“Well, scuba divers are underwater,” Teddy said, pointing at him with a crust of pizza. “They’re protected from the storm while they’re way down there, aren’t they? And they wear rubber flippers. They’d be grounded if they came onto the sand.”
“And what about their big metal oxygen tanks when they’re walking across the sand?” he replied with a quirked eyebrow.
“I’msureSargent Blue—or anyone who might be doing nefarious things—can get rubber-wrapped oxygen tanks,” she retorted. “And everything else.”
“Hmm. I don’t know. I think it’d be pretty risky. Even for Blue.”
“Risky is Blue’s middle name,” she replied, then got up. “I’m still hungry—that pizza was barely enough for one, and you ate half of it.”
“We can still use the gas stove even though the power’s out—by lighting it with a match.”
“S’mores!” she exclaimed. “I deserve Celebration S’mores for finishing my book. We can toast the marshmallows right over the gas flame. And of course I have the ingredients. I’m on summer vacation, aren’t I? S’mores are a requirement for summer vacation.”
Oscar looked as if he were about to say something—probably a reminder that until today she technicallyhadn’tbeen on summer vacation—but he didn’t. She gave him a smug smile as she rummaged through the kitchen drawers.
It didn’t take long to get everything together. She found a long, two-pronged meat fork that worked perfectly for toasting the marshmallows, and Oscar laid out the graham crackers and chocolate bars in a little assembly line.
“You have peanut butter cups here, too,” he said, looking at her with adorable confusion.
“Yes, of course. I like them better than just plain chocolate. Smoosh it between the graham crackers and the hot marshmallow—see how the peanut butter and chocolate gets all soft and gooey?” She demonstrated, then offered him the first s’more.
“I’m sold,” he said, after devouring it in one bite.
While the storm raged around them, rattling the windows and sending tree branches tumbling to the ground, they sat in companionable silence, eating s’mores and drinking wine in the candlelight.
“I’ve gotta say, this is pretty damned perfect,” Oscar said after finishing his fourth s’more. “And much as I’d like tofinishout the evening in a more comfortable place as soon as possible—like, rightnow”—the look in his eyes made her insides go as hot and gooey as the marshmallows—“I should do something more difficult first.”
Her gooey insides solidified into stone. “What’s that?”
He drew in a breath, then exhaled. “I need to give you an explanation, and then I need to—um—answer a few text messages.” He set his phone on the table, and she saw that he hada lotof unread notifications on it. “And after that, if you’re still speaking to me, I want…you.”
Fifteen
The lookin Teddy’s eyes made Oscar’s stomach do a slow flip, and he immediately regretted even suggesting that he do the difficult things first.
Why had he even brought it up? He should have just pulled her in his arms and finished where that hello-I’m-back kiss had been going…
Finished.
Oh, he couldn’twaitto finish her off. To hear her soft sighs and moans, to see her eyes glaze with passion, to feel her writhe and shudder beneath him…
“Uh,” he said, mainly to jolt himself from the very delicious fantasy into which he’d slid. Dammit.Whywas he so damned anal retentive?
“Because that’s who you are,” Teddy said.
“What?” Had he said that aloud?Christ.
“I could see you regretting that you were going to get the difficult things out of the way first, and wondering why you’d said so out loud—it’s because of who you are. And that’s one of the things I really like about you, Oscar. You’re agood person. Nice. Thoughtful. Empathetic. I’m guessing—I might be wrong—that you changed your plans, and so you feel it necessary to let other people who might be affected by that change know about the change, so they don’t worry. Or whatever. Am I right?”
Somehow he followed her long, convoluted string of words. “Yes. You’re right. But—”
“I think it’s always better to clear the air first. Besides, then you won’t haveanydistractions,” she teased. “Because, Oscar, the last thing I want is for you to be distracted when you have your hands on my very sexy butt.”
Now his belly dropped to his knees and his hearing went dead. The look in her eyes made him want to toss his phone out into the storm and forget about everything else.
But that wasn’t the kind of guy he was. And she knew it. And, apparently, she accepted it. Maybe even found it attractive—though that might be going a little too far. Who’d find anal retentiveness attractive?
“So, lay it on me,” she said, her pretty mouth quirking in that curling smile. “And I don’t mean your lips—at least, right now.”
