Covet (Sinful Secrets 3)

I like it enough that I say, “How about a deal? A sort of truce? I’ll extend to you the benefit of the doubt as well as my prized honesty if you promise you’ll improve quite a bit. Should you violate the truce’s conditions, I reserve the right to exact revenge.”

He grins, shaking his head. “What sort of revenge?”

“You should hope you never find out. We Tristanians know a lot of very odd things. I have ways to make you pay that you’d never expect.”

When his brows rumple, I wiggle mine. “Have you ever smelled a yellow-arsed penguin’s egg?”

He laughs at the name of my fictional penguin, and I find myself smiling—an error that I quickly remedy. I purse my lips, looking at the floor so I’ll avoid his too-familiar gaze. “Is that it, then? You truly want to wait here until daylight?”

He rubs his hands together, then exhales audibly, as if he’s got the weight of the universe on his wide shoulders. “I could start digging now, but I’d rather know a little better what’s up there above us.”

“A night in the burrow, then.”

He presses a palm against the floor, then looks up so our eyes meet. He doesn’t speak or make a face, but simply stares at me—until I want to scoot away.

“Are you having a seizure?”

He laughs. “Jesus.”

“Is not an expletive I tolerate.”

One big hand covers his face before he gives me a pointed look. “You feel okay? Do you feel dizzy or sick?”

“I believe I’d know if I had a concussion. I’m the fill-in doctor after all.”

His lips purse. Bastard. But he doesn’t change his tone. “You think you can stand okay?”

Weren’t we in reverse positions just a bit ago, when he rolled down the slope? I run my fingertips over my soaked pants leg, finding I don’t want to look at him as I say, “Of course.”

He’s crouching too close for me to breathe properly, so I do stand and pace around a bit. I don’t want to see that awful pile of rock and mud, so I wander toward the rear of the burrow, where I find a stream that’s perhaps a foot and a half wide, burbling from a stone on one

side of the cave and flowing across its back wall into the other side. I crouch down to examine its point of exit, hoping perhaps there’s a hole there to another cave—one whose entrance isn’t blocked—but no such luck.

I wonder if the water’s good and dip my hand in like a ladle. It tastes fine, which means it’s likely safe to drink. Exactly nothing on the island is polluted. We’re so isolated, we are largely shielded from humanity’s idiocy.

When I stand back up, the Carnegie is beside me—so close I flinch as he holds out a water bottle.

“Rifling through my bag again, are we?”

“Oh yeah. Pillaging the good stuff.” He gives me a sidelong glance and a funny little look, as if he’s humored by me. I have a long swallow of water and rub my fingers over my palm. My hands are prunes from being in the rain for so long. My head aches from where I hit it, and my body feels achy and sluggish.

I lock my gaze onto the stream and wonder when he’s going to walk off.

“You can get a blanket from my bag,” I tell him. “There should be two thin sleeping bags packed tightly near the bottom.” I sometimes unzip them and use one as a mattress and the other as my blanket; since they’re waterproof, I also sometimes sleep in one and use the other as a makeshift tent.

“Sounds good, Siren.”

As he turns back toward the burrow’s “front,” where my pack is, I release a held breath. Best for him to stay as far away from me as possible. Of all the myriad things I need at present, friendship with a wicked American sports star isn’t one of them. I’d go so far as to say it’s at the very bottom of my list.

Why does he have to play faux nice guy now that we’re stuck in here? I’m fair at assessing people, and I’m pretty sure he isn’t—nice. I’ve not read much about him, but Holly sought out information on the world wide web, and read that he’s a self-pleased playboy, dressing up for parties he attends with models on his arm. Besides the desperate plan that I’d considered, I’m not quite sure why I’d looked so forward to meeting him.

I take another long swallow from the bottle. How much do I have to drink before I’ll need to relieve myself? That’s sure to be barrels of fun.

I lean down and refill the bottle from the stream. When I cast my gaze over my shoulder, I see my “partner” spreading the bags out. I turn slowly around, scarcely breathing as I watch him from the shadows.

I glean nothing from his movements and his mannerisms—nothing but athleticism and perhaps a sort of masculine elegance. I can almost see him jumping four feet off the ground, his arm flung above his head to catch a fly ball. He looks like someone in one of Gammy’s dog-eared travel magazines: a breathing mannequin with sinewy, deep-tanned limbs and freakishly squared shoulders. Of course, he’s bigger than all that. Despite being lean, I’d say he’s what you might call burly. More the chest and shoulders. He’s built like a bull.

I feel nothing as I watch him move the bags about, spreading the green one out, with its top beside the cave’s right wall and bottom pointing at the middle of the burrow. As I walk slowly over, he spreads the purple bag about three feet from that one.