Cam’s wanton island maiden had already become deeply involved breaking rules with two other guys by the time he’d returned to the bar, so he’d opted to set off down a path and enjoy whatever scene he stumbled across.
Which didn’t explain why his thoughts continued to stray back to the silly blonde. Only, in their brief time together, he’d already figured out she wasn’t remotely the airhead he’d assumed her to be. He wondered why she’d chosen that getup, what she’d been after. It certainly hadn’t been being pawed by two men. So what was she doing here?
“And why do I care?” he murmured. She wasn’t what he’d come here to find; in fact she was the antithesis of his dreamed-of wanton island woman. Slender, pale, with no discernible curves and clearly at a loss as to what to do with the ones she did have. Perky nipples, he’d give her that, but he was looking to have his senses overwhelmed here, and for that he needed a woman who called to his animal instincts. A woman who could only be described as lush, bountiful, sensual. The blonde—or whatever her natural shade was—wasn’t any of those things.
He was still trying to imagine her up in hot-tub heaven. His lips quirked as he imagined her talking herself into being the only one in her own tub. All things considered, she’d probably be safer that way.
He rounded the bend in the path only to find himself at a crossroad. There was laughter mixed with gasps of pleasure coming from his right. He stepped in that direction, only to freeze when he heard the shriek of nervous laughter coming from the opposite direction.
He knew that nervous laugh.
He groaned and shook his head. You’re not going to do this. More gasping and moaning just down the path in front of him. Another squeal behind him. She got herself into whatever she’s into now, she can get herself out. Go for the pleasure moans, he told himself, but somehow his feet were already carrying him in the other direction.
He’d just take a peek, he told himself. So he wouldn’t be distracted by wondering just what she’d gotten herself into this time. Probably it was nothing; probably it wasn’t even her.
It was her.
Cam stood stock-still on the path, trying to assimilate the scene before him. It had taken him a moment or two with the glass-bottomed hot tubs to believe what he was seeing. But this—He supposed he should have read the chalkboard before leaving the bar, if for no other reason than to prepare himself for the kinds of games they played here.
He could only assume this was the Smear Fruit All Over Your Half-Naked Partner game. Except the blonde was the only one left half naked. There were some thongs and bikini briefs on some of the other participants, but for the most part it was a sea of naked flesh covered in what looked like mango pulp. And his blonde was smack in the middle of it.
After a moment or two of study, he began to get the gist of the “game.” It was a relay of sorts, where you had to pass an overripened mango from one teammate to another, without using your hands, or teeth. He supposed the first team to complete the relay won something, but none of the six or so teams seemed too concerned with that at the moment. Whenever a mango was dropped to the plastic—and by now quite slippery—mat, another was given to the beginning team member and they started again. Several of the team members had come up with rather…ingenious ways of passing their fruit, he noticed.
She was in the middle of the third line, about four deep in her team. Literally smack dab in the middle of all the chaos. It went without saying that the lineup was man-woman, man-woman. Somehow, she’d ended up man-woman-man-man. Three men were trying very hard to, well, pass her fruit. Mango juice sieved all over her pale flesh. Her shirt was glued to her skin and her various contortions had shoved her skirt up to her hips, revealing a startling pair of hot pink panties with a big red pair of lips curving across her surprisingly shapely little fanny. He found himself fighting a smile. He also found his body stirring. Which was ridiculous. Not that the scene wasn’t erotic. Some of the women out there would have been right at home in a centerfold layout.
So why wasn’t he watching them?
She slipped then, and two of the men “accidentally” slipped with her. The mango was on her stomach and the men weren’t giving up on the relay. One man tried to tuck the mango under his chin, which had the fortunate side effect of pushing his face right into her breasts. He took his sweet time trying to capture the soft piece of fruit. Her other teammate was urging him to push the fruit between her breasts, breasts he was helpfully holding and pushing together to form a trap of sorts. The third teammate jumped in—literally—at this point and straddled her legs, which were thrashing around as she squealed hysterically under the ministrations of the other two. Her hands were trapped beneath the men and she bucked and gasped as they continued to have their merry way with her.
Cam found himself getting more than a little aroused, which made no sense. She was apparently having a great deal of fun, which was fine for her, but forcibly holding a woman down and having his way with her had never been high on his list of fantasies. In fact, it wasn’t on the list at all. But there was something almost…primal about watching her squirm beneath their joint attentions. Not that he wanted to join in. If he were ever of the mind to try something like that, he was fairly certain he’d want to be the only man in the scenario trying it.
And yet, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. There were other couples in far more sexually explicit contortions, several of whom had long since forgotten about the mango and, for that matter, the race altogether. They were far too busy licking juices off one another…among other things.
But his gaze kept going back to her. Maybe it was the shrieks. The men were laughing with her and no one appeared to be doing anything they weren’t all enjoying. He should go back down the other path now and investigate the source of those pleasure gasps and moans he’d heard. But just then her head reared up, and despite the squeals of what sounded like delight, what he saw in her eyes was full-blown panic.
His desire to be a bad boy and go back to his wanton-woman hunt warred mightily with the instincts telling him she needed help. “Well, it doesn’t have to be my help,” he muttered to himself. There were plenty of club employees—pleasure directors he’d discovered they were called, P.D.’s for short—observing the action. All she had to do was call out and one of them could rescue her.
Her head thrashed wildly from side to side, her wide eyes searching for something—someone? A P.D. maybe? She opened her mouth, perhaps to call out, but it was immediately claimed by the man now on top of her, who’d finally rolled the mango up beneath their joint chins. Her face was blocked from him then, but the way she bucked and kicked told him she was not as willing a participant in this as he’d thought. He doubted her partner—partners, actually—had any clue. If he hadn’t seen her eyes, he wouldn’t have known either. And he knew they weren’t interested in what her eyes held as much as what the remnants of her super bra did.
He should call one of the directors. It was the sensible thing to do, then he could go on with his night. So why, a moment later, he was the one wading into the fray, was beyond him. Two P.D.’s were on him immediately, genially pulling him back, all smiles as they told him he’d have to go join in at the end of the line. He tried to tell them he didn’t want to play, that he was trying to help someone.
“Sir, we’re sorry, but if your girlfriend chose to play, that’s her prerogative. You know the rules. You’ll have to discuss it with her when it’s over, but you can’t disrupt the—”
He yanked his arms free. “She’s not my girlfriend. I don’t even know her! I just noticed she was in trouble—never mind.” He was only a foot or so away at that point, so he lunged and was on top of the man on top of her a second later. He tried not to think about the mango juices now ruining his linen shirt. He managed to slide the man off her, using one bare foot to dislodge the man holding her legs and a good forearm to the chest to get the third one off of her.
“Hey, dude, what the hell—”
“You can’t just—”
“What the—?”
But he didn’t care about the spluttering men, or the P.D.’s. Suddenly he realized that now he was the one directly on top of her. She was still thrashing, still thinking she was the main course in the mango buffet line.
“Hey, it’s okay. Stop. Stop!”
She paused just long enough to focus on his face. “You!”
Mango squished along his stomach. He grimaced. “Yeah, it’s me.”
She stopped thrashing and the P.D.’s finally gave up and redirected her other partners back to the game. Cam barely paid them any attention.
“We really have to stop meeting like this,” he said.
“I don’t believe I asked you to meet me anywhere, much less”—she squirmed a bit—“like this.”
His body responded sharply to the feel of her beneath him. Must be all that slippery skin. Anyone would react. “I just saved you from being made into a human smoothie and you act like—”
“Like a woman who didn’t ask to be saved?”
“Anyone could see you needed saving.”
“But only you thought it appropriate to barge into the middle of the game and ruin it.”
“Ruin it?” A quick glance proved that her teammates had indeed found another mango and a far more willing participant and weren’t wasting any time passing their fruit. “Hardly,” he said, looking back down at her. “In fact, I don’t think anyone’s even noticed.”
For just a brief second, something flickered in her eyes. Such a pale, pale blue, he noticed. And what he’d seen in them had been…hopelessness. Resignation.
She squirmed again. “You’re heavy,” she said pointedly. “Would you mind letting me up?”
His body jerked again as she rubbed against him, but he wanted nothing more than to dislodge himself from this melee and go back to being the captain of his own destiny. Which he was determined would have nothing more to do with hers. But instead he found himself staying right where he was, in the midst of fruit-flinging insanity, saying, “You had three men on you moments ago and you weren’t complaining.”
“It’s—not the same.”
“Why? Because I’m actually focused on you and all they were focused on was copping a feel? And maybe a lick or two?”
Her eyes widened for a moment, then narrowed. “I could have handled them.” Her jaw set. “With both hands tied behind my back.”
Visions of her tied up, with rivulets of thick mango juice running all over her creamy white skin, of him licking up each trickle, making her thrash and buck and shriek, only this time with no doubt as to whether she was enjoying it or not, exploded into his mind, completely uninvited.
Something of those thoughts must have registered on his face, because her pupils shot wide and she went completely still. And then he was leaning down, to do what, he had absolutely no idea. At the last possible second, she turned her head to the side and very quietly said, “Please. I want to get up. Now.”
It was that very quietness that had him moving off her. He was on his feet, helping her up, before he could assimilate the knowledge that in that split second before she’d turned her head, what he’d seen in her eyes hadn’t been panic. Or hopelessness. Definitely not resignation.
What he’d seen was desire. A bright, microsecond burst of want, before she’d shut it off, turned it aside. Turned him aside. Why? And, again, why did he care?
They both slipped and almost lost their balance as they gripped each other’s forearms for support—slimy as it was—and made their way through the melange of sticky bodies.
As soon as she got off the mat and regained her footing, she let go of him. She pushed back her hair, which now hung in loose, mango-covered ropes around her head and squared her partially bared shoulders in an attempt, he supposed, to retrieve some semblance of her dignity.
“I suppose I should thank you, even if I didn’t really need the help.”
He fought a grin, another nonsensical reaction. He’d come here looking for passion, lust, wild monkey sex. And instead, he’d spent his first couple of hours playing Good Samaritan. And it wasn’t even appreciated. His grin surfaced then and he shook his head.
“What’s so funny?” Then her lips quirked and she gave in and laughed.
It was the first real laugh he’d heard from her and the difference was remarkable. For all her pale-skinned, noncurvy, basically unnoticeable-type self, her laugh was full-bodied, rich, and infectious.
She motioned to how they both looked and said, “I take the question back.” She looked at him again, a bit of sparkle in the depths of those eyes now. “And I’m sorry for being such a snot back there. It’s just…I came here hoping to learn more about myself and I’m discovering that’s hard enough without…” She glanced away, then after taking a breath, looked back at him and finished. “Without someone reminding me every other minute just how incapable I am in the first place. I mean, I’m incredibly capable of a lot of things. But this”—she waved blindly behind her—“doesn’t appear to be one of them.”
He started to respond, though he had no idea what he’d have said, but she waved him silent.
“Listen, you’re a nice guy and obviously were just trying to help me out of the jams I seem to have a special skill for landing myself in here. It’s refreshing, especially after tonight, to know there are still nice guys left out there. But I know doing good deeds can’t be why you came here. I’m sure you’re here to have a good time and I’m just as sure you didn’t plan to have that good time with someone like me. So—and don’t take this the wrong way—please stop saving me, even if it’s only from myself. I need to do this my own way, even if it lands me in over my head. Deal?”
Cam simply stared at her. A nice guy. Apparently he wasn’t having any more success achieving his goals here than she was. “Why do you say that?” When she looked confused, he clarified, “That I didn’t come here looking for someone like you.”
She smiled again, this time more ruefully. “Let’s just call it a well-educated guess. You didn’t look exactly thrilled at having to rescue me the first time. Now I’ve managed to ruin your good clothes, to boot. Somehow I’m thinking it’s not because you hoped I’d try to get them off you later.”
He grinned, shaking his head. She really was something. “I don’t know what I thought,” he replied, realizing now just how truthful a statement that was. “But you’re right about one thing. I didn’t come here to be Mr. Nice Guy. In fact, I’ve spent a lifetime being Mr. Nice Guy and you know what? It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
She tilted her head, studying him, then smiled. “Well, then, I’m sorry I brought out the worst in you.”
He laughed at that and she joined him. She really did have a hell of a laugh. Then their laughter faded and they were left standing, in the midst of chaos, staring at one another.
She cleared her throat first. “Well, I suppose I should go clean up. I’m sorry about your clothes, if you want me to have them cleaned I—”
“It’s okay. It was my choice to jump in.”
She lifted a hand, then let it drop. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your night.” She turned to go.
He should have let her walk away, should have turned and gone back down the path toward the pleasure moans he’d heard earlier. But he didn’t. His life was full of “should haves.” Why should this be any different?