Page 35 of Mistaken
Kimber was already wiggling into the chair next to Ella, who was regarding her with some amusement since the girl was still staring at me.
“Yeah, well, I gotta buy you dinner to celebrate the wedding, huh?Congratulazioni,motherfucker! Besides, I wanted to talk to you before the summit next week.”
“I don’t talk business in public,” I snarled. I’d toss this useless meat sack over the side of the restaurant if I didn’t respect his father, but that could change.
“Just want to make sure we’re on the same page before we walk into that meeting,” Dante lit up another cigarette, his eyes slitted like a snake’s. “Since you and Senator Memmott are such good buddies, I-”
“Shut your mouth.” I leaned in close, “Get up and walk away from this table. Anything I have to say, I’ll say to Mattia.”
“You think you can talk to me like that?” He was shouting, standing up, and knocking his chair over. “I’m gonna be running the show soon and you’re going to work with me or suck my-”
Pitched into the bay it is.
Grabbing him by the throat, I lifted him, still kicking and squealing, and dragged him to the edge of the platform, throwing him over. It’s a fifteen-foot drop to the water, and he screamed all the way down.
“Uh… do you think he’s going to be okay?” Ella’s at my side, searching the water for Dante.
“No,” I take her elbow and turn her around, “he’ll always be an asshole.”
It’s our final day on St. John’s, and I’m watching Ella sleep. She sleeps like the dead, motionless and with an arm or a leg drooping over the side of the bed. She continues to surprise me with her stamina; and her stubbornness.
Still… she deserves a reward.
“Wake up,????????,”I’m placing slow, sucking kisses along her neck, and her skin’s warm and so soft, and I’m rethinking my plans. We could just spend the day here in bed…
One arm comes flailing out. “I’m sleeping…” Ella whines.
I laugh softly, “A pity. I intended to take you on a little sightseeing tour around the island.”
One pale green eye opens. “Really? I’m up!” She dashes into the bathroom so quickly that I hardly get a chance to enjoy the sight of her bare ass under the short nightie she’s wearing.
Still, it takes her less than ten minutes to be ready, which is highly unusual, based on my past experience with women. When I take her hand and start heading up the hill behind the house, Ella looks around. “I thought we were going sightseeing?”
“We are.” Rounding the rock outcropping, the helicopter pad comes into view.
“Oh, that’s so cool!” She follows me over while I start pre-flight prep. “Where’s the pilot?”
Opening the door, I lift her onto the seat. “I am the pilot, darling.”
Ella…
“Oh, my god this is amazing!”
St. John’s sweeps ahead of us in a thousand shades of blue and green. I might have been a little alarmed when Maksim announced that he would be flying us, but as with everything else, damn him, he’s competent, and he’s looking really cool in those aviator sunglasses. He steers us sharply left, nearly sideways along the cliff as I squeal. When I look down, I can see a squadron of manta rays sunning themselves on the surface of the water. I’m clapping my hands like a six-year-old, but they’re so magical. One of the rays, as if showing off, turns and leaps up into the air, then lands with a resounding crash into the surf, and I screech with excitement.
“Oh, sorry!” Maksim is wincing and I realize my scream just reverberated through his headset. “I love manta rays. And the ones they have here are actually a third species of ray.” I lean dangerously far out of the helicopter to watch the charcoal grey rays, their white tips gleaming under the sun. “Do you knowMobula cf. birostrislive for forty years?"
I’m expecting him to laugh at my marine nerd-girl rapture, but Maksim merely smiles, pulling me safely back inside.
An hour later, he’s landing the helicopter back on the pad so smoothly that I barely feel the ‘thump!’ as the gear hits the ground. I’m feeling dangerously soft, and this is never good. I impulsively give him a kiss, and he smiles down at me, taking off his headset.
“And what was that for,?????????”
“Thank you, that was amazing. The vastness of the ocean is just heart-stopping when you see it from that height.”
Like I’m no heavier than the aviators he’s just taken off, Maksim lifts me onto his lap, straddling him. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.” His big, warm hands are stroking up and down my thighs and it’s really distracting.
“Uh…” God, his hands feel spectacular, “when did you learn to fly a helicopter?” The stroking on my thighs passes for a moment, which is really a shame.
