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Chapter Four
By the time she pulled the last bite of succulent Bahamian crawfish, subtitledspiny lobsterin the menu, from its shell, Will had managed to order enough alcohol for Earl the poor man could barely conduct a coherent conversation. As he slid lower in his seat, she and Will had talked over his head as if he weren’t even there. She felt a little guilty.
But she couldn’t be sorry.
Earl remained in no shape to take advantage of her almost-agreement to spend the night with him. She questioned his ability to even return to his room unassisted. Right before he landed face-first in his plate, she flailed a hand. “Will? Grab him.”
He reached across the table and lifted his friend’s head from his plate of fish stew. “He’s going to smell pretty bad by morning.”
“Someone has to take him home and get him cleaned up.” She grabbed her napkin and moved around the table to do what she could. “And I think it’s the guy who got him like this. Not nice, Will.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I know. But I couldn’t help myself. He told me you two had plans tonight.”
She shrugged. “For dinner together.” What else had Earl told him?
“No.” He cupped her chin and looked into her eyes. “He said you were going to spend the night together.”
“He did, did he?” She winced. “I never said that.”
The intensity in his stare turned her spine to water. “I don’t want you to sleep with him.”
“W-why not?”
A slow grin upturned his lips. “I’d rather take you to bed myself.”
Her breath caught. “So you figured if you got your poor friend drunk on his ass, you could take his place? With a desperate woman who would settle for any guy sober enough to get it up?” Her voice cracked. “Is that really what you thought?”
“Oh, no, sweetheart.” His voice was rough, like coarse velvet over her ragged nerves. “Never settle.”
He touched only her face, but he could have been caressing her entire body. She came to life as his lips met hers. Hot and smooth. Her eyes closed, the better to focus on his kiss. It was like the first kiss ever, so different from any before. When he prodded at her closed mouth with the tip of his tongue, she opened for him, welcomed him inside.
His hand moved to the back of her head, holding her in place then adjusting the angle for deeper penetration. Her nipples peaked under the sundress, as if begging for contact, but they sat in a restaurant with her date passed out on the table across from them. She went back and forth from ecstasy to panic and back again, until finally a groan from across the table penetrated the fog of lust.
Arabella planted both hands on his chest and gave a little shove. “Will, we can’t do this. Earl is my date. You are his friend. And we’re in a restaurant. Everyone will see.”
“Everyone, who?”
Opening her eyes, she peeked around. “There’s nobody here but Earl.”
Will stroked an escaped lock from her forehead. “Do you ever wear your hair down?”
“What? No, not really.”
“Would you?” He rubbed his knuckles down her cheek.
She shrugged. “I think right now we need to worry about getting Earl to his room. Can you help me move him?”
“Maybe we can get someone else to do it.”
“Nobody’s here.” And she needed to take it all in and figure out what to do. Sure, she’d hop into bed with Will in a heartbeat, but something about going out with one guy and ending up in bed with another felt marginally icky. And she didn’t want anything unpleasant to come between them. Even if it was only a vacation affair with a bartender, she had to stay true to herself. “I’ll take one arm, you take the other?”
He wound his fingers tighter into her hair and pulled her close again. “What’s in this for me?”
“A little redemption for the sin of getting your friend drunk and stealing his date?”
He grazed her lips with his thumb. “Have I stolen you?”
“You know you have. But I’m not going to bed with you at the end of a date with someone else.”
