I’ve already called Sarah to let her know she’ll have to extend her part in my cover story until morning. She squealed and started to launch into a hyper inquisition about whether or not I was planning to sleep with Hemi. “Sarah,” I said, interrupting her. “I’ve been stung by a jellyfish and I’m a mess. I seriously don’t think this is the best way to lose my virginity.” She was disappointed, but she agreed to go along with my ruse. Then I called Dad, who sounded a bit suspicious, but didn’t press me, which was a surprise.
So now, I’m people watching. As they walk by, I find myself wondering whether or not they have tattoos. It doesn’t take me long to realize that Hemi has completely invaded my brain. But if I’m to be overtaken, I can think of a million worse things than being consumed by Hemi.
I see the hotel door open again and Hemi exits. My eyes rove his tall, lean frame as he moves.
He put on his jeans and t-shirt before we left Tybee, but now that I know what’s under them, I love watching him even more. He walks with an easy grace and a confidence that makes me feel breathless. He looks left and right before his eyes rise to mine and stop. He doesn’t smile or nod. He just winks. And my heart does a little flip.
What a way to spread my wings!
I smother my grin and try to control the overactive hormones and imagination that have taken possession of me lately.
“We’re all set,” he says, as he plops down behind the wheel. He starts the car and drives around the block to approach the building from a different angle, one where a valet is waiting at the curb to greet us. He comes to my side first, politely opening the door and offering me his hand. I take it, stepping onto the curb as he closes the door and heads to Hemi’s side.
“Do you have bags, sir? I can arrange for the bellhop to—”
“No, thank you. This was an unexpected stop,” Hemi says as he gets out and hands the kid a folded bill.
The valet nods, “Yes, sir.”
Hemi comes to my side and puts his hand at my lower back. “Shall we?” he says with a practiced sweep of his hand.
I narrow my eyes on him. “You’re really good at this,” I observe. “Like, really good at this.”
His expression is nonchalant. “I watch a lot of Bond movies.”
He opens the door for me and I step into a luxurious lobby. The hardwoods are the color of coffee and the furnishings look like a mixture of French and Italian antiques. I could be wrong. What the hell do I know about decorating, other than what I’ve seen on HGTV? Very little. But whatever it is, it’s breathtaking.
Several people nod at us as we make our way through to the elevator. I’m glad I had the time to pull on my shorts over my bottoms, and that the cover up I brought can function as a shirt. It by no means makes me look like I fit in here, but at least I don’t feel like Julia Roberts walking through the Regent Beverly Wilshire.
We take the elevator up to our floor. The doors open with an expensive swoosh and usher us out into an elegant hallway. Hemi turns left, so I follow. He stops four doors down and slides a card into the slot below the knob. A green light appears and is followed by a mechanical click. Hemi pushes the door open and steps back to allow me to enter first.
The room is opulent. That’s the first word that comes to mind. The thick carpet is taupe, a few shades lighter than the walls. There are splashes of color—a chocolate mink throw, pillows of red and furniture of mahogany—but the bed is done in white—white duvet, white pillows, white headboard. All in all, it’s stunning.
“Well,” I say as I perch carefully on the end of the bed, “I don’t guess I need to ask if tattooing pays well.”
Hemi ignores me as he walks straight to the bathroom. “Which side do you sleep on?” he asks when he reappears with an armful of towels and washcloths.
My mind stalls on his question. It’s then that it occurs to me that there’s one bed. One big, beautiful, luxurious bed. And two of us.
“Umm, it doesn’t really matter. I can—”
“It’s not a trick question, Sloane,” he says, softening his words with a small smile. “I just need to know which side to put all this stuff on.”
“This side,” I say patting the bed to my left.
“Those shorts need to come off,” he says casually, giving me a little chill. “Then pull back the covers and lie down,” he orders, depositing his load on the opposite side.
I do as he asks. As I’m stretching out, I feel the need to be accommodating. “Hemi, I can seriously sleep on either side. Really, it won’t bother me if you need to sleep over here.”
“It won’t matter. I don’t sleep in the same bed as anyone else, so I’m not planning on getting much shut-eye.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“Ever?”
“No.”
“Wh-why not? I mean…”
He looks up at me and grins as he folds two towels length-wise. “You mean, I’m a guy. I must sleep around. Therefore I should be able to sleep on either side of a bed, next to virtually anybody, right?”
“That’s not what I—”
“Of course it is,” he interrupts. “But you’re wrong. The women that…occupy my space know to be gone before I get out of the bathroom. I’m not really a…breakfast kind of guy.”
“Oh,” I say flatly. I don’t suppose I’m really surprised. He doesn’t seem like the let’s-make-love-and-cuddle type. But, then again, I wouldn’t have imagined he’d be so…cold either. “Have you never… I mean…”
“Not in a long, long time,” he says, arranging the towels under my leg then taking a washcloth in his hand and dousing it with the vinegar he got from the convenience store. He presses the saturated cloth to the angry red streaks and dots on my right thigh. “You’re technically supposed to soak it, but that’ll be hard to do considering where it’s at. Plus, we’d need a lot more vinegar to fill the tub. So this’ll have to do.”
After he presses the compress to my leg, he backs off and crosses to the desk. He returns with a leather-bound book.
“Where did you learn all this?”
Hemi shrugs, his attention on whatever he’s reading rather than me. “I spent a lot of time at the beach as a kid. Picked up a few things here and there.” I don’t know if he’s purposely trying to change the subject or if he’s just not that into it, but either way, he changes it. “You hungry? I say we order some room service for the impaired.”
“I’m not impaired!”
“Oh, sorry. ‘Challenged’,” he says, holding up his fingers in air quotes.
“I’m not challenged either! I can get up and go to dinner just fine. Don’t let me hold you back.”
“You’re not holding me back. I’m stuck in a quiet hotel room with a woman in a bikini. How is this holding me back?”
I can’t help but smile.
“I’m sure it’s hardly what you had in mind for the day.”
“Oh, I can definitely think of worse ways for a day at the beach to turn out.” His grin is lascivious.
I sit upright. “Oh, shit! Were you supposed to work tonight? I didn’t even think about that when I called home. Will you get in trouble?”
“Calm down, calm down,” he says, scooting onto the bed beside me. “I already took care of it.”
“God, I hate to be such a pain in the ass.”
“Wellll, I wasn’t gonna say anything, but…”
I grab a pillow and lob it against his head. Hemi laughs.
********
My belly is full and it’s long past dark outside. After reapplying vinegar compresses to my leg for a while, Hemi made some kind of nasty paste out of baking soda and water and slathered it on there. Even though I can’t really do much with all that goo on my leg, I must admit that the sting does feel better.
Hemi gets up from where he was reclining on the other side of the bed. “Mind if I take a shower? Get all this sand and saltwater off me?”
“No, not at all.”
“You can take one in the morning, but for tonight, you probably ought to stay out of hot, fresh water as much as you can.”
“Okay. I’ll be fine until morning.”
Hemi heads for the bathroom, pushing the door up, but not closing it completely. I’m sure it’s so he can hear me if I need anything. Or to torture me. I can see him doing either one intentionally. He’s a compelling, charismatic bundle of contradictions, I’m learning.
I listen as the spray cuts on. I close my eyes and I follow him through the process. I hear the rings slide along the rod as he pulls back the shower curtain, and then again as he likely closes it behind him. All too clearly, I can imagine him stepping, na**d, into the stall, taking a bar of soap, so white against his tanned skin, and rubbing it over his chest and stomach. I can picture the beads of water traveling down his back and over his perfectly-curved butt. There’s very little that I can’t picture with absolute clarity. Very little. But the part I want to see most is the part I can’t imagine.
My eyes are still closed when the water shuts off. I hear the soft friction of the towel against his skin and I can imagine him securing it around his waist as he runs his fingers through his hair to straighten it.
The fan in the bathroom becomes louder and I open my eyes. Hemi is standing in the open doorway, wrapped in nothing but a towel.
“Were you sleeping?”
“No, just…thinking.”
“What were you thinking about?” he asks, walking casually to the bed and stretching out across the end, leaning on one elbow, facing me. He crosses his feet at the ankle and waits, his expression patiently interested.
“Skin,” I answer in honesty. I just don’t tell him that I was thinking about his skin in particular. I hurry to continue. “I was thinking about what it would feel like to draw on it.”
“Wanna practice?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m sure there’s a pen in here. You can draw something on me if you like. It’ll wash off.”
“Seriously?”
“Sure. What else is there to do?”
I can think of several ways to answer that, but I voice none of them. I’ve got white gunk on my leg, I haven’t showered all day, and my hair is a mass of saltwatered tangles.
“Is there something particular you’d like me to draw?”
Hemi gets up and walks to the desk, returning with a pen that boasts the hotel name. “Hmmm, well, I’ve been thinking about getting ‘Live, no regrets’ tattooed on my right side. Lettering that has some kick ass points. Nothing too ornate. Maybe some design that looks like tribal art coming off the L and the G. I don’t know. I’ve been meaning to sketch it out since…well, for a while now. You’re welcome to give it a shot.”
“Okay,” I say, warming to the idea. “Is that your life motto or something?”
“It was…someone else’s. Someone that I used to know.”
Something in his voice leaves me with no doubt that the topic is closed for discussion. But that same something in his voice makes me want to explore it, to see if this is what he escapes from in his art. And if it’s about a woman. Maybe the woman he used to sleep beside. And have breakfast with. So long ago.
I put those disconcerting thoughts out of my head as I sit up in bed, thinking about the logistics of making this work. “How can I…I mean, where will you…”
“Are you right or left handed?”
“Right.”
“Perfect. Roll up onto your left side and I’ll come lie in front of you.”
I scoot over in the bed and roll onto one side, like Hemi suggested. I assumed he’d put his back facing me to give me access to his right side. I’m flustered and more than a little excited when he stretches out facing me, resting his head on my leg just below my jellyfish sting and slinging his arm over my waist, leaving his ribs open to me.
Hemi looks up at me, his eyes like pools of turbulent, dark blue waters. “I can be very…accommodating.”
“Yes, you can,” I say, unimaginatively, my nerves stretched taut. “I hope you aren’t ticklish.”
“Only in one spot, but you won’t be getting anywhere near that with your pen,” he says with a wink.
I feel my face flush and, again, I curse the fact that I’m such a mess. What a perfect opportunity this would be otherwise. I clear my throat and put all my focus into what I’m about to draw on Hemi.
When the pen first touches his skin, it skips along. I rub the tip over my palm to loosen it up before getting it back into position. The first few strokes feel odd. I’ve never drawn on someone else’s skin before. In fact, I’ve never even written on my own skin. But it gets easier the more I get into it.
Before long, I’m gliding over skin and skimming over bone as I draw letters and swirls. I get so absorbed in it, I find myself going back to do some shading and adding some personal little touches to it.
I have no idea how long I’ve been at it when I finish, but I look down at Hemi and he’s just watching me. Quietly. Intently.
“All done.”
“You really do get lost in your art, don’t you?”
I smile to hide my embarrassment. “Yeah, I kinda do.”
“We’ve got a lot in common.”
I nod. I don’t know what to say to that. It makes me happy to hear him admit it, though.