Down for the Count (Dare Me)

chapter Six


Blood rushed to Lacey’s ears and her brain froze. Cyrus’s lips were moving, but his words weren’t making any sense. We’re down with either one.

She opened her mouth and then closed it again with a snap, unable to fully grasp what was happening. Cyrus’s fingers traced a path from her shoulder to the nape of her neck, and although she didn’t feel any malice coming from him, the desire to jerk away was almost overpowering.

Galen locked gazes with her and gave her a reassuring smile. There was no tension in his tone when he turned to Nikki and spoke. “Listen, I’m flattered, and I’m sure Lacey is, too, but—”

“Ah, the ‘but.’” The other man’s grin turned sheepish as he released Lacey and stepped away. “I’m really sorry; I thought this was already sort of agreed upon.” He sent his fiancée an irritated look. “I told you, babe. They’ve only got eyes for each other. You were way off.”

Nikki’s brow wrinkled and she ran a hand through her wet hair. “When we were in the ladies room at the restaurant, I out and out asked her if she would do a full switch and she said yeah…”

Lacey’s face burned. “I thought you meant the lip gloss.” She crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly feeling more naked than she’d felt when the tide had swept away her bikini top.

Nikki chuckled, and then her chuckles turned into full belly laughter. A moment later, Cyrus joined her. “Oh my God.” She gasped, swiping tears from her eyes with her knuckle. “I had no clue what you were doing with that. Cy, she sort of took my lip gloss and gave me hers and I was totally baffled, thinking, Must be a Rhode Island thing.”

Cyrus howled and Galen’s ear-to-ear grin made Lacey’s cheeks burn even more. Still, they were handling it really well, and when she thought about it, it was kind of funny.

“It must have been wishful thinking on my part,” Nikki said, setting a hungry gaze on Galen. Just when a stab of jealousy poked through Lacey’s semi-shock, Nikki set an equally hungry gaze on Lacey. “I don’t know who’s sexier, him or you.”

“Definitely him,” Lacey blurted.

That got them laughing again, although it took Lacey a little while to catch up.

When the chuckles died down, there was a long and uncomfortable silence. “So are we all cool then? Friends but not luvahs? Unless of course you change your mind,” Nikki said, waggling her brows.

Could these cool, beautiful people actually be attracted to her? Boring, white-bread Lacey? In spite of her embarrassment, she found herself just a little tickled at the thought. Instead of hiding her flaming-hot face like she wanted to, Lacey smiled. “Sure thing.”

They all stood around, unsure of what to do next, when Galen saved the day. “On that note, I think it’s probably best if we call it a night. Neither of us got a whole lot of sleep and we still have to walk back. We truly appreciate your hospitality.”

Galen inched toward the side of the pool, waiting for her to follow suit. She sent a panicked glance at Cyrus and Nikki, who took pity on her by swimming off deeper into the lagoon. As soon as they were out of sight, she scurried out of the pool and into the towel Galen held out for her.

“You okay to walk back or do you want to get a cab?” he asked softly.

“It’s less than a mile; we can walk.” Despite the balmy air, her lips were trembling and she pressed them together to make them stop.

“It’s okay, squirt. You’re okay. We had a great night until that weirdness at the end, and you handled yourself beautifully. Now let’s get the hell out of here before they think we changed our minds.” That got her moving and a few minutes later, they were dressed and calling out their good-byes to Cyrus and Nikki.

They headed off back down the beach toward the villa. To his credit, Galen didn’t say a negative word to her. The old Galen would have. He would have raked her over the coals about her naiveté and busted her chops mercilessly about the whole incident. Lip gloss, indeed. Her cheeks warmed again and she broke the silence with a groan. “Oh my God, that was so mortifying.” She had opened the floodgates, so surely now he would tease her about it.

Instead, he shrugged. “No biggie.”

No biggie? She’d weathered her first—and hopefully last—orgy invitation, and he said, “No biggie”? She spared a glance his way, wishing she could see his expression better in the dim light. Was he disappointed? Wishing she’d agreed so he could get some one-on-one time with Nikki? The thought didn’t sit well. “I know you said you didn’t want me to have any regrets or miss out on any experiences, but I hope you understand why I couldn’t do…that.”

It took so long for him to reply, she started to wonder if he even heard her. Then, a few short steps from their villa door, he tugged her to a stop. “For someone as smart as you, your instincts sure suck.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there is no way I’d want you to be with someone else, especially not in front of me. But let’s get one thing straight, squirt. When you come to your senses and you’re ready to have the experience of a lifetime? I’m your guy. I’m the one you’re going to get wild with.” He took her wrist and tugged her close until they were pressed together. Thighs against thighs. Hips against hips. “I’m the one who’s going to show you that getting down and dirty doesn’t mean rolling in the wet sand.”

The past two days had been the craziest of her life, and she didn’t know how much longer she could hold up against the battering ram of his sexual attention. Their carnal kiss and head-to-toe embrace was tattooed on her brain, a live-action trailer of what could be if she stopped being such a prude. She had been right there, but for stupid Marty hanging over her head. Even now, she felt tense, like her skin was on too tight. As if her body knew that she’d left the only orgasm of her life back at that pool and was rebelling against her for pulling away. Her muscles clenched under the intensity of his gaze, but before she could stammer a response, he stepped back.

“But not until you’re ready.” He took out their key and opened the door.

Relief warred with disappointment. He was letting her off the hook. For now. He waved her through the door, following close behind.

“That was a pretty interesting way to spend an evening,” he said, his tone light as he closed the door behind them.

“Interesting is putting it mildly,” she said, happy to take the reprieve. “Cat’s not going to believe this. My first orgy. That’s even crazier than the time she and that fireman—”

He clapped his hands over his ears. “Jesus Christ, Lacey, I don’t want to hear that shit. I’m going to have to bleach my brain. And anyway, it wasn’t exactly an orgy. More like a near miss.” She frowned and he uncovered his ear. “It doesn’t make it any less awesome, though,” he assured her. “It’s an honor just to be nominated.”

Surely this was the most absurd conversation ever. She’d expected to be a married woman, exploring Old San Juan with her husband Marty all day today…or at least until his sciatica started acting up. Instead, she was here talking about her almost-orgy after nearly having sex in the pool with Galen. Her nemesis. Her tormentor. Her dream guy. The dream guy who had rocked her straight down to her toes less than an hour ago. Strange how life threw curveballs like that out of nowhere.

“You want some iced tea?” he asked, making his way to the kitchen.

“No, thanks.” She padded across the marble floor and sat on the edge of the couch, pressing her fingers to her lips. Here he was, casually talking about iced tea, and all she could think of was his mouth. How was she going to get it out of her mind now that she’d tasted it?

And his hands…God, those hands.

Hands that don’t belong on you, she reminded herself. No matter how much she wished otherwise, she was still a married woman, and what they’d done was wrong.

It didn’t feel wrong.

Suddenly, the adrenaline of the night drained from her body, and her rioting emotions came to a dead halt. The ensuing numbness was almost a relief. No more thinking for the night. She was like a dog chasing its tail and getting nowhere anyway. Once she got a good night’s sleep, she’d sit down and figure out how to handle this, and more importantly, how to handle Galen.

She flopped to the side and curled up her legs. Briefly, she contemplated changing out of her damp bra and underwear and into her pajamas but then dismissed it. A few minutes of rest first. She couldn’t hold back the loud, hippo-like yawn. “I think the last couple days are catching up with me, because I totally just hit the wall.”

“Just change and go to bed, then. Once I get out of these clothes, I’m going to get some shut-eye myself.”

She grumbled and shifted, settling more deeply into the cushions. “You go ahead, and by the time you’re done I’ll be ready to get up.” Maybe she’d close her eyes for a few minutes until he returned. Being wild was exhausting.

…

Soft snores greeted him as he reentered the living room. He shook his head, bemused. Lacey was the only person he knew who could fall asleep in less than a minute. Didn’t matter where it was, either, or what was happening around her. She’d gone on a camping trip with his family the year she and Cat were starting high school. He was going into junior year and couldn’t believe his parents hadn’t let him stay home alone. Then they’d made it ten times worse by letting Cat bring a friend. He was going to be stuck in the woods for seven days with Tweedle-Annoying and Tweedle-Even-More-Annoying. Awesome.

Up to that point, he’d made it his life’s work to mess with them both, but at fifteen, even that was beneath him. In preparation for the coming school year, he’d taken to aggressively ignoring them. Cleary, that wasn’t going to work for this camping trip, because the three of them—Cat, Lacey, and him—had been unceremoniously smashed into the backseat of his mother’s Civic. Lacey had gotten the hump in the center because she was the smallest, but that left her pressed up against his side like some kind of person-sized parasite, sucking his perpetual horniness to the surface. Beanpole or not, she was still a teenage girl, and he was a mass of hormones writhing under the paper-thin wrappings of a teenage boy. While he sat and suffered, two minutes into the trip—yes, before they’d even left city limits—she was snoring, with her face pressed against his shoulder.

For four hours, she tortured him. Her leg, bared to the thigh in her white cotton shorts, rubbing against his with every turn. Her nearly nonexistent breasts jiggling, just a little, every time his father hit a pothole. Her hand, flopping to his lap, so close to the mother lode he was reduced to gritting his teeth. And on she slept, like a rock, sawing wood as if she didn’t have a care in the world. A teenage sleeping Lacey. While the boy in him had found her hard to resist back then, in spite of his every effort to hide it, the man in him now was in far worse shape.

The memory had him grinning like an idiot as he stared down at grown-up sleeping Lacey. Now he was in a jam, though, because he wasn’t sure if he should bring her into the bedroom for a comfortable night’s sleep or if he should leave her on the couch. That morning, they’d called and asked for extra bedding from the concierge and had set up the small spare room for him to sleep in, so it was easy to take his own feelings out of it. Sharing a bed with her again wasn’t an option.

A puff of cool air from the vent above hit him on the back of the neck and it was settled. She was still in damp clothes and the room was chilly. She really needed to change. He knelt beside her and shook her shoulder gently. “Lacey, wake up.”

“Go ’way,” she mumbled before flipping onto her side with a snuffle.

He grinned and tried again, shaking a little harder. Nada. With a sigh, he bent low and scooped her up. Immediately, her arms circled his neck and she pressed closer. He steeled himself and crossed the room, trying to ignore the softness of her breast branding his chest as he walked. Jesus, maybe it was because his body was still in hyperdrive from their petting in the pool, but by the time they reached one of the bedrooms, he was sporting a full-blown hard-on.

Not bothering to flick on the light, he set her gently on the bed. He tried to disengage himself, but she would have none of it. She kept her arms locked around his neck and yanked until he was sprawled on top of her.

“Don’t wanna be alone,” she murmured, burying her nose into his throat. He rolled to the side, tugging her along with him until she lay in the crook of his arm. With a contented sigh, she snuggled in deeper and hooked her thigh over his hip. Hot blood roared to his cock. What the f*ck was he going to do now? Over the past two days, he’d seen a side of Lacey he’d never seen before and, if he was being totally honest with himself, he’d thought she was pretty great before. Now he knew that, on top of her kind-hearted if not somewhat neurotic nature and smoking-hot body, she’d also been hiding a well of untapped sensuality. It was a lethal combination. He couldn’t remember ever wanting to touch someone so badly he could taste it.

She’d made herself clear, though. She wasn’t about to go there with him. Not right now, anyway. And maybe now was all they had. Maybe this was a fluke, an anomaly created by the perfect storm of events that would subside once they left the island. Then they’d go back to their regularly scheduled program. A program that didn’t include him wanting to tear off her clothes and make her scream his name over and over.

Then again, maybe this was always the way it was meant to go. Maybe the timing had never been right. There had been a short period in grade school where he thought she might have a crush on him, but he’d been far too old for her. When they finally bridged the perceived gap, they were in high school. He was way too cool to hang out with his little sister and her friends, and she certainly hadn’t seemed interested anyway. By the time they reached adulthood, one of them always seemed to have a significant other and it had been so easy to fall into the sniping that had become the norm for them. But now, he was single and she was well on her way to the same. Maybe this was their time.

Whenever she’s ready, he reminded himself.

He inched away, trying to get a little space between them, but for every centimeter he gained, she scooted two closer until she was almost on top of him. Her warm breath tickled his neck and he grudgingly gave up the fight as the lure of a warm female on a comfortable bed after a long day of sun and surf took over.

He slid his hand into her hair and closed his eyes, letting the image of her in her bikini bottoms, bare breasts streaked with sand, play like a silent film against the backs of his eyelids. His cock throbbed against her thigh and he groaned. Thirteen nights left.

Which was unfortunate, because at this rate? He’d be dead in three.