Olivia’s answer was hushed. But with the silence echoing around the house, Cami had no trouble hearing it. “They’ve finally given in to the inevitable.”
“Really?” LT sounded skeptical. “How can you tell?”
“By the beard burn around Cami’s mouth and Doc’s deer-in-the-headlights look.”
Cami glanced up at Doc. “You do sort of look like a deer in the headlights.” Her brow wrinkled when a thought occurred. “Please tell me that’s because we were caught necking like horny teenagers and not because you’re having second thoughts about what just happened.”
Something moved behind his eyes. But it was gone so quickly, she couldn’t tell what it was.
“Blame this pained, slightly panicked expression”—he pointed to his face—“on the priapism.”
“The what?” She wrinkled her nose.
“An erection that won’t go down.” He gestured toward the bulge that was still veryevident inside his shorts.
She would be a liar if she said she didn’t experience a thrill at the thought of having rendered him eternally erect. Some of her glee must’ve flashed across her face because he frowned heavily.
“Stop looking so pleased with yourself. If it lasts more than four hours, it could become a real problem.”
“It won’t last more than four hours,” she assured him with a seductive wink. “In fact, as soon as we’re finished helping the others, I’d be surprised if it lasts more than thirty minutes. Forty-five, tops.”
He lifted an intrigued eyebrow. “Is that a challenge? It sounds like a challenge.”
“Oh, no.” She gently cupped his hard-on, loving the sound of his breath hissing between his teeth. “It’s a promise.”
Chapter 11
5:12 PM...
“Maybe their radio went out in the storm,” Dana said after John tried to hail the fishermen for the second time and got back nothing but static.
Dana Levine’s sunniness was one of the first things John had noticed about her. How quick she was to smile. How easily she laughed. How the smallest things seemed to excite her. But now her cheery tone sounded contrived.
When he glanced over, she was unable to hide the look of concern on her pretty face.
He liked that about her too. That she cared about a boatful of complete strangers.
“Probably so.” He forced optimism into his voice in hopes it’d wipe some of the worry from her expression.
In truth, he reckoned it was far more likely that if the crew of the trawler wasn’t answering their radio, it was because their radio was sitting at the bottom of the ocean right along with their boat.
“Try ’em a coupla more times,” Leo said as Doc’s and Cami’s footsteps sounded on the stairs. “Olivia and I will go check the screened-in porch. See if it’s survived so far. Doc?” Leo added as soon as Doc stepped onto the first floor with Cami close by his side. “You and Cami do a quick inspection of the shutters. Make sure they’re still secure.”
“Copy that.” Doc nodded and looked like he had to remind himself not to add in a salute.
Even if John lived to be a hundred years old, he’d never get used to the way Leo’s friends were quick to comply whenever Leo gave an order. Then again, anytime John looked at his nephew, all he saw was the snot-nosed kid who used to sit on his brother’s knee begging for fried bologna sandwiches and tales of ghost galleons. Not the hardened Navy SEAL who’d led the toughest, staunchest, most loyal group of men John had ever had the honor to know.
How time flies, he thought and experienced a pang of melancholy.
Perhaps it was finding the treasure. Perhaps it was the thought of moving on from Wayfarer Island and only coming back to visit during the holidays and for special occasions. Or perhaps it was simply his age. Whatever the reason, recently he’d been reflecting on his life. On the trajectory it’d taken and the direction he wanted it to go in next.
Sixty-five felt like a milestone, the point where he’d accomplished everything he’d set out to accomplish, experienced everything human existence had to offer, and should be settling in to his lazy, comfortable, twilight years.
Except, he wasn’t ready to settle. And he couldn’t help wondering if that was because he hadn’treallyexperienced everything human existence had to offer.
He’d never been in love.
Oh, there’d been the odd girlfriend over the years whom he’dlikeda whole lot and whom he’d grown to care for quite a bit. But an all-consuming, all-encompassing, all-engrossing devotion that made him want to do as the Dixie Cups suggested and go to the chapel? A love like his brother James had felt for Leo’s pretty mother?
