making me feel this way. His skin against mine, bare and beautiful.
With one last heavy thrust, I come hard, letting out a guttural cry as I fill him up. Hanna only has to stroke him a few more times before he shudders underneath me, and I watch as he comes all over his chest.
The three of us are silent for a moment as we catch our breaths. Hanna reaches for a tissue, cleaning up his chest, and I reluctantly pull out, collapsing on top of him.
Hanna lies next to him as I roll away. “That was perfect,” she whispers into his neck.
Sitting up with my feet on the floor, I try to remind myself why I’m not getting involved with Nash again. I can’t.
“I’m going to go shower,” I say, standing up and escaping to the bathroom.
Under the hot spray of water, I let everything roll off my shoulders. I can’t let him get to me. I can’t.
Soon, the shower door opens and I feel his presence as he steps in. The dual heads give us enough room so we can both shower without touching each other, but he’s still right at my back. And it feels like that first shower we shared all over again.
“I didn’t fuck anyone else.” His voice is low, barely audible over the water. “No guys at least.”
“I don’t care.”
His arms wrap around me from behind, and it feels impossible. Denying him. Protecting myself.
“Yes, you do.”
A second later, the shower door opens, and Hanna joins us. Having her with us instantly diffuses the tension as she steps against my chest, sandwiching me between them.
Looking down at her, so perfect and beautiful, I feel something with Hanna I don’t feel with Nash—safe. This whole time I’ve been telling myself I can’t keep her because he cares too much about her, but I’m finding myself having a hard time imagining a life outside this island. Without either of them.
26
I can’t sleep. The launch party is in three days. But that’s not why.
Somewhere around midnight, I wake up in Ellis’s bed. Hanna is between us with her back to him so they’re both facing me. In the darkness, with only the light of the moon entering the bedroom window, I stare at them both.
This week has gone by too fast. We made a deal—after launch, Hanna could return to her life in the city, and Ellis would fly back home and never contact her again. It felt so right a few days ago, but now…it feels wrong. How can I send him away now, especially after last night?
I feel myself pulling him back in, desperate to keep his attention. I can’t let Ellis go and maybe I never did.
There’s no more sleeping for me tonight so I climb out of bed and pad silently across the house back to my room. Slipping on some sweats and a T-shirt, I leave the house, letting the door close without a sound and crossing the helipad to the office. I could have probably gone down to the gym for a workout. I haven’t been down there all week, but there’s too much on my mind.
So, I open my email, but there’s nothing new. I open the bank account…nothing new. Then, I flip through the documents again, looking for something, anything I can fix or change or make better, but there’s nothing.
Somehow, I end up scrolling through my phone. Completely restless, my mind needs something to occupy itself, and I land on my camera roll. Flipping through the past starting from the most recent photos, I scroll through shots of almost nothing. Pictures for work, models, ideas, screenshots. Aside from a few shots I snapped of Harper and before that, the wedding, I have no real memories in my phone.
Until I get to Amsterdam. The trip we took to Brussels. Ellis and I on the train, being tourists in a foreign country. Everything from eating to sleeping…and even fucking in the five-star resorts in high rise buildings in the city center.
I land on one, a selfie he took with my phone. Lying in a white bed with my head against his chest, a smile on his face and a sarcastic scowl on mine. Regardless of how it looks, I was happy. We were happy. Maybe the happiest I’ve ever been. Trying to remember where my head was then, I can hardly believe for months I acted like it was normal…not being with a man, but being happy.