Itwaswar. Mother Nature was trying to kill them!
Instinctively, she curled into a ball, protecting her head because visions of hard, coconuty munitions exploding through the walls and wreaking havoc inside the room danced in her brain.
“Fuck my life!” she wailed as the assault continued. But her wail turned into a screech of confusion when Doc swooped in to gather her in his arms.
He had her out the door and into the hallway a split second later.
Wham!Uncle John slammed the bedroom door behind them and it created a momentary vacuum. Cami’s ears popped. But, blessedly, it was quieter in the hallway, and she thought maybe it wasn’t Armageddon after all.
“I think the eyewall is nearly here,” LT said. Was Cami hallucinating or did his tone sound almost…happy? “Which means we’re halfway home. Everybody doin’ okay?”
No!she wanted to scream.I’m not doing okay!Because even though she’d somehow managed to sleep through the front half of the storm—thank you double dose of Dramamine!—the eyewall? Conditions were at theirworstin the eyewall.
“Ain’t none of us doin’ as well as you two are doin’,” John told LT. Even in the near blackness of the hall, John’s white teeth gleamed when he smiled.
“Not sure what you mean by that,” LT muttered, and Cami thought she could hear him shuffling his feet. She could sense John opening his mouth to expound on his statement. LT must’ve sensed it too, because he quickly added, “Doc, you and Cami should make yourselves at home in Mason and Alex’s room. And since everyone’s doin’ okay, we’ll see y’all on the flip side.” Without waiting for a response, he and Olivia scurried back to their bedroom.
Uncle John waited until their door closed behind them before observing drolly, “Considerin’ how much those two go at it, and seein’ as how there ain’t a single form of birth control on the planet that’s one-hundred-percent effective, it’s a wonder that woman hasn’t been pregnant ten times over by now.”
Knowing what LT and Olivia were getting up to…or rather, gettingbackto…made Cami acutely aware that Doc had yet to set her on her feet.
She tried not to notice howniceit felt to be carried as if she were a little thing—for the record, shewasn’t. She tried and failed. Because no matter how hard she concentrated on anything and everything thatwasn’tthe feel of his strong hands wrapped around her back and thighs, the warmth of his wide chest pressed tight against her side, and the sweet smell of his breath—had he eaten a strawberry Pop-Tart?—he made her feel delicate. Dainty. Sort of…cherished.
She had the nearly overwhelming urge to grab his stubbled cheeks and lay one on him. A big, sloppy one. A long,hungryone.
Instead, she tapped his damp shoulder. “You realize the Dramamine didn’t paralyze me, right? I can walk.”
His response was a wordless grunt. Instead of setting her on her feet, he stalked down the hallway and pushed open the door to Mason and Alex’s bedroom.
His big body moving against hers, the way she was helpless in his arms, had every fantasy she’d ever had about him flipping through her brain like a movie reel set on fast forward.
Would he be the fast and furious type of lover? The type to leave her breathless and feeling as if she’d survived ahumanhurricane? Or would he be the slow and savoring type of lover? The type to make every inch of her body hum before leaving her completely wrung out?
Truthfully? She couldn’t say which she preferred. Maybe both. Fast and furious to start, and then slow and savoring to finish.
Just thinking of it had her hands lifting of their own accord toward his face. She’d almost grabbed his cheeks when she remembered herself and curled her fingers into fists.
Could he hear the way her breath caught? Could he feel the way her skin grew warm beneath his hands? Could he recognize the rush of wetness that’d gathered between her legs?
When she wiggled to be let down, he grumbled, “Be still, woman, or I’ll drop you.”
“That’s the whole point,” she told him.
“Stop it. We’re almost there.”
“Were you born this arrogant, or did you take lessons?” She made sure her tone was appropriately haughty so, hopefully, he couldn’t hear how hoarse her voice had become.
“Are you always this impatient?” he was quick to counter. “Or is today a special occasion?”
“Oh! You are the most…” She struggled to find the right word and finally settled on, “bothersomeman to walk the planet.”
“Thank you.” She could hear the smile in his voice even though it was too dark to see it. “I take that as a compliment.”
“Then I must’ve phrased it wrong.”
The urge to lay one on him was replaced by the urge to strangle him when he burst into deep, rolling laughter. And she might have wrapped her hands around his throat, except for she was no longer in his arms.
She was airborne.
