He laughed, dipping his head. “Great. So I’m shark bait.”
“No. You’re dinner, just in case. That is the chivalrous thing to do. Sacrifice yourself to save me.”
“Poppy, you’re the last person on Earth who would need anyone to save them. You’d probably flip it around and end up saving your rescuer.”
“I think that’s a compliment,” I murmured.
“It was.” He laughed, brushing his lips over my cheek.
We both paused. I tilted my face, bringing my lips closer to his. My heart thumped in my chest. There was a lump in my throat that swallowing couldn’t kill—a dryness in my mouth that wouldn’t go away.
I wanted him to kiss me.
No.
I needed him to kiss me.
I needed one more moment to pretend this was real. That it was a real thing that wouldn’t end tomorrow.
I needed one more moment to allow myself to feel the things I felt for him. To feel how he gave me butterflies and made my heart beat faster; how he gave me goosebumps and made me want to wrap myself around him like a clingy koala bear.
I needed to feel him, and I knew this was my last chance.
We were running out of time, and if this was the only moment I had to admit to myself that I had very real feelings for my very fake boyfriend, then I’d take it.
With both hands.
So, I kissed him instead. Lightly. Just a plain ghost of my lips over his. A tease, a little question. Asking him to kiss me back and kiss me harder.
He obliged.
His lips were soft but firm as he took my mouth with his. My fingers curled in the hair at the base of his neck, and he dug his fingers into my ass. I’d never pressed myself against anyone as hard as I did him, and I didn’t hesitate to part my lips when he deepened the kiss.
His tongue stroked mine. Each time he kissed me, desire bolted through my veins. I kissed him harder and held him tighter, pressing my hips against him. His cock was getting harder and harder against me, and I was on the verge of telling him we needed to get back to our room when something touched my foot.
I squealed and jumped, using my arms around Adam’s neck as leverage to wrap my legs around his waist. He staggered back a couple of steps before he grabbed my ass once again.
“What the hell?” he asked, looking at me.
“Something touched my foot!”
“So you screamed?”
“What was I supposed to do? Stand there and let it eat me?”
His lips twitched as his hard cock pressed between my legs.
This wasn’t so smart…
“So you decided to jump and let me be eaten?”
“We already covered this! If there’s something hungry in here, it’s gonna eat you and not me. I’m too pretty to be eaten by a shark.”
He clicked his tongue. “What am I? Chopped liver?”
I touched his cheek. “Oh, no, you’re very pretty, but it’s every man for themselves out here.”
“You know it was probably seaweed that touched you, right? And all you’ve achieved is making my cock so hard I’m tempted to pull your underwear to the side and fuck you right here on the beach?”
No. No, I did not know that.
The seaweed or the fucking on the beach.
His cock…I figured.
“Um,” I said.
“Um. You kiss me like that then wrap your legs around my waist—where I know you can feel my cock—and you say ‘Um.’”
“Um. Yeah.”
He laughed and kissed me again. I hugged him hard as our lips moved together, and he slowly backed us into slightly deeper water. His teeth grazed my lower lip, and his fingers dug right into my ass cheeks again. My clit throbbed as his cock bounced against me, and—
“Fuck!”
We were underwater before I knew what was happening, and I sputtered as I found my footing and stood upright. “What the hell?”
Adam broke the surface, laughing, and wiped his face. “The sand dipped. I fell.”
“Ass. That’s what you get for going deeper in the water!” I huffed out a large breath. The water was chest-high for me now, and not gonna lie, I was not happy about having my nipples out in the ocean.
One creature was all it took and then—bam. No nipples.
I covered them with my arm again, and Adam grabbed my hand.
“Don’t panic, but something just touched my foot,” he muttered.
“Seaweed?” I squeaked.
“Nope. It was a tail.”
I bit my cheek to stop screaming and grabbed it. I jumped onto his back, holding him tightly.
“That’s right. Splash the water,” he eked out. “That’ll scare it off. Also, Red, you’re strangling me.”
“Sorry.” I loosened my grip on his neck. “Is it gone?”
“I don’t know. Stay still.”
“I thought you said nurse sharks don’t want to eat humans!”
“Okay, shit. For someone who grew up in Florida, you don’t know a lot about the water, do you?”