It’ll make it easier to remember that this can’t keep happening, and to forget him once we leave this island.
Chapter Fourteen
AIDAN
I’m about to knock at Morgan’s hotel room when singing comes from the transom window to the left of her door. If her setup is the same as mine, that’s the bathroom window above her shower, and it’s cracked open. I stand there for a moment listening, truly shocked at how good her voice is. There’s faint music in the background, so I assume she’s singing along, but I know this song and I’m convinced she’s singing it as well, if not better, than the original artist.
When the song ends, I rap my knuckles on her door a few times, laugh softly as she mutters under her breath, and then lean up against her doorframe when she opens it.
Her eyebrows scrunch together in confusion, as if she didn’t already tell me she was busy packing tonight. “What are you doing here?” she asks.
“I made a dinner reservation for us.”
She’s wearing the same matching tank top and shorts set she had on last night—so thin they might as well be sheer, which would be less of an issue if she were wearing a bra. “I already told you I wasn’t having dinner with you tonight.”
“Except I forgot today was your birthday, and now I feel like I have to make it up to you. So I made dinner reservations in Hamilton.”
“I’m exhausted, Danny. I need to pack . . .”
I glance beyond her, at the open suitcase on her bed with rows of neatly folded clothing inside. “Funny, it looks like you already have.”
“Okay, fine,” she says, crossing her arms and dropping her voice into a bossy tone that I like way more than I should. My dick springs to attention instantly. “I’m notinterestedin going to dinner with you.”
“Why not?”
She groans and then says, “You’re my stepbrother. This is already awkward enough.”
I’m tempted to make a joke about how she didn’t seem to mind earlier today in that cave. But the moment she walked out, she was all cool indifference, as if it had never happened. It was like I got to watch all her defenses come back up as we chatted with the guys from the marina who had come to retrieve the windsurfing boards that were left on the beach during the storm. And then she barely spoke as we rode back to the hotel in our boat.
“Listen, if we’re never going to see each other again, we might as well have one more night together.”
“Make it sleezy, why don’t you?”
I push open her door, and she steps back willingly. The fact that she makes no attempt to prevent me from entering is all the permission I need. I glance at the few dresses still hanging in her closet as her hotel room door swings shut behind her, and grab one that’s a bright coral with tiny buttons down the front.
“This one’s nice,” I say, turning and holding it out to her. “Either I can force you into it, or you can get dressed yourself.The first will be more fun for me, so think about how you’d like to proceed here.”
A sound rattles in the back of her throat—half groan, half growl—and she rolls her eyes as she takes the hanger from me. “My god, you’re bossy. I’m only going because you remembered it’s my birthday.”
“I feel bad that I didn’t remember first thing this morning,” I say as she walks past me and digs around in her suitcase before pulling out some nude-colored undergarments.
“Yeah, well,” she says as she turns back toward me, “at least you remembered.”
She goes to move past me, headed into the bathroom to change, but I plant my hand on the wall opposite me so my arm blocks her. “Does that mean I’m theonlyone who remembered?”
Why does that thought haunt me?
“With cell service and the internet down on the whole island, I have no way of knowing if anyone else remembered.”
“But your mom didn’t?” I say, thinking about how Morgan stopped by there on her way down to the boat, and again on her way back to her hotel room.
“I assume she was too busy throwing up to think of it,” she says, her voice tight.
I’d stopped by there about half an hour ago, and our parents were both feeling marginally better, so I told them I’d order them some soup and bread and have it delivered to their room. By tomorrow they should be recovered... just in time for Morgan and me to both be gone. At least they can enjoy a few days of their honeymoon.
Morgan slips by me and closes the bathroom door behind her, and as I walk into her room, I glance down at the open suitcase on the bed. The triangle top of her bikini is folded neatly right on top. I consider taking it as a memento of our timetogether, but even I know that would be wrong. Instead, I take a seat in the chair in front of the sliding doors that go out to the balcony. She’s back out of the bathroom, dressed and ready, in less than ten minutes.
Her lips shine with a juicy pink lip gloss, and dark eyelashes frame her bright blue eyes. But once my eyes leave her lips and travel down her body, the goddamn dress is all I can focus on. It clings to every curve in a way that’s damn near sensual, and the deep V of the neckline should be illegal for the way it highlights her cleavage.
