Chapter 12
Three days later, we hadn’t seen a single sign of a rescue team, but Garrett insisted they would come. To pass time, he and I swam in the ocean, walked along the beach, and employed basic survival skills. He taught me to spearfish and how to cook what we caught. I shuddered thinking about the seriousness in his voice when he’d said, “Anything could happen. I might not always be around.”
Since the battery on our phones and laptops were officially dead, I had to guess at the time and supposed it to be somewhere around noon.
All morning Garrett had kept himself busy working with tree limbs. He’d tediously removed all the tiny branches and twisted twine in and out, like making a basket. While I hung our freshly washed clothes on a strand of twine between two palm trees, I watched him finish a cylindrical contraption.
“What are you making?” I asked, slinging a pair of his shorts over the line.
“A crab trap. My brothers and I used to make them with wire when we spent time at Gammy’s summer beach house in Port Bolivar.”
“Will that thing catch them?” Excitement filled me. We’d been eating fish for the last few days, and crab sounded delicious.
“It should.” He gave the thing one last inspection. “Every summer we would bet on who would catch the most, and I always won.”
“I’m guessing you took their money without hesitation.”
Humor danced in Garrett’s eyes as his lips curled into a playful grin. “The reward was always women. The winner had first pick at a little club called The Crazy Pelican. Every summer the place was crawling with pretty little tourists throwing themselves at us like a fucking buffet. For a teenage boy, it was like hitting the lottery.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m guessing Stone and Chad ended up having their fair share of the buffet too.”
“Stone had blue balls all the time—he was pussy-whipped by Avery.”
“I’m impressed your brother chose not to cheat.”
“Even with all the boobs spilling over the skimpiest bikinis.” Garrett winked. “That’s why Chad and I didn’t settle down. Neither of us wanted to give up the pussy buffet. Once committed, it’s over, because Mitchell boys don’t cheat.”
Deep down, I felt the stab of a knife.
We were temporary.
I was nothing more than a dish he kept coming back for seconds of. When he was tired of me, he’d move on to the next one waiting in line.
Putting on a poker face, I said, “Better go set your trap and see if you still have the touch.”
“Don’t worry babe—I know I still have the touch.”
“We’ll see.” I hung my pink tank top next to his shorts.
“Bet me.” The tone in his voice changed to a deep sexy tone.
“What do you want to bet, Mr. Manwhore?”
“If I catch enough crab for dinner, you do anything I want.”
“And if you don’t, you do anything I want,” I challenged playfully, but his expression was full of a primal sinfulness.
“Be sure before you accept, Brooke. Remember what I told you the other day—there won’t be anything vanilla about it.”
My stomach flipped, tingles infused my entire body, and I completely forgot about being another item in an endless buffet.
He was so sexy…enticing…and completely consuming.
I shivered, knowing I’d never get enough of him. A shift in the breeze whipped his already tousled hair, and his sculpted body made me swallow hard.
“Better hurry, time is ticking. With every passing second, we’re closer to time for dinner—you’re losing valuable time,” I chided in a sultry voice.
“Trust me, you’re going to come so many times and in so many different ways you won’t be able to keep count. You’re going to do things you never thought you would, and you’ll be begging for more.”
My heart beat a mile a minute and my chest rose and fell shamelessly. A heated blush rushed across my face, and there wasn’t any denying the fire at the juncture between my thighs. I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to squirm right in front of him, to feel the least bit of friction to soothe the building pressure between my legs.
Wicked thoughts filled my mind, and I silently hoped he produced a trap filled to the brim with crab. My lady bits prayed he’d win. I didn’t know what he was into, and I’d never had anything but vanilla, but I wanted his particular flavor. If he didn’t catch a single one, I wouldn’t be able to keep from begging him to have his wicked way with me.
A searing grin spread across his face. He knew I squirmed with desire, desperate for him to do whatever he pleased—right there, right then.
Fuck the bet—he’d already won.
“We shall see, Garrett Mitchell. We shall see,” I said, playing along.
“Yes, we will, babe.” He walked away, but not before I caught a glimpse of him wearing the cockiest smirk I’d ever seen.
I walked along the beach, picking up a few unusual and pretty seashells while he was gone. The refreshing water washed over my feet along my trek before I turned back and headed toward our campsite.
When Garrett returned, there was a devilish gleam in his eyes, and I swore my panties melted on the spot. The man was the most gorgeous thing on the planet.
“Do you happen to have one of those mesh laundry bags with you?” he asked.
“Yes, I do actually,” I said with a puzzled look.
“I need it.” He winked. “We’re going to have one hell of a dinner tonight.”
I retrieved it then he carried it with him into the water before swimming to a large rock several feet out. He dove deep with the bag before I realized he was collecting something in it.
Several minutes later, he swam to shore wearing a grin and plopped down on the sand beside me.
Narrowing my eyes, I said, “If you were catching crab with your hands, that’s cheating.”
“Scallops. I swam out to the rock yesterday and saw some grassy beds below the surface.” He lifted the bag proudly. “I hit the jackpot.”
“Oh my God, we are going to have something so delicious tonight. Did you learn to do that in Port Bolivar?”
“No. I learned in Florida with Jennings. When I purchased The Reef resort down in the Keys, he traveled down for the closing. He loves to catch scallops.”
“He taught you?”
“Yes. The first time we went, we were boating a few yards off the coast. They are more prevalent in grassy water close to the shore, and I swear he looked like he was looking for Easter eggs.” He winked before placing them back in the water and tying the bag to the wheel of the plane.
“Sounds like you two had fun.”
“We did. Jennings has always been like a second father to me.”
“Did you know Greta has the hots for him?
He whipped is head around. “You’re kidding.”
“She thinks he doesn’t give her the time of day because of the age difference, but I’m pretty sure he’s attracted to her. I told her to make a move.”
Garrett scowled. “I don’t think you should play matchmaker with them.”
“Why? You obviously have a lot of respect for them both. He’s like a father, and she has a lot of savvy and class.”
“Some things aren’t always as they seem, Brooke. Let things work themselves out. Let the cards fall where they will.”
“Well unless he’s completely not interested, they’ve probably already slept together.”
Garrett worked his jaw back and forth like he was holding something back. His face tightened and his shoulders grew rigid with tension.
My eyes widened. “Are you…attracted to Greta?”
“Fuck no. I’ve never had a single inappropriate thought about her.”
I gave him a look that said I doubted his words. “Then what gives? Why are you so against them being together?”
“I don’t care if they’re together or not.”
“Then why the reaction? Clearly something bothers you about them.”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “I don’t care if they hook up, fuck, date, get married, have the white picket fence and a house full of kids—I just don’t think you need to play Cupid. End of discussion.”
I grinned. “Has there ever been anything between the two of you?”
“Never. I don’t get involved with people who work for me, with the exception of an assistant who sparked my attention the first time I saw her. Believe it or not, she dressed in boring clothes, tempting my imagination to run wild. I think she wanted me envisioning what she hid underneath…how she would feel in my hands…what her skin would taste like. What she didn’t know was, I thought about bending her over and fucking her on my desk every time she was near.”
“I bet that stupid woman regrets not bending over her desk like an offering, wearing nothing but a pair of stilettos and letting you fuck her nine ways to Sunday. I bet she would have loved to give you the surprise of your life.” A small smile teased the corners of my lips and my eyes gleamed upon seeing his espresso gaze darken.
His jaw twitched. “If I had ever walked in and found her in that position, I would have spanked her perky ass before rewarding her with my cock.”
The entire conversation was drawn-out foreplay, and it was driving me to brink of bending over to let him make good on his word. The man made me want to beg him to touch me everywhere, but first I needed to bathe, shave, and be fresh and ready.
Clearing my throat, I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. “I’m going to walk down to the lagoon.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“I’m going to be a while. I…want to take a swim, relax, and get cleaned up.”
His dark eyes hooded. “I need to shave.”
“I like your five o’clock shadow. It’s sexy.”
“Then I’ll keep it.” His eyes traveled down my body. “I could always shave you.”
I knew he wasn’t talking about my legs or underarms, and my nipples hardened at the thought.
When we reached the edge of the lagoon, I kicked off my flip-flops, pulled my white tank top over my head, and shimmied out of my shorts. A few days before, I’d used his knife and cut off all the legs of my pants to make them more practical for our current surroundings, and some had ended up more like Daisy Dukes.
I felt his burning eyes watching me undress and decided to give him a little show of my own. I hadn’t worn a bra for the last few days, and my perky breasts stood at attention as I paraded in front of him wearing only pink lace underwear. Stooping over for my toiletries, I gave him a flash of my ass high in the air, and he rewarded me by expelling a soft growl.
With a quick tug, he yanked his shirt over his head, giving me an eyeful. His shorts hung low on his hips, and my eyes landed on his sculpted, chiseled chest then slid down to that perfect V and onward to the hard bulge begging to be free from behind the zipper. My lips parted, and I rolled my hips.
“I know what you’re doing. As difficult as it may be, I won’t fuck you…yet—not until tonight, after I’ve won the bet. Follow me. I want to show you something.” He retrieved the bottles from my hands, tucking them into the pockets of his shorts. “Swim with me to the waterfall.”
In a few strokes we reached the cascading water, and I followed his lead as he swam through it. I wiped my eyes dry with my hands and stood, the water coming to the tops of my breasts.
My jaw dropped in awe. A large alcove was nestled into the wall, and an opening to the left of the embankment allowed rays of sunshine to spill into the serene enclosure. It almost looked like a wall of mother of pearl with its sparkling, colorful facets.
“Oh my God…this is beautiful.”
“Not even close to how beautiful you are,” he rasped, pulling my back flush against his chest. I felt his hardness pressing into my backside, making my insides quiver. I let out a soft whimper, and I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Who cares about the stupid bet—I want you, Garrett.”
He eased the palms of his hands up and down my arms then dipped his mouth to my ear. “Have patience. Relax and lean back. Let me wash your hair.”
I moaned, desire racing through every cell in my body. He guided my head back while he doused my locks with water before lathering them with a generous amount of soap and working his fingers from my scalp to the ends.
It felt totally relaxing, and I sank into the sensation of his magical hands, letting out a pleading moan. No man had ever massaged my head or washed my hair, and Garrett doing so made me feel like a pampered queen.
“You can’t begin to know what you do to me when you make sounds like that.” His lips found my ear again.
“I know.” I panted against him. “Believe me, I know.”
He pulled the lobe between his lips, gently biting down as his hands continued to worship me. When he rinsed away the suds, my body went slack, letting him maneuver me around. His hands gripped my hips and lifted me to the bank, where he took his time working soap over every inch of my body.
As he pulled the travel-sized shaving cream and razor from his pocket, a wicked gleam flickered in his eyes. “Have you ever been bare?”
“Not in a long time…not since—”
He covered my mouth with his, silencing the rest of my sentence. Nibbling on my lips, he murmured, “If me shaving you reminds you of him…of you and him together, fuck the shave.”
“I want you to. The thought of you doing that to me is…erotic. It turns me on.”
We didn’t speak as he took his time with the razor. He was careful with each sweep and rinse, and I thought was going to come apart at the seams—especially on the last pass over my skin when he dipped his head to slide his tongue through my folds.
I gasped and whimpered.
One single swipe and he stopped—fucking stopped.
I squeezed my eyes closed and arched upward for more.
Nothing.
He pulled away.
“We need to get back. Tonight, I’ll own you, do what I want, how I want, and you’ll beg for more.” He stared deeply into my eyes and pinned me with an unmistakable promise in his gaze.
I pushed up on my elbows, needy and panting. I wanted him right then, and I knew he felt the same. “Stop teasing me, Garrett. I want it to happen now.”
“Patience. Anticipation only makes it better.”
Sexually frustrated, I rolled my eyes, my lips parting in agitation. One side of his mouth turned up in a cool and aloof manner, as if he wasn’t fazed in the least.
Before I told him to shove the entire bet up his ass, he caught my hands between his and pulled me into the water. He dipped through the falls, and I took one last look at the most beautiful tranquil paradise—a place that would be etched into my mind forever—before I swam through.
Upon reaching the shore where we’d left our clothes, Garrett slid into his khaki shorts and tossed his shirt over his shoulder. My heart beat erratically as I focused on his ripped chest, unable to turn away.
He cleared his throat, drawing my attention, and I blushed at his cocky grin.
He taunted me.
He purposefully drove me mad.
He pushed my buttons—and he liked it.
The bulge pressing against the front of his shorts, the dark hooded eyes, and the way his chest drew in deep breaths showed me all I needed to know. He may have been better at maintaining control of his desire than me, but he hadn’t seen the wrath of Brooke Sheridan…not even close.
If he wanted to play with fire, I would be the gasoline.
I stooped over, giving him a close-up view of my ass as I stepped into a white lacy thong. Instead of slipping into the soft yellow sundress, I draped the fabric over my arm and began a seductive walk.
“Put your dress on, Brooke.”
“Actually, the breeze feels nice against my skin.” My voice was sugary sweet.
“The mosquitos are going to eat you alive before we get back.”
I kept strolling along the trail. “None so far. Thanks for looking out for me though.”
Garrett cleared his throat and let out a whispered string of profanity as we headed back to the campsite.