Chapter Eight

Piper

I don't think this tea is going to fix the way my life is going, but it has to help. Staring at the pink color leaching from the bag into the mug of hot water, I try to enjoy the pleasant lemon aromas and not to feel too much shame or confusion about what happened tonight. I'm hoping the tea will be hot enough that it will burn the feeling of his tongue and teeth right out of the inside of my mouth.

Tate kissed me. Tate kissed me and I liked it. He seemed to like it at the time. Then he panicked, and we both made awkward small talk with the other couples until the boat docked, at which point we made a silent bee line for the cabin. I intended to talk to him about whatever all that was, but he went directly into the shower and turned it on full blast, effectively blocking me and reality right out.

So I'm left to sit here with my tea, and wonder how we're possibly going to sleep in the same bed tonight. The couch is too short, and I can't sleep on the floor or I'll wake up with a back so stiff I won't be able to move. We could sleep in the bed lying head to foot. Or maybe I can sneak out to the rental car and sleep there. The weather's not too bad.

"Piper!" Tate calls out from the bathroom, shower still running. I already know what it is that he's asking for before he says it. "I need my—"

"Notebook. You need your notebook," I finish for him, fishing his Rocketbook out of the bag alongside one of his erasable pens. While he prefers the Moleskine and Montblanc combo for his usual writing, enough ideas have occurred in the shower that we've had to add a waterproof option into the rotation. Bringing him his notebook while the shower is running is not an unusual request. However, he is usually wearing a robe or a towel. The nudity is quite a surprise.

I let out a noise somewhere between a gasp and a yell. Tate turns his head around to look at me, which makes things worse. At least we know the housekeeping team keeps the shower doors exceptionally clean. Not a single detail is missed, Tate's entire body imprinted on my memory at once like seeing a scary movie when you're small.

My heart thuds painfully against my ribs, each beat a sharp reminder of the unexpected turn this trip has taken. The lines between professional and personal blur more with each passing moment, and here, with Tate unexpectedly bare before me, they don't just blur—they vanish. It's mortifying yet undeniably thrilling, this forbidden glimpse into a side of him I've never seen, stirring a dangerous curiosity within me. More than a couple of times I wondered if all those hours in the gym resulted in sculpted muscles. And blimey, that time has been well spent. Even though I know I should, I can't look away. I savor every sliver of an entire second until I almost swoon. My only saving grace is that I'm being spared a full frontal, or my brain might go totally haywire.

What is happening to me where Tate is concerned? This trip, with its intimate accidents and shared confidences, feels like I've unwittingly opened Pandora's box, unleashing something wild that refuses to be tamed or put back.

I blink, and I can still see his bare ass behind my eyelids.

His surprisingly perfect bare ass.

Panicked, I spin away, staring at the wood of the bathroom door, pinching the skin of my arm in the hopes that this is all one big nightmare and I'll wake up at home, waiting for Elijah to take me to go get vaguely disappointing noodles.

"I still need my notebook," Tate shouts over the water.

"Um," swallowing hard, I clutch the notebook in my hands hard enough for my knuckles to turn white. "You're naked?"

He scoffs in response, and I recall that this is the same man who sat outside my bathroom door asking me if I needed Imodium. There has to be some correlation here between net worth and lack of boundaries or shame. "What does that matter? Just hand me my notebook. I got a really great idea on that pontoon yacht my sister never should've purchased and I need to capture it."

"It wasn't a yacht," I point out, my need to be right overriding the awkwardness of seeing his entire bait and tackle this evening.

"Well, it wasn't a normal pontoon. Party barge, my ass."

Bringing up his ass isn't doing me any favors. I distract myself by talking business.

"Wait. Are you about to calculate the costs of the barge versus the costs of the tickets and the amenities… gas, carry the one, multiply by…"

"No," he hums for a second, following my train of thought. "But I should. I'd need my phone for that. Here. Hand me the notebook. It's safe. I've covered my junk with a loofah."

"It better not be my loofah," I groan.

"It isn't. At least I don't think. Yours is pink, right?"

I turn around, quickly passing him the notebook over the top of the shower, noting with satisfaction that it is at the very least his loofah.

"Thank you." He looks at me through the glass, narrowing his eyes, and it's only then that I realize I'm staring. It's like the absurdity of this entire situation has made me go offline. Clearing my throat, I turn around quickly. "I'm thinking about a new dating app. One that isn't bogus."

"I thought you didn't believe in love." Propping open the bathroom door, I take a seat on the bed, still within earshot but safe from any surprise bits of Tate I shouldn't be laying eyes on. My mug of tea is sitting on the nightstand, and I take a long sip before grimacing at the now lukewarm liquid. I wonder what he would do if I took my clothes off and joined him in the shower.

If I fell to my knees.

If I took his cock in my hand and then in my mouth.

If I sucked his rock-hard length until he twined my wet hair between his fingers until he mouth fucked me to a weak-kneed release.

I shake my head before my thoughts can gallop completely out of control. And it's a good thing because the next words out of his mouth just solidify why salivating over a man like him is an exercise in futility.

"I don't. But I believe that other people believe in love, and that alone is worth something. Who am I to push my beliefs onto others? I don't want them doing that to me." He pauses for a moment, and I hear the small plastic click of the body wash being opened before being squirted onto his loofah. "Look, the way I'm seeing things—why limit it to just one person? Was speed dating such a bad idea? Don't answer that. It was, but that's not the point. What if you could do what we did tonight, but better? I mean the party barge concept, obviously. Not the weird bridge kissing tradition—you know what, let me finish. You match up with individual people, but then we put you in a pool of couples who are also potential matches via an amazing algorithm that I create. These pre-vetted couples go on some kind of low-stakes, meet and greet group activity. Then, it's in their hands. You end up with your match, or you end up with somebody else. Maybe you just go home with a new friend or two. No hurt feelings. No awkward Ubers home or ghosting. It's a win-win."

I can see the logic from his perspective. But if he thought there weren't any hurt feelings or awkward walks back to the room tonight, he's sorely mistaken. I just nod along, swirling the tea in my cup, and wonder what the hell is wrong with this man.

And why my body is still buzzing with desire for him.

Wanting someone who's oblivious to how much you want them is like a hunger gnawing at the heartstrings, twanging a tune right beneath your ribcage—so close yet achingly out of reach. It's that wild, desperate craving that seeps deeper than your veins, staining your soul. This isn't just any old want; it's the kind that burrows into your bones, stubborn and deep, making a home where it's painful to evict but impossible to ignore. It's as much a part of you as your own breath, as intrinsic as your next heartbeat.

And as I sit here, listening to the shower shut off and Tate's casual musings about love—a concept he can discuss so clinically—I'm left feeling exposed, raw. The revelation of his detachment slices through the soft, dangerous hopes I might have harbored, maybe without fully admitting them to myself. How peculiar and painful it is, to recognize that the very person who stirs such profound longing in you, views love as just another marketable commodity. As my tea grows ice cold, I'm left with an unsettling question: how does one reconcile the heart's yearning with the stark reality of another's indifference?