Page 15 of Love on the Rocks
My ears pricked up.
“What? Oh, I can’t hear. Ugh!!! No service again,” she moaned. “How is this my life right now?Go to Greece, Cal. It’ll be great for your career,” she mimicked in a mock English accent. Then she hung her head in her hands.
We drifted. Minutes ticked by and still no wind. The only sound was the water lapping against the boat and an occasional cry from a hungry seagull.
The sun was beating down on us and the last thing I wanted was for her to get heatstroke, so I pulled out a bottle of water from the cooler and tapped her leg with it. She jumped in surprise and then glared at me as if I had been about to attack her.
“Efcharistó,” she mumbled and snatched the bottle from me. Ah, now we were making progress; she’d actually said something to me.
As her red lips closed around the top of the bottle, I tried not to imagine what they’d feel like on certain parts of my anatomy.Too late. There might not have been wind in our sail, but I was going to be half-mast soon. She noticed me watching her, slowly lowered the bottle, and smirked.
“I’ve never really gone for the strong silent type, but I can see the appeal.” She arched a brow. “It’s actually kind of refreshing, not to have someone mansplaining to me for once. Although, you have a way of mansplaining with your eyes.”
She took another sip, then pursed those plump red lips again. “You really don’t understand anything I’m saying. I could tell you my biggest, darkest secrets, and you couldn’t tell anyone.”
I could have stopped her there. I should have, but my curiosity got the better of me.
“Let’s see, where should I start? How about the obvious? I have no idea what I’m doing. Not just drifting in the middle of the ocean, but like existentially. What am I doing in Greece? On some godforsaken island in the middle of the Aegean? I’ve never felt like such a fucking fraud.”
That was unexpected and revealing . . .
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, her gaze held mine, long enough for me to see that her eyes were a deep sea green. Siren eyes.
They creased at the corner as a teasing smile curved her full lips. “How about if I told you that the suitcase you refused to help me with yesterday was filled with sex toys and smutty novels? I was going to use my new vibrator this morning, and wouldn’t you know, you popped into my head.”
My body tensed and I held my breath as she continued.
“It’s really inconvenient and kind of infuriating that you’re so damn hot because you have a really shitty personality.” She sighed. “That doesn’t mean I’m not dying to know what those big hands would feel like on my body.”
At that precise moment a gust of wind sent the sail flapping, startling us both. Thank God because I didn’t know how muchlonger I’d be able to resist the urge to put my big hands on her body.
“Hallelujah, there’s wind! I need to get out of this fucking boat,” she cried, echoing my sentiments perfectly.
A gust of wind was not going to blow us ashore, however, so I lunged over her to seize the oars from under the bench.
“I don’t believe it. There were oars.” She muttered under her breath, glaring at me. “And he was just going to let us drift.”
I ignored her snide comment and started to row.
“Now, that’s not fair. How are your arms that beautiful?” She sighed.
I made quick work of it, motivated by both sexual frustration and anger, gliding past Orpheus’s Cove with its craggy cliffs and hidden grotto. A single cloud drifted over the sun, blocking out the light and throwing us into shadow. The weather was changing. There’d be a storm later tonight.
“That was creepy.” She squinted up at the sky and shivered. “I feel like I’m being led by Hades over that river that leads to the underworld. What’s it called, again?”
“Styx,” I answered, not caring at this point if the game was up.
“Right, Styx,” she mumbled, and then straightened, her eyes lancing daggers into me. “Wait, what did you just say?”
Chapter 7
She had known he was Greek when she first saw him. There was no mistaking the proud nose, the strong jaw, the dark eyes. But hearing him say those wordsasteri mou—my star—snapped her out of the fantasy she had woven around herself.
And then her childhood friend, Christina, appeared her outraged cry echoing in the still night air, “Mia, what are you doing with Angelos Mavromatis?”
- One Week with the Greek
CALLIE
