Chapter 15
Alistair
I tried to keep my grip gentle as I steered Isla back to the food van. She looked completely lost in thought as I tossed the wet apron onto the counter and moved the cash box into a cupboard, instead of where I’d hurriedly hidden it below the counter.
“Let’s go to the toilet block, get you cleaned up,” I said, locking the van up behind us.
“This really isn’t necessary,” she said again, but allowed me to steer her across the busy field. She was at least holding her wet shirt away from her skin while I quickly unlocked my phone.
“And yet we’re doing it. I’ve texted Heather, asked her to keep Teddy a little longer.
” It was an effort to keep my voice even, to mask the tension that had been licking up my throat from the second I’d watched Cameron stride away, assuming Isla would follow like a good little pet. Then the way he’d spoken to her—
You can’t actually think he wants to date the sad single mother next door? You’re just an easy lay to him. A convenience.
Fuck that guy.
If I’d thought he was a wee prick back in school, it had nothing on who he’d become now.
Yeah, I might not want to date Isla. But that was all down to my shit. The fact she was a single mother had fuck all to do with it. Her fierce love for Teddy was one of the most attractive things about her.
“Careful,” she said. “I might start to believe you enjoy rushing to my aid, Dr Macabe.”
I caught her eye, and a shudder raced down my spine, like I’d just licked lemon sherbet. “I think boyfriend Alistair could grow addicted to coming to your aid, Isla.”
Yeah, there was a fuck-load to be attracted to.
The air was humid today and the heat from the coffee machine had left us both a little sweaty.
The curls slipping from her braid had tightened into a riot of spirals around her freckled cheeks.
I hated to be such a man, but it made me think of sex.
Nails in my back, skin sticking in all the best places, tightening my toes so I didn’t come too soon sex.
I hadn’t been this horny since I was a teenager. In recent years, my sex drive had pretty much faded to I’ll wank in the shower if I remember.
“Why don’t we go to the medical tent?” Her sweet tone made me feel like an arsehole. I tried to shake the lewd thoughts from my mind.
“Amy’s volunteering today, anyone could walk in.” I looked pointedly to her soaked shirt. That she’d need to remove.
My gut tightened.
Maybe I should take her to the medical tent. Let Amy handle it.
But my feet didn’t stop moving, reaching the moss-eaten toilet block and holding the door open for her to enter first, making it very clear that I meant to come in with her.
On the threshold, our eyes met. Held.
Then her nostrils flared, noting the parameters of the cramped cubicle. I waited for her to object. She didn’t. Instead, she backed up, making room for me.
Fake, fake, fake.
Just for show.
The words were no good to my pounding heart.
I shut the door, intensely aware of the quiet click of the latch pushing into place.
Inside, the cubicle was dark. Silent. The floorboards creaked beneath our feet, and it took my eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness.
I fumbled for the light but she got there first, her fingers grazing over mine as she found the switch.
The room was dingy but clean. A bare bulb, toilet and sink next to an empty counter. I took up more than half of the cubicle, even with my back pressed to the door.
We both just stood there. The seconds stretching on endlessly.
“I should probably just head home and shower,” she finally croaked, wringing her hands.
“I need to check you aren’t burned.”
Her chest laboured, a slightly wild look entering her eyes. I didn’t know if it was the chaos of the morning, or the fresh wound Cameron had doled out. But this Isla was looking at me differently. Like perhaps I was in possession of a white horse, ready to fix every wrongdoing in her life.
That couldn’t have been more wrong, but for just a second, I wanted her to believe it.
“It really wasn’t that hot.” There was more than enough light to see her cheeks redden.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“I don’t have anything to change into. We should just—” She started toward me – toward the door.
I didn’t even think before ripping the jumper over my head. My T-shirt came next. The cool air pebbled my skin, and I watched her throat bob as I tossed them both onto the counter. “Now you do it.”
What the fuck was I doing? Stripping in front of her was most definitely in violation of the rules.
Dopamine. That was my only explanation. Oxytocin. Too many endorphins. Arousal was the perfect neurochemical soup to temporarily alter mental state. To increase pleasure. To narrow my focus to only this. Her.
I could have put a stop to it. Opened the door and run headlong into the sea.
But then her eyes strayed. Roved over the dips and swells of my chest. She wasn’t quick about it either.
I tried to keep my breathing even, fucking tried to not do something ridiculous like puff out my chest or flex my biceps.
When her gaze reached my belt buckle and my half-mast cock threatened to make things very awkward, I ground out, “You’re staring.”
“Making sure you didn’t get coffee on your loafers.”
I scoffed, grabbing up the T-shirt and holding it out to her. “Let’s go, funny girl.” I needed this over as quickly as possible.
“I’m not wearing a bra.”
Fuck. My eyes dropped to her breasts, just for a fraction of a second before I remembered to slam them shut.
It was official, I wasn’t making it out of this toilet block alive.
“Okay.” The word was rough, my tongue unpeeling from the roof of my mouth as my gaze landed somewhere over her shoulder. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to turn around and you’re going to clean yourself up the best you can. Okay? Then once you have my T-shirt on, I’ll check you over.”
Or I could step outside.
“Okay.” Did she sound relieved or disappointed? I couldn’t seem to tell the difference.
Turning, I pressed my hands flat against the door, anchoring myself with my fingertips. Preparing to wait.
The moment stretched. Then, “Do you wax your back?”
“What—” I coughed. “What kind of question is that?” One that suggested she was still staring at me.
“One a girlfriend would know the answer to.”
“I doubt it will ever come up in conversation.”
“Cameron waxed his,” she said. “And his chest too . . . not that there’s anything wrong with that. But he used to leave the hairy wax strips by the sink for me to clean up.” Of course he did.
“I’ve never waxed in my life.”
“Oh. That’s fine too.”
I barked a laugh. What I wouldn’t give to peek inside this woman’s mind. “Isla.”
“Yeah?”
“I can’t hear you undressing, quit fucking stalling.”
“Sorry.” There was a bang – her knocking against the counter? – followed by the quiet shuffle of fabric peeling from skin. I closed my eyes. Ignored the rustle of her hair. Something hit the floor with a wet slap. My hands curled into fists on the door, breath punching out of my lungs.
Think of something else.
Anything else. Cameron’s hairy wax strips. Fungal nail infections.
Half a foot. She was half a foot away from me, if I turned I could—
“Shit.”
“What’s wrong?” My entire body was as tight as a bowstring.
“There’s no tissue paper.”
Fuck.
“Here.” I dug into my pocket, pulled out the handkerchief my mum gave me for Christmas and stretched backwards. Her fingers burned mine, the touch barely more than a graze. Still, it was enough to make me bite my lip. Grip the doorframe like my life depended on it.
“I can’t use this; I’ll ruin it.”
“My mum embroiders a new one every week.”
“This is very on brand for you.” I could almost hear the smile in her voice, and I frowned at the wood.
“Carrying a handkerchief?”
“Yep. You aren’t shaking the Mr Darcy rumours anytime soon.”
Darcy? She’d really read me wrong if that’s who she was comparing me to. And just to prove it, I said, “I wonder if Darcy ever considered tossing Elizabeth Bennet’s skirts up, right there on the coffee counter, to make certain Wickham knew exactly what he lost.”
That was definitely a violation of her rules.
She was quiet for so long, I almost turned around. If only to see how thoroughly I’d shocked her. Instead, it was my turn to be caught off-guard.
“Probably. They were a lot hornier back then.”
“Isla.” Her name was little more than a choked gasp. A plea.
The tap turned on, and I finally exhaled. “Is your T-shirt ruined?” I asked, just to fill the silence.
“Looks like it. What kind of monster drinks coffee while exclusively wearing white?”
“The kind of monster who infuses cupcakes with rose water.”
“I thought that would be right up your street, city boy.”
I grinned at her teasing, knowing full well she couldn’t see it. “You’re getting city confused with snob. Enjoying variety doesn’t mean I’m sipping champagne and eating caviar every night.”
“Just on the weekends?”
“Exactly.”
The hand-dryer switched on, the stream of air loud enough to knock a scrap of sense back into me, before she quietly cleared her throat. “Done.”
When I unpeeled my hands from the doorframe, I swear I’d left imprints.
Turning slowly, my eyes roved over her flushed cheeks, before finally taking in my T-shirt.
It strained just enough over her chest, then dropped down, falling almost to the bottom of her skirt.
I watched in real time as her nipples pebbled and strained through the fabric.
It was natural. Just her body’s reaction to the cool air. The facts didn’t stop me from feeling dizzy.
Outside, music and laughter from the food market droned on, reverberating in the walls of the small structure we stood in. But they didn’t penetrate the little bubble.
“You missed a spot,” I said after a moment, pointing to my own neck. Indicating where several splashes of coffee remained.