I thought about those eyes staring into mine as I drove into her. Over and over. I pumped my hand. When she came apart beneath me, it had wrecked me then and wrecked me now.
My forehead dropped against the tile. I thought about the sounds she made. My breathing was ragged now, my free hand pressing flat against the wall for balance. My legs shook with the need coursing through me.
I thought about her standing in front of me today and how desperately I wanted to kiss her. The thought of her hands in my hair pushed me over.
I groaned low, forehead still pressed to the tile, my whole body tight and shuddering through the orgasm, water pouring over my shoulders while I rode it out.
I stood there for a long moment after, breathing hard, the shower running cool now.
I turned off the water, dried off, and wrapped the towel around my waist.
Walking away from the project wasn’t quite as simple as pulling the plug. There were contracts. Financial penalties written into every agreement. The contracts were designed to discourage exactly what I was currently thinking about. Judd had good lawyers. They anticipated cold feet.
The penalties were structured in tiers. Pull out before construction began, you paid one amount. Pull out after groundbreaking, you paid significantly more. Pull out after the port infrastructure was in the ground and you were looking at a number that would hurt even at my level. We hadn’t broken ground yet, but the permits were moving. The clock was ticking.
And it wasn’t just the financial hit to me personally. There were other investors in the port project. Some of them were institutions. Pension funds. Pulling out didn’t just cost me money. It sent a ripple through every one of them.
I ran a hand through my damp hair.
There were businesses that had already made commitments based on the port being built. A restaurant group out of San Francisco had signed a letter of intent for two of the pier locations. A surf brand was ready to open a store in Surfside. A boutique hotel developer had purchased a parcel two blocks off Front Street.
The port was the keystone. Pull it and the whole arch came down. And I was about to blow it all up because I didn’t want a certain girl looking at me like she hated me.
I dressed in shorts and a tee. I didn’t dare go for a run. I was going to be hiding in the house the rest of the evening. I found Cody in the kitchen, which was exactly where I expected to find him. He had the island covered in everything he needed for the grilled steaks we were planning for dinner. He was seasoning the meat with what he called his special blend.
He looked up when I came in.
“There he is,” he said. “The human omelet.”
“That’s not funny.”
He looked me over, taking in the fresh shirt, the wet hair. “You get it all out?”
“Most of it.” I pulled out a barstool and sat down at the island. “There’s still a faint pink tint on my forearm.”
He leaned over and looked. “That’s not going away for a couple of days. You’re going to look like you lost a fight with a highlighter.” He went back to the seasoning. “The good news is it’s a very flattering color on you.”
“Fuck off.”
He chuckled. “Heard from Judd?”
I exhaled through my nose. “Nope, which is either a good sign or a very bad one.”
“I’m going with very bad,” Cody said. He picked up both steaks and carried them to the plate he had waiting, covered them loosely, and slid them toward the back of the counter to rest.
He washed his hands at the sink and dried them on the dish towel tucked into his waistband. “You want a beer while we wait for the grill to heat up?”
“God, yes.”
He pulled two from the fridge, twisted the caps off, and slid one across the island to me. I took a long drink.
Cody followed suit. “So, that happened.”
“Yep.”
“Judd went full tin-pot dictator,” Cody said. “What an idiot.”
I set my beer down on the island. “The guy had it coming.”