“You don’t catch fish?”
“With what? I don’t have a fishing pole.”
He stands on his toes and reaches up high for a straight branch. I get a little warm feeling rippling through me when his shirt rises and I get another glimpse of that hard six-pack. Can we fast forward to the part where he takes off his shirt and I somehow misplace it so it’s gone forever?
He snaps the branch off, removes the tiny twigs, and picks up a rock.
“A walking stick,” I say, knowingly. “Good idea.”
He glances at me with an amused grin and then starts sharpening the end of the stick. Why would he need to sharpen a walking stick? And he thinksI’mthe slow one.
“I saw some freshwater streams and a lagoon while flying over,” he says as he continues wandering and looking around. “Can you show me them?”
“It’s this way,” I say as I guide him through the jungle. I can feel his heated eyes on me when he’s walking behind me. I put an extra little sway in my step.
“I like to bathe in the lagoon,” I say, but then my cheeks start to blush when I realize he’s probably picturing me naked right now. “We’ll have to work out a timetable or something so we don’t have to see each other naked. Not that it wouldn’t be nice to see you naked or anything. I mean, not that I want to. You probably have a really nice penis, it’s just…”
My eyes are bulging out of my head as I stare at him with my cheeks on fire. That’s it. I can never look at this man again. We’ll divide the island in two and that will be that. I’ll never have to see him again.
“I haven’t been around people for a while,” I finally say after a long awkward silence.
He chuckles. “Don’t worry about it. I bet we both look great naked.”
I have been looking pretty good. I’m all slim and muscly. I can even see the muscles in my legs and that’s never happened before. I don’t quite have a full-on six-pack like Mr. Hot Pilot, but my stomach is flatter than ever.Notthat he’s going to see me naked or anything. That’snotgoing to happen.
“Have you seen any animals in here?” he asks as he ducks under a giant leaf. “Wild boars, turkeys, anything like that?”
“A turkey chased me once,” I say, remembering it with a shiver. It was terrifying.
He looks happy about that. “More options for food,” he says as he slices a point into his stick.
I feel better as he changes the subject and talks about the jungle—pointing out birds and how we can take their eggs. I feel kind of bad about stealing some poor bird’s eggs, but then again, eggs in the morning does sound delicious. The birds probably wouldn’t mind too much. I mean, who wouldn’t want more room in their nest, right?
“What’s your name?” he asks as we get closer to the water. “I’m Ethan Crowe.”
“Wendy Carlson,” I say with a smile. It’s nice to hear another name.
He offers his hand and I slide mine into his, touching his soft skin for the first time. It’s all warm and manly and sends ripples of excitement cascading through me.
“And you just… popped up here?”
I cross my arms and narrow my eyes on him. “Yes.”
“For… personal reasons?”
I glare at him for a long moment and then roll my eyes with a huff of breath. “Fine! I’ll tell you. But you have to promise not to laugh at me.”
“Okay,” he says, looking at me funny.
“You’re already laughing!”
He puts his hands up. “I’m not. You can tell me. It’s okay.”
Oh my god.
I suck in a breath and then huff it out. This issoembarrassing.
“I was on a cruise ship and it was margarita night. They had these cute little umbrellas on them and the most delicious salty rim, you can’t imagine!”