“I could get used to this.” Laney stretched out on the beach blanket, her legs freshly slathered with sunscreen by yours truly. It was a tough job, especially on her upper thighs, but…
“Me, too.” I crawled around behind her to get her back and sides, and as much of her breasts as I could before she swatted my hands away. “Seeing you covered in my cream…”
“Ugh. There’s a teenager over there, Carson.” She grabbed the sunscreen from me and scooted away. “I think you’ve had about enough of that.”
“Not even close, babe.” I reached for her, swiping at air as she moved out of fondling distance.
“Let’s go for a walk.” She stood, brushed off her ass, and held out her hand to pull me up. Since it was for resort guests only, and most of them kept their thieving exclusively for their businesses at home, we didn’t have to worry about our stuff.
We held hands as we walked into the water, just deep enough to get our ankles wet. The ocean was fucking gorgeous here, but the water was so warm, it didn't feel like a break from the sun. In fact, it was so close to body temperature, and the waves were so tiny, it felt pretty much like our bathtub at home. Other than the people watching us here. Hmm…wonder if Lane would be up to trying that when we got back.
Lane pulled me deeper until the water was about waist-high. She slipped her hands around my neck and jumped into my arms. I gratefully caught her under her ass, and she wrapped her legs around me.
“Am I too heavy?”
“Not at all. But if a shark comes along, you know I’m going to drop you and run for it, right?”
“Of course,” she said, smiling. “No problem—I can handle a shark.”
“What if it’s a big shark?”
“Depends who’s measuring.” Laughing, she ground her hips on mine, and my big shark woke right up. “Men always seem to think things are larger than they actually are.”
“You’ve never complained before.”
“I complain all the time, just not about that.”
“I’ve never heard you complain. You must be doing it wrong. Try whining more next time so I know.”
“Like this?” she asked in a high, nasal voice, her nose and upper lip rising and making her look as close to unattractive as possible.
“That’d do it.” I tried kissing her, but with her mouth contorted like that, I got more teeth than lip. Pina Colada-flavored.
She pulled away. “What were you talking to your brother about at the bar earlier?”
“Do you always think about my brother while we’re kissing?”
“Jealous?” she asked. The brat. “Or do you just not want to answer the question?”
“Always, and no. I’d rather make out than talk about Hayden.”
“Then answer quick so we can get back to it.”
I sighed. “Fine.” I spoke faster than an auctioneer on speed. “He planned a surprise wedding gift for Andi back home. I’m helping him with it.” Done speaking, I leaned in for my prize.
“Really?” Pulling away, she did that girlie inhalation that lifted her breasts up beautifully, as well as her brow and the corners of her mouth. Like she was the world’s most perfect marionette or something. “How romantic! What is it?”
I shook my head. “If I tell you, it won’t be a surprise.” I would’ve zipped my lips if my hands weren’t happy where they were—cupping her ass so nicely. Good thing the water was deep enough to cover us or the thirteen-year-old kid staring at us from shore would’ve gotten quite a show.
“The surprise is for Andi, not me. So spill.”
As much as I liked to tease her, she’d find out eventually. “Promise you won’t say anything.”
“I promise.”
“Promise me that if you break said promise, you will let me do every deviant thing I can imagine to you while saying, ‘Please, sir, may I have some more?’ Complete with the English accent.”
She stared at me for a minute, stunned or maybe trying to figure out what deviant thing I could be referring to that we hadn’t already tried.
“Promise,” she said finally, in an English accent.
“That’s my girl.” I kind of hoped she told someone. Then I could spank her. Screw it, I was going to spank her whether she told anyone or not.
“It really worries me when you laugh like that.”
Oops. “Okay but remember your promise—no blabbing to the girls.”
“Is that the only thing you think women do when there are no men around? Talk about the men who aren’t around?”
“Of course, not. You also do your nails, practice kissing, and have pillow fights. At least that’s what I’d like to think you’re doing. Okay, tell you what, you don’t ruin my fantasy, and I’ll tell you what Hayden is giving Andi for a wedding gift.”
“Deal,” she said, rolling her eyes. “By the way, we also discuss orgasms.”
“Awesome.” I could definitely work that into my fantasy. She nudged me when I got so lost in my daydream I forgot my end of the deal. “Right. Hayden is smartening up their place. Smartening, meaning adding a thousand gadgets that automatically do shit for you, not smartening up the place like cleaning and adding a couple throw pillows. Andi will be able to dim the lights, heat up the bed, and put on music to set the mood without lifting a finger.”
Her jaw dropped as I spoke and excitement filled her eyes. “I’ve heard of that stuff. It’s so cool! Did they get the fridge that will tell you if you’re out of comfort food without you having to open the door?”
I nodded. “Warming toilet seat, shower that’s programmed to be the perfect temperature and vacuuming robot thing, too. Basically, everything the Jetsons had, except the flying car. I think he’s saving that for their five-year anniversary.”
“Wow.” She took a deep breath of longing. “That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard of.”
“Yeah? If you want a smart house, we can smarten up our place.”
“It’d be cool, but that’s not the point. It’s perfect because Hayden is creating a home just for them. He’s taking something Andi already loves—the house she grew up in—and making it even better by adding something else she loves—technology. If it was for anyone else, the gadgets would be cool and fun, but for Andi, it’ll be a constant reminder of how well her husband understands her. That’s why it’s perfect. Do you know what I mean?”
"No. Maybe after we get back to the city, I can ask Hayden and Andi’s smart house to explain it to me."
Actually, I did understand. I just wished I didn't. Because now I had proof I needed to come up with something equally amazing for her. No, more amazing for her. Damn it. The longer I waited to make things official, the more potential pitfalls showed up. What would be perfect to her? I couldn’t wait anymore. I had to figure this out.
Now.
14
Carson
“Lane.” I took a deep breath and set her down, the water coming up to just under her breasts. “I want to ask you about something.”
“Sounds serious,” she said, making a face and mocking my sudden change in mood.
“It is…kind of.”
I wasn’t going to pop any questions, but if I could get some info out of her—something that might give me a clue as to what her perfect proposal and ideal aftermath were—it would be really helpful.
Or maybe a “Yes, Carson, I absolutely, definitely, 100 percent want to spend the rest of my life with you, starting with a huge wedding with 10,000 people we don’t know or care about. I’ll wear white”—then I’d make a bad joke—“and you can wear jeans. We’ll honeymoon in Las Vegas for a month and have sex a couple times a day for the rest of our lives, even after all our little munchkins are born! But, whatever you do, please, please, please, don’t propose in a memorable or creative way. I’d rather you just slip the ring under my coffee cup and forget all that romantic crap.”
“Why are you smiling like that?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.
“No reason. It’s just…
I hope you know how much I love you.”
“I do.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she gasped. “I didn’t mean—”
“What?” I asked, pretending not to know why she was embarrassed. I had to start over. “What I was going to ask you is—”
When her face registered scared shock, I shut my mouth. Shit, I hadn’t even asked her anything yet. But she must have known I planned to. So did that look mean she was going to say no?
“Carson!” She screamed and jumped back into my arms, clutching me tightly.
Was that a yes? Hang on. I wasn’t sure I knew what the hell was actually happening right now. She kept spinning her head around, looking for something. Plus, you know, she hadn’t stopped screaming.
“What did I miss?”
“Something just bit me!”
“What?” Oh shit. What I’d assumed was shock had actually been pain.
“Get me out of here!”
I moved fast, pulling her tightly to me and heading for shore, just like we wished people in horror movies would do instead of standing there wondering what to do. I fought the water, praying I didn’t lose my footing or feel jaws close around my ass. Get her to the beach. Whatever happened to me, I just needed to make sure she was safe.
Couldn’t have been more than ten seconds before we reached the shore, but the journey had wiped me out. I tripped on sand, catching the bulk of my bodyweight before it landed full force on top of her. Then I heard her giggle.
I pushed myself onto both hands and stared down at her. Laughing.
Both of us were gasping for breath, me because I couldn’t get the newspaper headline out of my mind—Man Eaten by Shark Ruins Brother’s Wedding—and Lane because she couldn’t stop laughing.
“Oh, Carson, you should’ve seen your face!”
Why? I could imagine pretty damn well how stupid I'd looked already.
“Did something bite you or not?” I asked, still confused or in shock or confused or something. Or possibly confused.
She nodded quickly. “But I’m okay. More scared-the-shit-out-of-me than took-a-chunk-out-of-me.” Then her expression softened to concern. “I’m sorry! I totally freaked you out, didn’t I?”
“Course not,” I lied. I couldn’t really tell her why I’d looked that way or how she’d turned a potentially memorable moment into a terrifyingly memorable one. Although, either way… “Let me see this horrible injury of yours. Damned fish better not have ruined your ass.”
“It’s actually really starting to hurt.” Grimacing, she rolled out from under me, onto her stomach, and pulled her bikini bottom off one cheek. “Is it swollen?”
“Yep. As perfectly swollen as always. Still the only reason I’m with you. Other than your breasts. And you’re—”
“Carson!” she snapped. “Can you see any teeth marks or anything?”
“I could, if you’d ever let me bite you, but no, babe. There’s a little red mark, though. Like if you’d ever let me spank you.”
“Stop it! It’s not funny.”
“Are you okay?” a voice said from a few feet away. It was the thirteen-year-old, and he was staring at my girlfriend’s bare ass.
“She’s fine. Go away.” I tried to block the kid’s spank-worthy view.
“It could’ve been a jellyfish sting. Some of them are poisonous here. Maybe she got poisoned.”
Each time he said the P-word, Lane flinched. “What kind of poison are we talking about?”
I held up my hand to shut him up before he started a detailed rundown of every type of murderous sea creature he’d seen on Animal Planet, in the order of how painful a death they caused.
“You gotta learn how to talk to women, little man,” I mumbled. “It wasn’t a jellyfish.” I didn't think. “If it were, I’d have gotten stung too because my hands were all over your…” I glared at the kid. “Your upper, upper leg.”
If the little shit weren’t standing right next to us, I’d offer to suck out the poison just on the off chance it was a jellyfish. At least being angry at me for joking around would distract Lane from the pain.
"But we should probably… Holy—" I swear, a huge welt grew in front of my eyes, a thin line of ass-flesh swelling up and turning from pink to eww.
"What?" she yelled. "Carson, what's wrong?"
"Nothing, babe. Nothing. You're fine." With a fake smile and a pounding heart, I swept her up into my arms and carried her toward the resort’s front desk, hoping they had a surgeon on staff.
* * *
Turned out the kid was right. Some jellyfish in this part of the world were poisonous. I also learned that the pain of their stings got worse after the initial shock wore off. After twenty minutes of ice, the staff doctor put some goop on it, told me to continue putting goop on it until the goop-tube was empty, and gave Lane a couple pills and more ice.
"You'll be sore for a few days, but the pain will dissipate soon."
"Will she ever be able to use it again, doc?"
They both stared at me in shock.
"I meant to sit down!" I lied. "Geez!"
"I can handle it no matter how much it hurts," Lane told the doctor while still looking at me. "Especially considering I live with a bigger pain in the ass."
“Who?” I asked as innocently as I could manage.
15
Laney
The next morning, I watched the sun come up, its light catching on waves so tiny I could barely see them. My butt felt a little better today, but it had kept me up most of the night. Carson had tried to stay up, listen to me complain, and put more of the cream on the sting. Surprisingly, he only quoted Silence of the Lambs once. “It puts the lotion in the basket.” Thankfully my glare had conveyed the threat perfectly: “Say it again and I’ll be off this island and back in the states before they find your body.”
He got up when someone from the hotel came out to our bungalow with a breakfast feast. Seriously, the spread was ridiculous—twenty different kinds of pastries, two full carafes of juice, a small mountain of weird kinds of fruit, soft-boiled eggs in cute little shot glass-looking things, and of course, coffee. The next time I saw the man, I promised myself to make sure all the leftovers were given away. If not, I’d have to sit there—figuratively speaking because ouch—all day and eat all of it. Not because I wanted to, but because my parents would disown me if I ever wasted this much food while there were starving people in the world.
This island was so beautiful, I could barely sit still. Granted, part of that might have been because it took me five minutes to sit down and every move after that caused me to silently scream, grab whatever part of Carson was closest, and squeeze until his pain was somewhat comparable to mine. It wasn’t fair he could sit down like a normal person.
Not sure why I was surprised. Of course, I’d get stung by a jellyfish on my first trip outside the country. My first big vacation with Carson and I couldn’t sit down without wincing. Yep, that was how my life worked. But now wasn’t the time to dwell on my butt or my disappointment. Now was the time to celebrate this moment with Hayden and Andi.
After breakfast, Carson and I got dressed in regular clothes but brought our clothes for the wedding with us. The plan was for the women to meet in Andi’s room to help each other and have some girl time. The men—Hayden, Carson, and Rob—would be in another room waiting for us to get ready. Knowing how impatient Carson was, I’d put money on the mini bar and possibly the hotel bar being empty by the time the wedding started.
I didn’t expect to see Renee and Anna until the afternoon. Carson told me they planned to spend the day getting rubbed down, squeezed, lifted, injected, waxed, polished, peeled, and slathered with enough toxins to guarantee they’d look pre-pubescent again.
The only way Eric and Hillary could afford the trip was by not paying for it at all. Instead, Carson had hired them to take pictures of the wedding as part of his gift to Hayden and Andi. He’d paid for their plane tickets and a hotel room that cost more than Eric had made in his entire
photographic career. He’d even let Eric take credit for it, as reparations for the unfortunate three-hour mistake Carson had made with Hillary long before we’d met.
Before Carson and I split up to report to our designated gender-zones, he kissed me. When he instinctually slid his hand from my lower back down to my butt where the sting was, he was lucky I only shoved him backwards. I could’ve grabbed whatever part of him was closest and squeezed. And the part I would’ve grabbed happened to be his favorite.
* * *
The beach, the hotel, and the bungalows were all right out of a dream. Thankfully the bridal suite was bigger than most apartments in San Francisco. There was plenty of room for our little party.
Andi—the nervous bride-to-be; Emilia—Andi's happily married, boss-slash-matron-of-honor; Sara—the distracted-and-possibly-drunk bridesmaid; and Clare—the completely panicked wedding planner-slash-ex-wife of the groom-to-be. Oh, and me, the unmarried, confused chick who couldn’t even drink her cares away because she was taking pain medication for her sore ass.
"I'm going to leave you in the…capable hands of your wedding party." Clare smiled at me, but I’d heard the pause in her comment, as well as the panicked look on her face. Yeah, capable. Sure. "I just want to double-check—"
"Quadruple-check," someone muttered.
"—with Eric to make sure he's set up in the right spot."
"Say hi to Hillary for me," I said as Clare rushed toward the door. I hadn't seen Eric or Hillary since they’d arrived this morning. Clare had made my bestie her unofficial assistant whenever Hillary wasn't assisting her photographer boyfriend. Or fiancé, I should call him now. Geez, it was hard to keep up.
"You look beautiful, Andi," Clare yelled as the door shut.
"She's right," Emilia said. "You do. And to think you'd planned to hide this gorgeousness behind a computer screen for the rest of your days."
"And I would've gotten away with it, too," Andi said, smiling. "If it hadn't been for you meddling kids."
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