She made a rude noise and lay down, draping herself with the blanket and rolling away from me.
I hesitated a minute before dropping down so I crouched right beside her. “At first it was hard,” I said softly. She would know I was talking about the killing.
She rolled over to look at me. The blanket was pulled up to her chin and her face was just inches from mine. “How come it stopped being hard?”
I glanced at her lips, distracted by their pink fullness. “Because I stopped living.”
Her blue eyes stared at me as something danced between us. It was completely invisible to the eye, but it was impossible not to feel. I think the word for what I felt was chemistry. It was equal parts push and pull and it created a charge in the air surrounding us. I wanted to touch her. I wondered if she would pull away if I did.
Slowly, I reached out, and I watched her face as my hand drew closer. She stopped breathing for a moment. Everything about her paused, except for that unseen energy around her. That energy seemed to hum.
I skimmed the back of my knuckles down her cheek and then rolled my hand over and cupped her face with my palm. My thumb made lazy circles around the apple of her cheek.
Her eyes fluttered closed.
She drew in a deep breath.
Without opening her eyes, she replied, “Maybe it’s time you started living again.”
Her words caused something inside my chest to splinter apart. Kind of like a mini explosion that only I could feel. I crouched there beside her for a long time, my thumb still brushing over her skin. She fell asleep like that, her breathing turning even and deep.
Only after my legs and feet had gone numb from my awkward position did I get up to go sit down. All I could think about was what she said.
All I could think was that maybe she was right.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Ocean - the entire body of salt water that covers more than seventy percent of the earth's surface.”
Frankie
The sun was just lifting into the sky when Charming slid his cherry-red Audi R8 Spyder convertible through the security gates of what looked to be a super exclusive beach neighborhood. It was already so warm here that we were able to put the top down as soon as we left the airport. (Apparently, when you have your own plane, you get a mini hanger to put it in, and that’s where his car was). We drove for about a mile when he slowed, turning into the driveway of a large modern house that was literally right on the beach.
I tried not to gape at the clean lines, large glass windows, and tropical landscaping. I admit it had always been my hope to snag a rich doctor and have a nice lifestyle, but not even I could fathom Charming’s world. It was overfull with crazy expensive cars, private planes, houses on the beach… and that was just the stuff I knew about.
But he was alone. He didn’t have anyone to enjoy it with. I don’t think all the money in the world could make up for that.
He parked in the garage next to a fancy-looking motorcycle and climbed out. I yanked my bag from where I jammed it beneath my feet and slung it over my shoulder while he gathered his bags (I thought it was amusing that I was the girl, but he had more bags than me).
I knew the inside was going to be spectacular. But when we walked in, I barely saw any of the walls, the furnishings, or the type of countertops in the kitchen because my eyes went straight to the view.
The entire back of the house was glass. The bag thudded to my feet as the view sucked me closer, beckoning me like a fresh donut hot out of the fryer. It was the most breathtaking sight I’d ever seen. Nothing could compare to the way the ocean, an endless deep blue, stretched out for miles and miles. There were no trees, no buildings, nothing to block the sight.
I stopped just short of the thick window, resisting the urge to put my hand on the glass so as not to leave a print behind to get in the way of such perfection.
The waves never stopped, rising up and rolling in, crashing over one another and then hurrying up onto the shoreline, which was nothing but billions and billions of tiny grains of sand.
“It’s a lot better than looking at snow, isn’t it?”
I wanted to argue and tell him that Alaska, my home, was better, but that would be a lie. To me, this view was more beautiful than any view I’d seen in Alaska.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.” I glanced at him. “Can I go outside?”
“You can do whatever you want here.”
I stepped through the glass door and onto a wide deck that ran the entire length of the house. There was no overhang, no columns, nothing but a railing also made of glass. The wind immediately pulled at my hair, sending it this way and that way. The air smelled like the sea, salty and thick. There wasn’t a single cloud in the perfectly blue sky.
I don’t know how long I stood at the railing, just gazing out at it all, but eventually I pulled up one of the lounge chairs as close to the edge as I could get and sat down.
The sun was much higher in the sky and it was getting hot when a plate appeared under my nose. It was filled with scrambled eggs, bacon, and ruby-red strawberries.
“Please tell me you have a chef inside,” I said, taking the plate and staring down at the food. If he told me he cooked, I might fling myself off the side of the balcony. Really. Being rich, good-looking, and sexy as hell wasn’t enough for him?
“That’s the thing about eating. It required learning how to cook.”
I groaned and stuck a piece of bacon in my mouth. It was really good. I put my plans for taking a dive off the balcony on hold.
“I’m surprised you aren’t already down there,” he said, hitching his chin toward the beach.
“I can get down there from here?”
“Steps are over there.” He pointed.
I started to get up, to abandon the food, but he reached out and pushed me back down. “Eat first. The water isn’t going anywhere.”
I felt like I was seven again and my mother told me I had to eat all my vegetables before I could go outside to play. I wanted to shove them all into my mouth and then rush out the door. I scowled at him.
“You slept the entire flight. When’s the last time you ate?”
“Lunch. Yesterday.”
He shook his head like my answer made him angry. I inhaled the food, which, dammit, was really good, and then picked up my plate to carry it in the house.
He’d already finished his plate as well, so I followed him inside where we abandoned the dishes in the sink. I looked for my bag, but I didn’t see it anywhere.
“I put it upstairs in your room,” he said, seeing me search. “First door on the right.”