Ass over tit, we rolled. The worn ropes of the hammock gave way, tumbling us on the floor in a heap.
“Ow…” Hannah called out from underneath me.
“What the bloody hell are ye on about, woman?” I asked, trying to roll off her.
“Stop rubbing your dick against me,” she snapped, pushing at my hips as she struggled to free herself in panicked motions, making the situation increasingly worse.
“I’m not rubbing my anything against ye, ye dafty. In case you hadn’t noticed, ye just ran across the room and tackled my bed straight to the ground,” I answered, shifting to my left, hoping I could roll free.
“No, I didn’t!” she cried out as my elbow found a particularly squishy spot. I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t trying to hurt her, but we were well and truly tangled up.
“Right, sorry then. What were ye about? Looked like you were trying to ice skate or something. And with a wicked grin too.”
She paused as if trying to recall what I’d said, and then her eyes went wide. “Damn. I think you’re right.”
“I know I’m right. I witnessed it, love.”
“I was dreaming about the last bout I had and must have sleepwalked,” she continued, her mind seemingly elsewhere. “It’s this damn heat and that stupid, uncomfortable mattress!” she said loudly, trying again to remove herself from our unforgiving tangle.
“Right then. I’ll just move this way and ye the other …” I tried, letting the comment about the heat go. It was damnable hot and getting worse by the second with our bodies piled one on top of the other.
It didn’t work.
We were stuck.
Hannah went limp underneath me. “Ed, we can’t let Maggie and Phillip find us like this. That would be so sickeningly cliché. The maid-of-honor and the best man.” She snorted. “What the hell are we supposed to do?”
She sounded worried.
“Just hold still. Give me a second to feel what we’re up against,” I answered, taking a second to catch my breath.
“Feel?” She shifted under me in shock.
“Yes, feel. Ye bloody tackled me in the dark. I can’t see a blasted thing, so I have to feel around in order to get us out.”
She huffed. “Yeah, well, you better watch where your hands roam, mister.”
I bit back a comment, which would surely see me good and slapped when we were untangled. “Right then. Hold still,” I warned as I maneuvered my arm up alongside her hip, testing the woven bits of the hammock. It was then I noticed how tangled up we really were.
“Can ye get your left arm through that hole there?” I asked, feeling a crossing where her arm had gone through.
She squirmed a bit before hissing. “No. My other arm is pinned.”
“Let’s try this then,” I said, pushing myself up about an inch. “Lift your arse up a bit, will you?”
She didn’t hesitate and, when her backside pushed against my stomach, I slid my arm under her and pulled her against me, using my other hand to sort of get us up from the floor a bit.
“See if you can get your arm through now,” I told her.
She jerked, causing me to lose my balance. Over we rolled, with her on top of me.
“My arm is free!” she said with a breathless sort of happiness.
I hated to point out to her we were still prisoner to the hammock, trapped in a sort of demented-looking X.
She wiggled against me, and my hardened state pushed back against her. Not because I wanted her to feel what she did to me. It was more like the damn thing had a mind of its own.
“Really, Ed? You’re one of those guys? Put your damn boner away and get us out of this mess or so help me God.” Hannah pressed her forearm against my neck as if to warn me she could choke me out if she really wanted to.
I found that somewhat even more of a turn on. “It has a mind of its own, love. I guess it likes what it feels. Can’t say as I blame it though. Ye do have a nice, cushiony place for it.”
I chuckled when she growled.
She jabbed me in the ribs with her elbow. “Seriously? We’re stuck in a damn hammock and you want to put the moves on me?”
“I have to tell ye, there’s not many moves can be made right now, but help get us free and I’ll move however ye want, love.” I couldn’t keep myself from goading her on. Her smart mouth and take-no-shite attitude was sexy as hell.
After a brief second, Hannah did something I never expected. She laughed. Belted it out really. “I swear to God, Ed. How can you piss me off so bad and make me want to laugh all at the same time?”
I went along with it. “I’m English, love. Comes with the territory,” I answered, hoping she’d laugh again. I rather liked it. Especially how it vibrated my entire body.
Hannah’s head fell against my collarbone. “I think we’re screwed.”
I let that one slide. “It’s not all that bad, is it?”
I moved my hands down as much as I could. There had to be a way out of our tangle up. We had room to move a bit, but without knowing where we needed to be freed, there wasn’t much either of us could do. Add to the fact that the moonlight shifted behind the clouds, darkening the room, making it damn near impossible to do anything about our situation until either the moonlight came back or the sun came up.
“Let’s assess the situation, shall we?” I asked, hoping if we put our heads together, we’d come up with a way out.
She blew out a breath. “Okay. Where’s your left arm?”
“Attached to the left side of my body, currently sticking through the other side of this blasted death trap,” I replied, lifting it up, but only seeing the blackened outline of it.
“Mine’s free. Where’s your right arm?”
“Currently pinned to my side.”
“Okay. Bring it up over me and help hold the net so I can see about pulling my arm back through the hole. I think it might be my arm tangled between both sides of the net that’s mummifying us.”
I brought my arm over hers and rolled us onto our side, curling my legs against hers with the hopes I could give her just a little more room to free her arm.
“Hold the net so I can wiggle my right arm free,” Hannah said.
I found where her arm poked through and pushed outward on the net as Hannah grumbled and tugged. All at once, the net fell free from around our chests.
“We’re still stuck,” Hannah said, kicking her legs, which moved mine.
“Okay, let’s—omphf… Bloody hell! Warn a man when ye plan to do sit ups on his dick,” I said on a whooshed breath of pain.
She’d rolled the both of us over with little-to-no effort. The fact her arse ground against my straining erection in a very unforgiving way made me want to curl up in a ball in order to get away from the abuse.
“Not so cushy now, is it?” Hannah snorted when all I could do was groan in my discomfort.
She stopped wiggling and cursed. “Your leg is through two different holes.”
“Well, help me pull it out.” I sat up and gripped her hips to keep her from kicking off again.
I swore I heard a soft catch in her breath as my fingers dug into her flesh.
“Bend over and see if you can pull it free,” I said, trying my best not to think sexual thoughts about bending and pulling her arse snuggled up nice and tight against me.
“We need to get the hammock out from underneath us. It’s stretched too tight to do anything right now.”
I lost it.
Hannah was pressed so firmly against my chest when I did, we both fell backward.
Wrapping both my arms around her, I laughed my arse off. Either it was the fucked situation we’d found ourselves in, or the lack of sleep that did it. I’d never know. It might have been a combination of both and, at that point, it didn’t really matter.
“What the hell is so funny?” Hannah fumed as she tried prying my arms from around her.
Through a burst of laughter, I tried explaining. “It’s just all this pushing and pulling… an
d my dick and your arse… I never thought I’d find myself… and then ye’re bouncing up and down on me like a trampo—” I couldn’t even finish explaining because she was laughing just as hard as I was.
It took a few minutes to catch our breath.
When we wound down, Hannah clutched her sides as she wheezed out, “It hurts. Stop laughing… it hurts.”
Our heavy breathing filled the room in fits and starts of laughter trying to come back.
“Let’s get back to it, shall we?” I said when we’d both worn ourselves out.
“Okay, I’m going to lean forward and see if I can’t figure out where we’re still hung up.”
Moonlight spilled into the room, giving me a good view of a disheveled Hannah perched on my lap, bent over with her hair in a wild disarray. My fingers moved up on their own. I caught myself right before digging them in and hauling her back against me.
“We need to get the hammock out from under your backside,” Hannah said as she moved our legs.
We could have easily just pulled our legs in and got the same freeing space, but I wasn’t about to let the opportunity of holding on to her one last time escape me.
“Tell me when,” I said, fighting the heavy feeling of lust crawling through me.
“Now works for me.”
“Works for me too.” I pulled her hips against me as I lifted us both up from the floor. Our combined weight pressed my shoulders into the rough planks while my legs kept us up in an arched position.
She gasped, grabbing my hands, but she didn’t try moving them.
“Er, Hannah, ye mind getting the net?” I asked as her hips slightly rocked.
“The net? Oh, yeah, hold on,” she said a little breathlessly.
My body jumped as Hannah fumbled, moving even more against me.
She was out of breath by the time she said, “Net’s free.”
I lowered us slowly to the floor, and Hannah slid off my lap. Before I knew it, our legs were free.
She grabbed the hammock and stood. “Well, that was enough fun for one night.”
“Where ye goin’ with that?” I asked with a slight chuckle.
“Getting it as far away from the both of us as possible.” She opened the door and pitched it out onto the sand. A warm breeze blew in through the open doorway, cooling my heated skin.
Hannah plucked at her shirt, fanning it. “It’s like ten degrees cooler out here. We should leave it open.”
Scrubbing my hand down my face, I fought back a yawn as I moved to the mattress on the floor. “Whatever ye like, love.”
I’d just pulled my arm over my eyes when Hannah nudged my foot with hers.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Trying to sleep, and so should ye. Unless, of course, ye want to have another go, without the net.”
She dropped beside me on the mattress without a word. I pulled my arm from my eyes, wondering what she was about.
She leaned in, close enough that her face hovered over mine. “If I wake up and you’re spooning me, I’ll kick your ass. Got it?”
“Got it. No spooning.” I gave her a cheeky grin before I rolled onto my side, facing away from her.
After she got settled, she sighed. Deeply. “Ed?”
“Yes, love?”
“You aren’t going to tell Maggie and Philip about this… right?”
“Not bloody likely.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, love. If ye knew the reasons why I plan on keeping it to myself, ye’d slap me.”
“Oh? Now I’m curious.”
I rolled over, propping myself up on my elbow as she rolled over to face me. “Curiosity killed the cat, didn’t ye know?”
She rolled her eyes. “Good thing I’m not a cat. So?”
One side of my mouth curled up. “If ye must know, I’ll be keeping our entanglement to myself to think about when I’m lonely and in need of a good shag, but there’s no lass about.”
She sucked in a breath as her mouth opened and closed.
“Now, close your eyes and get some rest,” I said, grabbing a handful of her arse and hauling her next to me as I pulled her alongside my chest.
She pushed against me halfheartedly, but gave up, bumping her chin into my chest with a sigh. “You’ll pay for that tomorrow, but right now, I’m just too damn tired to even try.”
Hannah, it seemed, was a real spitfire. One who liked to cuddle. I damn sure wouldn’t have pegged her for that.
My eyes drifted closed as I savored the feel of the warm woman in my arms.
MY MIND TEETERED ON THE edges of sleep as the distant waves crashed along the shoreline. I dreamed of being caught in a spider web with a strange-looking spider making its way toward me.
I knew I was in a situation I needed to get out of. Fast. But no matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t break free.
My heart went into full panic mode.
I rolled and twisted, trying with all my might until I rolled right off the mattress with a light thud onto the floor.
My eyes shot open.
Thankfully, Ed was nowhere to be seen. With a deep breath, I moved back onto the mattress and pulled the sheet over my burning eyes, recounting the events of last night in mortifying horror.
The entanglement. The jokes. The fondling… God, but the fondling.
“That really happened,” I said to myself, shaking my head as I rubbed my eyes.
Not only had I tackled him while I was asleep, but we basically acquainted ourselves with every inch of each other’s bodies, while never getting a lick of pleasure out of it.
Well… maybe that was a tiny lie. Maybe I did sort of enjoy his sick, twisted sense of humor. And his large, rough hands. And his well-endowed—
I palmed my forehead. “No, Hannah! Absolutely not!”
“Talking to yourself, love? And here I thought your crazy stopped at sleepwalking.”
Of course. Of course, he’d be standing there listening to me as I have a mini morning meltdown.
“Too bad you can’t handle this version of crazy,” I said in a suggestive tone, belying how easily he had thrown off my game in the very few hours I had known him.
I pulled the sheet from my face and rolled so I could get a better view of him. He stood still in the doorway, fingers of golden light haloing around him as he held a plate of pancakes drizzled with syrup and melted better. The scent hit me seconds later.
My stomach growled loud enough for his eyes to rise up.
“That bad, eh?”
I got up, refusing to let him unravel me any further than he already had. I was Hanibelle Lecter—the confidant, man-eating blocker who didn’t do romance and butterflies. Who wasn’t easily unnerved by men. Who didn’t think twice about having a good time with a good-looking man, because it was me who sat in the driver seat. Who controlled the pace of the situation and walked away before anything got too heavy.
So what makes this situation any different?
The fact that in the two times I’ve seen him in daylight, he had that sexy, just-rolled-out-of-bed dark hair that checked off on my long list of things I looked for in a guy and made my fingers itch to bury themselves in. Bright, sexy, unwavering eyes with faint laugh lines around the corners. Lips that had to have seen their fair share of experience, a killer sense of humor, a seemingly genuine heart, and a body I personally felt in the moonlight and deemed was too beautiful to be covered in overrated clothing.
He was the kind of guy a girl would kill to settle down with, and, well, I just wasn’t the settle-down type.
I stopped in front of him, enjoying the wanton look in his eyes as he drank in my form covered in just the oversized t-shirt I wore. Sometime during the night, I kicked off my pajama pants.
It was too damn hot for pants.
“For me?” I said, playfully batting my lashes at him.
With a smirk, I picked the fork up and took a large, very satisfying bite, hoping to get a rise out of him. But then I gro
aned as the bite hit my stomach and made my taste buds scream for more.
I took the plate from him and ravenously continued eating, unable to stop. They were so warm and delicious. So syrupy and yummy.
“It’s a good thing I brought them for ye,” he said in a conversational tone, watching me eat with a grin that lit his eyes up as bright as stadium lights. “Figured ye might be hungry after all the floundering around last night.”
A hoard of warning bells sounded off in my mind as thousands of dusty feelings fluttered around inside my stomach.
They—whoever they were—said food was the way to a man’s heart, but they totally missed the mark by not including women with that statement.
This girl and delicious food go together like peanut butter and jelly.
I swallowed as best as I could as my eyebrows screwed up. “You brought them for me? Intentionally?”
He looked around the room. “Don’t see anyone else with us.”
Just the elephant in the room, I thought with a snort.
“Umm. Thanks.” I gave him a twitching smile that felt misplaced on my face.
He had just thrown a syrup-laden wrench into my nefarious plans of toying with him. Not only was he good looking, but under that humor was also a sweet side. A thoughtful side. Even I knew it wasn’t fair for a cat to play with such a sweet, little mouse.
Lord, please help me.
“I’m going to umm… go find Maggie,” I said, masking the hesitation in my voice by clearing my throat.
“In only your knickers?” A barely there smile wavered on his face.
I fought against the need to fidget under his heated gaze. The look on his face was a look that said he had me all figured out and would patiently wait until I finally gave in.
I could not let that happen.
Moving around him as if he were contagious, I hurriedly pulled my pajama pants on, grabbed my plate of pancakes, and then marched across the sand, heading straight inside Maggie’s home with the zeal of familiarity.
Putting the plate down on the kitchen table with a heavy thud, I sighed and sagged into the chair. Both she and Phillip looked up at me from their plates, foreheads forming that questioning V look.
Runaway Heart (A Game of Hearts #2) Page 4
