12. Fox
FOX
“ A untie Ashley.”
For the second time today, I snapped awake at Ashley’s voice, completely disoriented. It was like being chundered in the waves and unexpectedly bursting to the surface to catch a breath. I had no recollection of leaving the massage table, yet here I was in a hammock with Ash, limbs stacked and bodies pressed close as a pair of kittens in a towel lined shoe box.
“What?” Ashley stiffened mid-yawn, seeming surprised to find herself here, too.
I shifted to disguise the fact that parts of me stirred that really ought to stay lifeless.
“Everyone is looking for you.” The pretty young girl standing over us sounded exactly like Ash when she was annoyed. She looked outright scandalized.
“Fliss,” I said, recognizing her from the times I’d met her over FaceTime. “G’day. Fox,” I reminded, thinking by her frown that she reckoned I was some rando who’d crawled into this hammock while her aunt was unconscious.
“I know who you are.”
Huh. I’d been under the impression we were on friendly terms, but she skewered me with a cold glare.
“What are you guys doing?”
I was still half-asleep so my filter wasn’t fully in place. “Getting judged by a tween— Ow .”
Ashley’s elbow was surprisingly sharp, even through the layers of terrycloth robe. She worked herself like a turtle on its back, trying to exit the hammock. She only made it sway while the blanket tangled around our legs. I felt the soft friction of her calf rub against my shin. My dick completely misread that and stretched more insistently.
“Is that lube?” Fliss accused, pointing at a basket next to a pair of champagne glasses, one empty, the other flat.
“Is it?” I couldn’t remember a damned thing. “Was I roofied? What happened while I was out?”
“It’s massage oil .” Ashley piled the blanket onto me and got her legs hooked over the edge of the hammock. “How do you even know what lube is?”
“It’s called the internet. It exists to destroy childhood.” Fliss turned the basket. “There’s chocolate. Can I have some?”
“Shhh!” came from across the patio.
Ashley scowled and asked in a whisper, “Who’s looking for me?”
“Everyone,” Fliss whispered. “Mom. Grandma. Shane’s mom. Izzy called and asked Mom if she should still come.”
“I texted her that Shane didn’t show.” Ashley informed me over her shoulder.
“Mom told Izzy she could help with the search party if nothing else,” Fliss said. “I said I’d look for you and Grandma got worried, like you were kidnapped or drowned and I would be too, if I left the villa. Where’s your phone? How come you haven’t answered our texts?”
“I left it in my room. Is Izzy coming or not?”
“I think she is. I’ll text Mom that I found you.” She thumbed her phone.
I worked at keeping my expression unchanged, but the vague apprehension that had been stalking me for weeks settled in like a bad cold. On the three or four calls Ashley had had with Izzy after Izzy had gone back to Canada, Izzy had been very flirtatious and suggestive, always offering to ‘meet me halfway’ if I had plans to visit the States.
She had also threatened to return to Oz, but never had, which had been a relief. Izzy was cute and funny. We’d had a good time for the few nights I’d known her, but we hadn’t had much in common. She liked fashion and clubbing and umbrella drinks beside a pool. I’m practical and active and would rather stand in as a dart board at a pub than subject myself to electronica.
When she had left so unapologetically to take her dream job, her departure had made for a clean end to a relationship that hadn’t had a future. I wasn’t that keen to start it up again.
“Grandma wants to know if you’re coming for dinner. The Holloways are already invited.” Fliss read from her phone. “It’s at seven.”
“What time is it now?”
“Four fifty-six.”
Ashley’s spine sagged. She peered over her shoulder at me. “What are you doing for dinner?”
I didn’t have much appetite for what sounded like an ambush but, “Being your wingman?”
“Fair—?”
“Don’t,” I ordered, cutting her off. “You’ll only embarrass yourself.”
“He doesn’t like it when I try to say ‘fair dinkum,’” she confided to Fliss, putting a hard ‘r’ in it purely to sound like a cretin and irritate me.
Fliss tucked her chin. “Pretty sure that’s a loonie into Grandma’s swear jar. She started one for Ryan.”
“Inflation much? It was a quarter when you were four. She’s punishing your mother. Don’t fall for that racket. Grandma cusses like a sailor when you’re not around.”
“Shhh!” someone hissed insistently.
Ashley tsked and tried to stand, seemed to struggle to find her balance, but—I realized after I had plastered my hand on her ass—she was only trying to get her slippers onto her feet.
I wound up with a generous impression of her butt that immediately found a space in my brain that had been sitting empty, waiting for that precise information about temperature and breadth and suppleness.
She found her feet and swung around, flushed.
“Don’t forget your lube.” Fliss picked up the basket.
“For God’s sake, Fliss.” Ashley drained the flat champagne in a couple of gulps.
I was so lethargic, I could have stayed in this hammock the rest of my life, but I threw off the blanket and climbed out.
As I did, Ashley glanced to the pocket of my robe, asking, “Do you have?—”
I flashed her.
I wasn’t trying to. I was trying to kick into a slipper. My robe parted and yeah. That happened.
Ashley’s thunderstruck gaze slammed into mine. I read clear as day that she was hoping I hadn’t noticed that she’d noticed. She went bright red as she saw I had.
And we both knew I was standing at half-mast. I had just woken up, for Christ’s sake. I had felt that glance of hers like a warm breath.
I did the only thing I could do. I owned it. If I apologized every time I got an inappropriate stiffy, that’s all I’d do in this lifetime.
I shrugged and tucked and belted the robe tight while glancing to be sure the minor hadn’t also caught an eyeful of x-rated material.
“What’s this?” Fliss brought her nose out of the basket, but apparently sensed something was amiss. She looked back and forth between us. “What’s wrong?”
I braced myself for Ashley to make some pithy, disparaging comment, but she only blushed harder and mumbled, “Nothing.”
My ears did that vinyl record scratch noise. A pulse of electricity jolted to the ends of my fingers and gave a bright stab into my groin at the same time.
What the hell? Disgusted or offended or amused I could handle. She wasn’t supposed to act shy . Like she had been caught perving on me and felt guilty for it. Like she hadn’t realized she could make me grow wood and was feeling all feminine and flustered now that she knew she could.
She kept her gaze lowered, eyelashes a line of fine, mink hairs that cast a feathered shadow against cheeks still wearing a soft blush. It was so damned pretty and suggestive of a woman considering her options, I suffered a second, sharper pulse. This one was made of high-grade, red-light district neon and pulled my homewrecker to full attention.
I was positively lightheaded. If Fliss hadn’t been there, I might have asked Ash what the hell was going on.
Or maybe not.
No , I decided. Whatever my gonads were thinking didn’t bear thinking about. Ash was friend, not food. This was an awkward moment that needed to be obliterated as quickly and completely as possible.