I couldn’t afford to brawl with someone on this boat. The Costellos were already watching me with hawk eyes, waiting for me to deliver the final blow to my reputation’s back and make them beg their son to cancel his engagement to my sister. And their informer, Cruz, was on this boat.
Nope. I was walking on thin ice as it was already.
Stumbling, more like.
“Damn, Nessy. Just give me a chance. I’ll make it good for you.”
Douchebag Dale placed his hand on my elbow, giving it a squeeze. I withdrew quickly, like he’d put fire to me. Maybe it was an exaggeration, but I hated men touching me.
Perhaps because the last man who had left me in the most vulnerable position I’d ever been in. Or maybe because it was far too common in Fairhope to pinch my waist or pat the small of my back—too close to my butt—to grab my attention when someone wanted to place an order with me.
“Don’t touch me!”
The words didn’t mean to sound like a whimper, but they came out like it, anyway.
“Sweetheart,” I heard a familiar, raspy brogue. One that couldn’t belong to just any ordinary mortal. Every inch of my flesh blossomed into pebbles, and the fine hair on my neck stood on end despite the sun pounding down on me. “There you are. Sorry I’m late. I decided to take the advanced jujutsu class after kickboxing.”
Before I knew what was happening, Douchebag Dale’s hand was off of my elbow, tossed away physically by another, much larger male hand.
Cruz landed on the edge of my sunbed, making it dip to one side. He was shirtless now, wearing a ball cap the correct and grown-up way.
I was glad I had my shades on, because now I could drink him in without him having the satisfaction of knowing I was looking.
His torso was mouthwateringly muscular, his skin golden and smooth. He had bulging arms, with veins that snaked all the way to his forearms. A thin strip of blond curls snaked from below his navel and disappeared somewhere under his shorts.
I wanted to follow that trail with my tongue.
I should really remember to charge my vibrator when I get back home.
Cruz polished a shiny red apple on his swim trunks, then took a juicy bite.
Slammed with this surprise lust toward Dr. Costello, and an unexplainable desire to switch places with his apple, I turned my head away and ignored both men.
“She your wife?” Douchebag Dale mumbled.
“The one and only,” Cruz replied. “The lucky Mrs. Weiner.”
“Weiner,” DD repeated, giving a Beavis-and-Butthead type snort.
“Problem?” Cruz asked.
“No. No. Great last name. German, right?”
There was a pause. Cruz picked up the sunscreen beside me, squirted a generous amount of white lotion onto his hand, and began massaging my back with it.
Holy wow, this feels good.
“Gotta keep you safe from the sun,” he said with the apple still trapped between his teeth. “You know I’m the only thing allowed to make your behind red.”
Oh. My. Grub.
His hands were strong and confident, his fingers long, and I told myself I was letting him do this because I didn’t need another fight on my hands with a Costello.
Not because it was stirring all kinds of things in the lower region of my body, or because the minute his skin touched mine, I realized that my back had really needed a massage for the last decade or so.
“You’re still here,” Cruz said casually, referring to Douchebag Dale. “Do you want your face punched, or are you waiting for me to forget you’re hitting on my wife and go grab myself a beer?”
“Uhm. Yeah. No. I’m…” Young Dale stood up, looking around him, as if he forgot something. Maybe his pride. “Sorry. My dad…I mean, bad! My bad.”
“Go on. And tell your friends she’s taken, too. I don’t want to see any of y’all getting anywhere near my missus.”
Cruz made a show of flexing his muscles, giving Dale a front-row ticket to the gun show.
I had to admit, I was impressed.
I knew Cruz was a runner and that he took it upon himself to coach the T-ball little league at our local elementary school (which, frankly, I found creepy considering he had no kids there), but I didn’t know he was that ripped.
He was considerably taller than Dale and had at least twenty more pounds of muscle on him.
“All right. Yeah. Fair.”
As soon as Dale was gone, Cruz withdrew his hands from me as fast as humanly possible, shifting to the sunbed next to mine. I mourned the loss of his touch, but celebrated the fact I might get to relax enough to nap under the sun for a couple more hours before dinner, now that the frat boy was gone.
“You’re welcome,” Cruz said, when I didn’t offer him a thank you.
I propped my cheek against the sunbed, staring at him through my shades.
“You really like being everyone’s hero, don’t you?” There was no cure for my pettiness where this man was concerned.
“What’s not to like?”
He braced the sunbed from both sides, his biceps poking out, his six-pack on full display. Beside them, his apple was eaten to the core. He’d demolished it.
I wonder if he eats his apple the way he eats pu…
“Heroes are such simple creatures,” I heard myself exclaim passionately. “I, for one, am always hot for the villain in the movies.”
“That could explain a few things about your life.”
“Hey.” I curved an eyebrow. “You calling your best friend a villain?”
Now that Rob was back in town, I was sure he and Cruz would rekindle their bromance.
“No, I’m calling you a woman with very few scruples.”
I laughed throatily, turning on my back and propping one leg over the other. I noticed that not even Saint Cruz was able to rip his eyes from my swollen breasts, which made the strings holding my bikini top work extra hard.
“Nice truce, we’ve got here.”
“What can I say? You bring out the worst out in me.” He shook his head.
“Then why did you save me from Mr. Douchebag?”
“Only one person is allowed to give you a hard time on this cruise, and that person is me.”
I mulled his words over.
On one hand, I liked the fact that despite our banter, Cruz Costello truly was completely harmless, in a sense that I knew he would never be cruel or downright mean to me. He just didn’t have it in him. He was genuinely a good guy, and he would never do anything to spite me. He would protect me from Dales.
On the other hand, that was precisely what made him so dangerous. He was lovable to a fault, and I…well, I couldn’t fall in love. I couldn’t afford the distraction.
As it was, I was flailing to survive.
And he had Gabby. Or not? Why tell me that?
When I realized we’d been silent for over a minute, I told Cruz, “Look, we need to try to be cordial with one another. It’s important to Trinity and Wyatt.”
“I’m cordial.”
“Can you pretend I don’t appall you?” I stressed.
“I can try.”
“Good. Your approval of me in Fairhope is like getting absolution from the pope. While you’re at it, my eyes are up here.” I motioned to my face, when it became apparent Dr. Costello couldn’t stop looking at my cleavage.