Page 100 of Pick-Up
And that’s when his towel drops. A sopping white terrycloth heap on the rocky floor. We both look down at it and back up at each other. He laughs. Shyly. Adorably.
Only, there is nothing to be bashful about. More like something to shout from the rooftops.
I can work with this. And I take it as an invitation. I raise my hand way up and, starting at the top of his head, trace the path of water down his body, past his shoulders, his chest, the place where his lower back slopes into his ass. I lick a droplet from his chest.
“Fuck,” he groans.
I like it when Demon Dad curses.
He grabs my hips with authority—running isn’t the only thing he knows how to do—and slips his thumbs inside my bathing suit on either side, teasing it slowly down. He pauses there.
“What’s the holdup?” I ask, pursing my lips.
He looks at me sideways, then yanks it the rest of the way down, so it drops with a smack, pooling at my ankles.
“No holdup.”
I am fully naked. In all the ways.
We stare at each other like a dare.
He calls my bluff first, backing me toward the shower wall again in a cloud of steam. Apparently, the water preservation will have towait. I am also a finite resource. My shoulder blades press against the wood, as he pins my hands to the wall.
He takes a beat to look me up and down. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he murmurs. And it’s like I’ve been waiting for this my whole life instead of a few weeks.
My breath catches as he drags his palm down my arm and side to my hip. He makes a pilgrimage across my upper thigh and slips his hand between my legs.Finally. He just barely touches me. I claw at his back. He gives me more.
If my jellyfish sting still hurts, I’m in too much of a fugue state to know or care. I am no longer a solid. I am liquid mercury, shiny and illusory. No, I am a vapor! I am weightless. I am one of the constellations we saw looking down on us from the sky.
And I want it all. I am prepared to beg.
That’s when it occurs to me. There’s a hitch in my plan.Damn.
“Condom,” I mutter, like it’s the name of someone I hate.
He breaks away, his brow furrowed like he’s never heard of such a thing. Like it’s a foreign object. “Condom?” Then, “Oh, shit. Condom.”
We’re old married folk. Well, at least we were recently. People who either had weekly sex without constraint or never bumped uglies at all. Why would we think to carry such things? And it’s not like we’re in New York City. Like there’s a corner bodega or a twenty-four-hour pharmacy with blinking fluorescents advertising carnal convenience. This is a deserted island. Literally. A five-star wasteland. And, unless we can MacGyver a contraceptive device out of Turkish towels and key chains from the gift shop, we’re out of luck.
Now, we mightactuallybe screwed.
But my fiery loins aren’t having it. Not with his wet skin pressed against mine. We must not be stopped.
I silently brainstorm; I can see Ethan’s wheels turning too. Stephanie surely has a stash. But we can’t go there. There’s no planet on which she doesn’t ask questions. There’s no way to ask Michael if I ever want to face him again.
That’s it!The thought of my favorite Citrine staff member reminds me of his tour and suddenly I have all the answers.
“The sundry drawer!” I shout, like I’ve got the most popular answer onFamily Feud. Like 98 percent of the people they polled during sex said “sundry drawer!”
Still gripping my body, Ethan looks at me like I’ve lost it. “Sorry?”
Then I remember that he is a man. He does not use cotton balls. He does not use shower caps. He does not think about after sun gel.
“In the bathroom,” I say. “With the Q-tips.”
I watch realization dawn on his lovable face. “They have condoms in there?”
We bolt apart, throw on our towels and flip-flops and, pausing momentarily to make out against the back door to the main house, scurry through the villa like semi-naked burglars. Once in my room, I am on a mission. Clutching my towel to my chest, I slip into the sparkly bathroom, open the drawer with a prayer—and there are my RAW fair-trade condoms, hip to be square and backlit like the Holy Grail!
