Page 25 of Glamour & Gumballs

“Is it still okay if I sleep next to you?” I asked him quietly, feeling many sets of eyes on me.

“As long as you scrub Jim’s scent off your skin first.”

Oh.

Considering the possessiveness he’d warned me about, that seemed fair.

I nodded, slipping down to the beach.

I didn’t notice the man sitting on the sand until I was almost on top of him, and jumped when he waved.

“Dammit, Kyle,” I hissed. “Don’t surprise me like that.”

He chuckled. “It wasn’t intentional. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” I slipped into the water, only going in to my waist. It felt warmer than the air, despite the falling rain, so I didn’t mind.

It didn’t take long to scrub myself down, including rinsing my mouth with the salt water just to be safe. Kyle was still sitting there when I emerged.

I waved at him on my way back up the beach, and he mirrored the motion.

The cold air and rain had me shivering by the time I got back to the shelter. There was sand stuck to my feet and legs, and I was regretting my agreement to get in the water.

When I reached Rhett, I curled up against his side without hesitation.

He grunted at the contact.

The jerk probably regretted sending me back to the water too.

But he didn’t complain when I pressed more of my icy skin against his insanely warm side.

And once again, I fell asleep way too quickly.

six

ERIN

The tension eased over the next few days.

The rain didn’t.

It got crazy windy a few times, enough so that it tore apart the leaves over the top of our shelters, but the men rebuilt them stronger with bamboo.

Waking up on top of Rhett’s erection every day kept my pheromones from easing up, despite the utter misery of the rain, but the men were avoiding me too thoroughly to wreak more chaos.

So, I kept to myself.

It was kind of lonely.

Or a lot lonely.

And it gave me way too much time to think about the fantasies I kept having of me and Rhett.

That was going to be a problem in the long run if I couldn’t stop it… but hopefully I’d move on. Because the last thing I needed was to choose a man who was going to turn me down at the end of the game.

But there was still plenty of game left.

Too much game left, in fact.

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