I know that I’m completely uncomfortable with how lovely that scent is, along with once again feeling blood surge to my cock the same way it did when I kissed her earlier.
I needed to convince my mother that I was falling for an ignorant disaster of a woman, not trick my body into thinking there was hope for a companion the next time I wanted physical release.
Instead, I have—well.
I have Begonia.
In my bedroom.
Lighting incense.
And bending over me with her breasts swaying beneath a low-cut nightgown that’s somehow simple cotton, yet the most erotic thing I’ve been up close and personal with in weeks, and oddly preferable to that pink lace bra her dog so helpfully pulled out of Amelia’s luggage.
“Yes, yes, you’re a terrifying woman,” I say. “It was your master plan all along to lie in wait here so you could surprise the weird Rutherford brother and score yourself the last eligible billionaire on the planet, and now you have me right where you want me.”
She twists my ear, and I barely stifle a startled shriek of outrage that my mother would hear.
She growls softly. “Sit. Up. And. Scoot. Down.”
I’m not sleeping.
Might as well be entertained.
I do as she orders, and the infernal woman takes a seat, cross-legged, on my pillow, then pats her bare thighs. “Lie down. Face up.”
“I’m certainly not planning to return to that pillow face-down.”
“Don’t be an ass. Lie down. I’d very much like to not fake being madly in love with a grumpy-pants for the next two weeks, and that means you need to get some sleep?”
I refuse to consider if it’s curiosity or the threat that has me reclining back onto the bed, settling my head into Begonia’s lap, but soon, that’s exactly where I am.
“Close your eyes and take a deep breath,” she says softly.
I should not trust this woman, but my body is exhausted, my mind is beyond rational thought, and the lavender scent is rather nice. So I do as she orders, letting my eyelids drift closed while I inhale.
My body stiffens when she threads her fingers through my hair, but then she applies pressure to my scalp, and goosebumps race across my flesh.
“Tell me if I hurt you,” she says softly.
I grunt a response.
“Listen to the waves,” she whispers as she rubs my head. “Just breathe and listen to the waves.”
I’ve taken fake girlfriends before. Once at my mother’s request when her best friend’s daughter had been caught in a compromising position and needed her reputation salvaged. My mother wouldn’t have been disappointed if something had come of that relationship, but there was no chemistry, and even if there had been, I wouldn’t have trusted it.
The other times are hazy now.
It’s like Begonia is cleansing my brain of those memories. “Strong fingers,” I murmur.
“Is it too much?”
I try to shake my head, but it won’t move. It’s becoming cement in her hands. Cement on the shore, with the surf rolling in and out over it, but a dry surf.
No water.
Just lavender.
Her fingers move down my scalp to my neck, stroking the tension away with firm hands. Jonas has massages regularly. Weekly, possibly.
I don’t.
I don’t like strangers touching my body.
I shouldn’t let Begonia touch me, but if we’re going to fake intimacy, then I need to be comfortable touching her.
Letting her touch me.
Letting her rock me to sleep on the boat.
I want a lobster pillow.
I want her to use those hands on my cock.
Does her pussy smell like a spa?
Could I crawl inside and hide in there?
Am I—am I falling asleep?
There’s a muted knock somewhere in the distant sludges of my sleepy brain, and then my mother’s voice, both loud and quiet at the same time. I can’t understand what she’s saying, and I don’t want to.
I want to lie here, in my boat, with a woman’s hands stroking my neck and scratching my scalp, helping all the lights inside my brain flip off, until I finally float away, on my back in a rowboat with a fuchsia-haired mermaid in a cotton nightie smiling at me from the prow.
10
Begonia
When I sketched out a plan for my two weeks on Oysterberry Bay Island, I figured I’d start my first Monday tackling something that’s always scared me. There’s nothing like making Monday your bitch to start the week on a high note, and if you fail at making Monday your bitch, you blame it on Monday being Monday, and start over on Tuesday.
It’s not like having a major failure on a Friday and then having to suffer through the weekend with regrets.