Page 35 of The VIP Package

“Options like amputation?” I’m trying to joke, but this fucking hurts.

“Pretty sure you’ll live.” He throws me a towel as I cradle my thigh to my chest. “If it makes you feel better, I’ve been stung before.”

“Why would that make me feel better?” I spit out a salty hunk of hair. “Did you see sadism checked on my forms?”

“I did not.” Ash’s mouth quirks. “I merely meant that I’m familiar with treatment protocol.”

“You’re not going to pee on me, are you?”

“I beg your pardon?” He squints at the dock, angling the boat into place.

“Isn’t that what people do?”

“Far be it from me to kink shame, but this hardly seems like the time for a golden shower.”

“Ash!” The man is a pain in the ass. “Are you trying to distract me by pretending to be dense?”

“Is it working?” He ties off the boat and leaps out onto a small wooden platform.

“A little,” I admit, wincing as he bundles me into the fluffy red towel.

Gripping my hand, he hoists me out onto the dock. “Can you walk?”

“Yes, I—oh!” I clutch at his neck as he scoops into his arms. “What are you doing?”

“You took too long to answer.” Tucking me against his chest, he strides with purpose up a crushed-shell walkway. “This is quicker.”

“Okay.” I don’t think that’s true, but I’m not in a position to argue. I just hold on tight as he bangs through a gate and over a wide paver path to the house. Being pressed to his body has a placebo effect on the pain, and I notice my thigh isn’t throbbing anymore.

“Urinating on jellyfish stings is a common myth,” he explains as he reaches a side door to the mansion. Shifting me to one side, he presses his thumb to a scanner.

“Who the hell made up that myth?” I mutter.

“Evidently, someone who likes urinating on others.”

“Or being peed on.”

“There’s no kink shaming at Crystal Bliss Retreat.”

The door swings open and we stride through it with Ashton still talking. “Hot water is the best treatment. Anywhere from one-hundred-ten degrees to one-thirteen.”

My thigh throbs like someone’s still zapping me with a taser. “It’s annoying that you know the precise temperature.”

He ignores me and starts up a wide set of stairs, still clutching me tight to his chest. “There’s a bathwater thermometer in the primary suite, along with tweezers in case you have tentacles attached to the injury site.”

“I’m sleeping with a man who has a bathwater thermometer?”

Ash doesn’t reply as he thunders up steps made from some kind of colorful wood. Glancing around, I admire the interior of his home. It’s open and airy, like the place was designed to be part of nature. The entire front is comprised of glass panels, each one framing up spellbinding views of the sea. From the lip of asecond-floor balcony, a waterfall tumbles to a shimmering pond trailing down to a gourmet kitchen.

Holy crap, that’s a huge kitchen.

“Do you cook for yourself, or does Lars do all your meals?”

“What?”

“Your personal chef.” I’m getting the sense he’s a bit too distracted for small talk about his eating habits. “Does Lars make everything you eat, or can you cook?”

Ash grumbles something as we turn to take the next flight of stairs. “Did we not make French toast and bacon together?”

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