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“You have to pee on jellyfish stings,” he says earnestly, and I hobble to my feet since he looks seconds away from actually doing it. His hand is on his cock like he’s ready to wield it like a fucking firehose.
“Jesus, that’s an old wives’ tale. Put your goddamn dick away!”
He looks at me skeptically. “Are you sure?”
“Even if I wasn’t, you are not peeing on me. Have you lost your damn mind?” I feel like I’m losing mine because in what world did that just happen?
He cocks his head to the side in concern. “You’re limping.”
“Yeah, I think I rolled my ankle on a rock.” Not to mention the jellyfish sting on the same foot feeling like a hundred tiny burns.
“Shit, I’m sorry—get on my back.” He turns around and bends forward, arms out.
“You don’t need—”
“Stella,” he says, shockingly firm, and looks over his shoulder with a reprimanding gaze that makes me want to both shrink back and squeeze my thighs together. “Get on my damn back.”
I use my arms to pull myself onto his back with a little hop on my good foot. He wraps my legs around his waist, and I press my front tightly to his back as he begins to walk. My head bounces next to his, his long hair brushing against my cheek.
Inexplicably, I get a sudden urge to brush it aside and press my lips to his neck. I imagine how the sea mist and his sweat would make his skin slightly salty. I can’t help but flick out my tongue for a little taste.
He stops and looks over his shoulder with a conniving glint in his eyes. “First you tell me to put my dick away, now you’re licking my neck. Which is it? Do you or do you not want sand in unspeakable places?”
“No way.” I chuckle and give his ass a swat. “Giddy up, cowboy.”
He carries me all the way to the boat. “And don’t even try insisting you can carry your own stuff.” He points his finger at me all seriously, and it makes me laugh.
I raise my hand to my forehead. “Aye, aye, captain.”1
He rushes back to gather our things left on the beach as the gray clouds start winning the battle between light and dark. The first drops don’t fall until we’re off the sand bar. It goes from a slow drizzle to a roaring downpour in a matter of seconds, the wind making my hair whip around viciously.
“Stella!” Lochlan shouts to be heard over the wind and motor. I turn around in my seat and he’s bare-chested, holding out his shirt. He squints into the harsh rain coming down sideways.
My natural instinct is to refuse as water drips down his hair and into his eyes. I can tell he’s about to insist I take it, so I accept before he does, holding it like a makeshift hood over my head.
The tree line on Summerland sways, the wind bending the treetops. I huddle as tightly as I can, praying the thunder I hear doesn’t strike our metal boat.
We speed up again, and we pitch over each wake, my stomach dropping with the boat every time.
I’m terrified we’re going to capsize any second yet, but that’s not all that is making my heart race. It’s that amid this coursing storm, Lochlan stopped to give me the shirt off his back.
One rocky dismount and a golf cart ride later, we are walking back through our villa’s doors.2 My arm drapes over Lochlan’s shoulder, leaning on him as a crutch, until I can finally sit down. I flop down in a chair at the dining table, exhaling dramatically. “What an adventure.”
When there’s no reply, I look behind me expecting to find Lochlan, but he’s nowhere to be seen. “Loch?” I call out.
“Drawing a bath,” he shouts from another room. My room.
I push out of the chair and start hopping. When I get to the bathroom, he’s moved the stool in the shower next to the filling tub. He fluffs a pillow before setting it on the stool. “I hope that’s not for me,” I say, feeling bad.
He doesn’t answer my question but says, “Hot or cold?”
“You didn’t answer my—”
“Do you want a hot or cold compress for your ankle?”
My chest tightens. “Lochlan—”
“Cold, I think,” he answers himself. “The bath will be your heat and then you can ice it on the stool.”
