What She Needs - Lacey Alexander [131]
Maybe she’d find a way to feel good about letting this continue.
Maybe he’d promise to be with her every step of the way from now on, and she’d believe him.
But conservative Jenna tended to protect herself. She’d always been a once-bitten-twice-shy kind of girl—once someone hurt her, let her down, she never gave them a chance to do it again. She just wasn’t capable of feeling the same level of trust once it was breached.
So no matter how nice it sounded to let Brent fuck her on the beach or how hot it sounded to turn him on by telling him about the massage, Jenna knew it would never feel the same to her, never feel right to her, again.
Taking a deep breath, she drew her hand away from his. “No, Brent, I can’t. It’s time for me to go.”
Then she turned around to walk out of his house, and out of his life, heading up the beach feeling stalwart and strong. She even managed to get halfway back to the resort before she started to cry.
Within an hour, Jenna had booked a flight home from Miami and called the front desk to arrange for her transport there—Gabe would pick her up from the open-air lobby at noon tomorrow.
Every time she thought of Brent, her stomach hurt. She wasn’t sure what had happened to her here. Was she truly stronger, freer, more in charge of her sexuality? Or was having fallen in love with her guide going to leave her weaker than ever?
As she sat on her balcony trying to read—clearly, she’d have to immerse herself in the Civil War memoir somewhere else, since it just wasn’t working for her at the Hotel Erotique—she felt almost . . . conquered somehow. And she didn’t like it one bit. In fact, she had no intention of leaving here feeling worse off than when she’d arrived.
So she needed to perk herself up. And she decided a pretty sundress and a late dinner at the Paradise Grill—one of the few normal things she’d done here—would be a good start.
As she tied a yellow and orange multiprint halter dress behind her neck, she hoped like hell Brent wouldn’t show up there as he had the last time, but if so, she could always leave. And it was far past most people’s normal dinnertime, so maybe he’d already be in for the evening.
Since she hadn’t heard from him in the hours since she’d left his house, maybe that meant he’d accepted her decision to go. Or—hell, for all she knew, he was deeply immersed in some other guest’s sex fantasy right now, fucking someone else the same way he’d fucked her, and she was the last thing on his mind.
Upon being shown to a table not far from the stage, she looked up to see her calypso singer just about to break into song—but he gave her a smile, punctuated with a sexy wink, before he began.
As usual, she enjoyed the island music, the warm night air, and the tiki torches burning in the darkness. Heartbreak kept her appetite light—she ordered only a salad and fruit cup—but the meal and everything around her provided a nice distraction from what had happened today. This was much better than moping in her room.
When the band took a break, her debonair Jamaican singer made his way to her table. “I was pleased to see the pretty lady had returned.”
“I . . . needed a pleasant evening with some good music,” she informed him with a slightly strained smile.
“I hope you’re getting what you came for, then,” he said, the sentiment somehow holding an air of sensuality.
“Very much so,” she assured him.
He gazed down at her, looking speculative, maybe hopeful—until finally he spoke. “I’m soon done for the night, so . . . I wonder if the pretty lady would consent to a walk on the beach with me.”
The request caught Jenna off guard. It was one thing for a singer to flirt with someone in the audience, another to suggest more. Her first impulse was to decline—but . . . why? He’d been so respectful of her each time they’d met, and he’d made her feel attractive, and special. Why not let him do it some more? And . . . well, if she couldn’t even take a walk with a handsome man when invited, she definitely hadn’t gained any freedom here. She needed