*Chloe
My body is wracked with a heady combination of nerves and the tingling of aftershocks. My skin feels tight and sensitive, made ever more so by the electrical charge leftover from the orgasm. I can’t meet Gabriel’s eyes.
Not because he did anything wrong. More like because everything he did was so right.
Things like this don’t just happen to normal people, and my intense reaction scares me.
I drop my hefty bags and the life vests underneath the console and plop down onto the seat. Gabriel is having an intense discussion with the cop back on the beach and I watch underneath my lashes as he gestures wildly. His eyes are on me, though. It makes my fingers stumble over the strappy clasps of my sandals when I remember the way his eyes heated while he pleasured me. Watching him as he watched me tumble over the edge was the most erotic experience of my life.
Pull it together, Chloe.
Gabriel waves to Tyler and wades back over to me. I can barely move by the time he reaches the boat. My fingers clasp at the soft, cracked leather seats and my thighs stick together from the humidity—probably a good thing considering how easily they spread for him.
He lifts himself into the boat and my mouth goes dry. Water cascades down the cut ridges of his abs and I want to throw myself at his feet and lick each and every drop. My cheeks heat and I suck my lower lip into my mouth to stifle the need building inside me.
He starts the boat and eases away from the beach. I send our ragtag little shack a mournful glance. Who would have thought that a night there would have been so much more enjoyable than the four-star hotel my company had set me up in? I heave a sigh, feeling the peaceful spell he’d woven around me fade as we speed away.
The ride back to the main part of the island takes much less time than the ride out, and I find myself slumping in disappointment as he pulls back into the slip. I can see the distinct rise of my hotel in the distance. Instead of feeling relief at the thought of returning to my life, I feel the burn of regret festering in my chest.
Gabriel twists the keys from the ignition, but doesn’t make a move to stand. His hands rest on the wheel with the keys dangling loosely from his fingers. His powerful shoulders are bunched up and the little bit I can see of his face reveals a thunderous expression.
He must be waiting for me to get the heck out of here, right? Fine. I grab my bag and surge to my feet so quickly that I don’t pay any mind to the cut on my foot. I let out an involuntary shriek of pain as my foot throbs in protest.
Gabriel catches me before I make a fool of myself for the hundredth time since meeting him. His arms are solid around me and I flash back to earlier when he’d had me caged in a much more pleasurable position.
“You okay?”
I force the words around the knot in my throat. “Yeah,” I whisper. “Totally fine. Just forgot about my foot. Thanks.”
His arms tighten around me as I move to stand up. I shoot him a look, my brows drawing together. He grunts and takes a step back, putting a good couple of feet in between us.
“Ya’ll take care now!” calls a voice from behind us.
I turn and see Tyler pulling into another slip behind us and curse his ever-loving horrible timing. The moment broken, I take Gabriel’s offered hand and take the first steps back to reality. The life that felt like it belonged to someone else.
I look around at the dock and note the destruction and debris scattered everywhere. Trees naked of their leaves are bent at awkward angles. Everything’s all roughed up and appears vulnerable. Much like how I feel after baring myself to this man—both body and soul—I barely know. My life is chaotic as it is—always a new, shitty job to jet off to, a slew of half-hearted relationships, a broken family. What did I have to offer this beautifully complicated man? He has a daughter for Christ’s sake. The last thing he needs is a train wreck like me.
Wanting to spare us both from the inevitable awkward goodbye, I paste on a happy face—the one that got me through weeks of phony friends and relatives after my dad died. Gabe is tying off the boat and checking gear, glancing up at me with intense, alluring eyes. Perfect, he’s distracted.
“So, thanks.” I clear my throat. “For everything. I’d better get back before they send out a search party.” I give a fake laugh that I hope he can’t see through. “Another one.”
And he just stands there looking as pained as I feel, so I give him a weak wave, press the remaining money I owe him into his hands, and book it back to my hotel room, where I tell myself it’s for the for the best.
Gabriel
I groan as I watch Chloe limp away. This was not how I pictured my day going after waking up to a beautiful woman wrapped around me. Fate or sheer coincidence had thrown Chloe and me together, and given me something to hold on to. A woman who seems just as lost and lonely as I am. A woman who isn’t intimidated by my brash exterior or interested in a one nighter while she is on vacation. Though we’d almost wound up that way, I could sense she wasn’t that type of girl.
Sending her one last mournful glance, I reluctantly return to the boat to finish shutting her down and tying her off. I’m kicking myself for not protesting and letting her walk away. Was it worth losing what we could have because of what might happen in the future? Were my fears of getting burned again going to be my downfall?
I hear footsteps on the dock. They come to a stop by me, but I ignore them as I put away the emergency bag. Tyler doesn’t say a word, but I can feel his curiosity like an itch on my neck. With nothing else left to clean, I make my way back to him, but my eye catches on something on the floor.
Chloe’s camera bag.
I smile and grab it. I turn to Tyler and ask, “You wouldn’t happen to know what hotel Chloe’s at, would you?”
*
I hear her voice on the other side of the door and it makes a devious smile pull at my lips. I knock and as I wait, I picture what she is doing on the other side. The chain wiggles and the door opens to an outpouring of steam and with it a sweet feminine scent. She’s wrapped in a robe and her skin is still damp from the shower. I inhale deeply and get in her space. She has nowhere to hide and I’m going to keep it that way until we settle whatever it is between us.
Chloe’s eyes widen and she bobbles the drink she was holding, the sudden movement causing the corded hotel phone to slip from her shoulder and tumble to the tile floor. She glances from the phone to me, and back to the floor again, as though she can’t comprehend how any of it came to be.
I hold up her camera bag by the ridiculous pink strap. “You forgot something.”
Then I take a step into the room and guide her backwards with a firm hand on her shoulder. I turn and close the door. The clicking sound from the lock echoes in the small space of the room.
The wild look in her eyes gives me a ridiculous amount of satisfaction. I like the thought of her being cornered and on edge more than I’ll admit. It was time for her to be the one off-balance here.
She tries to cover up her nerves with chatter. “I can’t believe I left it. This weekend has been crazy. Forgetting that would have been disastrous.” A blush stains the apples of her cheeks.
My eyes follow the line of the robe as it dips down the middle of her body. The belt is loosely tied and throws a shadow over the exposed line of skin. She fists the collar of her robe with one hand as I take in the outline of her legs through the material. My fingers twitch with the need to feel their silky softness again. She shifts from foot to foot, still favoring her injured heel, and the sight of her toenails painted a soft pink makes me smile—that’s my princess.
My eyes travel back up to hers. I hold out the bag and she takes it from me, clasping it to her chest as if it will protect her from me.
I take a few steps until I can see that her bundled hair is dripping down the back of her robe. Picturing her in the shower makes me ache with need so I discard the thought and focus. “Did you really think that you could get away from me that easily, princess?”
“Get away from you? But—”
“Room service,” comes a call from the door.
She flicks it an annoyed glance. “Sorry, that’s me.”
I relax into a chair and motion for her to go ahead with a wave of my hand. I watch her stride across the room. She keeps shooting me these nervous glances as she takes her order from the bellboy and I have to resist the urge to smile. She comes back and sets the tray down on the small table.
“Do you want some?”
“No, that’s okay.”
She settles down into the chair and crosses her mile-long legs, causing the hem of her robe to slip dangerously higher. She takes a long swallow of a frozen drink—a Piña Colada by the looks of it and starts nibbling on the assortment of fruits she’d ordered.
“Thank you for bringing back my bag. The big guys want what few images I was able to take first thing in the morning. Then I go back on Sunday. I would have been in deep shit without it.”
I make a noncommittal noise as I watch her nibbling on pieces of fruit and sipping on her drink.
She’s acting as if nothing has happened, like we haven’t had a connection at all, like I haven’t watched her as she came in my arms. Like her world hasn’t tipped on its axis.
I bide my time, make simple—though somewhat stilted—conversation with her as she finishes off her plate of strawberries and pineapple. Her fingers twitch each time she lifts her hand to take a drink and her eyes move around me as if she couldn’t stand to look at me for too long.
She can dance around the attraction between us as much as she likes, but the simple fact is I’m not leaving until I’ve driven her as crazy as she’s made me.
A few minutes later, her plate cleaned and her drink completely drained, she stands and clears her throat. “Thanks again, for everything. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
She thinks she can just brush me off. I bristle in my seat. “Oh, you mean the part where you dragged me out into a storm, stranded me in a dilapidated cabin, and then left me with the biggest case of blue balls of my life?”
Her mouth opens and closes. “God, Gabriel. Your asshole is showing again.”
I feel my thunderous expression dissolving and with it the tension and awkwardness. Unfortunately, it had to come at her expense and she covers her now heated face with her hands.
“That’s not what I meant,” she mumbles through her hands. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I didn’t know you were so concerned,” I reply through my laughter.
She grumbles and stalks away.
I follow her to the door, but when she goes to open it, I place a palm against it, closing it instead. I press myself against her back, caging her against the door. Her entire body stills at the contact.
She stands there for a moment, her chest heaving, and with every intake of breath she brushes against me. Slowly, she turns to face me, but her gaze stays latched at the base of my throat, her face splotchy.
I cup my hands under her chin and bring her eyes to mine. I savor the moment she realizes I’m about to kiss her. She sucks in a sharp breath and her lids flutter closed.
Then our lips touch and I realize that maybe there’s a flaw in my grand plan to seduce her. One taste and she’s utterly seduced me.