Page 83 of Bloom

James shoots me a quick warning glance as he crosses the deck, leaving me alone with Nick.

“Still seeing that guy?” he asks with a little smile.

“Yes.”

“Is he coming tonight?”

“Um, no,” I stutter. “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t think so.” Smooth, Grayson.

“Then he won’t mind if I keep you company, right?”

“Well, actually,” I say, “he probably would.” He definitely would, I think, looking at the storm cloud hovering over James’s head as he watches us.

“Well,” says Nick cockily. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

He’s easy enough to talk to, or would be were my attention not entirely focused on the slutty blonde currently flinging herself at James. It’s not his fault, but she perches herself on his chair and holds her balance with her hand on his arm. I’ve seen her hovering around the bar before with that same gleam in her eye, as if she has some secret knowledge of him that I don’t.

And James is glaring at me, as if there’s anything I can do about Nick. Every time I try to separate myself from him he follows me. Even when I go to my room to change out of my work clothes I find him waiting at the bottom of the stairs. At this rate I will never be alone with James.

Nick has been telling me about some elevator prank, and when he pulls out his phone to show me the video I’m momentarily engrossed, able to forget about James and the blonde for the first time all night. I laugh and lean in closer to see the video, and this is when James decides he’s had enough.

In three steps he’s crossed the deck and is towering over us. “Elle,” he says in clipped tones. “May I speak to you for a moment?”

Nick looks a little alarmed, and a little pissed, as I excuse myself. We go beneath the deck, in the sand and the darkness, the sound of our words drowned out by the music above us.

“What the fuck is going on up there?” he seethes.

“Nothing is going on,” I snap back. “What’s up with you and that girl?”

He rolls his eyes. “Nothing. She comes into the bar to hang out sometimes.”

“You say that as if it somehow explains why she’s hanging all over you and makes it reasonable.”

“You know I’m not interested in her.”

“So it’s okay for her to hang all over you and Nick to follow me wherever I go, but it’s not okay for us to tell anyone we’re dating? Maybe if it mattered to you a little more you we wouldn’t be in this position.”

“Stop,” he demands, his hands threading through my hair. He pushes me against the siding, his mouth on mine, and I am enveloped by him: his weight and his hands and his scent and his tongue, the need for him consuming me, my heart beating so hard in my ears that I no longer hear the noise above us. I wrap a leg around his thigh and pull him closer, feeling that spasm in my stomach when he grows hard against me.

“It feels like weeks,” he says hoarsely. His hand snakes between us, running over the outside of my thong. He groans when he feels how ready I am, and in an instant he’s unzipping his shorts and pushing my thong to the side. I’m bracing for it, barely restraining a whimper of impatience as I wait. “God I’m not gonna last long,” he says as he presses against me.

Feet come thundering down the stairs.

“Campbell?” one voice shouts. “Where are you? We saw you come down this way!”

He punches the siding. “I’ve had it,” he says.

“Just go,” I sigh.

“No, I’ve fucking had it. Let’s just leave. We can stay in a hotel.”

I laugh. “That’s crazy. It won’t be much longer. Twenty minutes, tops.”

“Come to my room as soon as you can,” he whispers. “And I don’t want you sitting there letting that jackass look down your dress until you get there, so find someone else to talk to.”

Then he turns and strides toward the stairs, zipping up his shorts as he answers their shouts.

**