on my skin. He stopped momentarily to join me in my nakedness, and I arched into him when I felt him again, anxious and ready to love me.

He stroked my br**sts, his movements deliberate and teasing. He knew the instant reaction he’d receive. Nudging between my thighs, he brought one of my legs over his, opening me to him.

“Yes?” he asked, his breath warm in my ear.

“Yes.” I nodded, reaching behind me and tangling my fingers in his hair. With a groan, he thrust inside me. I sighed as I felt him, insistent and tangible, where he belonged.

chapter one

“Oh, God.”

Thump

“Oh, God.”

Thump thump

“Caroline, don’t say those things to me when I’m so far away.” Simon chuckled, his voice low. And still as thrilling as it ever was.

“Silly Simon, I’m simply reacting to the banging on the other side of the wall.”

“Who’s on the other side of the wall?”

“The guy with the hammer. You should see it. It’s huge.”

“I’m going to have to ask you not to talk about some other guy’s hammer.”

“Then get home and wow me with yours.” I laughed, closing the door to my office to reduce the noise. It wouldn’t be my office much longer, though. I was moving up in the world—or at least down the hall. That was the cause of the banging: renovating my new space. Bigger office, corner office, thank you very much, right next to Jillian’s, my boss and owner of. Better view of the bay and almost twice the size of my old office, with a small anteroom for a possible future intern.

I might one day have an intern. How was this my life?

“I’ll be home tomorrow. Think you can keep your thoughts on my hammer until then?” he asked. I glanced at the calendar on my desk, Simon’s arrival home circled.

“I’m gonna do my best, babe, but you should see how thick that tool belt is. No promises.” Simon groaned and I laughed harder. I loved torturing him across multiple time zones. “And don’t forget my present.”

“Do I ever?”

“No, you’re a thoughtful one, aren’t you?”

“Don’t forget my present either,” he said, his voice going low again.

“Pink nightie is ready to go; I’ll be in it when you get home.”

“And then I’ll be in it, on it, under it, I’ll—oops, gotta go, taxi’s here.”

“We’ll continue the nightie talk in person. Love you,” I said.

“Love you too, babe,” he said, and hung up.

I stared at the phone for a moment, imagining him halfway across the world in Tokyo. This year alone he’d logged more frequent-flier miles than most people accrued in a lifetime, and he was booked solid for the rest of the year.

I was still smiling at the phone when Jillian knocked and breezed in, then sat on the corner of my desk.

“Something on your mind, Jillian?” I asked, pulling a browned petal from the vase of coral tinged roses next to where she was resting her cashmere-clad bum.

“I can see something is on your mind. Was that Simon on the phone?” she asked as I grinned. “Only he can make your face light up like that.”

“I say again—something on your mind, Jillian?” I repeated, poking her ever so slightly with my pencil.

“I have something on my mind that might make your face light up even brighter—although it is an interesting tomato-soup color right now,” she teased.

“Does your fiancé find you as annoying as everyone who works for you does?”

“Way more, way way more. You ready to hear the big news, or did you want to keep sassing me?”

“Hit me,” I said with a sigh.

I love my boss, but she does have a flair for the dramatic. Like when she played matchmaker last year for Simon and me, playing dumb the entire time. But her heart was in the right place. It also belonged 100 percent totally and completely to Benjamin, a venture capitalist. They’d been together for years and were finally tying the knot in a few weeks, in a wedding that all of San Francisco was talking about. Benjamin was a certifiable dreamboat who made my best friends and me giddy and word-trippy whenever he was around. Jillian knew we all had a not-so-secret crush on her man, and teasingly used it against us as often as possible. Now she was finally marrying our dream man, and heading off for a dream honeymoon all over Europe.