Ignoring me, he makes his way to the small bungalow. My sundress clings like a second skin. My hair is soaked and sticking to my neck, falling into my face.
All I can see in front of me is the roaring storm and the heels of his feet on the sand below.
“Stop squirming.”
“Fuck you,” I scream, balking in anger.
When we reach the shelter, he opens a sliding door and steps inside. Sand is replaced with white-tiled floor.
The storm is muffled once he closes the door behind him. I feel his hands on my feet as he takes my shoes off.
“Can you put me down now?”
“Are you going to behave?”
“I’m not a child.”
“Says the woman who insisted on staying out in a tropical storm just out of spite.”
I hesitate, mostly out of embarrassment. “Fine.”
“Good girl.” He sets me gently on my feet.
The shelter is small but solid. An open-concept space with only a translucent ivory curtain dividing a king bed at the far wall from the rest of the space. A kitchen with bare-bones essentials is to our immediate left. A living room rests between the two. The more I look around, the more I realize it’s more a modern bungalow than an emergency shelter. If I wasn’t so angry, and he wasn’t standing next to me, I could admire this more.
Scott walks farther into the space and into the small living room before taking off his rain-soaked shirt with a wet slap and sitting on one of the chairs.
I gape at him. Every move he makes, every muscle that shifts under his tanned skin, is something I can’t look away from. I unconsciously bite my lip.
No. Resist, Lyla. Resist.
I gasp when the lights begin to flicker. I tense as they strobe once. Twice. Then hold.
“D-do you think we’ll lose power?” I stammer.
He glances at the large windows, where wind is already shoving chairs across the deck. “At this point, I don’t think it’s a question of if we lose power. It might be when. The pilot said this place runs on a generator. At this rate, I’m wondering if it might fail on us.”
“Fail? You mean, we could lose power?”
“Likely, but anything’s possible.”
An impossible fantasy of real privacy—of no eyes and ears—suddenly doesn’t seem so crazy. But never did it involve him. Didn’t involve being in this tiny space in a convenient tropical storm where we could very much be stuck in the dark and lose complete contact with the outside world. At least for however long it lasts.
I slowly walk farther into the room when he scans me up and down. Heat crawls up my face.
“You’re shivering,” he says softly.
He’s right, but it’s not just from the cold.
“I’ll go find some candles, just in case.” I fumble into the kitchen and through half-filled drawers, desperate for anything to do other than stare at the all-consuming, half-naked man sitting just behind me.
The growing storm I see from the large window above the sink mirrors the one inside me as I gather different kinds and types of candles along with a box of matches. Violent, destructive, and perhaps inevitable.
When I walk back into the living room, I’m met with him offering a glass of wine he’d found. An array of rations are splayed across the coffee table in the middle. “Not quite like the five-star spread that was out there, but…”
I accept the glass, handing him the candles and matches in exchange. “It’s fine.” The sight is actually impressive.
“Come sit.” He gestures for me to sit on the couch with him.
