“What do you want me to say to that? That I should never have bought it for you?”
“I’m saying you might hurt me over and over again, but I’m strong enough to keep coming back for more.”
I eyed the storm whipping and howling through the front door. My pipe would’ve vanished into the mud by now. I’d have to survive the night with a screaming woman who made my body do things it shouldn’t and a heart that begged for things it could never have.
I’d be better off sleeping on the beach and hoping a lightning strike put me out of my misery.
I stepped forward, intending to shut the door on the wild weather, but my toe nudged her phone. The phone discarded on the floor. And I remembered why she’d left in the first place. “Who did you call?”
Her entire demeanour changed from attack to defence. “No one.”
I laughed. “Yeah, right. You want me to believe you stood on the deck in a monsoon to call no one?”
“No one you need to know about.”
“Great. Not like you to be cryptic, Hope.”
“It’s none of your business.” She crossed her arms, hugging herself as tears trickled down her face. “I hurt someone I cared about. That’s all.”
I frowned. “Hurt them how?”
She bit her lip, shaking her head. She couldn’t reply as she fought another wash of sadness.
Her grief made my fury teeter. I wanted to push her for a change. To make her understand just how difficult it was to stay civil when someone backed you into a corner, but I also couldn’t kick her when she was down.
I sighed. “Look, let’s just get some sleep, okay? I’ve had a really long day and—”
“You think you can sleep this away?” Her melancholy switched again, catching fire with anger. “You can’t just ignore this. Ignore me. Drugs and dreams won’t protect you from the fact that I flew halfway across the world to find you.”
“Yes, let’s talk about that, shall we?” I stepped toward her, doing my best to hide the heaviness in my swimming shorts. I should’ve changed. I should’ve put something tighter on so the rapidly hardening disaster didn’t do something irreversible.
“Okay, let’s.” She met me in the centre of the room, chest to chest, nose to nose. “Ask away then.”
“Why are you here?”
“I came because Cassie is worried about you.”
“I sent her a letter. She didn’t need to be worried.”
“And that letter had an address…ta-da.”
“So that’s how you found me.” I nodded as it made perfect sense. Why hadn’t I scribbled out the hotel stationery watermark?
“That’s how I found you. And thank God I did if all you’re doing is sitting in a boat getting sunburned and smoking pot. Are you trying to give yourself cancer? Because you’re doing a damn good job.”
“God, you’re annoying.”
“So you’ve told me.”
“Like I said before, I can do whatever I want to my body.”
“You’re right. You do whatever you want apart from give it what it truly needs.” Her eyes drifted to my hands clenched in front of my erection. A snide little sneer made me come so, so close to snapping. “Seems you like fighting with me, Jacob Wild. Not that you’ve ever given in.”
“Given in? Fucked you, you mean?”
She gasped. “If you ever touched me in that way, it wouldn’t be fucking. There is far too much between us to be so crude.”
I bowed my head, moving much too close to her lips. “You need a good fucking. Perhaps it would teach you your place and that you can’t boss me around.”
“And you’d know because you’ve been with hundreds of women by now?” Her question dripped with acid, but her face blazed with vulnerability.
“Just like my body is none of your concern, what I do with it with other people isn’t either.”
“So you’ve figured out a way to be close to people and not get attached?”
“Attached?” I snickered with all the ice she injected me with. “Attached? You think I just get attached? That I sent you away because I was attached?”
“Yes.” She nodded firmly. “That’s exactly why. We only kissed twice, Jacob, but I fell madly in love with you. If a kiss has that much power, imagine what sex would do. I’d probably propose to you the minute you climbed on top of me.”
A full body shudder epicentred in my heart and quaked through my limbs.
She stunned me silent.
Shocked me stupid.
I had no reply.
Her mouth opened and closed like a fish caught in my net, shock turning her eyes wide. “Um, forget I said that.” Turning around, she buried her face into her hands. “God, what is it about you that makes me so angry?”
I still couldn’t speak. The pot in my system highlighted the shivers she’d given me. Every inch of me felt foreign and alive and no longer in my control. My arms wanted to hug her. My legs wanted to go to her. My cock wanted to sink inside her and see if she truly would propose.