When I first come to consciousness I think I might be still asleep, because I hear the ocean waves I often snooze with in the background, coming off the sleep-machine my grandmother gave to me. I also realize I have no idea where I am.

This is a waking state which is not unusual for me, because I’m forever on auto-exhaustion mode. More often than not we hit the tour bus or the limo after a show, and are led half-asleep into hotels where we don’t remember which city we’ve pulled into next.

But this morning, even half-conscious I’m wishing I could go right back to sleep. Because I’m comfortable. Really comfortable, more so than I’ve been in a long time.

I register that I’m holding someone—someone who is soft and abundantly curvy in all of the right places and who is sprawled flat on top of me, breasts pressed into my chest. She’s got her head nestled on my shoulder and she’s breathing extra deep, like she’s sound asleep and as comfortable as I am right now.

This, I note, is also rare, because I don’t get comfortable with girls after we have sex, nor do I ever let them fall asleep in my bed.

From the amounts of soft, bare skin that’s touching my bare skin, I also get that we must have had quite a night. The thought of that and the feel of her is setting up some serious morning wood activity, but who could blame me? She’s so warm and the way her hair is tangled softly under my chin feels sexy as hell.

Maybe I’ll just roll over and ask if we can wake up and…

A new set of waves crash in, but they’re not just coming from my machine, and as I come to more awareness, I also note that I’m rocking back and forth and sort of floating. Do I hear…birds?

Birds.

Wind.

Waves.

Robin.

I’m in a hammock.

In a hammock with my new-fake wife.

We must have slept out here.

My eyes slam open.

I take in the very real palm trees above me and the very real sleeping nearly naked girl in my arms, unable not to let my eyes and thoughts linger on how I love the way her lashes look extra-long and curling when her eyes are closed. I find that I’ve got one hand nestled into her lavender scented hair, and the other is around her whole waist. Somehow in my sleep, I’ve been also cupping her nearly bare ass. And that ass is still hardly covered by the world’s sexiest wedding-night thong, I think that was ever created.

Worse, my pinkie’s tangled into the side of it!

Carefully, I look down so I can figure out how to best disengage the pinkie without waking her or tearing the thong. But that move has me in even more trouble, because—holy shit!

I can’t help but stare long and hard at all that I’ve just felt and imagined. Her curves and her skin are luminous wherever the sunrise is lighting it.

And hell—two of her curves—as in two of her best curves, meaning her entire chest is flat-pressed into mine and even though I’m trying not to look…I’m looking. And damn, me but I’m feeling all that is her, and for such a small person, I can’t understand how she can have all of this soft skin. She is beyond beautiful right now.

Sighing, hell yes, with shock and of course total-body-frustration, I breathe in one quarter of a breath, searching for some control. But when she shifts and moans a little next to my neck—I freeze and stop my lungs from taking in air, because that one little sound causes all of the blood from my entire body to surge so hard below my waist now that my sleepy morning wood has become some sort of awkward-raging-redwood tree!

The impact of it coming on like too fast like a surprise, Jack-in-the-box exploding has nearly jerked me off the damn hammock, and could have sent Robin flying.

It takes every ounce of my strength, inner and outer, not to groan out loud as excruciating pain and throbbing-hell-heartbeats pound into me from top to bottom. I keep holding my breath so I can’t smell her anymore, then I use every brain cell that might be left (and trust me, there’s not many, because my damn pinkie is still stuck in her thong right now!) I order each and every muscle (and organs) to remain absolutely still.

The only thing I allow to move is the damn pinkie.

One twist, two twists, soft-soft-skin, and back that finger out of there! Fuck my life!

If she wakes up right now while I’m in this electrified and panicked state, and she finds herself pressed accidentally into all the spots my uncontrollable erection is dying to explore, she’s going to know—feel—be freaked out by exactly how I can’t control myself around her.

Obviously. Obviously multiplied by ten to the 300th power.

Which is why I’m now going to think only about golf. Old people playing golf. Every video ever shown on Ridiculousness where a guy’s nuts are slammed into hard-cold-metal.

Shit, it’s not working.

The last thing I ever want to do is scare her—nor do I want Robin to have a permanent, crappy memory about me that she won’t ever be able to forget. I want her to wake up with someone she can trust. Selfishly, I want that person to be me, and even more selfishly, I want the chance to hold her like this again. (Minus the stroke I’m having below my belly button, hopefully).

I wrack my mind for images that will kill this thing:

Cooking shows.

Yes. I’ll think about every boring-AF, cooking show I’ve ever seen. How about that insane family from Alaska? Oh. And those gold miner dudes. And every person who’s ever been all afraid and naked on that one show.

Yes. Yes. It’s working!

Finally, I regain some control. I risk a glance down at her face again to I test how I’m doing while I prepare myself for how I’m going to keep control when she opens those baby-blues. My gaze calmly follows the curve of cheeks, then I look at her upper lip. Then, when I feel ready, I analyze the sleepy pout of the lower lip.

Damn. Damn that lower lip.

Cooking shows and Alaska aside, I’m wondering if I could get away with stealing just one sleepy kiss off of her? What would just one kiss taste like now that we’re married. And could I do it without waking her?

No!

One stolen kiss is what got you into this mess in the first place. You swore to this girl you would not cross any lines only a few hours ago. That is crossing the line!

Like she can hear the war going on in my head between my mind and my body, she thankfully, turns her head back down away from me and utters some intelligible words against my neck.

I realize she’s dreaming, because she calls out, “Dad?”

My mind feels like it’s been hit with a lightning bolt as I think—Did she just call out, Dad?

All of anything and everything I had going on with my misplaced blood flow disappears like someone’s poured a bucket of cold ice-water on my crotch.

“Dad? Please. Tell me,” Robin cries out louder. She sounds lost, afraid, desolate. “Where? Where are you?”

My heart drops to my stomach, and I feel so damn guilty because this whole time I’ve been memorizing the softness of her skin and staring at her lips, she’s been having a bad dream. A nightmare.

A couple of tears escape her scrunched up eyes. “Dad? They can’t find you. Tell me where you are?”

“Shh. Robin,” I say, already running the back of my hand against the tracks of her tears. I’ve matched her whisper with a whispered promise of my own. The same promise I made to her when she’d first agreed to this fake-wedding farce: “We are going to look for him. I promise. Robin, can you hear me? We are going to look for him.”

More tears escape her eyes, and because I can’t stand to watch her face look like it’s in this kind of pain, I shake her a little. “Wake up. Please wake up. It’s a dream, Robin. You’re only having a bad dream.”

When she opens her eyes, we’re only inches away from each other’s faces. As her expression clears, I register that she knows where she is and who I am all at the same time. “You’re having a dream,” I whisper again, keeping my face impassive while I act like I don’t notice exactly when she goes completely tense as she realizes how she’s lying against me. I also turn my eyes away while she quickly pulls her sheet up over the parts of us that should not be touching.

All I have to do to stay in total control while she wiggles against me is to think the word, ‘dad’ and imagine a US Army Special Forces dude who is holding a gun to my head.

Dad. Dad. And, dad. Brilliant.

When her sheet is set, she glances sideways up at me through her lashes, and asks, “Did I wake you?” Adding in a small self-deprecating laugh, she appears to relax a little.

I sense she comfortable and completely safe with me just how I wanted her to feel, so when she nestles her head back onto my shoulder again and sighs deeply, I can’t explain how or why I feel so happy, but I do.

“You were talking in your sleep,” I answer, not mentioning that I was already awake. I also don’t bring up exactly what she was talking about in her sleep, because I’m wishing for her sake, that she can’t remember why or who was in her dream.

She rolls off me then and settles herself so she and I are lying both flat-backed against the hammock, looking up at the palm trees. She’s pulling more of her sheet up under her arms as she whispers only, “I…uh…do that sleep talking thing. A lot. I hope it’s not going to be a problem. Sage does it, too.”

I try to joke a little, reminding her of yesterday’s conversation and all that we’re facing today, “My wife, she always talks in her sleep. I find it very adorable.”

Instead of smiling like I’d hoped she would, she lets out a long and shuddery sigh and whispers again, “My husband? He’s really nice. He also has no idea how messed up his wife might become if her father never returns home from deployment.”

“Well.” Those words have made my heart sink. “Here’s something I know about my wife.” I reach down to find her hand and get it into mine. “She’s really strong. And together, she and I are very good at staying positive, despite really crap situations we can’t control.”

She looks over at me and nods, and I reach over with one finger to stop another tear from escaping her left eye. “She’s also got no clue the shit-show she’s facing being married to a guy like me.” We both study her teardrop drying on the tip of my finger. “I haven’t even cried once since my mom died.”

She pulls in a fast breath and flips her head back to look at me. Her brow crinkles deeply as she asks, “You’ve never cried? Not once?”

I trap her wide eyes with mine and shake my head, ‘no’ while I go on with my fake-press interview. “Robin and I? We were both grieving. And we were in the middle of some huge life changes when we met. I never saw her as a nanny and she never saw me as a rockstar. We were both really messed up people, stressed and scared to death, and lying through our teeth when we met each other. Yet, somehow we both had this way of seeing past each other’s masks. I think it’s part of why our friendship grew so quickly. Why we are so comfortable around each other. Why I’m so happy she married me because…we don’t have to face the messed up shit alone.”

She shakes her head at me, her clear blue eyes reflecting amazement, understanding, and what I hope is the reflection of that true friendship I’d mentioned to Gregory last night, as one side of her mouth turns up a little in a smile.

“My husband and I? We’re messed up people to be sure, and very fast friends—yes. We are that, aren’t we?” She whispers, turning to place her other hand over the side of my cheek, then moving it up to the edge of my eye, as though she wants to check to see if I’m lying about how I don’t cry. “It’s why we’re a good match. My husband and I, we’ve bonded because we are both missing a parent so bad it hurts, right?”

“Exactly. But we don’t like to talk about it much. If at all…ever,” I say, gently warning her that I’m not good at this shit.

“Only on the day after we get married. The day when we’re hanging out in a hammock by the sea.”

“Yes. Only on that day.” I laugh. “Because we don’t like to ponder shit we can’t control—shit that hurts like hell.”

“No. We don’t like that.”

Her eyes meet mine and this time she’s not searching for the deeper parts of me. She’s just raw and open and for once, she’s showing me herself. I love how I see all the way into her sweet, brave, sadness. Better, I can feel her absolute trust.

Then and there I vow to somehow to be this girl’s real hero one day. My mom is dead, but her father…well there’s still hope, right? I will figure out a way to search for him. To find him.

I reach over and tug one of her blowing blonde wisps. “Did you notice, now we don’t even have to prep for our press conference this morning. We know exactly what to say.”

“Which means we get to order breakfast now?” she says, waggling her brows comically, but she stops because what looks like a hotel pool-cleaning crew has come around the corner.

When they spot us lying all snuggled up in our hammock, they turn away very quickly while pretending not to see us. But that’s when two paparazzi come busting through from behind them, each with cameras filming us non-stop and they, unlike the pool crew are making a beeline for us.

One of the pool guys, who was actually doing his job by trying to block the paparazzi, starts shouting, “Security. Security!”

The other guy drops his equipment and starts tugging at one of the photographers back, but the guy is too small to stop the photographer. “Mr. and Mrs. Devlin, we’re so sorry. Security! Security!”

This commotion makes Robin try to start out of the hammock, but I plant my feet on the ground first, whispering, “Wait. Wait. Robin. Move slowly. We need some quality ‘morning after the wedding night’ photos to happen, so this is not a big deal, but please remember, we’re in sheets. One naked picture will last forever, okay? No need to run, just keep yourself covered.”

I stand first, then manage to stabilize the hammock for her so she doesn’t flip backwards, but as she starts to clamber out, all becomes sheet-slipping chaos. In order to make sure her sheet stays up where it needs to stay while ensuring the last photos taken of us look sexy-newly-wed-romantic, I shout out dramatically, “Jesus—you bastards. Give us some damn privacy, would you?” Then, I scoop her up into my arms pull her front against my chest, then stalk away with her in my arms, as she wraps her arms around my neck and buries her head into my chest all the way to the bungalow.

“Thanks,” she whispers as I set her down inside, turning away quickly while she gets herself together.

As I slide the large glass doors closed, she points through the window to the pool guys, along with security, who are now chasing the paparazzi out to where they’ve anchored two Jet Skis just past the surf break we couldn’t see last night. It’s much closer than I thought it was, and apparently, that’s how the paparazzi got in, and now how they’re making a fast escape.

“So much for what was supposed to be our private and guarded beach. First I thought my grandmother had sent those guys, but now I’m not so sure.” I shrug clicking the slider lock, then checking it twice. “Either way, those particular photos will be great to keep our story going today. They pretty much had to be taken, and, I’m going to call it a bonus that we were caught undressed.”

“Why?”

“Now the world will see with their own eyes—that we…uh, did it.” I pull an impish face, trying to joke my way past this conversation. “Possibly, we did it a lot.” I waggle my brows more. “It’s not a big deal. We only have to shrug and blush, then talk about how we don’t discuss these personal things when people ask us about our wedding night.”

“People will not ask us about that, will they?” She’s laughing, but I can tell she’s once again, uncomfortable.

“Hell yes, they will. That and more. You’ll learn. People ask about everything. Nothing is sacred, so practice your poker faces in the mirror.” I stop myself from reaching over to run one finger along her adorable, now fire-red cheeks.

Suddenly, we feel too close together again, and her eyes seem to be ping-ponging between my bare chest and then to my eyes, then back to my lips, then to my abs how they did last night. It’s like she’s never seen a guy wearing a bed-sheet before and…and…she’s just so darn cute…

“I need to shower,” I nearly shout out, then add, “I mean first. I want to go first. If it’s okay?”

“Sure.” She shrugs once as I feel my temples pounding again as I fight for control.

Before I can run away, she calls out, “Hey, uh…Royce?”

“Yeah?” I pause, but don’t turn back, because the familiar, almost happy and calm way she’s said my name has nearly brought me to my knees.

Softly she adds, “I—I just want you to know that, considering…everything. It was a really great wedding night. You know, lying there and looking up at the stars with you. I’ve never fallen asleep listening to waves. And waking up together like that and…how you stopped me from having that nightmare was really cool. And, even though we didn’t, uh, do real wedding night things together.” She laughs then, sounding extra-awkward-adorable. “It was still so memorable. Really nice. I’ll never forget it. That’s all.”

I grip the sides of the doorway leading into the bathroom, thinking: I’ll never forget how you just said the words ‘do real wedding night things together’ or the feel of your damn skin next to mine.

Fuck. Think about her father. Dad. Dad! And Dad!

“Totally memorable. Happy you’re happy,” is all I can manage to choke out.

“Good, because I feel like we’ve got this down already,” she rushes on. “And I think, tonight, when we have to do that all again? Like even if we end up in the bed with a whole bunch of pillows stacked between us how you suggested we try last night? Or, even if there’s twice as many photographers and people asking too many questions? Figuring it out together, is what’s going to make it okay. What I’m trying to say is that you were right. I think it’s fun already—just how you said it might be. Are you feeling that? Feeling the…fun?”

I dart a tentative glance back at her, and lie my ass off with a quick, “Hell yes. Definitely. Feeling the fun.”

Her nod and responding smile all but have me bolting into the bathroom.

In case she wants to follow me to keep chatting, I lock the door and I don’t pause to even pull off the toga.

I run for the damn shower and blast on the cold water so I can stand under the freezing spray while vowing to never use the word ‘fun’ to describe this situation again.