AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dex looked across the water again. No boat. Was it coming from the trees?
“So do your trees sing, or do they just hum?”
Grant frowned at the trees that lined the edge of the beach to their left. “Maybe they just don’t know the words.”
As they watched, a black cloud rose and swept from the underbrush out over the water’s edge.
“What the fuck is that?” Grant asked rhetorically, or at least she assumed it was rhetorical since there was no way she could possibly know. Whatever it was, she got the feeling it was bad.
Dex backed away, grabbing at Grant’s arm and tugging.
“Shit. Is that . . . mosquitoes?” His mouth dropped open in awe. At her urging, he distractedly backed one step, then another. The vanguard of the mosquitoes’ cloud had almost reached them before they both turned and ran like hell back up the path toward the lodge. In typical horror movie fashion, Dex lost first one flip-flop, then the other. She abandoned them without a second thought, figuring bugs wouldn’t be interested in cheap rubber from China.
The gravel was sharp against her soles, but it spurred her to move faster as they were overtaken by the swarm. The wave of tiny black insects swept over them, chomping into exposed flesh like a hoard of ravenous zombies.
By the time they reached the door, Dexter was swearing and slapping at herself. Grant swung the door open and slammed it closed behind them, then started smacking bugs off of her.
She could almost imagine them trying to burrow under her skin, even though she knew mosquitoes didn’t do that. Maybe these were weird, mutant mosquitoes? Since Grant seemed focused on helping her first, she started swatting the ones on him. By the time the majority of their winged assailants were smooshed into their skin and hair, but they were both breathless and laughing.
Aside from being itchy from the bug bites, her skin stung in several places where he’d slapped her harder than was probably truly necessary. She tried to tell herself to calm down, but the exhilaration had triggered feelings he probably didn’t want to inspire in her at the moment.
He was grinning at her, his canine teeth almost seeming sharper than usual in his beautiful white smile. The man was pretty enough to be a vampire, and with his fair complexion he tanned about as well as one. He already had a sunburn, although not a terrible one at least.
“I guess we can cancel the tours I was planning for my amazing humming trees.” He laughed, then grimaced as he plucked a mosquito carcass out of her eyebrow.
“You told me they warned you about how bad the mosquitoes were in the spring, but there isn’t enough bug spray in the world for that.” She gestured toward the door. “I’d need a strainer just to breathe!”
“Yeah, these aren’t like the ones that nibble on us when we go over to my brother’s place for barbecues.” Grant smiled ruefully. “Is it just me or did you get the impression they hadn’t seen a decent meal in a while?”
“Maybe that explains why there are so many signs warning about moose running out onto the highway. They’re probably running for their goddamn lives. I’m surprised they haven’t gone extinct trying to live around here.”
“Did you see how big those suckers were? The moose are probably running so they don’t get carried off to the Mosquito Queen’s lair.”
Dex laughed. “She’s probably the size of the queens from the Alien movies. She just lies around with the venom dripping from her stinger, waiting for her minions to bring her victims.”
“Hmm . . . Are we talking about Andromeda now? I have a feeling we changed subjects somewhere along the way.”
“Andromeda is nowhere near big enough to play that role, but I imagine the attitude is similar.” She chuckled, thinking of how Andromeda was with her submissives. There was a reason she was rarely single. She was universally worshipped at the club. No one could even remember who’d started calling her Andromeda instead of Anne, but it had stuck so well it had spilled over into vanilla life.
Dex flapped her towel, making sure she didn’t have any live mosquitoes lurking in its folds.
“You’re covered in bug guts,” Grant observed, picking something she didn’t want to see out of her hair.
“So are you.”
“Shower time.” He strode through the lodge to the stairs and led the way up, apparently not shy about the fact that he’d left his clothes on the beach. Even a bit sandy and covered in dead bugs his ass was a sight to behold—especially when she followed it at eye level up to the lodge’s second floor.
The carpet runner was soft under her feet, and she was grateful not to be running on gravel anymore. By the time they reached the master bedroom, most of her adrenaline had worn off and she was shivering at the droplets of frigid water that slipped their way down her back from her short hair.
Grant headed straight for the bathroom and started the shower, then came back out to the bedroom.
“You go first,” she offered. “You’ve been cold longer.”
“That shower is huge. There’s no reason for one of us to wait.”
“Um, I’m planning to shower naked to get all the sand off,” she pointed out, her tone laced with sass.
For a guy who kept claiming he didn’t want to sleep with her, he really did keep putting himself in situations that didn’t leave a lot of room for distance or modesty.
