Chapter 16
I woke up feeling completely off my game – unnerved, unsettled and definitely unsure. I didn’t like the feeling. I never allowed people to get under my skin, but last night, Cam had.
This had led to me having a disastrous morning. I’d left the bath running, flooding the floor. At breakfast I’d dropped a hard-boiled egg and had to duck under my table to get it. So much for blending in. And then walking to the beach, I’d tripped twice, over nothing but my own feet.
‘Asshole,’ I mumbled as I climbed onto a lounger.
I didn’t notice Cam at first, probably due to the ridiculous tropical Bermuda shorts and equally ridiculous tropical T-shirt he was wearing, but when I looked over towards Victor and his mistress lying on the sand, I saw him.
Stretched across his lounger like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Honestly, the man lounged like he’d never heard of cares in the world.
‘Asshole,’ I mumbled again. I pulled my glasses down to look at him properly, and he must have sensed my death stare, because just then he turned and waved at me.
The blood in my veins boiled and a strong desire started to rise in me, an overwhelming urge to smother him with his own beach towel.
I didn’t think I’d ever hated anyone more than Cam, and that was saying a lot, because I wasn’t exactly a people person.
I’d pissed off a lot of people over the years and made many enemies.
One of them had even taken out a hit on me; nothing like getting shot at while packing your groceries into the car.
But I hated that hit man less than I hated the smug, now shirtless man to my right.
I rolled my eyes. Was it really necessary to take off your shirt like that? Who peeled their shirt off in slow motion, like they were shooting content for their OnlyFans account?
No one, that’s who.
Who then proceeded to rub shiny, slippery oil all over their chest and smear it across their abs in slow, sensual movements?
No one, that’s who.
But he was doing it! He trailed his fingertips along his collarbone, lingering just a little before sliding his hands down to his abs, arguably his best feature, and running them over every single one of the muscular ridges.
It was slow, methodical and entirely maddening.
And it was all for my benefit. He was trying to distract me, throw me off my game, and I hated to admit it – oh, did I hate to admit it – but it was working.
‘Shit,’ I mumbled under my breath, and quickly looked away when Cam turned towards me, as if he knew I’d been watching him.
I pulled my iPad out and tried to appear busy, but in my peripheral vision I could see that he was now walking towards me.
I adopted my best don’t-fucking-come-near-me attitude, and didn’t bother to look up when his shadow fell over me.
‘Don’t suppose you’d rub some lotion on my back?’ he asked. The gall. The cheek. I wanted to kill him.
‘No, I’d much rather see you get third-degree burns,’ I said, casually flipping through my home screens looking at nothing at all.
‘I’ll rub yours if you rub mine,’ he said, clear amusement lacing his words.
‘Cam, it will snow in the Seychelles before I rub anything attached to your body.’ He burst out laughing and I finally looked up at him. ‘How is this all so amusing for you?’
‘Come on, you have to admit it’s funny. You and I, trapped in a cupboard together. On the same island.’
‘There’s a fine line between comedy and tragedy,’ I said. ‘What do you really want? Because I doubt you care this much about sun protection.’
‘You stick out like a sore thumb, Lizzy. You’re sitting on a lounger fully clothed, looking angry, working on an iPad. You’re going to give yourself away and screw up my investigation too.’
‘What?’ I stood up and squared off in front of him. ‘Do not tell me how to do my job. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m very good at it. Besides, I thought you were here to watch Victor, not me.’
‘You’re making it rather hard not to watch you. If I didn’t know you better, I would say that something had you rattled.’ His words cut me to the quick, because they were true.
‘Get out of my face, Cam.’
‘Or what, going to do this to me again?’ He tilted his arm, exposing the bruise that had formed at the top of it.
I smiled. ‘I have sharp elbows; you shouldn’t run into them.’
Cam matched my smile, which was no longer a friendly one. It was the show of dominance two animals might give each other in the wild as they pulled their lips back to expose their teeth. Did he think I was in his territory? The unbelievable arrogance of this man!
He glanced around pointedly. ‘Look where we are, Lizzy. A tropical island. Have a fucking swim, read a book; blend in instead of sitting here looking like you want to kill someone. It’s not very island vibe.’ He gestured to his shorts. ‘Be more like me.’
‘Island vibe?’
‘Yeah, island vibe. In fact, I’d just decided to have a swim.’
‘Really? Is that why you were putting on a show by undressing like a stripper?’ I folded my arms and glared at him.
‘There. See. That.’ He pointed at my face. ‘Like you want to kill someone.’
‘That’s because I do.’ I looked him up and down pointedly, just in case he hadn’t caught the not-so-subtle meaning of my words. ‘And if you were wondering . . . No. I was not distracted by your little show.’ Only that was a blatant lie.
Cam’s grin changed into something else – something smug and oh-so-irritating.
He gave me one last look, a quick check up and down my body, and I swear I caught the telltale sign of dilated pupils, even in this bright sunlight.
I’d seen that look before. I knew exactly what it meant, and now I really was going to kill him. Slowly.
‘Loving the whole miserable homicidal tourist look you have going on, by the way,’ he said, tossing the verbal grenade over his shoulder before sauntering off.
My stomach plummeted like a stone dropped off a cliff. Because, dammit, he was right. I did stick out. I glared at him as he walked back to his lounger and sat down with an exaggerated show of Zen relaxation.
Fine. If he wanted blending in, he was going to get it.
I slid my sunglasses into place and pulled the elastic from my hair, letting my curls tumble dramatically over my shoulders like I was starring in a shampoo commercial.
Then I grabbed a towel and some sunscreen and strutted across the beach.
By the time I’d reached the water’s edge – perfectly in his line of sight – it was time to put this stupid bikini to good use. Game. On.
Slowly, just as he had – because there was no way I was letting him walk away feeling like he’d won – I pinched the hem of my dress between my fingers and began pulling it up.
Inch by tantalising inch. Every movement was slow, deliberate, like I had all the time in the world and zero concerns about who was watching me.
I paused when the first hint of upper thigh emerged, letting the fabric dangle dangerously close to the line of no return.
The breeze played along, pulling at the fabric, making my hair billow out behind me as if it was part of the act, a hired extra.
I didn’t need to glance over my shoulder, because I could feel his eyes on me, searing into my back with the same intensity I remembered from college.
Back then, his gaze had always found me, no matter how crowded the room, and now, on this wide-open beach, there was no question about it . . . his eyes had definitely found me.
I inched my dress up higher, exposing the curve of my hips and the pastel yellow strings of my bikini bottoms. Then I lifted it higher, arching my back as I did.
I hesitated for a moment, building anticipation ahead of the big reveal: the silly strings of my bikini top that barely held anything in place and covered only the bare essentials.
I finally lifted the dress high enough for him to see my breasts.
He’d told me over and over again how much he’d liked them that night we’d spent together.
And now we had come to the pièce de résistance, the moment that my dress made it all the way over my head.
It was done with great pomp and ceremony, even the way I let it hang from my finger for a while before I let it fall to the sand below.
For a moment I stood there pretending to admire the endless blue ocean in front of me.
I stretched my arms above my head and arched my back, knowing full well what my body would look like in this position.
And then I decided to up the ante. I bent down to pick up the bottle of sunscreen, lingering there for way longer than necessary.
This was to give him an adequate amount of time to admire my ass again, something he’d professed to liking rather a lot.
In fact he’d claimed it was his favourite thing about me; he’d said that several times while sinking into me from behind, his voice low and rough as he thrust and ground.
He’d also shown it to me in the way his hands had kneaded my flesh.
The way he’d brought his hand down on my ass with one particularly hard slap, making my skin tingle and burn.
It had not been gentle sex! Just the way we both liked it.
And then I sank the final nail into the coffin as I started to rub cream on my skin.
The backs of my legs, my arms, my neck, between my breasts and everywhere else his hands had been.
I touched myself the way he’d once touched me, and when I was done, I tossed the bottle onto the sand and strode into the sea.
The water was warm, and small crystal-clear waves lapped against my ankles, getting higher and higher with each step I took until they reached my thighs.
When they got to my waist, I sank in slowly and disappeared beneath the surface.
When I emerged again, it wasn’t just an emergence – oh no, it was a spectacle.
I rose from the water like a seductive nymph, throwing my head back and shaking it, sending a cascade of droplets flying off me and glinting in the sunlight.
They trickled down my body seductively, gliding over my breasts, slipping along my stomach muscles, running between my thighs before blazing a trail down my quads.
I kept my eyes closed, letting the moment stretch out.
Then, with a very deliberate flicker of my lashes, I opened them and strode back to shore.
Picking up my things, I walked back to my lounger pretending he didn’t exist, and spread myself out on it in a way that made my stomach muscles tighten and my breasts push up.
I closed my eyes again, but a millisecond before the world went dark, I got the slightest glimpse of Cam turning his head in my direction. And then my phone beeped.
She elicited a variety of feelings in me, always had. And although they might seem totally contradictory, for Lizzy and me they made total sense.
One, I wanted to walk over there in silence, slide onto the lounger next to her, drape an arm around her shoulders, pull her close and just sit there with her, no words needed.
Two, I wanted to throw her off that lounger, slam her into the sand and twist her arm back so hard she would need to tap out.
Three, I wanted to kiss her. Long and slow and soft. Kiss her right there and then on the beach until the sky turned black and the stars came out.
Four . . . well, that was the most powerful of all right now, especially after her little show.
I wanted to walk over there, bend her over that lounger and fuck her senseless.
I wanted to sink my teeth into her, bring my hand down onto her ass until it glowed red.
Clamp my hand over her mouth while I thrust into her from behind so hard she forgot her own name.
I adjusted myself in my seat, pulling the towel over my lap in case I gave myself away.
And five, I wanted to beat her. I wanted to win. After that slow-motion strip show she’d just given, she had flipped the tables on me and beaten me at my own game. But now I needed to find a way to beat her right back . . .