Paradise Lust (7 page)

Then he was tugging her shorts down her legs, her lacy pink thong coming with them, and then his lips were on her skin, working their way back up from ankle to belly button. His hot mouth kissed everything—
almost
everything—in between, tongue slipping deliciously down her inner thighs, tantalizingly skipping the one place she wanted it most to linger. When he reached the top of her body, she clutched his face and pulled it toward her, kissing him hungrily. He allowed his body to release, pressing fully down on top of her, and she moaned at the sensation of his hard erection against her.

As if struck by the same thought at once, both of them reached down toward his shorts and hurriedly pulled them off. She shifted her hips to allow for him to enter her, and then he was inside her, filling up every space. She moaned again and pulled at the small of his back, wanting him deeper.

He pushed himself more fully inside her as he ran his hands over the smooth sides of her body. Wrapping both legs tightly around his back, Adele watched in satisfaction as his face melted in pleasure.

“Oh, babe,” he murmured. She used the force of her thighs to pull him tightly down, and pleasure surged as she felt him swell inside her. The surge grew until it was heating up her stomach, her legs, her arms, and she knew that she wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer. Glancing up at Danny, she could tell from his half-closed eyes that he was right there with her.

Just as she reached her edge, suddenly Danny was scooping her up again, lifting her from the couch, somehow not breaking a beat in his thrusting motion. She wrapped her legs more tightly around him to hold on as he flipped them both around, sitting himself down onto the couch so that she was straddling him. As soon as they settled into their new position, Adele kissed him deeply, running her fingers through his hair, relishing having his face so close to hers, and then she drew her face away and rotated herself slowly around, his firm erection her pivot point. Facing away from him now, they began their slow rhythm again. She could no longer see his face, but his low moans and hungry lips on her back told her that he was in as much ecstasy as she was. His hands ran wildly over her stomach, her breasts, through her hair, and then settled in one spot on her hips.

“Addie,” he managed, and before she could say anything in response, she could feel the pulsing bulge of his cock that signaled his orgasm. His hands clutched at her as he grew inside her, and the dual sensations triggered a hot, warming throb in her.

“Oh my God,” she said, and then she, too, was coming. She surrendered herself to this unexpected second orgasm, tossing her head and arching her back, pulling Danny’s hands up her front to caress her breasts.

As the wave subsided, she collapsed back against him, sitting naked in his lap, in a position that now seemed nurturing and tender. She pulled her legs up toward her and curled into him, closing her eyes.

They sat quietly, breathing for a few minutes, his fingers combing through her sea-sprayed waves. She lightly kissed his chest, her eyes still closed.

Finally, she opened her eyes and looked up to see Danny looking off into the middle distance somewhere, his brow furrowed.

“Hey,” she said, reaching fingertips up to touch his chin.

“Oh hi,” he said, the grin returning. She smiled back, and then gingerly lifted herself up, gathering her clothing from the floor.

“Well, not to pull the exact same thing I pulled last time,” she said, laughing gently. “But I’ve really got to go—I had an unexpected three hour after-class tutorial session yesterday, and I still need to catch up on some work. I wasn’t expecting to stay over here for long, I just wanted to come by and tell you, but, well…”

They smiled at each other, silly with happiness for a moment.

“Yes, I apologize for detaining you,” he said.

“Oh it’s alright, I’m sure you can make it up to me,” she said, kissing him sweetly on the cheek. Pulling her tank top on and sweeping her hair back up into a ponytail, she gave herself a glance in the mirror.

Damn
, she thought, looking at herself. She looked good, glowing in a way that she hadn’t for years. Her brown hair had a rich sheen to it, the sea-spray and humid air adding volume and texture; her shoulders had new definition and a sun-kissed glow; cheerful freckles had sprung up on the bridge of her nose; her slight frame suddenly had curves and suppleness where there had been none before—she was a bona fide hottie! She spun around, gave Danny a wink, and headed for the door.

“Let’s drink coconuts again sometime,” she said. “Next time it’s my treat.”

“It’s a date,” he said, giving her a slight wink that almost made her melt to the floor. Before she could give in to the impulse to jump back into his arms, she turned, opened the door, and stepped out into the warm breeze of a quiet dusk.

Chapter 9

After Adele left, Danny sat on his porch for a long time. He was surprised at how relieved—almost euphoric—he’d been when she’d jogged up to his porch. The reaction was fueled by an emotion that was strange to him, one so unfamiliar that it had taken over hours to identify. Only now, as he sat by himself in the darkness, the warm air blanketing his barely-clothed body, did he become quite certain of what he’d felt.

It was a feeling of
recognition
. He’d felt a flash of it the first time he and Adele had met, that night in the lobby, and it had been growing in intensity ever since. He recognized a like soul in her, if he were one to believe in souls. Looking into her eyes, he understood who she was, and felt, without knowing much about her at all, that she understood him, on the most fundamental level. The level that has nothing to do with what car we drive or what job we have.
She understands
, was the phrase that kept circling in his mind.

Of course, there were other feelings: Attraction. Lust, if he was being honest with himself. Fondness—he genuinely liked hanging out with her. He’d even found himself walking past the yoga studio while her classes were in session, not so much to ogle the half-naked yogis (though that was part of it), but to get to feel as though he was clued in to what she was doing.

He hadn’t felt this way about anybody since his first wife, Nikki, and he’d had no desire to experience such strong emotions since then. The ups had been incredible with Nikki, had given him new appreciation for what it meant to be alive, and to be in love, but the downs were even more intense. He’d left that relationship feeling a depth of grief that he didn’t know to be possible, as well as a sense of complete failure. Sure, her infidelity had been the straw that broke the camel’s back, but he knew that he was at least half responsible for the demise of their relationship that had brought her to an action like that. He’d thrown himself fully into something, and failed. It was a feeling he never wanted to have again.

In the four years since then, he’d worked to pull himself out of that hole—
and done a darn good job at it
, he thought to himself, surveying his idyllic surroundings—and also to build up safeguards against something so devastating ever happening again. He’d found that it was quite possible to have a rich, fulfilling life, while building lots of wonderful relationships, without ever forging a particularly intimate connection with any one person. He had a family he adored, inspiring friends and colleagues, and lovely short relationships with incredible women. He felt he’d discovered the secret to true happiness, and it was this: fall in love with your life, not with another person.

He pulled up his feelings again, examining his heart under the microscope of his mind, trying to convince himself that he was mistaken, that he’d mischaracterized his emotions toward Adele.

Before he could settle into any serious consideration, his phone vibrated beside him. A wave of gratitude for whoever was calling washed over him—he didn’t want to think about Adele or his dangerous feelings for her anymore. Glancing down, he saw that it was his sister, calling from back in the States.

“Well good morning, Lizster,” he said, picking up immediately.

“Good morning yourself, Dan the Man,” a cheerful female voice responded.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but—”

“Dammit,” Liz responded, laughing. “I swear I’ll get it some day.”

Danny’s family still had a hard time calculating the time difference between them, despite the fact that he’d lived on a different continent for years. At first it had irritated him, but he’d come to find it endearing.

“You can do anything if you believe in yourself,” he playfully teased.

“Ha ha,” she said. “Well good evening. Good night. Good afternoon. Whatever. Anyway, what’s happening in paradise these days?”

“Oh, same old same old,” he said, pushing Adele from his mind.

“Have you been able to get time to surf? I know last time I talked to you there were all those development meetings in Singapore and work was just getting kind of—”

“Yup, surf’s been great,” he said, cutting her off. If there was one thing he wanted to talk about less than Adele, it was work.  “Spent hours out there this morning, actually. But I want to hear about you! Palm trees aside, my life isn’t nearly as interesting as yours. How’s my little man?”

“Caleb is fine,” Liz said. “Actually, it’s kind of the most adorable thing ever, his preschool is putting on a spring pageant, and he’s playing an inchworm. It’s insanely cute, he just squirms across the floor to practice—maybe not super sanitary, but hey. Oh, wait—Caleb! Honey, do you want to say your pageant line to Uncle Danny?”

Danny felt a burst of love in his stomach. His nephew and godson was one of the great sources of joy and happiness in his life. In a moment, he heard the four-year-old’s tiny, assertive voice on the other end of the line.

“I am a intworm!” the voice declared. “I cwaw on leafs!” Danny’s smile almost split his face in half.

“Oh man, you better get your Oscar speech ready, little man,” he said. “That’s quite the performance.”

“Bye bye Uncow Danny. Yuv you!” Tears sparkled in Danny’s eyes as his smile grew wider.
Man, that kid.

“Hey dude,” said Liz, coming back on the line. “Listen, I don’t want to run up a crazy bill—“

“Liz, how many times do I have to tell you, I will pay for these phone calls,” he said, his voice stern and exasperated.

“Hush,” she said. “Well, either way, I just wanted to hear your voice quickly. I’ve gotta run and drop Caleb off at daycare before work.”

“No worries,” he said, though he was sorry to end the call. The phone calls from her, his younger brother, and his parents, were his only ties to that part of his life these days. And though this new life he’d created was more than he could have dreamed of, he missed them.

“Love you, Danny,” Liz said. “Go enjoy paradise.”

“Love you too, Liz,” he said. A moment later, the call went dead.

He put the phone in his lap, sighed, and stared back out at the ocean for a long time. 

Chapter 10

Everything felt simple the second time Adele left Danny’s cabin. Before, it had been so fraught with guilt and doubt, worry that this one act had sabotaged her journey of self-discovery. This time, she felt nothing but giddiness. He was fun, he was sexy—
god
damn
he was sexy
, she thought, conjuring up the image of his smooth, muscled back tapering down to a firm and supple ass—he was smart, and he liked her. Their interactions were easy. She wasn’t going to let herself analyze the pleasure out of this one.

The hour had crept past ten by the time she got back to her cabin. Late, in the realm of her yogi island life; she’d been trying to get in bed by nine in order to be well-rested when she awoke at ten to six for asana practice. She decided to get right into bed, because tomorrow wasn’t a day to be sleep deprived.

They would be doing inversions, something for which she’d need to be firing on all cylinders. Inversions—or headstands and handstands in laymen’s terms—were perhaps her weakest point in her yoga practice. She didn’t feel confident in those poses at all, when she could even get into them. In fact, they terrified her. The complete lack of control, the possibility of tumbling onto your head, breaking your neck, that moment where your feet lose contact with the floor and you take that leap of faith that you’re strong enough to sustain it, strong enough to protect yourself—it was all too much. It gave her butterflies in her stomach just thinking of it.

“No, cannot be tired for that,” she said to herself as she puttered around her bathroom, splashing water on her face to wash off the sea spray and sweat from the day. An unfamiliar bird trilled close by, somewhere in the tall reeds of the field outside.

Her bed had been neatly made by the lovely Balinese woman who did up their cabins every day, and Adele gave a sharp tug to the sheets to loosen the hospital corners, then crawled under the covers. She loved that none of the beds in any cabin had anything but sheets, all year round, and most of the time you didn’t even need those. This was an island of perpetual summer.

The warm breezes and sounds of the ocean waves wafted through the window, and her exhausted body (three hours of yoga plus some serious bedroom exertion will leave you
winded
) yielded in gratitude against the mattress. Sleep, however, did not come. Maybe it was nerves about the big day ahead in class, or maybe the full-body tingling happiness of her encounter with Danny, but her mind wouldn’t quiet. On the one hand, she felt more fulfilled than she had since she’d first joined GreenGrub years ago, and on the other hand, she felt ravenously hungry for something more. A bottomless hunger.

The only thing she could think of to satisfy it was more Danny, but she knew she couldn’t run back to his cabin now, and even if she could, it would be a bad idea. She needed sleep.

Before she’d even made a conscious decision in her head, she had jumped out of bed and was booting up her laptop. As she impatiently waited for it to connect to the super-spotty island WiFi, the thought came together. If she couldn’t be with Danny physically, look at his beautiful face, feel his body pressing down on hers, she could look at virtual Danny, and eat up every fact about him that existed on the Internet. Because now, she had that one all-important key to the world of online stalking: his last name.

Finally, her computer connected to the Internet, and she pulled up Google. “Danny Andresen…” she murmured to herself as she typed his name and pressed enter. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity for the results to load, she was excited to see that there were, indeed, a lot of results. She clicked on the first one, a page from the website of a company called Propel.

When the page loaded, she saw a picture of Danny, his hair cut shorter, his face clean-shaven, wearing what looked to be a very expensive navy blue suit. He was smiling genially (her stomach fluttered a bit at the charming grin, to be honest), and his hands were thrust casually into the pockets of his perfectly tailored pants. It looked like it had been taken at some sort of photo shoot, with a pristine white background. Next to the photo were three letters: CEO.

“Well then,” Adele said, giggling, a little surprised but tickled at this new business side of her island lover. “Mr. Bigshot, huh?”

Below the photo was a paragraph outlining his background—he’d done the Peace Corps, then gotten an M.B.A. from Wharton and worked for years as a hedge fund manager on Wall Street before joining Propel three years ago. His biography described him as having “an uncanny knack for discerning new trends in the business landscape and pinpointing companies, individuals, and industries on the verge of ubiquity.
The Wall Street Journal
has called him ‘the crystal ball reader of the business world.’”
Damn.

So what the heck was Propel? She clicked on the “What We Do” tab at the top of the page, and began reading.

“
Propel is an e-commerce-focused venture capital firm and startup incubator
,” she read aloud. “…
build successful ventures around the world
…Okay, so they fund startups around the world, that’s cool…
emphasis on cutting through the red tape that slows businesses down and going full-speed-ahead
…and they do it quickly, alright,” she skimmed the rest of the passage and clicked on the “Our Companies” tab.

She scanned the list of companies, all with very “startup”-sounding names. Zitoria, Altify, Tryperion. But then her eyes alit upon one that made her stomach turn into a stone and plummet with its newfound weight: Organify. Organify, the company that had spotted the brilliant idea of GreenGrub, stolen it for their own, completely stripped it of all integrity and depth, thrown millions of dollars at it, and then pushed it out to the public with a marketing strength they knew GreenGrub could never match.

“No,” she said aloud, clicking on the name, hoping to find confirmation otherwise. But instead she found a quote from him, a
quote
, saying, “‘
Organify represents an exciting first step for us, in the direction of sustainability and global awareness of health,’ said Daniel Andresen, CEO of Propel
.”

“Oh, bull,” Adele, said, feeling the rock of her stomach turn to writhing anger. She read on: “
We’ve always been about bringing exciting new ideas and possibilities to different parts of the world, and to be able to marry that to my personal passion for health and the environment is beyond exciting
.”

Unable to read anymore, she slammed her laptop shut, the anger surging through her veins. She was angry at Danny for being the reason her dream company—Kelly McConnell’s vision, his baby—had gone under; she was angry at him for bringing that rage of her past onto this island paradise where she was supposed to be purging herself of it; she was angry at him for opening up her vulnerable heart, for fooling her into trusting him, for allowing him into her, literally and figuratively, and then trampling all over her. Sure, he couldn’t have known that she’d worked at GreenGrub, but honestly, how could he live with what he did to people’s companies, to people’s lives, regardless of whether he knew someone? With Jeremy, things had been predictable and low on passion, sure, but at least he didn’t have some sinister double life he was leading. She thought she’d judged the type of person Danny was, and she didn’t think he was capable of such callousness. She’d been wrong. Now it seemed like she didn’t know him at all.

After pacing the room for countless minutes, maybe an hour, she remembered the inversions tomorrow, the need to be well-rested, and crawled into bed for the second time. Sleep did not come until just before the first flush of dawn.