by Tawna Fenske
“No allergies that I know of,” she said.
“Good. Stay right here.”
He dug into his camera bag and grabbed something, then sprinted to a spot about fifteen feet away. He stooped down, then turned and raced back to her gripping a papaya in one hand and a large knife in the other.
“What the hell?” she asked, not sure whether she meant the weapon or the fruit. “Is eating that supposed to help me?”
“No.” Grant sliced into the papaya, his strokes even and lethal. Anna watched the juice dribble into the dirt at his feet and caught sight of something that looked like a pistol in his camera bag.
What kind of man brings an arsenal to a wedding?
A Patton man, she thought as she watched him hack into the flesh of the fruit. A Marine.
Grant dropped the knife on the ground, along with half the papaya. The other half was gripped in one hand as he reached for her with the other.
“Hold still,” he commanded, catching her by the waist again. He flipped up the edge of her dress. “Move your hand.”
She hadn’t realized she was rubbing the bite mark until he said that. “I think you’re taking this bossy thing a little far,” she said, not wanting to admit she found it sexy as hell.
She didn’t fool him, and he pushed her hand out of the way. “You like it,” he said. “And also you need it. This will feel a little cold.”
Before she could ask what he was doing, he was smooshing the papaya against her butt cheek in what was undoubtedly the weirdest postcoital activity she’d experienced.
“Aaah!” she cried out, noticing her voice sounded like a messed-up version of pleasure and pain. “What the—”
“The enzymes in the papaya will help digest the proteins in the centipede’s venom and minimize the symptoms. Hold still and let me rub it in.”
She could feel his fingertips massaging the area around the bite and tried not to imagine what she must look like with orangey goop smeared across her butt cheek. God, could this be any weirder?
“Is that helping at all?” he asked.
She nodded numbly, surprised to realize it did. And surprised to realize she was standing there in the jungle with a hot guy holding fruit on her ass.
“How do you know about this?”
“Jungle-warfare training. Also, I’ve spent a lot of time on Hawaii. Got bitten once myself. It hurts like a sonofabitch. You’re being a real trooper.”
Anna didn’t feel like much of a trooper with her dress hoisted over her waist and fruit salad running down her leg, but she wasn’t inclined to argue. She peered over her shoulder at Grant, who was eyeing her with concern.
He reached for her wrist, and for a moment she thought he was trying to hold her hand. Then she realized he was taking her pulse. “Are you feeling nauseous?” he asked.
“No.”
“Headache?”
“No.”
“Weakness? Heart palpitations?”
“A little, but I think that’s because you keep touching my butt. Either that, or because I just gave you a blowjob in a tropical jungle. Not an everyday thing for me.”
That got a smile out of him, albeit a small one. Grant was all business, and it was crazy how sexy she found that.
“How’s the pain?”
“The papaya helps, but it still hurts like hell.”
“Do you think you can make it to the hospital, or should I pee on you?”
“Pee on me?” Her shriek sent a flock of birds squawking from a nearby tree.
Grant nodded, looking stoic. “Urea and ammonia are basic urine compounds that neutralize the acidity of the poison. It’ll help with pain and inflammation.”
Anna shook her head, backing away. “No, thank you.”
“Well you can’t very well do it yourself.”
“I’ll stick with the papaya, thank you very—ouch!” She winced as another searing pain rippled through her. “Dammit, that hurts.”
“It’s working its way into your muscle. Come on, I’ll drive you to the hospital. Can you hold this in place?”
Anna nodded and reached back to clutch the papaya in one shaky hand. She expected Grant to release his grip, but instead he moved his hand over hers and met her eyes with his. “I’m really sorry about this.”
“It’s okay. It’s not like I’m going to die.”
He shook his head. “I should have been more careful. I should have—”
“Known I might get my ass chewed by a bug with a hundred legs?” She shook he head. “No man thinks about that when he’s getting a BJ.”
“There’s actually no such thing as a centipede with a hundred legs.”
“What?”
He grimaced, looking almost regretful he’d said something so geeky. “Different species have varying numbers of legs, but they’re always in odd-numbered pairs—you know, fifteen or seventeen pairs of legs, which means thirty or thirty-four individual legs.”
She frowned at him. “Did you get your Boy Scout merit badge in entomology?”
“I enjoy reading zoology texts for fun.”
“Of course you do. You can’t just read a fucking Playboy magazine on the can like every other guy because you’re fucking perfect.”
Grant raised an eyebrow at her, clearly not seeing the connection. “You sure you’re not feeling light-headed?”
“My head is perfectly fine,” she said, trying not to love the feel of his massive hand covering hers while his other hand gently stroked her hip.
My heart, on the other hand—
“Ouch!” she said, wincing as pain gripped her again. She was pretty sure it was just the bite.
“Come on,” he said, pressing the papaya more firmly against her flesh. “Let’s get you to the hospital. You sure you don’t want me to pee on you?”
“Um, what the hell?”
Anna turned at the sound of her sister’s voice. From the edge of a clearing, Janelle emerged from behind a palm tree looking bemused.
Anna bit her lip. “I can explain.”
Janelle raised an eyebrow, looking from Anna to Grant and back to Anna again. “You can explain why a strapping Marine is standing here with his fly undone offering to pee on you while he smears your ass with fruit?”
Anna winced and closed her eyes. “Maybe not.”
…
By the time they left the hospital, Grant’s nerves were shot. He looked over at Anna in the passenger seat and felt his heart lurch. She was curled with her feet under her and her hair falling around her face as she gazed out the window looking small and sleepy and vulnerable.
Not the first time someone got hurt because you couldn’t keep your goddamn pants zipped. Way to go, asshole.
“Have you written your best man speech yet?”
Her words startled him so much he nearly drove off the road. He swerved a little, then overcorrected, his hands gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. Anna turned away from the window to look at him.
Grant swallowed and tried to keep his face expressionless. “What was the question?”
“Your best man speech. For your sister’s wedding next weekend? The best man usually gives a toast.”
“Best man,” Grant repeated, the words burning his tongue. “Right. I’m sure I’ll come up with something.”
She was studying him now, and Grant tried to keep his eyes on the road instead of on her. From the corner of his eye, he saw her shift in her seat, then wince.
He turned to look at her. “Are you in pain?”
“Surprisingly, not much. The pain meds are taking care of the bite just fine, but the seat belt just hit the spot where they gave me the tetanus shot. Who knew that would be mandatory?”
“I’m just glad you’re feeling better. And I’m glad they took extra precautions with you.”
He didn’t bother mentioning his role in that. He’d hovered around the waiting area like a nervous expectant dad, asking if they’d done tests to check for proteinuria or any indications
of disintegrating skeletal muscle tissue or rhabdomyolysis—terms he knew zilch about, but had learned when he’d googled centipede bites on his iPhone. Holy shit, who knew there were so many horrible things that could happen to her?
“I still don’t understand why they had to do an EKG,” she said. “Do they normally do that for everyone who’s bitten by a centipede on Hawaii?”
“Hard to say.”
Hell, Grant could say. Of course they didn’t, but he’d made such a nuisance of himself harassing the nurses about the possibility of abnormal muscle contractions in the heart and vapospasms leading to unwanted vasoconstriction—also shit he’d learned about while googling. The staff had finally agreed to test her for everything just to get rid of him.
Well, and because he handed over his AmEx card. That probably helped.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I’m taking a shortcut to get you back to your condo.”
“Oh. Good.” She sounded a little disappointed, but maybe she was just tired.
“I’ll stick around to keep an eye on you. If you start developing a fever or necrosis or heart palpitations, I want to be there to help.”
“That’s very kind of you, but my sister—”
“Janelle went to go supervise the cleanup crew at the wedding reception. Then she said she needed to meet with the caterer for Sheri’s wedding on the other side of the island.”
“Dammit, that’s right.” Anna smacked her forehead with her hand. “I was supposed to do that tonight.”
“Don’t worry about it. Your sister has it covered. And I’ll be looking out for you.”
Anna looked out the window for a moment, quiet. When she turned back to him, there was a glint of something familiar in her eye. “Can we go back to your place instead of mine?”
“My place?”
“You have pie. The coconut-lime pie I brought you this morning? I hear it’s a very good treatment for centipede bites. Even better than smearing me with papaya.”
Grant laughed and nodded. “Sure.”
That was just as well. His house was closer to the hospital than the condo where she and Janelle were staying, plus he had a first-aid kit in his medicine cabinet with plenty of antibiotic ointment.
That’s not why you want to get her back to your place.
“I’m sorry again about what happened,” he said.
“Quit saying that,” she said. “It’s not your fault. It hardly even hurts anymore. Besides, it was kinda worth it.”
He glanced over to see her grinning at him, and he couldn’t help but smile in return. “Doesn’t seem fair I got all the pleasure and you got all the pain.”
“Au contraire,” she said, licking her lips. “That was the most pleasure I’ve had in a long time. Seeing your perfect, gentlemanly exterior crack wide open to reveal the sex beast beneath? I think I had an orgasm just witnessing that.”
The thought of her having an orgasm made Grant nearly drive off the road again. Christ, at the rate he was going, she probably thought he was drunk. He hit his turn signal and slowed down to take the corner toward his house. “Well thank you very much for the—”
He stopped, not sure what the etiquette called for here. Anna was looking at him with a bemused expression.
“Blowjob? Hummer? Blumpkin? Knobjob?”
“Right.”
She laughed. “Anytime, Boy Scout.”
He tried not to read too much into that as he parked the car in the driveway, then ran around to open her door and help her out. She didn’t argue, which probably said something. If she was willing to let him baby her a little, she must still be hurting.
Grant led her up the walk and unlocked the front door, ushering her inside. “Do you want to sit inside or outside on the lanai?”
“How about inside? That sofa looks comfortable, and I think I’ve had enough of the great outdoors today.”
“Janelle said the same thing at the hospital. Actually, I think her exact words were, ‘Fuck the great outdoors, where’s the nearest spa?’”
Anna laughed. “That sounds like my sister.”
“I take it you girls are more the indoorsy type?”
“Janelle more than me,” she said, easing herself onto the sofa. Grant handed her an afghan knitted by his mom when he was still in diapers. A silly gesture, since it was seventy degrees in his house, but Anna took it without comment.
“I think I already mentioned my sister is the consummate city slicker,” she continued, curling up with her right hip eased up off the sofa. “I’m surprised she even agreed to come on this trip, what with there being no skyscrapers or bagel shops near our condo.”
“Hawaii’s not her scene?” he asked, tearing his eyes away from the lovely curve of her hip to hustle into the kitchen. He pulled the pie out of the fridge and glanced over his shoulder to see her balled up on the sofa with her feet tucked under her looking small and tired. Grant felt his gut twist. He sliced an extra large piece for her, arranging it on a blue plate his sister had given him the last time she’d cleaned out her cupboards. He sliced himself a piece, too, and grabbed two forks from the drawer.
“Hawaii isn’t really Janelle’s scene, though it’s definitely more palatable than, say, a deserted mountain cabin in the woods,” Anna said. “I think this trip was just a good excuse for her to be far away from her ex-husband for a little while.”
Grant returned to the living room with the two pie plates. He handed one to Anna and sat down beside her. “Was he abusive?”
Anna seemed to hesitate, and he wondered if she was protecting her sister or just choosing her words carefully. “Janelle was very selective about the details she shared from her marriage. I don’t think he hit her, but I do think he was emotionally abusive. He cheated on her, but that wasn’t all of it. I can’t put my finger on it, but there was always something off about him.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not sure. Like he had secrets, maybe. Besides the affair, I mean. Something he was up to that none of us knew about. He was very controlling with Janelle. He used to listen to her phone messages, demand to know where she was every minute of the day, sometimes even had her watched.”
Grant frowned. “Those sound like signs of abuse.” He watched a flash of regret cross her face and wished he’d chosen his words more carefully.
“I hope not,” she said softly. “He seemed like a nice enough guy when she introduced me, and then I got so wrapped up in planning their wedding that—” She frowned, looking down at her pie. “Maybe I missed something.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“That’s just it—I should have. I was clueless about the problems in my parents’ marriage as a kid, and then I failed to see everything wrong with Janelle’s husband when he was standing right in front of me picking out cummerbunds and honeymoon destinations.” She laughed, but it was a dry and bitter sound. “Christ, I didn’t even notice Mac and Kelli’s engagement was a sham. How clueless can one person be?”
He looked at her carefully, knowing it was important not to say the wrong thing here. “Anyone with eyes could look at Mac and Kelli and know they were in love. They were the only two people on earth who didn’t notice.”
“Still, it’s a pattern. Don’t you see? With that many strikes against me when it comes to judging relationships and character, I shouldn’t be allowed to pick out my own toothbrush, let alone a life partner.”
“Anna, none of that is your fault. Your parents, your sister—they made their own decisions. You can’t go around penalizing yourself for other people’s relationship missteps. You’re not to blame here.”
She looked at him over a forkful of pie. “This from the guy who won’t stop blaming himself for my centipede bite.”
Grant frowned, not sure how they’d gone from talking about her issues to his. He sensed there was more to her story, something she wasn’t telling him yet. He wanted to push, but he needed to redirect the conversation onto safer turf. “Are
you doing okay? You need me to get you some pain pills or some water or anything?”
“I’m fine, Grant. She looked at him oddly, slicing the side of her fork through her hunk of pie. “How about we both agree to make an effort to stop blaming ourselves for shitty things that happened to other people?”
Grant swallowed a mouthful of pie, trying to get it past the lump that had formed in his throat. She was getting too close for comfort here, so he nodded at her plate. “Sure thing. What’s in this anyway? Did you really make that with the coconut that hit me on the head?”
She looked down at the pie, then back at him, tilting her head to the side a little. “It’s good, huh? Coconut and lime juice are the main ingredients, but there are macadamia nuts in the crust.”
“It’s amazing.”
She was studying him in earnest, probably aware that he’d just changed the subject, but she didn’t say anything. The silence stretched between them for a little while, but Grant didn’t rush to fill it. Let her do the talking.
“I still can’t believe my sister found you rubbing papaya on my butt with your fly down,” she said at last. “What are the odds?”
“Apparently slightly better than the odds of her showing up five minutes earlier and finding us in a much more compromising position.”
“Good point.” Anna set her fork on her empty plate and pushed the plate aside on the end table. “That wasn’t nearly as embarrassing as the time Janelle and I were both in middle school and had a crush on the same boy. She was in sixth grade and I was in eighth, but the boy was a seventh grader. Fair game for us both, right?”
“All’s fair in love and war and junior high.”
“Exactly. So anyway, we were at this school party hoping the boy would ask us to dance instead of sitting on the far side of the gym making paper airplanes with his buddies.”
Grant grinned, remembering how he and Schwartz used to do the same damn thing before they discovered girls a year or two later. “Seventh grade boys are not known for their romantic prowess and emotional perception.”
She laughed. “I’m not sure they change much even with fifteen or twenty years of experience. Anyway, I suddenly got a migraine. I ran to the bathroom thinking I could stay there in the quiet with the lights out and maybe it would go away. I also had to pee, so I was sitting there with my Hello Kitty underpants around my knees, when all of a sudden I felt nauseous.”
