For a long, charged second, neither of us moves. Her hand is wrapped around me, my fist locked on her wrist, the air between us vibrating with heat. Neither of us giving an inch.
I huff through my nose, something between a laugh and a warning. “I’d split you in two.”
She draws a sharp breath at my bluntness. “I trust you not to hurt me.”
That’s all it takes to cut through the heat, the pulse in my cock, the haze clouding my head.
Of course she trusts me. I’m her brother’s friend. Her boss. A man she’s known since she was a girl. Out of all the women in theworld, I’ve gone and let myself want the one that’s counting on me in so many ways.
This is wrong. Too fucking wrong.
With more restraint than I thought I had left, I catch her wrist and pull her hand out of my shorts.
“This isn’t happening.” I gently force her back a step, desperate for some space.
Her face crumples. Her arms wrap around herself, making herself small again.
“But you kissed me,” she says, voice small and confused. “You wanted this too. You’re still...”
She glances down to the bulge still straining against my shorts. “The evidence suggests mutual interest.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. Not with you. It’s already gone too far.”
“Why not with me?”
“Why not with you?” It comes out a growl as I yank my shorts into place, palm pressing hard against the ache in a pathetic attempt to tame it. “For every fucking reason that exists.”
Her chin lifts even though her lip trembles. “I’m a grown woman. We’re two consenting adults.”
My eyes drag down her body without permission. “I can see you’re a grown fucking woman in that bikini. That’s the goddamn problem.”
This—right here—is why thinking with your dick is a survival flaw. Biology makes idiots of men. Millions of years of evolution, and all it takes is wet fabric on curves to shut down every rational thought. Doesn’t matter that she’s off-limits.
Rain spits against my shoulders, and it’s the out I need.
“Go get changed,” I say, already turning away before I do something irreversible. “We’re heading back.”
EIGHTEEN
The most awkward journey ever
Georgie
I’m completely shell-shocked.
Shell-shocked at this version of me that emerged on the boat like a dormant creature finally clawing its way to the surface after years of hibernation.
I haveneverfelt urges like that. Never been remotely that forward with anyone in my entire life.
But his eyes went dark when he looked at me. Those rough sounds he made, the way his hands shook—they were all because ofme. Georgie Fitzgerald.
Those behavioral psychologists deserve a Nobel Prize for understanding what red fabric does to the male brain.
Oh my God, my hand felt tiny wrapped around him. It’s been so pathetically long since I’ve held a dick that I’d almost forgotten what they felt like.
But what Ireallydon’t want is this horrible, suffocating tension that’s followed us off the boat and into the Land Rover.
Is he going to say something? Or are we going to drive all the way back pretending I didn’t just have my hand wrapped around his most intimate anatomy?
