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Still speechless with the worst case of blue balls mankind has ever seen, I carry her over to the rash guard and hand it to her wordlessly. “Thanks,” she murmurs, puling it over her head and splashing to shore, running out into the sunshine. It takes me a breathing exercise and remembering a particularly grisly crime scene to make my erection subside, but it finally loses the worst of its vigor and I follow Taylor out of the cave while pulling on my shirt and securing my gun back in place.
Everyone is standing around Jude on the beach, watching Taylor fuss over him.
Jesus. His foot has blown up to the size of a cantaloupe.
“Jellyfish got him,” the instructor informs me when I make my way over to the group. “No worries. One of the fellas already pissed on it.”
“That would be me,” Ryan informs Taylor, before glancing back at me, turning pale and taking a giant step away from her.
“Looked like a sea nettle. Unless he’s allergic to the venom, it’ll just hurt for a couple of days,” says the instructor. “He should be fine.”
“Physically, anyway,” Jude says, dazed. “I’ve been peed on, though, so…mentally? This calls for vodka.”
“Let’s get you back to the house.” Taylor offers her shoulder for Jude to lean on. “We’ll put you on the couch with an icepack and—”
They take a step and Jude winces, hissing a breath.
“Does it hurt to walk?” Taylor looks like she’s about to burst into tears.
Instead of standing here and acknowledging that her tears make my chest feel like a shipwreck, I shove my feet in my boots without bothering with socks or laces. Sighing, I stride forward. “I’ve got him. Go get the backseat of your car ready.”
“You’ve got him? How—”
I scoop her brother up against my chest and head up the beach. “Taylor,” I call back over my shoulder. “Backseat. Get it ready.”
“Yes. Coming.” She jogs past me and Jude, rubbing my arm and giving me a grateful look as she passes. I grunt at her back, cataloging every detail about her in a sweep.
She didn’t put her sandals back on.
The parking lot asphalt is going to burn her feet, dammit.
I hurry to catch up in case she needs to be carried, too.
“This rescue would be a lot more romantic if you weren’t mooning over my sister,” Jude says, laughing while in obvious pain. “But it’s pretty decent of you regardless.”
“I’m just trying to save time. It would have taken you a week to hobble up to the parking lot and I’m on the clock.”
“Whatever you say.” I frown down at him, but his mouth only twitches. “You looked a little piqued coming out of the cave, bounty hunter.”
“Shut up.”
He laughs.
We reach the car a minute later and I set Jude on his feet, carefully, where he can lean against the side of the vehicle. As predicted, Taylor is hopping back and forth, trying to keep from burning off the soles of her feet. I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her up against me. “Stand on my boots.”
“Oh,” she whispers, her hands flattening on my chest, toes perching on mine through the thick leather. “Thank you.”
I nod once, walking us around to the driver’s side of the car, step by step, my forearm braced against the small of her back. I’m sure we look completely ridiculous and yeah, I could definitely just carry her, but there’s something about this position I like. Maybe because she’s looking me in the eye. Or because the twin movements of our legs feels like teamwork. Whatever the reason, it’s dangerous, but that fact isn’t going to penetrate my thick skull until she drives away and I can snap out of this trance she puts me in.
“I’m going to make tacos tonight,” she says, looking at my chin shyly. “You have to fuel yourself for the investigation, right? You…I-I mean, if you’d like to come, it would be the least I could do after you carried my brother to the car like some kind of action hero.”
“I was walking this direction anyway.”
She smirks at me.
Don’t kiss her. Don’t even think about it. But Jesus, those lips are begging for me. “I’ll be patrolling outside the house, in case the buoy thrower comes back. That constitutes doing my job. But I can’t come to dinner, Taylor.”
I say it with the kind of finality that she knows my staying away is about more than tacos. It’s bigger picture. Spending time together. Every minute I’m around her, we get in deeper despite my best intentions. Despite the warnings I keep giving myself. This has to stop. Because I’m pretty sure if we’d gone any further in that cave, I’d be promising her the moon. I’d be promising her things I can’t—and never have delivered on. I have no reason to believe I could suddenly be good at relationships. My last one was rocky from the start, not because of an abundance of fighting, but because I cared more about my career. Now? I’ve got a shit load of baggage and no permanent address, for crying out loud.
