Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68509 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68509 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“Left it around that bend,” he said, nodding his chin off in the distance.
“Why? Aren’t you worried about it?”
“What’s gonna happen to it? We’re the only people here.”
That was a fair point.
“Do you have any water?” I asked. Sure, the fruit from the juice was good and all. But I was reasonably sure it wouldn’t be enough. At least not if we were stuck here for longer than a day or two.
“We’re good on water.”
Again, there was something kind of… strange in how he said that, in the way he wouldn’t look at me.
Before I could read more into it, though, he was done peeling the orange… and held it out to me.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
I reached for it. But the immediate sizzle as his fingers brushed mine almost had me snatching my hand back.
Wick’s gaze cut to mine, something simmering behind those brilliant green eyes, and I found myself wishing I knew him well enough to know what that look meant.
“How are the bananas?” I asked, carefully taking the orange out of his hand without coming into contact with his skin again.
“Not sweet yet, but they’re decent.”
“Is there a lot more of this?” I asked, gesturing toward the shirt still loaded down with fruit.
“More than we could possibly eat.”
Well, that was promising.
“You got sunburned,” he said, his finger swiping under my eye lightly, the touch chaste by all accounts but it made my stomach go liquid.
What was wrong with me?
Had it really been that long since I’d been with someone that I was having the warm and tinglies just from someone’s fingers brushing my skin?
But I really didn’t like that math, so I went ahead and stopped the calculations.
“I have sunscreen,” he said, getting to his feet.
I didn’t watch his back.
Nope.
Not me.
“Aren’t you hungry?” I asked his retreating form. But he didn’t answer as he disappeared around the corner of the island.
By the time he came back, I’d eaten another orange and three bananas, and was getting that sloshy ache in my stomach from too much fruit. So I didn’t reach for another.
“How far did you walk?” I asked, watching him approach.
“A ways.”
Again, that weird suspicion nettled at me.
But then he was right beside me again, this time with a small tube of sunblock in his hands.
“Where’d your friend go?” he asked.
His nearness and the slight coconut scent clinging to him made my mind momentarily go blank.
“Who?”
“Your lizard friend.”
“Oh, Hank? He chased after a bug.”
“Hank.” Wick shot me a raised brow look, his lips twitching.
“Well, he spent half an hour feeling me up, I figured he deserved a name.”
Wick dropped down to his knees beside me as he squeezed some thick white sunblock onto his fingers.
I knew I should have told him that I could do it, that I was a grown woman who didn’t need help putting on sunscreen.
But I just let him kick up my chin with one hand, then gently wipe the cream across the tops of my cheeks and bridge of my nose, then work downward. And, finally, across my forehead.
“You burn quick.” My gaze slipped up to his, and I immediately realized my mistake. He was so close. And my body hadn’t exactly calmed down from the dream.
“I, uh, don’t spend a lot of time outside. I’m what you might call… indoorsy.”
He let out a little cough of a laugh at that as he used the remainder of sunblock on his fingers to rub over my ears.
He could have just, you know, done the tops, but he brought the sunscreen down to the lobes, rubbing it in with this delicious firm pressure that sent a little shiver down my spine.
“Why?”
“Why what?” My mind was too scrambled with him touching me to even hold a tentative grasp on the conversation.
“Why are you not outdoorsy?”
“Oh, I, uh, work. A lot.”
“You work a lot, so you can’t go outside?”
“I work… constantly,” I clarified. “I take a night off here or there to hang out with my cousins and friends. But other than that, I’m working.”
“Dragging men in for skipping out on their court dates.”
“I mean, there’s an occasional woman. But your sex really does kind of corner the market on crime.”
“Who’s worse to bring in—men or women?”
“I mean, the men tend to fight me more. But the women cry. I don’t mind putting a knee in someone’s groin to bring them to their knees, but I’m not great with tears.”
“What was your last job?” he asked. Seeming to suddenly realize he was still touching me, he let his hands drop to his sides.
“Frat boy.”
“What’d he do?”
“Stole a car from his valet job and crashed it. Into a police car.”
“Idiot,” Wick said, shaking his head as he dropped back down on the ground next to me. “Did he fight?”
In response, I turned my arm to show him the scratches I’d gotten when he’d pushed me down. They weren’t raw anymore, but they still looked pretty red and ugly.