Fuck.
It’s definitely me wanting to see the Laney who’d make a sandcastle.
She makes a muffled, high-pitched noise despite pinching her lips together, and then she does the most un-Delaney-like thing ever, and after a quick glance behind us, she yanks me off the boardwalk and into the bushes.
She looks toward the ocean, then tightens her grip and pulls me even farther into a dimly lit tropical alcove between the resort buildings, the beach, and the lanai.
Yessss, my dick says.
I tell it to shut up.
She probably wants to make sure we’re too far away to be overheard.
When she finally stops, we’re beneath a coconut tree. I peer up.Wayup.
Is it likely one of those coconuts will fall on us?
The breeze makes the palms sway above us, and I push Laney over to a shorter, non-coconut-bearing tree.
She looks up like she’s just noticing the coconut tree.
Her eyes flare wide.
She squeaks. Takes a long step farther from the coconut tree.
And then she doubles over as somethingthunks behind me.
Are you kidding me?
There’s a new coconut on the ground where we were just standing.
And she’slaughing.
Laney.
Laney Kingston.
Princess Plainy-Laney. Prim and proper rule-follower who left me with an aching boner in the pool by showing up in a bikini and almost made me come in the pool in the aftermath of a terrible cannonball.
She’s doubled over laughing at fart jokes and nearly dying by falling coconut.
Laney laughing?
This is ten levels beyond Laney playing with kittens.
I am not the guy whohad a crushon this woman in high school.
I’m the idiot who still does.
Emma’s sunshine. Sabrina’s fun.
But Laney?
Laney’s like this secret castle. She’s a mystery. An enigma. I always wanted to believe she’s hiding something magical and special and out of this world behind that mansion-on-the-hill exterior.
And now I want to believe I can be the guy who helps her find what she probably doesn’t even know she has inside of her.
Because of moments like this.
