I knew he was joking, but it didn’t change the fact that I got a tiny little thrill when he said it. A smile tugged at the corners of my lips until he grabbed a flyer for activities around the resort and held it up to me.
“Stick out your finger, close your eyes, and touch the flyer,” he said. “Whatever you touch on is what we’re doing next.”
“This is what you meant when you said you knew what we were going to do?” My heart fluttered in my chest as nerves took hold of my insides. “There’s river rafting and scuba diving on there. Why did you pick up the flyer for adventure activities? Why can’t we choose from the cultural-experiences one?”
“You enjoyed the parasailing, didn’t you?” His amber-gold eyes bore into mine, and I nodded. “Then you’ll enjoy these too. Just pick one.”
I captured his gaze, again only seeing patience and a strange calmness there. It was the same thing I’d seen earlier. He was so damn confident that he could keep me safe and he wasn’t in the least bit worried about it.
I had to admit though, parasailing was one of the best experiences I’d had in my life so far. It was better than any memory I would’ve been able to make at a fort or in a market, and one that would stay with me forever.
So I closed my eyes and jabbed at the pamphlet because I wanted more experiences like that. More of the thrilling activities that Houston Lindsay would never even have considered but Fijian Lindsay was loving.
Until I opened my eyes and saw what my finger had landed on. I felt the blood draining from my face but Jaxon still didn’t look worried. If anything, he looked more excited than I’d ever seen him.
“I’ve always wanted to swim with sharks,” he said, pulling the flyer away and turning it to inspect the address. “This is going to be awesome. Let’s go.”
“No.” My feet stayed planted exactly where they were. “There’s no way I’m swimming with sharks. Bring the activities back. I’ll pick again.”
“That’s not how this works, princess. You picked swimming with sharks, so that’s what we’re doing.”
“No fucking way am I swimming with sharks.” Parasailing was one thing and Fijian Lindsay might be a bit more of an adrenaline junkie than Houston Lindsay, but not by that much. “That’s a hard no. Fuck no.”
“I haven’t heard you cuss very often until right then.” He grinned, winding his arm around my shoulders again and tugging me toward the activity counter. “We’ve got to do it. It must be fate. Otherwise, you would’ve picked something different.”
I was still refusing when he started making the necessary arrangements with the woman behind the desk. “We could be there in twenty minutes.”
She relayed the message into the phone, so transfixed by my bastard of a fake husband that she didn’t even look at me before telling whoever was at the other end that the couple was on their way. She smiled when she put the phone down. “They will be ready when you get there. Have fun.”
“I highly doubt it.” I narrowed my eyes at her, wondering whether the concept of sisterly solidarity was completely lost in the face of a gorgeous man. She just kept smiling as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
Because she doesn’t have to go swimming with the fucking sharks. I huffed out a breath while Jaxon organized a ride to take us to the killer fish.
“I’m not doing it,” I repeated when we climbed into the air-conditioned cab of one of the hotel’s cars. “I’ve already been stood up at the altar. I really don’t think this month has to get any worse, and getting ripped to pieces by razor-sharp teeth feels like a surefire way for that to happen.”
“Relax, sugar plum. It’s one hundred percent safe. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
I tucked my hands into my elbows and slammed my back into the seat. “If it’s so safe, why is the guy so available? Because people don’t actually want to do it.”
“Thousands of people go diving every day. All over the world. They’re all fine. Mostly.” He reached for my hand, but for the first time since I’d met him, I yanked mine away.
“I really don’t think this is a good idea.”
He shrugged. “Fate wants us to do it, so we’re doing it. It’s a great idea.”
“Only because you’ve always wanted to do it.” I gave him my most piercing stare. “What’s something you’re afraid of?”
“Me?” His brows lifted and he shook his head. “Nothing really. I don’t have a problem with heights, spiders, or sharks. I don’t even mind clowns.”
“There’s something wrong with you.” I turned away to watch the landscape going by as we were driven to our doom.
A gentle hand sneaked onto my leg, his long fingers curling around the bare flesh on my thigh and flexing. “I’ll take care of you, Lindsay. Same deal as before, okay? Please trust me.”
“Tell me something you’re afraid of then.” I refused to look at him. I really didn’t want to do this, and yet his smooth voice and tenderly murmured words were already softening me toward the idea.
If I looked into those eyes too, I would be getting in that fucking water without any more questions asked.
He kept silent for a long minute. “The only thing that I’m really terrified of is losing the people I love.”
And there I go melting into a puddle of goo. “How is it that you always know exactly what to say to me to get me to do what you want?”
“Just being honest,” he said as the car slowed. “So, are we doing this? Because I think we’ve arrived.”
“It hasn’t been twenty minutes yet.”
“Nope, but there’s no line, so it shouldn’t be a problem.” He sounded way too cheerful for my liking.
“There’s a reason why there’s no line.” I only just got the words out before his hand wrapped around mine and he dragged me out of the car with him.
The guy operating the diving charter welcomed Jaxon like a long-lost brother, thumping him on the back as they clasped hands and exchanged greetings. If he was this friendly to his customers, it was clear he didn’t have a lot of them.
To my surprise, it turned out that he was always fully booked in advance. He told Jaxon about a group booking that had gotten canceled this morning because their flight had been delayed. When the two men started untying the boat and talking about the different species of sharks we could expect to see, I realized there was no getting out of it.
I should have just stayed in the taxi.
With my heart thundering, I dropped my hands to the hem of my cover-up and yanked it over my head. Jaxon stopped talking in the middle of his sentence, his gaze drinking me in like I was a goddess he’d always believed in but had never seen in the flesh before.
I didn’t understand what the big deal was, considering that my cover-up was sheer anyway, but I liked having him looking at me like that too much to question it. When the guide glanced my way, a muscle ticked in Jaxon’s jaw and he stepped into his line of sight.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Swimming with sharks apparently. Where’s the cage? Let’s get this over with.”
“There’s no need for a cage in Fiji,” the guide said around Jaxon. “We go snorkeling on the reef with them.”
My pulse spiked and my mind went completely blank. “What?”
“That’s awesome.” Jaxon grinned at the guide but kept his body as a shield in front of me.
Now who’s jealous?
The smug thought snapped me out of my momentary shocked stupor. “I’m not doing that.”
“Yes, we are.” He moved to a seat at the front of the boat when the guide went to stand behind the steering column in the middle. Then he reached for my hand and pulled me into his lap. “You’re going to be fine, Lindsay. I won’t let anything happen to you, remember?”
“I remember,” I muttered, trying not to sink back into his warm, broad chest when he wrapped his arms around my waist again.
We kept touching each other in this intimate way, even when we weren’t anywhere near the
hotel. Not that it was even strictly necessary there anymore. No one was paying us much attention at this stage, except for Big Mac who came over to talk to us every night.
In spite of all that, I stayed put right where I was. Later on when we got in the water, I clung to him like a toddler without her water wings and didn’t let him go for a single minute.
The sleek, powerful predators lazily swimming beneath us hardly even seemed to notice us, simply gliding past and going about their days. I was fucking terrified, but having Jaxon next to me definitely made it much easier. Enjoyable even.
And that was why I was still hanging onto him after the dive when we got back on the boat. At least, that was what I told myself.
He turned to look at me once we were out of the water, his eyes wide and bright on mine. “You just swam with fucking sharks.”
“I just swam with fucking sharks,” I repeated, feeling the same sense of freedom and exhilaration as I had after the parasailing. It drew me to him, and for the second time in one morning, I pulled him into my arms and hugged him like I wouldn’t ever let him go. “Thank you, Jaxon. You have no idea how much I needed to meet someone exactly like you.”
Chapter 14
JAXON
After our encounter with the sharks, I figured it was time to dial the day down a notch. Lindsay was ecstatic about everything we’d done and kept telling me how much it meant to her that I’d pushed her out of her comfort zone, but I doubted we needed any more excitement today.
We spent the afternoon strolling through local markets, examining handcrafted trinkets, and ended up walking past an ice-cream shop on our way back to the resort.
“We have to get some,” she insisted. “There’s nothing that rounds off a perfect day like a good ice cream.”
“Perfect day, huh?” I smirked as I followed her into the shop. “What about plans and scheduling? Have I converted you yet?”
“Nope. I’ll just have to broaden my horizons when it comes to activities to include in my plans.”
I laughed as the bell above the door signaled our arrival. An older woman came walking out the back, clasping her hands in front of her as she eyed us.
“Ah, young love.” She smiled softly. “How would you like to try my Salted Caramel? It’s a new recipe and honeymooners are always so forgiving because they’re so happy.”
“We’d love to try it,” I said before I could give too much thought about why she’d made the assumption she had when we weren’t even touching each other at the moment. “Anything else you’d like us to sample? We’re very willing guinea pigs.”
Her smile spread wider. “Excellent. I haven’t had enough of those recently.”
She ushered us into one of the small booths, promising she’d be back in a minute with a tasting plate for us. Lindsay looked at me with excitement shining in her eyes as she clapped her hands.
“I didn’t think this day could get any better, but clearly, I was wrong. We’re about to be treated with an entire tray of different kinds of ice cream. Stuff like that never happens to me by chance.”
“That’s because you’ve got to give fate the opportunity to let stuff like this happen to you. If we were on a strict schedule today, we never would’ve stumbled across this place, which means we never would’ve been told to sit down and eat.”
“You may have a point there.” She tilted her head after getting settled on her side of the table. “Maybe I’ll think about leaving some space open in my planner for spontaneity.”
“Planning for spontaneity might not work so well.” I stretched my legs out under the table, not moving them when I felt her calf brushing against mine. “Maybe just try letting go every once in a while. You might be surprised what you find out about yourself in the process.”
“How did you get to be so wise?” she asked in a teasing tone, the corners of her eyes crinkling even as she tried to hide her smile. “You’re not that much older than I am, yet I feel a little bit like you’re my spirit guide or something today.”
“I could be your spirit guide,” I said. “But only if you keep doing what I tell you to. No more schedules for the rest of the trip, for starters”
She laughed. “No deal, but we can have another planless day sometime. It really wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Have you always been like this?”
I nodded. “My mother has always told me to follow what my heart tells me and so I have.”
“Seems like a good thing to have been taught. My parents were a bit lackadaisical in their approach to life. I think that’s why I’m such a stickler for rules and planning.”
“You got annoyed with them being scatter-brained?” Even just knowing what little I did about her, it made perfect sense that she’d have tailored all her own habits around what had irritated her as a child.
“Exactly. I don’t think either of them ever owned a diary, a planner, or a calendar of any nature. It used to drive me nuts that we were always late—and that was when we didn’t entirely miss an event.”
“I can imagine how that must’ve gotten to you.”
“It really did.” We thanked the owner when she brought our ice cream and tucked in without hesitating. “I took over the family planning duties just after I became a teenager. I went out and bought a calendar, hung it next to our front door, and marked everything on it.”
She licked her spoon clean after taking her first bite, and my dick started hardening at the sight of her pink tongue wrapping around the silver. The entire day had been a struggle, but no more so than that very minute.
Even when she’d finally removed the cover-up on the boat and I got my first good look at her luscious curves without any obstructions to the view, it’d been easier to tear my eyes off her then because I’d been supremely aware of the other man on the boat also looking at her.
I’d wanted to stab his eyes out with the wrong side of a fork for getting to see her body, but I couldn’t blame him for looking. Lord knew it’d been impossible not to take notice when she stripped down.
The more time I spent with her, the more I wanted her. But I couldn’t think about how much I wanted her and all the things I wanted to do to her while sitting half naked in front of her.
Luckily, since it was an island, lots of people walked around in beachwear and I wasn’t even the only shirtless man in the ice-cream shop, never mind on the street. I probably wasn’t even the only one fighting against an imminent erection, but just that thought was enough for me to get it under control.
“It sucks you had to get your parents organized when you were still so young,” I said. “My mother still buys me a planner every Christmas. She says she’ll never stop trying to get me to keep one.”
“I thought she wants you to follow your heart.”
“She does, but she also wants me to start remembering people’s birthdays. Apparently, she raised me better than being a forgetful idiot.”
Lindsay chuckled. “She sounds like quite a woman if she’s the one who raised you.”
“She’s formidable all right. I’ve told her that I keep my work stuff on my phone and that I have all the important birthdays on there too, but she won’t have it. Ink and paper are the only way to go in her opinion.”
“Smart woman. I completely agree.” She popped another heaped spoon of ice cream in her mouth, and this time, I kept my fucking eyes off her lips when she did. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“Nope. I’m an only child. It was just my mom and me growing up.”
“Are you close to her?” she asked. “My brother and I used to be close to each other even when we weren’t close to our parents, but that ship seems to have sailed.”
Again, I wanted to ask about her brother, but I didn’t. We were still in the process of getting to know each other and she volunteered information easily if it wasn’t a difficult subject for her to talk about. Obviously, her brother wasn’t an easy subject.
“Mom and I are very close. Always have been and we always wil
l be.” My mother was my rock of stability growing up, and that had never changed. “She was the one who encouraged me to come on this trip. Her only condition was that I wasn’t allowed to fall in love with a local. She claims she’s not moving here to be close to me, but I think she’d love it if she gave it a chance.”
“Anyone would.” Lindsay smiled as she turned her gaze to the window and the forest covering the hill in the distance. “It’s gorgeous, but the heat might get to her.”
“She lives in Houston. If she can manage that humidity, she can manage any heat.”
Her eyebrows went up. “You’re from Houston?”
“Yep.”
“Me too.” She grinned. “Think we’ve ever walked past each other on the street and not known about it?”
“Maybe, but probably not.” I had a feeling I would’ve remembered someone who looked like her, but that was a really douchey thing to say, so I kept it to myself. “I haven’t been around much for the last two decades or so.”
She snapped her fingers. “That’s right. I suppose we could’ve run into each other when you were there, though. It would be interesting if we were able to go back and see how many run-ins or almost run-ins we’ve had.”
We talked a little about home while finishing up with our ice cream, then headed back to the hotel. As I was unlocking the bungalow door, I heard my phone ringing inside.
Kavan’s name came up on the screen when I finally located the device in our kitchenette, and I held it up to Lindsay. “I have to take this. Think about what you’d like to do for dinner in the meantime. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“What’s up?” I asked my friend when I picked up, closing the bungalow door behind me. “You should’ve come with me, man. If you could see the view I’m looking at right now, you’d hop on the next flight out.”
“I’m assuming the trip is going well then?”
“Very well.” I laughed and rubbed the back of my head as I walked down to the hedges. “It was almost a disaster that would’ve ended with me on the streets, but then I met this woman, and with her help, I managed to get us a suite for free.”
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