Maddie came willingly into my arms as I lifted her off the jet ski and pulled her against my chest. Then I had to figure out where I could put her. Not that I didn’t like holding her against me. Her arms and legs were warm and loose. She felt more like a doll than a grown woman.
Finally, I saw a place. There was a big, dry log at the edge of the rocky little beach, and I sat her down on that. I half expected her to collapse like a marionette with its strings cut when I let go of her, but she didn’t. She rested her hands on her thighs and her feet on the ground. Her hair hung limply around her until she tilted her head up to look at me. “Thank you.”
I nodded, not willing to say more at the moment. The other guys had been fucking irresponsible with her today. But the thing was, they weren’t irresponsible in their regularly scheduled lives. I saw or at least heard from them enough to know that. Jessie owned a tech firm that did amazing things. Kincade employed thousands of workers through his chain of hotels and casinos. But two nights here on the island, and they’d reverted to the inconsiderate, immature teens they’d once been.
Had I done that, too? I frowned as I thought about it. I didn’t think I had. If anything, I’d been the one who’d hung back and resisted the temptation to forget everything and just be a bro with my old buddies.
I sat down next to Maddie and reached out to pat her hand as I thought about it. The thing was, when we were together, we liked to have fun—myself included. But not this kind of fun, not the kind that hurts a young woman. Not that they’d tried to hurt her, they’d just been fucking thoughtless.
But had they been that way because we were together? If so, we shouldn’t get together very often. But the thing was, we hadn’t been together in ages. So maybe that was part of it. Maybe the way they blew off responsibility and went overboard was a reflection of the fact that we got together so rarely that the few times we did, we overindulged?
It was a possibility. And I had to admit that if the solution to my pals not being idiots was for the three of us to see more of each other, not less, that was just fine with me. I’d missed them.
Maddie leaned against me and rested her head on my shoulder. Automatically, I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer to me. It was one of the few times I’d touched her. I hadn’t fallen all over myself for the chance to rub sunblock on her like those two idiots. Then again, last night I’d gotten a kick out of stroking her thigh and spreading her legs. It had been hot to see the variety of expressions cross her face. Surprise. Anticipation. Arousal. So maybe that was my own example of forgetting myself while hanging out with my oldest friends.
The beer and wine probably hadn’t helped either.
But I was stone-cold sober now. “Can I do anything for you, Maddie?”
Her voice was hoarse when she spoke. Too much time out in the sun. “Do you have any water?”
Shit. I should have offered it sooner. “Sure.” I extracted myself carefully, making sure she was steady before returning to the jet ski and finding the water bottles I’d packed earlier. I twisted the lid off one before handing it to her.
She reached for it gratefully and took a sip, swallowing hard, as if her throat was scratchy. Then she took another tentative sip, as if deciding if she liked the vintage. Apparently she did, because then she downed half the bottle. “Thanks.” Her voice was less raspy. “What is this place?”
“A lagoon. Jessie spotted it on his map, and I rented the jet ski this morning to check it out.”
“It’s lovely,” Maddie said as she looked around. “More like a lake than the ocean.”
I nodded. It felt that way to me, too.
“And thank God for the shade.”
“They never should have kept you out in the water that long.”
Maddie looked up at me but didn’t say anything, probably out of loyalty to the other two. I was loyal to them, too, but it didn’t mean I agreed with everything they did.
“Did you even want to learn how to surf?” I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but I asked anyway.
She hesitated as she combed her hair back from her face with her fingers. Part of it stuck out wildly and the rest hung down around her shoulders in clumps. It didn’t make her any less attractive. “I don’t think it’s my thing.”