Chapter Eleven
Eleven
Three days ago, when they spoke in her office at the Blue Seas Resort, Carmen had implied that the accommodations on the adventure tour would be rustic.
But this was beyond. To Lulu, rustic meant wicker rocking chairs and folksy quilts.
This hut, Lulu thought as she lifted her suitcase onto the wooden stool, was just a single mattress and a pair of panties away from Naked and Afraid.
After a full day of paddling, she really just wanted to jump into a hot shower to rinse off the river and into a cozy bed—to quench her unrequitable lust. But here she was.
Lulu bit her lower lip as she took in the rickety ladder leading to the bunk three feet off the floor.
Her gaze swept the wooden planks of the raised hut.
Try as she might, Lulu could not keep from wondering what kinds of creeping or slithering creatures would cause a need for this exaggerated height.
The noisy night poured in through the thatched roof.
According to Alejandro, the throbbing chirps were the conversations of cicadas.
To Lulu, it sounded like a million radios stuck between stations.
The noise pulsed in the dark jungle just outside her wimpy bamboo door.
The tinny tune was punctuated every so often by a trilling chirp.
Her poor heart was getting a real workout today. Only this afternoon, it had jackhammered when she tumbled smack-dab on top of the infuriatingly enticing body of Tyler Demming. Now it stuttered out a staccato beat of low-grade fear.
After opening her suitcase, she tugged out a T-shirt and boxers, and remembering Alejandro’s warning about centipedes with fangs the size of elephant tusks, she threw on her hiking boots.
Lulu thought of Zoe and her fascination with ladybugs, and was glad her daughter wasn’t here inspecting the floor and making friends with scorpions.
Mustering every ounce of courage, Lulu crept outside and used up the last remnants of juice on her phone flashlight to find the outhouse.
She did not need to go but she was certain she would appreciate her effort at three in the morning. Preemptive peeing.
By the time she stumbled back into her cabin, running to get inside as if chased by some invisible boogeyman, Lulu had to force her breathing back to non-hyperventilating mode.
The lingering effects of the rocking raft and the river’s motion were throwing her senses off-kilter.
That was what she told herself, but really, who was she kidding?
It was creepy being alone in the jungle at night.
She lay as rigid as the stiff mattress, not daring to get under the sheet.
Lulu sniffed the pillow, for what she wasn’t sure.
With a great deal of self-flagellation and shameful recognition of her own privilege, she admitted to herself that she was not built for sleeping on a lumpy pillow and a brick of a mattress in a thatched hut designed by Mowgli and his talking animal friends.
Wide awake, she stared up for a very, very long time at the dried thatch that made up the ceiling.
There was a knock, and a whispered question that slipped through the bamboo door. “Lu? Okay if I come in?”
“Tyler?” she asked, her voice flooded with relief.
The door cracked open and his flashlight pointed inside the tiny room. She squinted in the brightness and fumbled for the chain to the bare bulb. “Hey. I saw your flashlight crossing the path. Hope I didn’t wake you.”
Now she could see him. His thin T-shirt clung to his chest, and he wore lightweight pajama pants. He may have thrown on socks beneath his hiking boots, but other than that, she realized immediately that there was absolutely zero underwear involved in his getup.
Tyler, oblivious to her assessment, scanned the hut and let out a low whistle. “Sheesh. What the hell? This is your room? Did it come with its own monkey?” He squeezed himself into the only available corner of the hut. “They put me in the manor house. King bed. Ceiling fan. The works.”
Tugging down her thin sleep shirt, Lulu wanted to sit up, but there was no room between her head and the sketchy-looking thatch, so instead, she rolled onto her elbow and rested her cheek on her hand. “Yeah. Well, welcome to my jungle paradise. Can I get you a cappuccino? A blueberry scone?”
He patted the base of the mattress near her feet. “Is this like a bed of nails? What are you sleeping on here?”
“I asked for something that could double as a cutting board.”
His smile was warm. “I thought I’d check in on you. That rafting. That was wild, huh? What did you think?” He stood there, hands in his pockets, his eyes flicking to the floor.
Fact was, it had been nice to let go of being in charge for a while. And secretly she admitted that it was nice to share the experience with him. “I liked it okay,” she said.
“I liked it, too.” His gaze rested on hers. “ ’Cause I liked watching you like it.”
Her chest stilled. “I thought you weren’t going to flirt.”
“I thought so, too. You make it very difficult, Lu.”
The way he was looking at her. The way he spoke her name. The same way he said it years ago when he was lost in pleasure. How could it be that one syllable, the simple Lu, could ignite a visceral reaction in Lulu’s core?
An image flickered in her mind. Not twenty-year-old Tyler but a fantasy flash of this version.
All she could see was Tyler’s mouth on hers, hungry and devouring, her fingernails raking the smooth skin from his shoulders to his nipples.
She wanted to pinch them between her fingers and— What the hell? !
He was still talking, but she hadn’t heard a word.
“Anyhow, I just wanted to come by and check that you were okay.” He gave her a long look like he was on the verge of saying more, but then he tapped the edge of the bunk ladder.
“Let me know if there’s anything—” Tyler’s words stopped short.
His eyes bugged out, and just as fast, he flipped them back to neutral.
“Come here.” His voice was cool but insistent. It was sexy. Commanding. “Lu. Come on…” But a little weird the way he was holding his arms out and beckoning her. Lulu’s brows dipped suspiciously. “Slide out toward me.” Quickly, he added, “No sudden movements.”
“What is it?” she whispered, a tinge of panic in her voice.
“Nothing. Come on. Slowly now,” he urged. Lulu mobilized, shifting her hips toward the edge of the mattress. Anxiously, his eyes shifted toward the ceiling…
She glanced up and gasped when she spotted the gigantic hairy spider lurking in the thatch.
Slowly? Fuck that!
Using her foot on the ladder for leverage, Lulu flung herself from the bunk, half tumbling gracelessly into Tyler’s arms. As she righted herself onto her feet, Tyler stepped backward and banged into the wall, knocking the monstrous creature out of the thatch.
“Ack!” Lulu shrieked. The spider, decked out with legs like a mustache-growing competition on steroids, sat stunned on the lumpy surface of Lulu’s pillow where her face had been not ten seconds ago.
“Ack!” Lulu screamed again for good measure as she ran out the bamboo door and slammed it shut behind her.
She opened the door again, reached an arm inside to grab her shoes, and banged it closed.
It was another moment before she remembered Tyler.
The door creaked open, and Tyler stepped out. “Well,” he deadpanned. “That was exciting.”
“Did you kill it?”
“Kill it?! That thing was going to have me as an appetizer and then move on to you for dessert. No, I didn’t kill it. I’m not insane.”
She caught his eye and busted out in laughter. Her wobbly giggle was pure adrenaline, the fear and the relief of the escape. Holding her stomach, she laughed it out and rolled her eyes at the sky. “Ugh. I’m not going back in there.”
“What? You’re going to give up your jungle paradise and leave it all to Moe in there?”
“Moe?”
He shrugged, waving away the made-up name. “I dunno.”
“Moe.” Lulu shook her head. “He can have it. Lumpy pillow and all.” She looked at him. He looked at her. There really wasn’t any other way.
Like he was offering a worm to an injured baby bird, he broached the idea gently. “I wasn’t kidding before. They gave me the celebrity suite. Plenty of room…”
“Of course they did.”
“Really. My mattress is less cutting board, more…clearance section at the bedding store.”
She eyed him carefully, assessing the situation.
She ran it through a Lulu checklist. If she…
1. Joined Tyler in his hotel room, then 2.
She would probably have an argument about who took the bed, but then 3.
The floor would be an untenable situation due to creepy-crawlies in the Costa Rican jungle, and therefore 4.
She would end up horny and in a bed with a man whom she was exceptionally attracted to but who was 5. Married.
“I don’t think it’s such a good idea,” she heard the damn sensible side of her mouth saying.
“Why not?”
Because you’re married and I want to jump your bones, she thought but did not say.
He did not break away from her gaze.
She went through the motions, reviewing her options.
All the others were sleeping. The lodge was locked up for the night.
There was a spider in her room that could win a wrestling match against a small mountain lion.
She gave the smallest nod, already in shambles about the stupid, impetuous decision her brain had agreed to.
“Alright. Fine.”
And when his smile broke, her body tingled like she’d stuck her finger in a socket. Or like he’d stuck a finger in hers.