Page 37 of Cajuns. Love. Curves.

I take the key from her and head up the steps to open the door. “Actually, when I was helping the skipper with the bags, I asked which cabin was the nicest and the most remote.” I unlock the door and hold it open for her. “He said this one was it on both counts.”

I kick off my shoes, then rinse my feet in the tub of water left by the door to rinse off the sand. Then I flick on the lights and step inside.

The extra effort I went to to secure the best room is worth it when Cassie steps inside and gasps.

There are a pair of curtained windows that face the porch and the rest of the cabins. The other walls all have bigger windows and no curtains to block the view.

“Since the path ends at our doorstep,” I explain, “this cabin has the best view.”

It’s situated right where the tail end of the crescent narrows and curls towards the mainland, so the view from this side is of an uninterrupted beach and ocean. There’s a bathroom at the back of the cabin with an outdoor shower that practically opens up to the jungle.

“This is amazing,” she says, ambling over to the window to gaze out at the rolling surf. Glancing over her shoulder, her eyes alight with wonder, she asks, “You did this?”

“Nah, you did this. Your hard work got you here.” I walk behind her, turning her back to the view and wrapping my arms around her, pulling her back to my chest. “I just made sure you had the best cabin on the island. What I did was small potatoes.”

It’s a struggle to keep my embrace light and friendly. Casual.

Which is hard to do—no pun intended—when what I want to do is bury my face in her neck and breathe in the sweet smell of her.

The windows are open and the breeze off the water smells like salt and ocean and mingled with her scent. It’s all of my favorite things rolled into one perfect moment.

Would it be more perfect if I could kiss her neck? Yes.

But who am I kidding? I don’t want to just kiss her neck. I want to bite her neck. To sink my teeth into it and mark as my own. I want to move my hands from her hips to her perfect tits and feel them pebble against my palms. I want to bend her over, lift her skirt and fuck her from behind, hard and fast, until she’s screaming my name so loud they can hear her coming on the next island.

So, yeah, when I say it’s hard to keep my touch causal, I mean that in every sense of the word.

Instead of doing any of that, I step back, giving her the space she needs. I turn my back to her, trying to subtly adjust my cock, which has sprung to attention in the past couple of minutes, while I reach down and grab my duffle off the floor.

“Let me guess,” I say, keeping my voice light. As if I hadn’t just imagined doing unspeakable things with her. “You’re a woman who unpacks completely when you check into a hotel.”

She turns away from the view more slowly, blinking like the segue surprised her.

“Um… do you not?” Then she chuckles. “Never mind. You’re a SEAL. You’re probably thinking, ‘Wait. What’s a hotel? Why would I stay in a hotel when I can just whittle myself a shelter from coconut shells and this bamboo leaf?’”

“I was not thinking that.”

“Let me guess,” she brings her finger to her cheek and taps it pensively. “Is that because you’ve mostly been stationed in the middle east where they don’t have bamboo?”

“Maybe it’s because I don’t whittle.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Apparently rumors of my whittling skills have been greatly exaggerated.”

“I would bet my law degree you can whittle.” As she says this, she opens her suitcase and—just as I expected—begins unpacking the contents into a drawer.

“Okay, I admit it. I can whittle. But I’m really more of a blowing shit up kind of guy.”

She just shakes her head at this and gives me an exasperated look, like that’s exactly what she expected.

My girl is a light packer, so it only takes her a few minutes to get the entire contents of her suitcase out and into drawers. It’s only once she’s zipping the suitcase back up and sliding it into the closet that she seems to notice the elephant in the room.

Or rather, the king-size bed in the room. Her gaze falls on it and she freezes.

“Oh.” She draws out that single syllable, like she’s framing an entire legal argument in her mind. “Only one bed. I had requested doubles.”

“Sure,” I say. “That would’ve been fine, when you were here with Trevor, your gay best friend from high school, but I asked the skipper to change it to a room with a king-size bed. That’s more believable for a fake boyfriend scenario.”

---