Chapter 10 #3
He was only human: with her gasp across his lips, his pulse rushed up to drum fiercely in his ears, pounding through his skull for an exhilarating, dizzying moment—drunk with sun and her breathless desire—before very rapidly pounding lower, too.
Lower, harder. . . and fuck, fuck! So he wrenched himself away from the kiss and from her, from the fragile, teetering balance of his control, choking on his hunger, swallowing it back before—before.
“I. . .” Isabel’s eyes were wide now, unmasted, stormy and dark under the light. Her mouth was mottled red. Blushing, she shielded her lips and said, “I—I’m. . . sorry, I didn’t—mean to—”
“No, it was my—uh.”
Fault.
He’d asked to kiss her.
Then she’d kissed him back.
Like that.
To avoid reaching for her again, seeking that rough heat and fierce sweetness (not immediately anyhow, not without justification, this isn’t real), he grabbed at his camera a second time. Passing the Nikon back to her, he told them both, “This go-around, with a flash.”
Her fingers falling from her mouth were uncertain on the equipment. After a swallow and a slow exhale, however, she nodded and positioned the lens. “Y-yes, right.”
“Ready?”
He bent to kiss her. Briefly. He wouldn’t focus on the angle of her lips and the feathering of her breath. He’d concentrate instead on the angle of his camera in her hands, on the feathering of sunlight across the lens.
And: yes.
The glancing pressure of their mouths lasted no more than a moment.
Then her thumb depressed and captured their image; he retreated. He occupied himself with snapping the lens cap back into place, with adjusting the hang of his rash guard over his trunks and. . . other equipment.
Enough, it was; it had to be.
“Hey, want me to take your photo?”
They turned together, elbows knocking, somehow still breathless despite the brevity of this completely—strictly—painfully—functional kiss.
A woman in a baseball cap and a familiar otter sweatshirt waved her phone, smiling at them.
Clearly, she thought she was helping. But Isabel tensed.
She stepped back onto their bag of sea snails, retreating into the shelter of Wes’s arm.
Which was good. Except that she declined assistance from the tourist.
“N-no. No, thank you.”
“You sure? You’re real cute, cuddled up like this.”
Isabel scooted away from him.
“No, but thanks anyway,” he said, swearing to himself.
The woman ambled off to aim her phone at a lump of sea lions hauled out and barking under the wharf near Rockfish Harbor Grill.
As if walking away from Isabel were that easy.
Isabel, who was staring at the guano-flecked planks, her lower lip snagged in her teeth.
“Hey.” He crouched to retrieve their squashed market bags. He cleared his throat of silent curses and forced a laugh. “We finally got our photo. Was that so bad, being in charge?”
“Bad?” Maybe unconsciously, her thumb brushed her mouth. “Um. No. No, not bad, but. . .”
But.
Why the hell did he need to clear his throat again? “Good.”
“Yes—and I. . . I’ve been thinking.” Now her words came fast, her earlier hesitation gone.
Her hand fell and made a fist. Her shy chin lifted.
“I’ve decided what to do. About the—guest. I’ll sign up to volunteer at the Monterey Oceanic Research Institute.
I’ll investigate what’s happening to the lab’s cephalopods. Who is—and then I’ll see if I can—”
Quick, rambling sentences.
At least he hoped she was rambling. Could she maybe be just a little illogical, a little thoughtless right now?
Despite the sucker marks darkening on his wrist under the sunshine, he hadn’t been thinking about their octopus.
He hadn’t been thinking about anything except how much he wanted to kiss Isabel again.
How he should have been quicker to accept the tourist’s offer.
Damn it.
Even if she was completely in control of her faculties, though, it was fine.
Right?
Isabel had her priorities straight. There was nothing wrong with that.
But trailing after the windy ripple of her hair and her slender shadow back along the boardwalk, he wrestled with his body’s visceral reaction to that thought for a minute—before huffing into the breeze and acknowledging that he had to remember why she’d let him kiss her in the first place.
Get your head in gear.
Like that had ever helped.
It’s not real.
That rasp in her throat, the clench of her fingers—
He scrubbed a hand hard over his blistered neck.
Not real.
What was real: MORI assignment. Interview. Visa. Tax benefits. Boat.
Plus their octopus in the reef tank.
Assuming the bored, mischievous predator hadn’t already escaped the aquarium and flooded the bungalow, of course.
Getting electrocuted from a wet socket would throw a major spanner into Wes’s wedding plans.
He lengthened his stride, grimacing.
However, when Isabel made an impatient gesture for him to keep pace as she threaded through the noisy, pungent market, winding past the tourists ogling window displays in Carousel Candies and toward Baby parked in the wharf lot—when she paused with afternoon light spangling the parted curve of her flushed, wet lips (she was breathing defensively through her mouth) to verify that he was here, that he was following, that he was with her?
No amount of self-flagellation or gross smacks from the seafood bags against his thighs could stop him from breaking into a jog.
This might not be real, but when had he ever wasted a good thing, or a good time?
Damn, he was in serious trouble.
He couldn’t help grinning.