“Shush.” In the quiet of the night, her voice sounded loud and she swallowed back the urge to scream. “And don’t call me babe.”
“What does it matter now whether or not I call you babe? She knows about us. By tomorrow, everyone else will know too.”
“It matters to me.” As his words sunk in, and she realized that their affair would be out in the open for everyone to examine and criticize, she buried her face in her hands and resisted the urge to cry. “I want to be taken seriously, Bill.”
“I take you seriously.” And just as her heart swelled with joy at his words, he ruined it all by snaking his hand under her t-shirt and pinching her nipple. “Seriously serious, babe. You’re so hot, every time I’m around you, all I want to do is bury myself dee—”
“Shut up.” She knocked his probing hand away and wiped at the tears on her cheek. Thankfully he zipped shut his mouth or she’d have been forced to shove a fistful of sand down his throat. “I’m serious, Bill. I don’t want to rub the fact that we’re sleeping together in her face.”
“She divorced me, remember?”
“Yeah, but you left her first, so how do you know that she still doesn’t have feelings for you?” Trudy had seen the way Marla sometimes watched Bill, like there was a deep crevice of hurt hidden.
She crawled back on her hands and knees to the spot she’d carved out in the sand beside Bill, and sat back on her haunches, too exhausted to stay awake, too upset to fall asleep without a little help. But sex was off the plate. She’d have to count sheep. Or better yet, imagine what it would be like once she had the breast reduction.
No more shoulder pain. No more bras that wouldn’t fit properly. No more men ogling her chest instead of listening to what came out of her mouth.
Bill reached for her again and she swatted his hands away. “No means no, Bill. Haven’t you done enough damage for one night?”
“Are you blaming this on me?” he hissed as he sat up and got right into her face. Thanks to the flicker of the firelight, she could make out the snarl on his lips. “It takes two to tango, babe, and you’ve been my wingman long enough to accept part of the blame.”
“Quit being a jerk and talk like a normal guy.”
The snarl turned to indignation and surprise. “This is how I always talk to you.”
“Maybe it was cute at the beginning, but it isn’t so cute anymore.” She snorted and muttered, “How come you can act like an idiot and everyone still takes you serious? But I sign up for accounting courses, and all anyone can see is an empty headed blonde with enormous boobs?”
“That’s because they’re sticking right out there like headlights.” He caught her by the wrist and tried to tumble her back down, his tone once again cajoling. “Come on, Trudy. Let’s finish what we started. Everyone else is still asleep.”
“Leave me alone, Bill. I’m not in the mood.” And even though she was tempted—because sex was the ultimate sleeping pill and she didn’t think she’d get much sleep without it tonight—she pulled free and glanced around the shelter, conscious of Bill’s silence behind her, slowly picking up the sounds of the others sleeping in the shelter. Trudy peered closer at the Readners and the boss lady’s mom, and just like Bill said, they were all fast asleep, as though nothing had happened.
So how come it had to be the woman she wanted to impress the most who had stayed awake?
In the dark, Bill crawled up beside her and took one of her hands into both of his. Either he’d gotten the message or he hadn’t given up on getting inside of her. His voice was whisper soft in the near darkness, wrapping her in a soothing blanket of affection.
“You’ve been saying for months that she needed to find out about us, babe. Now it’s done and you can breathe easy.”
She relished the comfort of his nearness, the heat of his body, the way he held her hand in his, as though she actually mattered. Near tears, she choked out, “Not like this, Bill. I never wanted to hurt her.”
As the minutes ticked past, Bill finally gave up any attempt at seduction and abandoned her to fall asleep on the warm sand. Trudy sat there while dawn approached and lit the eastern sky. She could see the beach clearly through the opening and now saw the captain curled around Marla, protecting her from the chill of the night.
Despite all that was at stake—the ten thousand dollar bonus, the breast reduction, and the partnership—she couldn’t help but feel that she’d done the other woman a favor. The captain wasn’t bad to look at and he seemed pretty nice.
And the longer Trudy was with Bill, the more it became painfully obvious that he was no prize.
But then, they said love was blind.
She laid down on her back and stared at the palm tree fronds on the shelter roof.
Perhaps Trudy herself was the blindest of the idiots.
Because Bill was her idiot and she was hopelessly in love with him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Reed slowly came awake to the gentle sound of the waves lapping against the shoreline, the warmth of the sun on the side of his face, the feel of a female body in his arms, the softness of one breast filling his hand, and the ache of a full blown erection. He stayed silent and still, and tried to remember where he was and who was in his arms. Somewhere in the back of his sleep-fogged brain, he recognized Marla’s scent and something deep in his soul shifted.
This is what it would be like to wake every morning with that special someone in his arms. Even though he wasn’t the settling down kind, it didn’t mean that he hadn’t thought about what it would be like.
Marla, with her saucy and sweet and no-nonsense attitude, had triggered this desire for something more permanent in his life, something that smacked of shackles and carpools and a nine-to-five job in a windowless office.
It made him shudder with fear—and there was very little he feared—and want to untangle himself from the warm womanly package in his arms before he sunk for a second day in a row. There were more important things to deal with, like finding food and water, surviving till they were rescued, and fixing the radio so they could get rescued.
And figure out exactly what that staff meeting had been about.
He gave Marla’s shoulder a nudge and whispered into her ear, “Wake up, French Fry.”
She shifted in his arms, the softness of her breast teasing his palm, the curve of her bottom nestling against the front of his body, causing his boner to get bonier.
Reed slid his hand out from under her and tried to remember if there was anything he should feel guilty about. But he was pretty sure she’d invaded his personal space, not the other way around.
She pushed up on one elbow and scraped the glorious mane of unbound hair away from her face. The wayward strands tickled Reed’s face and got snagged in his morning whiskers. She glanced over her shoulder at him, momentary surprise glinting in her eyes before wakefulness and awareness stiffened the softness of her body against him. “Good morning.”
Before he could roll her a safe distance away and hide his body’s reaction to her presence, the palm branches on the shelter shifted and Paul stepped out. He squinted against the morning sunshine, shaded his eyes with his arm, and froze. “What’s going on here?”
As Paul stomped across the sand in their direction, Reed clamped a hand on Marla’s hip and hissed, “Don’t move.”
“Why not?” She peered over her shoulder, still sleep-fogged and adorable in her confusion, and she wiggled her bottom in an attempt to get away, then in the next moment froze. Her beautiful eyes widened with the realization that her backend was pressed against his raging erection. In response, her cheeks grew rosy and she shackled her fingers around his wrist. With her embarrassment morphing into annoyance, she turned back to the man now standing before them—arms crossed over his chest, rumpled and grumpy from a night of sleeping on the hard ground in clothes better suited for the office, wearing the same pissed off expression he’d worn whenever Reed displeased him—and said, “This is definitely not what it looks like.�
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No matter what, Reed wasn’t going to apologize. All he’d done was allow the determined woman in his arms to climb into his bed. What happened while they slept, where his hands and mouth and body ended up, wasn’t his fault, nor hers.
He gritted his teeth against the caress of her backend against the front of his body, clamped his hand down tighter on her hip, and reined in his desire. “Definitely not what it looks like.”
Even though it was sort of exactly what it looked like.
His dad glared down that them, silent and watchful and more annoyed by the minute. Behind him, the other castaways stepped out of the shelter—first Betty who jostled Mary aside as the two women collided in the doorway, then Mary with a snarl and retort ready on her lips, then Bill whose sleep-fogged appearance disappeared the moment he noticed them, and finally Trudy who, behind her boyfriend’s back, gave Marla a guilty grimace and Reed a thumbs up.
Betty stopped on one side of Paul, her animated gaze fixed on the couple on the sand. “Atta girl, honey. We’re halfway to our goal.”
Mary hip-checked her rival aside, and successfully wormed her way between her husband and the other woman. “What goal?”
“None of your business, Hag,” Betty replied.
“Bitch,” Mary retorted.
Ignoring them, Paul held one hand out toward Marla. “It’s not your fault. I blame my irresponsible son. Here, let me help you up.”
She ignored his outstretched hand. “It’s not his fault either.”
Reed tightened his hand on her hip, his voice strained and tight. “If you could give us a moment alone, Sir.”
Paul drilled him with an accusing look. “What for?”
Reed locked his jaw and his annoyance. “We need to get untangled.”
With his eyes narrowing, his dad turned to the rest of the speculators and barked, “Don’t you people have something better to do?”
Everyone scrambled away, moving several feet down the white sandy beach, collecting driftwood and items that had washed up on the beach. Reed saw his mom pick up the long black dildo and stare down at it with confusion.
Now that everyone else was occupied elsewhere, the woman in Reed’s arms started to wiggle her sweet derrière again. He hissed out a breath. “Stop that.”
“What?” she hissed back, sounding exasperated and embarrassed and a little desperate.
From between the clench of his teeth, he ground out, “Stop wiggling. You’re making it worse.”
“How can wiggling make this worse?” She wiggled again, then froze, her back stiff as his boner as she tugged at his hand again and tried to arch away. “No one’s looking. Can I move now?”
When he removed his hand from her hip, she scrambled to her feet and turned to crouch before him, thoughtful enough to stay between him and their audience, her embarrassed gaze fixed solidly on his face, her full lips pursed, tempting him to lean forward, catch her by the back of her neck, and tumble her back onto his body for a little more full body contact.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, not quite meeting his eyes. “I should have thought that Paul would blame this on you.”
He pushed up to his knees and arranged his shirt over his lap. “It’s not your fault.”
“You’re right, it’s not. It’s Bill’s.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I’m serious, Reed, about not sleeping in the same shelter as those two. I don’t want to listen to…well, whatever they’re doing.”
“Fine.” He pushed to his feet, catching her elbow to help her up, not because he thought anyone was watching them, but because despite what his dad thought about him, believe it or not, he was just that sort of guy. “So what do you want to do?”
“Sleep out here with you again tonight?” Before he could say a word, she grabbed her glorious mane of hair and totally distracted him as she started to wind the silky strands on top of her head, only to have the length unfurl to her waist again when she let go. She sighed and grabbed it again. “I’ll explain what happened.”
He refocused. “You’ll get Bill and Trudy in trouble.”
“Better them than us.” Peering at him out of the corner of her eye, she sent him a shy smile. “Thanks for keeping me warm last night.”
“Not a problem.” As the silence stretched between them, Reed had to push back the urge to gather her into his arms and kiss her. Instead, he bent down, grabbed some driftwood, and set it onto the fire. The flames licked at the dry wood and flared. “I’m sorry you had to find out about them that way.”
She looked away toward the beach and the storm battered yacht. “Bill and I are divorced. He can sleep with whoever he wants.” Her solemn gaze returned to him. “So can I.”
Reed shifted, uneasy. He didn’t want to be her rebound bed partner, especially in sight of what he knew about her. “If you want Bill back, I can help you.”
Her expressive face morphed into disbelief. “Are you kidding?”
“No, I’m serious. Right now, Trudy is racked with guilt. She’s young and impressionable. You could give her some advice.”
A smile blossomed across her face and when it lit up her face, he caught his breath.
“What kind of advice?”
He grinned back at her. “The kind that makes things hard for Bill.”
The smile turned impish, the wicked glint in her eyes suggesting there was more below the surface cool that she’d first shown him. “How hard?”
“So hard, he’ll run into your arms, screaming like a little girl.”
With that, her smile faded and she turned her focus on the other occupants of the beach. “I definitely don’t want him running into my arms, but the screaming would be pretty satisfying.”
The relief Reed felt caught him off guard. His dad was right about one thing. He definitely wasn’t a future kind of guy, and everything he knew about this woman warned him that she had her entire life mapped out.
And it looked totally different from his.
He followed her gaze to the crowd milling around at the edge of the shoreline. They looked wrecked and wretched, and it was up to him to ensure they returned to Serendipity Island safe and none the worse for wear.
Betty had found an open suitcase, dragged it up on dry land, and had started to gather whatever articles of clothing she could find.
Mary tossed the dildo back into the ocean, barely managing to send it a few feet, and now it looked like a snake threatening to return to shore.
Paul stood fists on hips like a king who’d conquered a new land to rule.
A few feet away, Bill and Trudy were whispering furiously, no doubt attempting to figure out where the blame for Marla’s situation was going to land. Because everyone knew Paul favored and protected his prodigy like she was his only child.
He felt a nudge on his big toe and when he turned his attention back on her, she’d cocked her head and smiled the sultry smile she’d given him right before the storm hit.
“Maybe it’s a good thing you don’t stick because, you know, whatever happens on the island stays on the island. We could be shipwrecked for years. It would be a shame to be alone all of that time.”
His breath hitched in his throat. “What are you saying?”
She shrugged one slim shoulder and slid her gaze toward the others. “If we stick together for the duration of our stay on the island, we might both survive all of the people who drive us crazy. Think about it.”
As she turned to leave, he caught her hand, unwilling to let go of this private moment, but knowing full well that he couldn’t keep her to himself. Otherwise she’d get the impression that he was interested in something long term. “So now what?”
“Now you keep your mouth shut and let me handle this. I’ll straighten out this mess so we can get back to the survival thing.” Her stomach grumbled noisily. “I’m starving. We need to find food.”
She tugged her hand free, turned her back on him, and marched across the sand.
His attention dropped to the softly rounded derri
ere currently making tracks toward the people on the beach.
No way was he going to survive without a lot of distractions, and Marla and her lush body were the perfect distraction to while away the hours of the day, and the night.
He thrust his hands into his pockets, encountered the panties, and smiled at the thought of giving them back to her.
With nothing better to do—except find food and water and watch her back—he followed her across the beach, curious whether she’d stand up to Paul, or end up in the shelter next to Bill and Trudy again tonight.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Marla was not going down without a decent attempt at putting all of the blame on her ex.
As she trudged across the beach toward Paul, the white pristine sand warm beneath her feet, she worked her hair back into a knot on top of her head, and for the zillionth time thought Life would be a whole lot easier without all this hair to take care of. Maybe it’s time to chop it off.
With a tuck and a pat to ensure the knot would stay in place this time, and a sneak peek over her shoulder to ensure Reed had chosen to follow her—the men in her life never wanted to stick—she charged into the fray.
Paul looked mad enough to spit nails, while Mary and Betty had left the shoreline to stand nearby, united in their curiosity. Despite the unpleasant task ahead, it relieved some of the pressure because it would be a whole lot easier to be shipwrecked if the two women got along.
As she stopped in front of Paul and watched his glower deepen, she knew that if ever there was a time for damage control, this was it.
Sleeping with Reed—spooned and cocooned and safe in his arms—no doubt appeared irresponsible to the man who signed her paycheck and would select the accounting firm’s partner. For so many years, she’d managed to cover up the hot mess of irresponsibility inside of her that threatened to expose the rest of her messy life…including the drawer in her office where she stuffed all of the paraphernalia she no longer used, like old staplers she intended to fix one day, and out-of-date calendars because sometimes it was cool to look back, and business cards of clients they no longer dealt with.
Caught Between a Rock and a Hunka Man (Caught Between Romance Book 3) Page 10