I giggled as the covers pinned me down. “Now I can’t move.”
“Good,” he said. “Now I can do this.” He kissed me long and hard, and it only took me a few seconds to stop being self-conscious about the others being there. Brock had a very talented mouth and when he eased back, I’d practically melted into a little puddle of lust.
He sat back, staring down at me.
“Can you stay? Please?” I asked. “We’ll all fit if we try.”
Brock’s eyes were dark as he stared down at me. “I can’t.”
My face fell, and I realized I’d hurt him just by asking. I’d known what his answer would be, but I couldn’t help wishing he could join us.
“Not smart to get her all hot and bothered and then leave her here with us,” Kincade said, and I elbowed him hard.
Brock climbed off the bed and stood up to go. I wanted to tell him that nothing was going to happen between the three of us tonight. That I didn’t want it to happen unless it was with all of us together. But he looked too sad, and I was afraid that anything I did might make it worse. “Good night,” was all I said.
“Good night.” He turned off the light and closed the door, shutting himself off from us.
And I hated it.
The next morning, the four of us were headed to the pool when we noticed something unusual. A second golf cart was parked next to Brock’s. “Is that yours?” he asked.
I took a closer look and recognized a small tear in the vinyl of the passenger seat. “Yes. What’s it doing here?”
“I don’t know,” Brock said.
“Maybe one of the staff moved it in the middle of the night?” Jessie suggested, but none of us could figure out why they might have done that. But it was a beautiful day and the pool beckoned, so I put it out of my mind.
We only swam for about thirty minutes. It was two days before the wedding, and the day was packed full of events. Lunch was a special deal, a luau, which amused Brock. “Do they know that’s from an entirely different island a long way from here?”
It was tacky, but the food was good—so good that it almost put me into a food coma. To make up for it, I took a short, easy hike with the guys. We ended up walking down one of the paved paths until we came to storm debris, and then the guys would get all manly and hack away at it with their axes. Who knew that kind of thing could be a turn on? Truthfully, pretty much anything Brock, Kincade, and Jessie did turned me on.
And then it was time to get ready for the rehearsal dinner.
“Tell me again why it’s not tomorrow night?” Kincade complained as we waited for a turn in the tiny bathroom at the cabin. The good thing about rooming with four gorgeous guys is that they didn’t need long in the bathroom. A quick shower, a little aftershave, and they were good to go. Still, four adults and one bathroom did make for some lines sometimes.
“Because Gina wants tomorrow to be completely stress-free.”
“You gals are getting a spa day,” Jessie said as he exited the bathroom. “That sounds stress free to me.”
I paused to answer him and Kincade brushed past me, getting to the bathroom first. Damnit. I rolled my eyes and returned my attention to Jessie. “First, the evil stepcousins will be there, so that doesn’t count as stress-free in my book. Secondly, did you just call us gals?”
Jessie paused. “Yeah, I guess I just did. Not sure where that came from—sorry.”
Brock came out of his bedroom, scowling when he saw the line for the bathroom.
“I forget, what are we menfolk supposed to do while you all are at the spa? Harpoon a whale or something?”
“Barbecue,” Brock said. Sometimes, he was a man of few words.
“Who chose these things?” Jessie muttered.
“I did. Well, Gina and I did. Believe me, sometimes we didn’t have a lot of options, like the luau today.”
“You chose that? Then I have to say, it was the best non-Hawaiian luau I’ve ever been to.”
“And likely the only one,” I said with a laugh.
“Yep.” He gave me a quick kiss on the forehead and then went to the bedroom to finish getting dressed.
I left for the rehearsal dinner before the men, but I walked slowly and they walked fast, so we basically arrived at the same time. It was outside, like all the meals were in this beautiful place, but there were fewer tables since the only guests were the four of us, Gina and Doug, Hanna and Savannah, my parents, and Doug’s parents. Except then I spotted two more people who hadn’t been on the list of attendees. “Why is your dad here?” I whispered to Kincade.