I’M DONE BEING a vegetarian. As I eased into my morning run with little enthusiasm for the three miles left to go, I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other while avoiding the washed-up jellyfish that dotted the mostly empty beach. So done.
I needed to get laid. And soon. If I was starting to compare my currently meatless love life to a diet, I was in trouble.
My feet pounded over the wet sand, and I tried to focus on the sunrise coming up over the Atlantic instead of my appetite, but this morning, even the sun was pissing me off. It was colder than I had anticipated, the sun’s rays weren’t doing jack to warm me up, and the damn angle of the light reflecting off the water was partially blinding me. My sunglasses were sitting in the cup holder of my Jeep, forgotten as usual.
Tipping my water bottle, I took a swig, wishing it were hot coffee instead. I sighed and pushed my pace faster, skipping the slow jog I usually started with in favor of flat-out running, wanting my goose bumps to go away. I should have added a light jacket to my flimsy tank and shorts combo.
Popping my ear buds in, I looked down at my phone and debated which playlist to pick. They were loosely organized by letter instead of genre. I was thinking maybe M this morning. John Mayer, Maroon 5, Matt Nathanson, Jason Mraz, and Mat Kearney. My M playlist was one of my favorites. Maybe it would cheer me up. I selected it then tapped the random button.
“The Cave” by Mumford and Sons started, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Even my music was talking about being a meat eater. It was a sign. Time to move on.
I hadn’t had sex in five months. Five long, hard months. Damn it! My starved libido latched onto those adjectives with greedy fingers—long, hard, fuck. The motion of my thighs rubbing together as I ran made me crave a different kind of friction altogether.
I mean, I had been taking care of things myself, but I hadn’t had an actual sweating, panting, thrusting guy in that length of time. Shit, there I went again. Length. My vagina was lonely.
And horny.
This dry spell wasn’t my fault. After all that shit had gone down with Asshole, I hadn’t even wanted to look at another guy for months. I shuddered at the memory and pushed him from my mind. He didn’t deserve anything from me anymore. Not even a single disgusted thought.
I sidestepped to miss a glob of jellyfish, almost rolling my ankle, and the sound of a mournful bay from up ahead caught my attention. Squinting, I could see a huge black and tan dog running up and down the waterline, a piece of driftwood in his mouth. Out in the ocean, a handful of guys were surfing the early morning waves. The glare from the sun made it hard to get a good look at any of them, but I could see bare chests and muscles, and my pulse kicked up a notch. My missing food group.
They must’ve been locals.
Reynolds Island wasn’t very big. It was one of South Carolina’s barrier islands, mixed in with Fripp, Kiawah, and Edisto, cuddled between Beaufort and Charleston. It was prime real estate, though. Property values were ridiculous, especially oceanfront. Unless you had bought the property over thirty years ago, odds were, you were doing pretty well for yourself.
The beach here on the south side of the island was where the locals and the wealthy summer transients stayed. It was easy to tell which houses belonged to which group. The transients had huge oceanfront mansions. Show-off houses. Farthest south, toward the jetty, were the more reasonably priced houses the local working class occupied. To the north were the rental properties and the Water’s Edge resort. I lived with Rue midway down the island, in one of the rental properties, even though Rue was considered a local since she’d moved here permanently after she finished her MBA last year. I was a local now too since moving in with her five months ago, in the wake of that mess with Asshole.
The baying dog—some kind of hound—ran alongside me for a distance as I passed the surfers. Slobber flew from his jowls, and his long droopy ears flapped like wings. As big as he was, I think he was still a puppy. His paws were huge for his size, and his skin hung on his frame. A surfer called out eventually, and the dog turned back.
I didn’t bother to really study the guys, after my initial ogling. One thing Rue had drilled into me, was that locals weren’t for flings. That’s what tourists were for. Hot guys delivered weekly, ready for a hook up, and already prescheduled to leave, erasing the chance of awkward future run-ins.
A fling was exactly what I needed. While I didn’t distrust men now as a whole, the thought of starting up another relationship just seemed like too much damn work. I wanted something easy. Disposable. If a relationship was equivalent to a five-star restaurant, then I was searching for the nearest drive-thru.
Rue had an almost foolproof system in place. There were three bars on the island—two frequented by tourists, and one by locals. She stuck almost exclusively to the tourist bars, picked out her flavor of the night, then went back to his place. Always to his place. It was that simple.
And it worked. Rue went through men like Halloween candy, unable to pick a favorite and in a hurry to try them all. And they all seemed just as eager to sample her, no strings attached. She had been begging me to go out with her, and I was finally ready to cave. It was time to see if I remembered how to flirt, in any case. Appetizers, my dirty mind chimed in.
Zoned back out to my music, I reached the jetty at the end of the beach, where the sand disappeared into coastal scrub. I hadn’t meant to run this far, which meant I had even longer to go to get back. Great. Taking a break, I bent over at the waist and tried to catch my breath. I downed a third of my water bottle and looked out over the Intracoastal Waterway, my chest heaving from exertion.
The sun was higher now, so I was no longer half-blind from the reflection off the water. And I had warmed up, sweat darkening the part of my sports bra under my breasts. I eyed the waves, knowing the cool water would feel refreshing, but stayed where I was, safely on shore. I was afraid of the ocean in a vague, but very real sense. Who knew what kinds of dangerous things lurked under that murky surface, just out of sight?
Taking one last deep breath, I turned back the way I had come, following my footprints still visible in the sand. It was official. Starting tonight, I would be following a new Atkin’s based diet. Meat friendly.
I grinned. Rue would be thrilled. We’d hit the bars, and after a good one-night stand or two, I should be feeling as good as new. Surely orgasms were the equivalent of nature’s vitamins? All those endorphins?
Partway back, with my calves aching, the craving for Krispy Kreme hit hard. Since I had run at least a mile more than I’d planned, splurging on a hot glazed breakfast seemed like a fabulous idea. Krispy Kreme doughnuts might be the only thing I craved as much as sex. I picked up my pace.
Macklemore played in my ears, and I smiled and matched my stride to the beat, covering ground quickly. A nervous crab guarded his hole but darted away when I got too near. Silly crustacean, I was just as scared of him as he was of me.
The spot where the surfers had been was just up ahead, and I saw the giant puppy still playing on the beach. He spotted me and started loping my way, his tongue lolling to the side. I glanced out at the waves rolling in, but I didn’t see the surfers anymore. The dog reached me and jumped up, his sandy paws knocking my water bottle out of my hand and bringing me to a stop, his tail wagging furiously.
I knelt down, rubbing his huge ears, murmuring to him. “Hi there, big boy. Who do you belong to? Did they forget you out here?”
The hound rolled to his back, begging for a belly rub. I played with him for a few moments, looking around for the guys from earlier. Surely the dog belonged to one of them.
Finally, I spotted a lone surfer floating out just past the breakers. Cupping my hands around my mouth, I hollered at him. A light morning breeze was blowing inland, so I wasn’t sure he could hear me over the waves. The dog zipped up and down the waterline, baying with delight. It sounded more like the noise a seal made than a bark.
The guy was floating on his back. I waved my arms at him and yelled again. Still nothing.
I turned back to the dog, who was crouched beside me with his head down and his hindquarters up in the air, and wrestled with him for the piece of driftwood in his mouth. He surrendered it without much of a fight. I threw it as far as I could, and he raced for it, bringing it back and dropping it at my feet. He knew how this game worked. I threw the stick a couple more times, laughing at the dog’s antics.
I was about to start running again when I turned back to the surfer. Still floating. The wind whipped strands of my ponytail in my face, and I batted them away. In fact, he hadn’t moved at all. I frowned, putting my hands on my hips, and walked to the foamy edge where the waves rushed the shoreline. What the hell was he doing out there?
When a wave cresting early crashed over him and he still didn’t react, my lifeguarding instincts kicked in.
“Shit,” I muttered, toeing off my running shoes and tossing them toward higher ground, along with my phone and ear buds. Gasping at the coldness, I waded out into the surf until I was submerged waist deep, then dove into the waves. After I passed the breakers, I swam toward him with practiced strokes, angling a little to account for the current trying to pull me farther away. A surfboard was floating a few feet from the guy. Behind me, the dog howled.
The surfer’s feet were just in front of me, bobbing with the swells, and I went to swim around him to approach him from behind, but my arm brushed along his calf. Flinching, he folded in on himself, jackknifing in the water. His foot slammed into my gut, right in my solar plexus, and the air whooshed out of my lungs.
“What the fuck?” The surfer jerked upright.
Coughing and sputtering, I treaded water and tried to inhale, not getting any air. I wheezed, spitting salty water back into the ocean.
Managing to look both irritated and concerned, the surfer grabbed me around the waist, lifting me a little higher out of the water. I glared at him as I hacked my lungs up, realizing he could more or less stand by hopping along the bottom as the waves sucked at us. Shoving his arms away, I tried to copy him, but my head went under when I put my toes on the sand, and I swallowed a mouthful of water.
The guy yanked me back up, anchoring me against his side this time, his arm across my ass, fingers tight on my hip. His other hand brushed at the hair plastered to my face. Turning away from him, I continued coughing, my lungs burning. I tried to inhale through my nose. My eyes watered, and my mouth hung open like a fish, but all I could do was focus on trying to breathe. In. Out.
“You okay?” His hand moved to grip my ribs, holding me against him, keeping my head out of the water. I nodded, closing my eyes as my lungs remembered how to work. My hands clutched his broad shoulder.
Getting some much needed oxygen, my focus narrowed to the solid slab of his muscles pressed against my stomach. I was straddling his side, my pelvis snugged up to his hip and my legs tangled around his. It was closer than I’d been to a guy in months. Unexpected desire flared where my sex rubbed his skin, my shorts the thinnest of barriers. The waves jostled us, teasing me with the friction.
Peeking from under my lashes, I watched him shove the surfboard, and it caught a wave, riding to the shore. His biceps flexed under my fingers, the muscle hardening. That small motion snapped me back to reality. Humping a possible drowning victim wasn’t appropriate, no matter how good he felt between my legs.
Taking another tentative breath, I pushed against his shoulder, trying to create some space between us.
“Don’t think so,” his deep voice rumbled in my ear. Rearranging me, he cradled me in his arms like a child and started moving toward the beach.
Wait, what the hell is he doing? Stiffening, I struggled to free myself.
Drops of water fell from his hair and the tip of his nose, splashing down on my face, making me blink. The sun was behind him, blocking his facial features. His arms tightened around me.
“Let go of me!” I sputtered and squirmed within his grasp.
“Nope. You have trouble breathing and keeping your head above the water at the same time. I’m scared to see you try to walk.” He chuckled.
I glowered up at him. “You kicked me.”
“After you attacked me out of the blue. It was an accident.”
“Attacked you? I was saving you!” I smacked his shoulder. He didn’t even flinch.
“From what? Floating?”
“You were just lying there—not moving, not responding. I called out to you, and you didn’t answer. I thought you were hurt!”
He moved through the water, holding me easily against his chest. I tried not to notice how warm his skin felt under my fingers, but I shivered, hunching closer. Now that I could breathe again, the chill from the ocean became obvious.
Like my hard nipples under my sports tank.
I glanced up at him, but still couldn’t see his eyes because of the damn sun again. His mouth had quirked up on one side though, and he was looking down at me.
“So you thought you would rescue me?” he asked.
“Something like that,” I muttered, realizing how ridiculous that must seem to him, considering he was the one carrying me out of the water. “I can walk, you know.”
He made a noncommittal noise in his throat. Pressed this close to him, one arm wrapped around his shoulders, the other resting on his chest, embarrassment warred with awareness of how very caveman his actions were. A small part of me couldn’t help but feel an answering thrill.
We reached the shore, and the dog bounded over, my shoe in his mouth. The guy frowned. “Yours?”
Huh? I tore my eyes away from the cords of his neck and glanced at the furry behemoth again. “He’s not yours?”
“Not the dog. The shoe.”
“Oh. Yes,” I said dumbly.
“General Beauregard! Drop it,” he ordered. The dog whined but obeyed, dropping the shoe and watching us with sad, droopy eyes. “Good dog.” His voice warmed several degrees and filled with affection as he praised the animal.
I raised an eyebrow. “General Beauregard? Really?”
“What’s wrong with that? It’s a good, strong Southern name,” he countered, his own accent sounding only slightly Southern, more like it was acquired, not born and bred into him.
We stared at each other. I could finally see his eyes. They were beautiful—a clear blue with chips of gray mixed in, his thick eyelashes spiky from the ocean. I lifted myself higher, trying to get a closer view. He tilted his head, and his gaze drifted down my face, stopping on my mouth. My tongue responded, slipping out to lick my salty bottom lip.
“You know,” he said, “There are easier ways to get my attention.”
It took a second for me to realize his implication. I narrowed my eyes. “Excuse me?” The tone of my voice should have been a warning to him, but he didn’t seem to catch it. I might have been horny, but I wasn’t desperate.
He shrugged. With torturing slowness, my body slid along his as he set me on my feet. I shivered from the loss of his warmth and crossed my arms over my chest, trying to hide my nipples. Standing on solid ground, his height became more obvious. My head came up to his chin, making me eye level with his throat. I shook my head at him and turned to look at the dog instead. “Egotistical ass,” I said under my breath, annoyed.
“You seriously thought I was drowning? In chest-deep water?”
“You seriously thought I was so overcome by lust, I attacked you in the ocean?” I mimicked his tone.
“It’s happened.”
I stared at him before rolling my eyes. Plopping down on the beach, I grabbed my wet shoes and with shaky hands tried to brush some of the sand from them. I was freezing.
He dropped to his haunches beside me, picking up my right foot. Long gentle fingers brushed the sand off my foot, taking a second to trace my tattoo. I had a paper airplane with a dotted line trailing it that made it look like it had flown in a loop. His finger followed the path of the plane, and I felt another shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature. He looked up at me as he worked my foot back into my shoe and tied the laces for me—double knots. “What’s it mean?”
“Escape,” I answered after a beat. It wasn’t the truth, but it’s what I wanted to do at the moment. I gazed at his shirtless body, my eyes drinking in his lean, ropy muscles and his sun-darkened skin. His torso was sculpted without being bulky, and a half-sleeve of Japanese style waves cascaded down his left arm, tattooed in black and gray. I couldn’t decide if my attraction to his body or my irritation with his ego bothered me more.
Scowling, I picked up my other shoe before he could help me with it too. I shoved my foot into it, not bothering to untie the laces in the first place. Scooping up my phone and ear buds, I stood and turned to leave. “You’re welcome, by the way,” I tossed over my shoulder.
He caught my elbow, stopping me. “For what?”
I spun back, yanking my arm free, annoyance winning out. “For trying to rescue you! Clearly, no one else was around to care if something happened to your sorry ass. I dragged myself out into the water, and I never go into the water, and you think it’s some dumb ploy—”
“Why don’t you go into the water?” he interrupted, head cocked to the side.
“I—I just don’t,” I stammered, flustered that he’d caught that.
“Scared?”
I glared back at him, refusing to answer.
“Really? Why?” He seemed amused.
“It’s not the water I’m scared of. It’s what I can’t see in the water that bothers me. Jellyfish, sharks, stingrays—who knows what else is in there just waiting to get you.”
He laughed. “Yeah, you’ll have to get over that.”
“Whatever. It’s not your problem.” I shrugged. Before he could say anything else to me, I popped my ear buds back in and started running. Not running away, I told myself. Just running to warm back up and get to Krispy Kreme faster.
My stomach growled on cue. I was starving. As I snuck a quick look back and saw him still watching me, I tried to convince myself doughnuts were the only thing I was craving.