Exiled

CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE

Day Thirty-One

Lauren

“Are you two on your honeymoon?”one of the massage therapists asked.

“No, we’re…exes, actually. Part of the reality show.”

She smiled, her eyes lighting up. “Oh, nice. We’ve had several of those teams come in for massages. I love that you guys all still get along.”

I shot Archer a look, and he gave me a secret grin. We got along, all right. I’d gone to sleep last night replaying our night of rain-soaked lovemaking, wishing he was next to me in my hotel bed.

“Are you comfortable taking all your clothes off?”

I looked at the name tag for my massage therapist. Lydia. Right, she’d already introduced herself. I wasn’t focused on anything but the freshly showered, clean-shaven hockey player next to me.

“They’ll cover you with a towel,” Archer assured me.

“Right,” Lydia said. “And you can leave your underwear on if you want to.”

I’d never had a massage, and I was too modest to take it all off for my first one.

“I’ll leave my underwear on,” I said.

“You?” Lydia asked Archer.

He shrugged. “I’m fine taking everything off.”

“Very good.”

I lowered my brows. Very good? What the hell, Lydia?

Archer leaned in close to me. “Want to do a sunset sail tonight? The concierge told me they’re great.”

“Sure, that sounds like fun.”

I’d been surprised when he returned my text around nine in the morning, because I figured he’d be too hungover to face the world before noon. But he’d answered and we’d met up half an hour later for breakfast and a walk on the beach. Now we were getting hour-long massages.

Come to think of it, this did feel an awful lot like a honeymoon. I wondered if I’d one day do these same things with a man I’d just married.

I couldn’t even imagine. And if my dreams of having a baby on my own came true, maybe I never would get married. Maybe this month with Archer was as close as I’d ever come to a honeymoon.

Minus the sex, of course. Except for the night at our camp, when we’d had the most incredible, toe-curling sex of my life. The way he’d held my hips while thrusting up into me had been mind-blowing. I’d dreamed about it while in the hospital. And in my dream, he’d also approached me from behind, out of nowhere, ripping off my bikini bottoms and pushing himself inside me, fucking me while telling me I was so sexy it drove him crazy.

“Lo?”

“Huh?”

Archer’s voice tore me from my daydream.

“Maya asked if you want more oil.”

“Oh. Sorry. Sure, use however much you want.”

Lydia had chosen to massage Archer—shocker. My technician was Maya, and she only spoke a little English. But she had magical hands, and I didn’t feel like chatting, anyway.

I lifted my face from the opening in the table and laid it on my arm, looking at Archer. He was already resting his head on his arm, his gaze locked on mine.

“You like it?” he asked.

“I love it. Now I’m going to want to get massages all the time.”

Movement of the white towel lying over his backside made me look in that direction, and I saw that Lydia’s hands were now massaging his ass.

Lord. Was she going to give him a happy ending too, with me right here?

“I love your tattoos,” she said to him.

I gave Archer a wide-eyed look, and he smiled lazily at me.

“Hey, waist up is good for me,” he said to Lydia.

“Sure.”

She put the towel back and went back to massaging his upper back. Maya started in on my shoulders, making me groan. This felt amazing. It was so relaxing that I was on the verge of falling asleep.

“Lo?”

“Hmm?”

Archer was smiling at me from the adjacent massage table. “We’re all done. You got in a nap.”

“Oh. Was I sleeping?”

“Yep.”

Lydia and Maya had left the room, but the soft classical music was still playing. The massage had been blissful, but I was thirsty.

Archer passed me a bottle of water, reading my mind.

“I’ll go get dressed behind the screen to give you some privacy,” he said, taking his towel off and getting down from the massage table.

Even though he’d gotten off on the side opposite me, I still got a quick look at his profile, and then a longer one at his back. His lean, strong form sent a jolt of arousal through me.

Damn. Not so many nights ago, I’d had my hands all over that body. Part of me knew I never should have crossed that line with Archer, but another part wasn’t sorry at all.

I slid down from the table and dressed, keeping my eyes on the screen to see if Archer took a peek, and slightly disappointed when he didn’t.

“Are you dressed?” he asked from behind the screen.

“Yes. What should we do now?”

It was our last day at the resort, and I wanted to soak it all in.

“Want to go to the big pool? There’s a swim-up bar.”

“That sounds great.”

He gave me a sheepish look. “Did they, uh…set you up with a new swimsuit?”

I flushed at the memory of what he’d done to the one on the island. “Yes, there were a couple of new ones in the clothes they sent to my room.”

We took the wide marble staircase in the foyer up to our rooms, and each went into our own room to change. When I emerged from my room in a black tankini, Archer was standing in the hallway, wearing nothing but navy swim trunks.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Your suit looks nice.”

“Thanks.” I snuck a glance at him as we walked. “This reminds me of our weekends at the lake.”

His smile was wistful. We’d spent many summer weekends as teenagers at his grandpa’s rural home, where Archer would work all morning on mowing and yard work and then spend the afternoon swimming with me.

We’d made out for countless hours on the dock at that lake.

“Those were really good times,” he said.

There were lots of other former Exiled competitors at the pool, and I gasped when I saw Andrea among them.

“Rod and Andrea are here,” I said to Archer. “What does that mean?”

“I forgot to tell you, I ran into Sal when I was getting coffee earlier. The show is finished filming. There’s a winning team, but no one is allowed to say who it is.”

I gaped at him. “They expect us to wait until the show airs?”

“Yep.”

“That’s lame. We should be able to know and just not repeat it.” I pulled my hair back and put it up in a ponytail. “At least we get to hang out with Rod and Andrea on our last day here.”

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