Page 67 of Juicy Pickle

My boss turned nemesis has become something significantly more.

We dodge debris in the moonlight, Rhett carefully steering me away from any dangers.

We spot another towel. Rhett shakes it free of sand.

“Now we have a cover,” I say.

“We do.” He draws his arm around me.

Back at the fire, we shake the two original towels and spread them out. Neither of us wants to dress in our damp bathing suits, so we lay them over a log and settle onto the towels.

When we lie on our makeshift bed, naked, curled together, and covered this time, sleep comes easily.

Sometime near dawn, I wake to the feel of his hard body spooned around my back, his arm draped over my waist.

The embers glow red, and beyond them, a mist obscures the ocean. We’ve made it through a night on the island, and rescue might not come for another one.

Right now, I’m glad.

I try not to move, to let him sleep longer, but he must sense that I’m awake. He leans in close to press a kiss on my hair.

“I think we should have a no-clothes day,” he murmurs in my ear.

“That sounds reckless.”

His hand strays up my ribs. “Let’s be utterly reckless.”

It’s hard to imagine that this is the same Rhett who berated me for the organization of folders on the backup drive.

But we’re different here. All the unimportant things are stripped away.

Including our clothes.

When his hand cups my breast, my entire body lights up. I want to keep doing everything with him, over and over. I feel desperate for it, like a thirst I never quite quenched until last night.

I press my back into him, feeling him hard against my thigh. “Like this,” I tell him. “Just like this.”

He slides his leg between my knees to give himself some space. His wayward hand slides down to edge a finger inside me.

I suck in a breath. I feel wickedly alive. The sun is rising over the trees, and everything around us is softly lit. There is no cover of darkness, no flickering light. We can see everything.

I watch him work me with practiced strokes. My breath catches. Why has no one else been this good? Is it the solitude? The sun? The wait?

My hips move against him, wanting him inside me. “Please,” I whisper.

He shifts, adjusting the angle of his body, then he’s there, buried deep. His fingers keep working me, and I’m flooded with pleasure.

I don’t want to close my eyes, watching the day grow bright, the breeze picking up from the ocean and making the palm trees sway.

The mist begins to burn off, revealing the waves and the endless blue of the sea. Rhett moves faster and I clutch the sand, almost laughing that I’ve made the same mistake all over again.

I feel high, like I’ve taken some wondrous drug. I’m drunk on sunlight and the salty air. And Rhett, doing that thing again with his fingers until I’m wound up like the string on a yo-yo, waiting for him to let me fly.

He’s in control of me. My body and its response are completely in his hands.

He uses his knee to spread my legs wider. More fingers go in, and that’s it. I unspool, the breeze brushing against the tips of my nipples, the sand shifting beneath my hip.

Rhett works me from behind and inside and I shout to the sky all the words that break free.

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