My mouth returns to his cock and slides down his length, taking him all the way to the back of my throat. Ali groans as my lips slide back up his shaft. My tongue swirls along the tip as my hands wrap around his girth. I give him every trick in the book, I cup his balls, I tickle his taint, I suck and gag on his dick while his fingers thread through my hair, and he punishes my mouth, letting me know how upset he is over me ghosting him, and I’ll take it because I owe him that. The harder I suck, the more he fucks my mouth by pushing it deep down my throat, making me gag—my eyes water, salvia falls down my chin—but I don’t care. All I want to do is make him happy.
“I’m going to come,” he calls out, but he doesn’t stop fucking my mouth.
Does he think I’m going to pull away?Hardly.
Then he lets out a mighty groan as I swallow all of him.
“Fuck,” he curses as his dick falls from my lips with a pop. “Come here,” he says, pulling me up to cuddle against his side in the sand. I lay my head against his beating heart and rest my hand over his abs. “Why did you leave me, Eloise?” he asks.
I owe him an explanation—the real one—not some bullshit one that I always thought I would tell him if I ever ran into him again.
“I was called into work the night before our date. At the end of my shift, one of my friends was raving about how much fun she had with Mr. King.”
Alistair stills beside me and turns his head to look at me. “It wasn’t me,” he states categorically, and I want to believe him, but he is the only one on the system. I wish his words were true, but I know they’re not.
“There is only one Mr. King in the system. My friend also said she understood why I kept you to myself, so even she thought it was you,” I explain.
“Eloise, I’m telling you the truth, it wasnotme. I had a meeting that night at work and didn’t leave there until late. I can show you my calendar back in the villa,” he tells me, and I can see the honesty in his eyes which makes my brows scrunch.
I want to believe him so much. But how can my friend get it so wrong?
“I would never lie to you. I told you that. I despise liars, and after hearing that phone call earlier, you understand why. All this …” he says, waving his hand around in the sky, “… I don’t give a shit. The Paradise Club is nice, but I don’t have some kind of kink that needs to be met. I don’t crave sex that much that I need to come into the club every single day. Is the club fun? Yes, of course, it is. Do I need it as part of my regular sex life? Absolutely not. Why the hell would I want to go there on a day you’re not working to sleep with some woman I don’t want when the girl I do want had finally agreed to a date?” he asks me.
All that makes sense, but …
Alistair reaches out and cups my face. “Please believe me.”
If he’s telling the truth, then …oh shit.
His thumb runs down my cheek, wiping away the errant tears that seem to have fallen as the realization of what happened all those months ago hits me. If he’s telling the truth, then I ran from him for no reason. All this pain I caused him was my fault.
“Hey, babe, don’t cry.”
“I … I want to believe you,” I splutter out.
Alistair’s face falls at my honesty. “I get it. I understand why you didn’t show up. I was asking you to take a leap of faith that night, and when you thought that I wasn’t taking it too, you ran. I wish you had spoken to me because I would have been able to show you that it wasn’t me. I don’t know who it was, but it was not me at the club that night.” Those hazel eyes implore me to believe him.
“I should have spoken to you. The way I handled that situation wasn’t right. If only I had grown some lady balls earlier, all this shit could have been avoided. I’ve messed everything up,” I confess to him.
“No, you didn’t. I still think you’re the most beautiful woman I know,” he tells me as a smile dances across his lips.
“I don’t deserve your kindness. I hurt you, all for the sake of my pride,” I tell him.
“I get why. Just so you know, that date I had arranged for you was fucking perfect,” he jokes, which makes me smile while making my stomach churn in knots thinking about the what-ifs.
If I had stayed, would we have been happy?
Would we have fizzled out?
Would my business be where I wanted it to be?
Would I still be working at The Paradise Club?
I feel like that moment when I chose to run changed the course of my life and not for the better.
“It hurt when you didn’t show up. I thought something had happened to you, that you had been in an accident. I searched for you all night. I called everyone, and no one would tell me where you were.” The anguish on his face is palpable as he relives the moment when I messed up big time. “Then you blocked me, and I was devastated. I didn’t understand what I’d done.”
Shit!I feel like even more of bitch, especially after listening to his phone call earlier. I hurt him. I made him think there was something wrong with him because of my reaction to getting hurt. It was cruel and unnecessary.