The Redhead Revealed (Redhead #2)(17)
Author: Alice Clayton

And we spent every night rediscovering each other’s bodies again and again. We did spend one night in my apartment, but we preferred to spend the others at his hotel, languishing in the giant bed and taking advantage of the room service the film company was paying for.

Monday we had plans to sightsee, but we just couldn’t seem to make it out of bed. We tried several times, but in the end gave up and gave in to our insatiable need. We ordered room service for all three meals that day—perish the thought. We didn’t even leave the room to have housekeeping come in, although Jack did sneak out into the hallway (wrapped only in a sheet, mind you) to steal some chocolates off the maid’s cart as she was making up the room across the hall.

Late Monday night, we did something we’d never done before.

Heavens no, not that…

We took a bath together.

We filled the giant tub with bubbles, turned on the jets, and had a little bath time. Jack sat with his back against the marble, and I tucked contentedly between his legs, lying back against his chest. He ran the sea-wool sponge up and down my arms and squeezed the water and bubbles over my chest. Something about seeing my boobies covered in soap, he said, made him all kinds of happy.

I could feel how happy he was.

I snuggled against him, the water lapping gently at my warm body, not needing anything else in the world. I’d even planned ahead and ordered an ice cream sundae, which was now perched precariously on the side of the tub. I was being kind and letting him share my lovely sundae. Since I so rarely indulged like this (although I was kind of on a roll this weekend…), I tended to guard my goodies like a mama bear with her cubs. Except I was protecting something even more valuable—ice cream. I maneuvered the spoon up behind me and toward his mouth.

“Thank you,” he said through a mouthful of ice cream and chocolate sauce.

“I thought I ordered nuts on this. Where are the nuts?” I exclaimed, digging through the concoction.

“You’re looking for nuts, Miss?” he asked, trying to dip my hand below the water.

I laughed and shrugged him off. “Not until we finish this lovely dessert. Then I’ll be happy to attend to your personal nuts.” I giggled, spooning sauce and finally finding the hidden nuts. I forced another bite on him, then settled back against his chest once more, scooping up my own bite.

“Gracie, I don’t know how you’re not the size of a bus, the way you eat. I love it! Too many girls just eat lettuce and drink bottled water. It’s nice to be with a real woman.” He laughed, smoothing his hands along my skin under the water, along my stomach and hips, beginning to work his way toward my thighs, and specifically what was between my thighs.

I stopped cold, the spoon clenched between my teeth. “Wait, what?” I asked, my breath stuck in my throat.

“You heard me. It’s amazing that as much as you eat you’re not a little butterball—not that you couldn’t stand to gain a little weight. I bet your tits would be even more fabulous…” He trailed off, chuckling and kissing the back of my neck.

He must have felt how tense I was, because he stopped. “Grace? What is it?” he asked, trying to turn me around.

I removed the spoon from my mouth and set the ice cream down. I faced him. “I look the way I do because I work my ass off. Why do you think I’m constantly going for a run, or going to the gym, or running off to another yoga class? You think it’s easy to look like this? I have to stay ahead of everything I eat. Don’t think for a second that I won’t be at the gym as soon as you head back to L.A.,” I said, my voice getting low again. I pulled myself out of the tub and shrugged into a robe, still dripping wet underneath, bubbles everywhere.

“Where are you going? What the hell just happened?” he asked, his eyes wide at my current state of crazy.

I went into the other room and grabbed my wallet. I came back into the bathroom, where he was still sitting in the tub, looking dazed. I took a picture out and handed it to him. I watched as his eyes grew wide. He looked up at me, then back to the picture, then at me again. His eyes grew thoughtful, then sad.

“Grace,” he said quietly, handing me back the picture.

I took it from him, wiping the bubbles off the edges before allowing myself to look at it. It was a picture of me from two years ago. Once I’d started making plans to lose weight, my trainer had taken a picture of me: one I was to keep with me in case I ever needed additional inspiration. It was me at my heaviest, and while you could tell it was me, there was a sadness in this picture that always made me refocus when I wanted to skip that early yoga class or get overly indulgent with my desserts. I never wanted to go back to that girl again, but there were days I felt she’d never left.

I don’t want to go back to that girl either. She was hell on the social life.

What social life?

Exactly.

“So you see, the butterball comments hit a little close to home with me,” I said, taking another look at the picture, then shoving it back in my wallet. I went to put it back in the other room, and when I returned to the bathroom, he was wrapping a towel around his waist.

He saw me come in and sighed heavily. “Grace, this weekend seems to be nothing but miscommunications for both of us. I didn’t say that to make you feel bad. How was I supposed to know you had a…um…well…a…” he stammered, searching for the right words.

“A weight problem? A giant ass? Big ol’ fatty thighs? You’re right. You didn’t know. Now you do. Will I always look like this? I hope so—at least for another few years until gravity really starts to take hold and I have to start getting Botox and everything else women have to get nowadays to stay young and beautiful,” I said, feeling myself tense.

“Botox, right. You will never need Botox.”

“Ha! You want me all frowny and haggard looking? And what are you going to do when my precious boobs start to droop, huh? When you have rock-in-the-sock to hold on to every night—how sexy will that be?”

“Rock-in-the-what? Crazy, you are crazy,” he soothed, crossing to me and pulling on my robe ties when I tried to walk away.

“Oh, please. You really think Demi keeps Ashton with her charm? No, she keeps herself looking as young as possible for that guy, and I guarantee you she kills herself at the gym to do it,” I muttered, letting him pull me to him.

“Did you ever stop to think maybe he’s with her because he loves her? Because for whatever reason, those two met and fell in love, even though it doesn’t make any sense?” he asked, brushing the hair that had fallen out of my clip back from my face.