Despite the emotions swirling around inside her, Helene couldn’t help but laugh at his audaciousness, more than a little grateful that he didn’t press for more confessions. His flirting she could deal with. His quiet understanding she could not, not without losing her composure again. “No, we’re not.”
Alberto lifted his wine, the sunlight piercing the glass, turning it into a prism and making a rainbow on the white tablecloth. “To the tomorrows we’ve yet to see—may they be as wonderful as your smile and as exciting as a first kiss.”
She clinked the tip of her glass against his, a weight she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying lifted from her shoulders. And as they sipped their wine, both watching the ocean, she couldn’t help but think that the man next to her might be onto something and that it just may be time to stop mourning in her heart and celebrate what she and Michael had had instead.
Chapter Seventeen
Everly’s pinkie toes were staging a rebellion. Who’d have thought a well maintained but still dirt path on an island ninety miles off Cuba would finally be the thing to make her curse her addiction to high heels? Okay, any non-crazy person would have known that, but she hadn’t been dressing for sanity this morning. She’d been putting on armor—because of the man currently walking next to her, hauling her suitcase and his as if they didn’t weigh an ounce when she knew damn well hers, at least, weighed close to forty pounds.
She took another step forward, and her right heel sank into the ground and stayed there, making her lose her balance. Desperate to stay upright, she flung her arms out and clamped down on a very firm biceps. One she still hadn’t seen, despite the fact that he’d been buried inside her with another part of his anatomy. The whole situation made her pissed off at herself again, but it didn’t stop her body from reacting to him with a stomach flutter and a hello-there-hottie clench in her core. This was fucking ridiculous.
“You okay?”
“Fine.” Holding onto him, she yanked her foot and the corresponding shoe heel out of the dirt.
“I have a pair of tennis shoes in my bag. We’d need to stuff some socks in the toes, but it might make the last mile easier.”
“I said I’m fine.”
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She sounded like a petulant bitch. She knew this. She had to.
“What in the hell is your problem? You’ve been a pain in my ass since the parking garage.”
“You mean since we fucked on my car?”
“Yeah. Tell me, do you have some weird disease where orgasms make you mean instead of relaxing you?”
“That’s totally it, so you’d better stay away.”
Of course, the skies took that cue to do one of the Florida-midday-sudden-rainstorm things. One instant it was hotter than hell, more humid than a sauna, and sunny. The next it was pouring gigantic droplets of rain, was still hotter than hell, and—weirdly enough—sunny. It made no sense.
“Come on.” He swapped a bag so he was holding one under his arm and the other in his hand, then looped an arm around her waist and half walked her, half propelled her under the protection of one of the few palm trees dotting the path.
Since getting soaked to the bone wasn’t on her agenda for the day, she went with it. Okay, the fact that her body had reacted with the “Hallelujah Chorus” when he’d touched her and short-circuited her brain probably helped make that happen. He set their suitcases down and shoved his fingers through his wet hair. His now partially see-through white button-down shirt clung to his chest. He’d rolled up the sleeves earlier, and she’d been tormented with some solid forearm porn during the flight. This was worse because all she wanted to do was look and touch and taste what had stayed covered the other night.
He threw open his suitcase and rummaged around in the distractingly organized interior, then pulled out a pair of Nikes and some gym socks. After flipping the lid shut again and zipping it closed, he stuffed the toes of the shoes and only then did he look back up at her. The combination of now wet black hair, determined blue eyes, and hideous footwear made her catch her breath.
He pointed to a stump next to the palm tree’s trunk. “Sit.”
“You don’t get to order me around,” she said, falling back on the one thing she could always count on, her attitude.
“Sit or I’ll make you.” He took a step toward her, frustration coming off him in waves, practically sizzling the rain that had the balls to land on him. “There’s no way in hell you’re wearing those shoes for the rest of the walk. I can actually hear your feet crying out in agony. ‘Please save us, Tyler. You’re our only hope.’ That’s what they’re saying.”
The Star Wars reference was what made her sit down on the uncomfortable stump that was still better than standing in her demon heels. It was funny. It surely wasn’t the buzz of anticipation vibrating along every inch of her skin. “It’s just the toes.”
She expected him to hand her his shoes. Instead, he squatted down in front of her, wrapped his strong fingers around her left ankle, and lifted it. The gesture was intimate, more than she could handle at the moment, and she stiffened.
He let out a deep sigh but went to work on unbuckling the strap around her ankle. “I have no clue what I did to piss you off so much, but whatever it was, I’m sorry.”
“I’m not mad at you.”
“Really?” He undid the strap and slid off her heel. “Coulda fooled me.”
The Waterbury he tried so hard to hide slipped into his speech, letting her know just how much of a bitch she was being and how unfair it was to him. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself.”
He kept his gaze on her foot as he slid his size-twelve tennis shoe on it and began to lace it up. “Why?”