I spot an older woman across the lobby. She’s no stranger to me. She has crunchy highlighted curls, clippy-clappy sandals, and a charm bracelet so full it jinglejangles every time she gesticulates, which happens to be quite often. She’s a hand talker. I know because I’ve dealt with her all week. Complaint after complaint, endless rounds of torturous apologies that I knew would never placate her. She wants me fired. Us all fired. Either that or blood.

  What could we have done better in all this, you might be wondering?

  It’s simple. Changed the weather.

  “You know what?” she told me yesterday when she’d cornered me near a fiddle tree in the lobby. We didn’t start there, of course. Our conversation began in the center of the lobby, and every minute or so, I’d take a subtle step back, trying to get away from her. Without meaning to, I’d cornered myself between her and the tree. One of the huge leaves was dangling down and tickling my head.

  “You know who doesn’t have hurricanes?! Cabo. I’ve never experienced anything like this in Cabo!”

  Never mind that she was finishing a free coffee after eating a free breakfast during her free stay here. Her face was still red and flushed from her multiple comped treatments at the spa—none of it mattered. She was still threatening to sue us for “undue trauma” and her “future therapy bills.” Would any of that hold up in a court of law? Absolutely not, but that’s not the point. She was waving the litigious card as a means to an end. This here was a good old-fashioned shakedown. What other free shit could she grab on her way out the door? “Are those chairs bolted down? What about the fancy fish in the lobby tank? My niece would love that little Nemo-lookin’ one.”

  Now, she’s wheeling her luggage toward the door on her way out for good. She can barely keep track of all her stuff. The purse propped on top of her carry-on is overflowing with souvenirs from our gift shop. There’s no room left for her neck pillow, so she has to wear it.

  She looks over and spots me. Like a homing missile locked onto its target, she’s about to pivot and pick up where we left off yesterday.

  But alas, there’s no time!

  “Your airport shuttle is waiting for you right outside!” I say with a genuine smile, tacking on a wave. I’m exceedingly happy to deliver the news.

  Don’t let the turnstile hit you on the way out!

  I only let out a sigh of relief when she’s bump-bump-bumping in the back of the airport shuttle on her way back to torment the poor souls in her own life.

  “Now what time do you have?” I ask the receptionist again.

  “Five twenty-four.”

  Damn it.

  By the time 6:30 rolls around, I’m so antsy, I can barely stand still.

  I’m outside of the resort’s lobby, waiting for Paige and rethinking everything. Earlier, I’d poked around the Siesta Playa gift shop, first considering a stuffed bear that was soft and cuddly, but it felt too juvenile. Then, I looked over a box of chocolates. A souvenir key chain. A Siesta Playa hoodie. I’d ended up putting it all back, and now I’m empty handed, which feels like the wrong choice.

  Should I have picked up flowers or a corsage, maybe? What are you supposed to do in this situation? You know the kind where you’re madly in love but it’s also just the first date?

  Worse still, Paige is late.

  It’s 6:34 and I’m sweating.

  Then, up ahead on the gravel path, I see Paige dead-out sprinting. When she sees me, she immediately slows to a calm walk as if she’s going to fool me.

  “I wasn’t running!” she shouts for my benefit.

  “I saw you!”

  “I thought there was a snake back there chasing me!”

  She’s close enough now that I can see she’s breathing hard. “Listen, I was late, and I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t coming . . . also, there was a snake . . .”

  She has no idea what she does to me. On the outside, I’m cool, calm, and collected, but it’s a front. She has me twisted up inside, beside myself to have her.

  She finally reaches me and stops right when she’s nearly toe to toe with me. It’s a dangerous move on her part, because I take her hand too easily. I’m still amazed that I’m allowed to just touch her like this without fear that she’ll pull away and make some joke.

  “Did you miss me today? I could lie and tell you I never thought of you once . . . ,” she teases.

  “Should I admit how nervous I’ve been?”

  “Yes, tell me everything so I feel better. I could barely function all day because of you.”

  My gaze roves over her face, her flushed cheeks, her tentative expression.

  On impulse, I bend down and kiss her, opting for a Show, don’t tell approach.

  Surely she understands now, as I tilt my head and deepen our kiss. We could make out here until my knees buckle, but we have an objective: dinner.

  When I pull away, Paige looks dazed, like I’ve just shot her in the thigh with a mild tranquilizer.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “If I say no, can we just keep kissing?”

  I smile and give her one more quick peck. “No.”

  She looks put out as she shakes her head. “Fine. Yes, I could eat. Also, I’ve been dying to see where you live. I told Camila and Lara about it, by the way.”

  “Oh yeah?” I take her hand, and we start down the path away from staff housing.

  “Yeah . . . at lunch, they kind of pestered me for details about us.”

  “What’d you tell them?”

  She looks up at me shyly, like she’s a little hesitant to admit the truth. “All of it. You know . . . that we’re a couple now. I mean, we are a couple, yes?” She starts talking faster. “You said that this morning so I was just repeating what you said—”

  I can’t help but smile. “Yes. We are.”

  The tension between her eyebrows eases, and her shoulders relax.

  “They wanted every detail, but I just said we’re taking things slow.”

  “Are we?”

  Her eyes widen in horror. “God, I hope not. In fact, should we stop right here?” she asks, indicating a palm tree just off the path. “It’s secluded enough.”

  I laugh. It’s tempting . . .

  I reluctantly tug us along. “Come on, I’m going to feed you first.”

  She groans. “Who can think about food at a time like this?!”

  We round a bend in the path and continue on. It’s not far now.

  We’re reaching the west end of the property. Out here, the forest grows dense as the path narrows. We brush past overgrown palms and elephant ears, plumerias and ferns. There are only two houses this way because most of the executives live on the east side of the resort’s property. The houses there sit on a cliffside, which affords them slightly better views. I like it over here, though: it’s more secluded, and I can walk right out onto the beach from my back porch. It’s my own little slice of paradise.

  We pass a cut-through road that leads to my neighbor’s house. Marcus, the head chef at the Bistro, lives there with his wife. She keeps a garden, and when she harvests tomatoes and squash and peppers, she usually leaves some out for me on my porch.

  Past their house, farther on, the path dead-ends in front of my house.

  Here, the forest has been cleared a bit to allow for a small front lawn. I keep meaning to do something with it, but I haven’t found the time.

  I pause and turn to see Paige take it in.

  The house itself is nothing to write home about. It’s a white one-story bungalow with a screened-in front porch. It’s weatherworn in some areas, but I repainted it myself last year, and that helped a lot. Still, it’s not even half as nice as the houses where the other executives live. Todd’s is a monstrosity.

  My surfboard and kayak are tied to a small shed to the right. I didn’t know how high the floodwaters would get this past week, and I didn’t want to take any chances.

  You can hear the waves splashing onto the shore behind the house. Most of the rooms have a view of the ocean, though the kitchen and main bedroom have the best vantage points.

  I’m waiting for Paige to say something, but she’s taking everything in with a detective’s concentration.

  “No one was living here before I moved in. I put a lot of work into it a few years ago. The inside is nicer—”

  “I love it.”

  I can tell by her tone that she’s being serious. I squeeze her hand and start to walk us up the well-worn path in the sandy grass.

  “Did you get any flooding this week?” she asks.

  “No. Fortunately. The house is built up enough that I was spared. But I lost power, so unfortunately, I had to toss out everything that was in my fridge. We’ll see what we can cobble together. I thought I’d have time to go to the grocery store at some point . . .”

  “We’ll make do,” Paige says with a reassuring smile.

  We head up the stairs, and I pull open the screen door, wincing as the hinges squeal.

  Paige doesn’t notice, though. The defects don’t seem to jump out at her. Maybe she doesn’t see them at all.

  As we walk through the front door, I explain the layout. There’s a main corridor that runs the entire length of the house, leading from the front door to the back door. On the left-hand side, there’s a living room divided from the kitchen by a large island. Off the hallway on the right is a bedroom that I’m currently using as a study. The main bedroom is at the far end of the house on the right.

  She heads to the living room first. It’s more modern in here. Wide-plank wood floors and an open-concept layout.

  “I like that table.”

  She’s pointing to the coffee table.

  “Thanks, it came with the house, but I sanded it down and stained it with a lighter finish.”

  “And the chair?”

  “Thrifted.”

  “I love the bright-blue fabric.”

  I rub the back of my neck, somewhat self-conscious. “I had it reupholstered. The lady who did it picked that fabric out for me. If you saw the way I grew up, the house, I mean . . . you’d understand why I didn’t mind the color.”

  “Is your parents’ house a bit boring?”

  “Boring doesn’t do it justice.”

  The kitchen is open and airy. There are no cabinets over the counters, just shelves with white plates and coffee mugs stacked in neat rows.

  “Ah, here’s the Cole I know,” Paige teases, referring to the dishes. “Look at how perfect this all is.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way,” I reply defensively.

  She shifts a mug an inch to the right and waits for my reaction. I mostly keep my eyes from twitching, but then she laughs and moves it back.

  “I don’t mind it,” she promises. “Better that than living with a total slob.”

  “Your dorm wasn’t messy.”

  “No, I’m pretty clean, but I probably won’t live up to your exacting standards.”

  “Maybe we’ll rub off on each other . . .”

  She looks back at me over her shoulder, studying me for a moment with a shadow of a smile across her lips. “Maybe . . .”

  Then her gaze trails to the large window at the back of the kitchen, the place where I sit in the mornings to drink my first cup of coffee. The sunrise from that perch is unreal. Hopefully I’ll get to show it to Paige.

  “I can take you down to the beach if you want?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Want to see the front bedroom? The bathrooms?”

  She shakes her head again and then turns back to face me.

  “All right, I’ll see what I have for dinner. I keep a few staples around.”

  Already, I’m heading toward the pantry, thinking of what I can cobble together—spaghetti, probably—but Paige shakes her head again.

  I’m about to ask her what she wants, but then there’s no need.

  The answer is so obvious.

  She walks toward me, trembling with nerves. Once she reaches me, her hand touches mine, and she laces our fingers together. Then slowly, gently, she rises up on her tiptoes to kiss me. I let her take the lead, her soft lips only barely touching mine as she works up the courage to lean in more. Our chests brush and I feel her shiver, and then her mouth parts mine and our tongues mingle. It’s still so gentle it makes my chest ache with longing. It’s like we’ve never kissed before, not just each other, but anyone. We’re novices, scared and so preoccupied with every little movement.

  She wants to impress me, seduce me, but there’s nothing she has to do for that. I reach my hand up to cup the back of her head, tangling my fingers in her blonde hair. The strands are luscious and soft. My palm rubs against a sensitive spot at the base of her head, and she arches against me.

  The fire burning low seems to suddenly flare. I back her up toward the kitchen island before I’m aware we’re even moving. Her hips dig into it, and she moans. I lift her up, break our kiss for only a moment, reposition her head, and then kiss her again.

  Everything we have to give is shared here, now.

  I seem to be tearing at her, trying to burrow deeper, tongues lapping, lips clashing, teeth biting as we both plead for more.

  Her arms wrap around my neck, and I hoist her up onto the counter. This new position works perfectly. My hips align with hers as I drag her right to the edge so that we can feel each other getting worked up.

  Words are said and then forgotten.

  More.

  Cole.

  Oh my god.

  She’s wearing these shorts—these little tiny shorts—and I hike them up with my hands, smoothing my palms up her thighs, underneath the bunched fabric. The tips of my fingers skim the edge of her panties, and she bucks her hips, rubbing against me harder, feeding off that delicious friction.

  She doesn’t know how good this feels. Just this. Clothes and all.

  “Dinner,” I say, trying, I think, one last time, to bring us back down to earth.

  But neither of us registers it.

  Paige’s hands work ferociously fast unbuttoning my shirt with so little patience, I end up with claw marks down my chest. Fuck.

  I kiss her harder, bite her bottom lip, listening to that responding whimper, and then my fingers slide deeper, over her panties, playing with her on top of the silk.

  She wants it so badly, I can feel it in the way her legs squeeze my hips tighter, hear it in the little mewls, the gentle cries she doesn’t bother to stifle.

  Another heated kiss.

  A begged whisper.

  “Please.”

  And then my fingers brush her beneath her panties, finding her wet and hot.

  A curse erupts out of me, a fiery warning of what’s to come.

  All my good-boy restraint? It’s gone.

  I unbutton Paige’s shorts, and she helps me work them down her hips. Her panties stay on, but they’re pushed aside. My fingers are at my waistband, undoing my belt, unbuttoning my pants, yanking that zipper down with hungry abandon.

  I don’t have a condom on me. Weirdly enough, I don’t keep them in my kitchen.

  I tell Paige, but she shakes her head, looking me square in the eyes, pleading. “I’m on birth control,” she explains. “I’m . . . I haven’t been with anyone in a long time.”

  Fucking hell.

  “Same. Same.”

  Then she reaches down and slides her hands into my boxer briefs, pumping me with her soft hand. Up and down, harder . . . tighter. My eyes flutter closed as she keeps going, increasing her pace, making me sweat.

  Her strokes quicken. She adds a second hand. For a moment, I’m lost. Then, I knock her hands away quickly, anxiously. Too much more and I’m gone, I tell her. I lean in and kiss her again, asking her if she’s certain. I can get a condom. I can cook her a goddamn spaghetti dinner. Four courses. Dessert. Whatever she wants.

  But then our kiss turns hot again. This room feels like a furnace. I pull her right to the edge of the counter, line us up, and rub myself between her thighs, spreading her wetness around, making her shake with pleasure. When her eyes open and her glassy expression meets mine, I seat myself right where I belong and slowly start to press inside. Delicious inch by delicious inch, she surrounds me, squeezes me.

  Her red lips tip open as I stretch her, and I growl like I’m possessed.

  “Oh my . . .”

  She never finishes her sentence because I seat myself all the way to the hilt. Then she leans in and kisses me again, and I start to draw out, all the while rubbing her between her thighs with my thumb while I do it. Those soft circles against that sensitive skin undo her. She’s absolutely laid bare for me as I stroke her slowly, then faster, picking up my pace until I feel her tighten around me, her stomach quivering, her eyes squeezed closed. A soundless cry falls from her lips, and I can’t take it another second. I’ve wanted her for too long. Fantasized about this moment every damn day. I come in waves, rocking into her as pleasure racks through my body. I’m in another dimension. Off in a cloud-cuckoo-land.

  “Cole?”

  “Mmm . . .”

  “Open your eyes.”

  “I can’t.”

  She giggles and kisses my cheeks, one after another, until finally I pry my eyes open with a groan. She’s all I see—flushed cheeks, blue eyes, shy smile.

  I’m still in her, a part of her. It’s the best I’ve ever felt. Whole, sated, loved . . .

  Loved.

  “I love you, Paige.”

  “That’s good,” she tells me with a light laugh. “Otherwise . . .” She grimaces. “I’d be in trouble.”

  “Say it back.”

  “It back.”

  “Paige.”

  “Love? You want me to say it?”

  “Yes.” I wrap my arms around her and pull her close until we’re flush. My face is in her hair, smelling all the perfumed strands.

  “I love you so much, Cole.”

  We eventually extricate ourselves from each other, albeit reluctantly.

  “I could have done the rose-petals thing,” I tell her. “Candles. Music.”

  “Next time?”

  “Next time will probably be ten minutes from now,” I point out. “We’ll manage to make it to the floor instead of the counter.”

  She mulls this over. “True . . . Okay, next month, or the month after, when we finally have our wits about us again, we can do it nice and slow, with a curated playlist and everything.”