by Anna Lowe
“Hey!” she yelped. “What are you doing?”
His eyes sparkled as he looked up from unbuttoning his fly. “What?” His voice was pure innocence wrapped around sheer seduction. “I always sleep in the buff. You know that.”
God, did he have to do that sexy eyebrow thing?
“But this is different,” she insisted, telling her nipples to sit down.
“Different how?” He slid his khaki pants down and made a show of working them around his ankles. That left just the mouth-watering sight of him in blue boxers. Boxers that housed a nice, tight bundle. His thumbs hooked in the waistband.
She shot him a killer look. You wouldn’t.
His eyes laughed and said, Watch this.
And he did, and she did, and when he got the boxers all the way off, he sauntered over to the old-fashioned washstand in the corner of the room and stood there, buck naked, brushing his teeth.
He still had that perfect ass, that perfect taper of the waist that shot out to his broad chest. Chiseled shoulders, muscled back. He was watching her when she remembered to yank her eyes back up to his.
Caught ogling. Damn. But how she could help it? Even with a toothbrush in his mouth, he looked like a million bucks. If she had her camera, the pictures could have set off an advertising campaign for just about any product. Toothpaste. Aftershave. Upmarket four-wheel drives. Women would flock in droves to buy whatever it was he was selling. Men, too, if just in hopes that a little of Tobin’s magic might jump over to them. Because it wasn’t just his looks. It was the sparkle, the vivacity that did it.
And at that moment, he wasn’t selling anything at all. Just good old Tobin, smiling away.
Buck naked.
He turned and motioned to her with the toothbrush. “You wanna use it?”
It was reminiscent of their first morning together, in too many ways. Too many memories. Good ones. Hot ones. Soft ones, too, like him tracing a finger over her eyebrow, looking at her like he’d scored some kind of goddess of the night instead of plain old Cara.
“Sure,” she squeaked, fighting to keep her eyes on his face.
His arm brushed her shoulder as he stepped past.
Her heart rate jumped high and stayed high. Her eyes stuck to the mirror, watching him lift the mosquito netting and slide into bed. A double bed that would fit one person well and two people cozily. Didn’t bother to throw the sheet over himself, either — he just lay there, hands behind his head, cock jutting toward his right hip in the early warm-up stage of arousal.
She stalled and stalled, but the mosquitoes eventually won out. She dropped her shorts but not her panties, pulled her bra off under her shirt, and crawled under the netting. In bed. With Tobin.
Jesus Christ.
He spoke before she could start her speech about his side, her side, and the no-go zone in between.
“So, you ever been married before?”
She thumped him on the arm. “Tobin! We are not married!”
“We are for now,” he said, and she could hear the grin in his voice. “I kind of like it.”
“Purely a business arrangement.” God, she sounded snippy.
There was a long silence in which she couldn’t tell if he was angry, disappointed, or amused. She didn’t dare look, although her body had all its feelers out for other cues.
“Right, business,” he murmured at last.
There used to be a time when she could see past the screen he put up in front of his soul. Tonight, though, he was a stranger.
To her mind, at least. Her body was yearning to slide into its favorite spot, with her chin between the flat plates of his pecs and one leg looped over his thigh. The way she’d drifted off to sleep on a thousand happy nights, once upon a time.
She sighed, and it came out much too loudly for that small a space.
“Tired?”
“Exhausted,” she lied. She wouldn’t get a wink of sleep lying next to him.
“Then sweet dreams,” he whispered, low and sultry. “I know I’ll be having some.”
“Turn off the light already. And stay on your side. I mean it.”
The sheets rustled in a quiet tease. “No goodnight kiss?”
Definitely not. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, mi marida.”
She almost corrected him. Goodnight, mi mujer. My wife. But she caught herself just in time. She wasn’t his wife, and he wasn’t her husband.
She lay there, listening to the mosquitoes searching for a breach in the netting. Listening to his breathing. Sniffing his masculine scent. Wishing he’d come sneaking over the demarcation line and let the kindling crackling inside her ignite.
Minutes stretched. Yawned. Trudged painfully on their way to nothingness until Tobin huffed, punched his pillow, and flicked the flashlight on.
She sat up, pulling the sheet up to her chin. “What are you doing?”
He moved the light over a patch of wall. “Sweetheart, I can jack off two inches away from your luscious hip, or I can try to distract myself. You prefer that I jack off?” His voice rose in hope.
“I prefer that you don’t,” she managed, even though the image appealed to the cavewoman in her. Images like wrapping her hand over his and helping him work the tension off. Like sliding into a straddle over his waist and—
“You offering to help?” His voice was low and growly.
“Certainly not.”
“Didn’t think so.” He sighed. “So, distraction. Here’s the game. See the wall over there?” The flashlight threw a diffuse spotlight through the curtain-like net.
“Um, yes?”
“See the gecko?” He pointed with the flashlight, and yes, there it was, a gecko stuck motionless to the wall with his suction-cup feet. Kind of cute, but their scurrying steps had kept her up most of the past nights.
She nodded, wishing he’d turn the flashlight on himself instead. Like on those abs of his. She could check out the box pattern there, invent her own game…
Heartless man that he was, he clicked the light off and started counting. “One, two, three…” His fingers tapped on the sheet. “…nine…ten. Okay, time to guess which direction the gecko moved to. North, south, west, or east?”
“Uh, south?”
He clicked the light on, and there was the gecko, two steps east of where he’d been a moment before.
“My point,” Tobin said.
Only a man could make a competition out of watching reptiles. But hey, she was game, especially if it took her mind off his abs. And other parts. “Again.”
He clicked the light off and counted from one to ten. “Your guess?”
“North,” she said and cheered a second later when the light came on. “My point!”
“A tie, then.” He turned the light off, and this time, she did the counting.
Two clicks later, Tobin was two points ahead and chuckling. “You know what happens when I get three points ahead?”
“Game over?”
“Not until I get my prize.”
“Prize?” Her gut tightened and her heart went pitter-pat.
“A kiss,” he whispered. The word hung in the air as he clicked the light off.
The obvious reply was to huff, turn toward the opposite wall, and end this stupid game. So what did her impulsive Italian heart make her do?
“One…” She started counting, and it was a challenge. “Two…”
“Three.” There was a smile in his voice. “Four…”
Her heart thumped through the ten beats, then two more. He was torturing her.
“Guess,” he prompted.
So far, the gecko had progressed north twice, east once, and west once, but never south.
“South,” the vixen in her blurted before the good girl could protest.
He chuckled and clicked the light on. “North. You owe me a kiss.”
Part of her was doing a crazy victory dance, the other part groaning. What had she been thinking?
“Come on, fair’s fair.” He
turned to her and puckered up.
“Tobin! I am not kissing those lips! You look like a cartoon character.”
He broke into a smile so wide, so like the old times when they’d had fun and played and talked and didn’t worry about things like trust because it never occurred to them that there was anything else, that something in her clicked and she leaned over to deliver his prize.
She had a split-second view of his grin fading to surprise, and then there was only the kiss. The silk of his lips and the light touch of his hand closing over her back. The warmth of him, the taste of something so good, she needed more.
His mouth fit exactly over hers, and the taste was of a place where the mountains meet the sea. She slid her tongue along his lips, then dipped inside, and everything in her soared. His hand slid along her waist, and she nestled closer, driven by a rising wave of need. It was like they’d never left off. Like everything a soul needed for well-being was in that kiss. Warmth and honesty and a nurturing touch that—
Something on the rooftop fluttered and chirped, and Cara pulled back with a sharp inhale. Jesus, was that her, giving him mouth-to-mouth?
It was. And she wanted more. Lots more. Now.
But there were six long years between that kiss and the one that came before it, and all of a sudden she got cold feet.
His eyes flashed and his lips quirked, but he didn’t say anything. Just cupped her ribs in his big hands and waited.
“Tobin, we need to talk.”
The corners of his eyes drooped. “We’ve talked enough.”
“I mean, about back then. About what happened.”
And poof, the little magic bubble that had formed around them popped. The rain forest was back, and all its citizens were shaking their heads in disappointment.
She wanted to reel back the words and say something else — better yet, do something else, like fall into another kiss, but it was too late. The silence that ticked by took forever doing so, stretching and pulling until she wanted to hide under the sheet.
When Tobin spoke again, his voice was low and gravelly. “I did not touch that woman that night.”
Chapter Ten
“I know,” she whispered.
“You know?”
She nodded to the ceiling because she still couldn’t meet his eyes. “Your brother and Meredith told me.”
The quieter he got, the louder her heart thumped.
“They told you.” He said it with a scary lack of intonation.
She nodded, remembering that awful feeling when they had. That feeling of every drop of hope draining out of her. Appalled at how quickly she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion.
“They told you the only reason I left that stupid stag party with that girl was to get her home safely,” he went on.
Every muscle in her body was stiff, and she barely dipped her chin. “They said that two drunk guys were getting ready to take that woman who knows where. That she was drunk, too, and barely conscious. If you hadn’t stepped in, anything could have happened.”
The air moved between them as he shook his head. “That girl was barely over drinking age, if she cleared it at all.”
If only she’d gotten the full story right away. But all she heard was that Tobin had taken a drunk girl to her place and disappeared inside.
“The minute I got her to her place, she threw up,” he muttered. “You know how long it took to clean myself up? To clean her up enough that she wouldn’t choke on it?”
Long enough to make it look like something else entirely. She closed her eyes at the familiar wave of shame. God, if only she hadn’t jumped to her own conclusion, like everyone else.
“That’s all I did.” He didn’t have a hand over his heart, but he didn’t need one. The crack in his voice was promise enough.
“I know,” she said, but it barely came out above the chorus of crickets outside.
It had taken Meredith and Seth a week to track down the girl, her roommate, and the neighbor, and another two weeks to set the story straight. Every day of it, an eternity of tears and pain, then shame.
Tobin rolled to face her, his head propped on a hand, his elbow on the mattress, so she couldn’t avoid his eyes. “If you know I didn’t do it, why are you still mad at me?”
She wanted to jump up and insist she wasn’t mad, but she was. Mad at him for letting her go so easily. Mad at herself for being stupid enough to believe he would ever hurt her. A mistake that ruined everything, and even though it wasn’t his fault, he was the one who came away tarnished. No, he hadn’t cheated, people whispered, but one day he probably would. A man not to be trusted, a party boy.
By the time she got the real story, Tobin was gone. Far gone — on a surf trip to Australia where the rumormongers had him shacked up with a different surfer girl every night. A man that good-looking wouldn’t be lonely for long. Not on a ski slope, not on a beach, not on the other side of the world.
Every muscle in her body wanted to follow him and haul him home, but she’d stopped just short of booking a flight.
Where’s your pride, girl? Her sister’s words had been a slap in the face.
Damn pride. That and an awful, gnawing doubt. Even if he hadn’t cheated on her this time, one day, he just might. Life was a game to Tobin; why wouldn’t he want to play around?
You can’t trust a man like him, her mother said.
Why can’t you find someone like his brother? her dad had thrown in.
Her eyes stung and salty and she lay stiff as a log, trying to hold it all in.
She didn’t want his brother. She didn’t want any of the dull, straitlaced men she’d tried dating over the years. She wanted him.
Still wanted him, deep down in her heart.
“Maybe it was a good thing.” Tobin shrugged, settling onto his back again. He tried to make it sound light, but she could hear the defeat in his words. “If you were ready to believe I’d be interested in anyone else, then maybe we weren’t ready to get married.”
God, the truth hurt.
“Your dad was right,” he added, and when she looked, she saw that the face that wasn’t capable of anything but joy was suddenly lined with sorrow.
Her dad called him a no-good bum and a lot of other things right before he started throwing chairs to chase Tobin away.
Tobin, who’d never let her down. Who never would have.
And here was the proof. Of all the people in the world to come to her rescue, it was Tobin here in the jungle, promising to find a way out.
He rolled away, and all she could see was the hard wall of his back. When he spoke, it was in a choked whisper.
“Good night, Cara.”
Chapter Eleven
Cara didn’t sleep a wink. The previous nights, the unfamiliar jungle noise had kept her up, but now it was worse, as if each of the rain-forest dwellers had taken on one of her emotions. The haunting hoots of an owl echoed her regrets. The resonating song of the cricket amplified her shame. And the sweet calls of songbirds embodied everything she could have had, but lost.
Tobin was awfully quiet on his side of the bed, but leave it to the big lug, he started the next morning fresh and chipper and sunny as ever. He stretched and smiled and ducked under the mosquito net to splash water on his face.
“Morning,” he called, as if he knew it was going to be the world’s greatest day. The man always woke up like that. “Gotta pee!”
Always ready with a smile and a funny line. That was Tobin.
He pulled on his shorts and headed out the door, where he was immediately intercepted by a host of giggling children.
“Morning!” he said. “Buenos días, to you, and you, and you.”
His fan club erupted into happy sounds. Typical Tobin, spreading the gospel of simple joy and happiness wherever he went.
Maybe she could learn a little from him.
Cara stretched out under the sheet, contemplating the thatched roof. Then she frowned. What was that, pressing on her leg?
She li
fted her head to check…and nearly passed out.
Two beady eyes watched her closely, and a forked tongue darted out.
Every muscle in her body twitched, fighting the instinct to flee.
The head was flat and evil, the eyes black. Glittering scales on a body as thick as her arm. A diamond pattern rippled and blurred as she focused on the eyes. Oh my God. Oh my God, oh my God…
The snake lifted its head, clearly thinking more along the lines of Lunch, lunch, lunch.
If she flung the sheet over its head, would it still bite? Would the venom go through the bedding? Would she die a horribly slow and painful death?
A shadow darkened the doorway, and Tobin pranced back in. “Rise and shine, princess.” He went to the washbasin and started brushing his teeth.
Tobin! she screamed wildly inside.
He started humming “Bare Necessities” from The Jungle Book.
Tobin! Her lips formed his name, but no sound came out. It was just like being a kid, when she’d imagined monsters in the shadows and called out for her mom — quietly, so the monsters couldn’t hear.
But that snake was no trick of her imagination. She’d seen enough pictures in her guide books to recognize one of the most venomous snakes in the Americas: a fer-de-lance.
“Tobin!” A tiny croak came out, and the snake advanced with a sickening ripple of yellow scales over her leg. The head hovered over her hip, and its eyes never left her face.
Call him, those eyes dared her. Call him and I will bite.
“How did you slee—” Tobin turned and froze. “Whoa.”
Whoa was right. She was staring death in the face.
Tobin stabbed the air with his toothbrush. “I’ll be right back.”
He dashed out the door, and she could have wailed, Don’t leave me! Not now!
Not ever! another part of her wailed.
Tobin rooted around outside, rustling and swearing, but all she saw were the two tiny nose slits and two reptilian eyes.
“Okay.” Tobin loomed in the doorway with something long and silvery in his hand. A machete? He was going to hack the snake to death — on her body?
“Tobin!” she squeaked.
He flicked his wrist, turning the blade this way and that, trying to figure out an angle that would work. “Um…okay, so…”