Page 55 of Try Me

“Come on, you can tell me.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, okay? I never thought about it. The mere mention of flying makes me anxious, so I don’t think about it.”

“Sorry,” he said, taking a bite of his sandwich. The Spam was better than he’d expected, but still not great. “Just for the record,” he said, chewing, “I don’t let McKenna push me around. We have an arrangement. I agreed to it.”

“You probably wish he would have never hired me,” Pearl said.

“You can say that again.”

Pearl pushed her plate away and crossed her arms over her chest. “Have I not lived up to your expectations, Mr. Bishop?”

“You’ve exceeded my expectations, but I wish he hadn’t hired you.”

“Why?”

“Because I liked you. I wanted you from that first day we surfed at Sharp Park together. No,” he corrected, “from the moment I saw you deck Sam Henderson.”

“So what’s the problem?” Pearl asked, eyes challenging him from across the table. “We’re both adults. Both single.”

“I don’t mess around with the hired women.”

Pearl snorted. “No wonder you have to pay for dates,” she said.

“What?”

“You have no idea what to do with a woman. You let your stupid rules get in the way.”

Declan blinked a few times, then closed his mouth. He pushed back from the table, walked over to Pearl and put his hands on the arm of her chair. “I know exactly what to do with a woman,” he promised her. “But I don’t pay for them.”

Pearl took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling under the wet T-shirt. Declan’s eyes dropped over her face and down her body. He wished he was anywhere but stranded in the jungle with a sexy siren like Pearl who made it impossible for him to think straight.

He wished fleetingly for a shot of whiskey to take the edge off his desire for her, and then he remembered he didn’t drink anymore. One shot of whiskey would never be enough to take his mind off Pearl.

Declan realized he was hovering over Pearl’s chair like a predator trapping his prey. He stood up, backing off before he could give in to the desire to do something stupid, like kiss her.

He wasn’t going down that dangerous road. Not again. Not here in the middle of nowhere where there was nothing to stop him but his stupid rule once he got started.

Grabbing their empty plates, he took them to the sink and began washing up.

It was going to be a long night. A very long night.

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