He caught me from behind, twirled me onto my back on the mattress, and pinned me under him by the wrists.
“You are dead,” I said, wriggling. “I killed you fair and square. Those were fatal shots.”
“I’ve come back to haunt you.”
“Really?” I grinned. “You don’t feel like an apparition to me…” I said, referring to the boner pressing into my hip.
He smiled at me wryly, but he didn’t move. He slid his grip off my wrists and twined his fingers in mine and held me down by the hands.
It wouldn’t go further than this. Just this tease.
This sexual undercurrent between us was like the elephant in the room.
He hadn’t kissed me since that day on the lawn.
I mean, we’d both been sick. Yesterday was the first full day that neither of us threw up. We’d just hung out and watched TV and rehydrated. Cuddled and talked and slept holding each other.
There were erections and long lingering looks and tender touches—but he didn’t kiss me. And I didn’t think he was going to. And it wasn’t my place to kiss him because he’d been the one to reject my last advances. So we just circled each other with tension so palpable you could cut it with scissors. We didn’t talk about it and we didn’t acknowledge it, because what was the point? I was still leaving. That hadn’t changed.
Even if I had.
The shift in me was confusing. Like I was in some new territory and didn’t know how to map it. Maddy wasn’t here, so I couldn’t talk to her about what I was feeling. And I couldn’t talk to Justin about it either because I didn’t know how. It was incredibly complex and also unbelievably simple.
I wanted to be near him.
I had to stay to do it. But that wasn’t an option, because I didn’t want the rest of it. The kids and the permanency and the commitment. I couldn’t meet him where he was, and he couldn’t leave. So we just did this instead. We skirted this line, alone on a bed, attracted to each other, wanting each other but at a standoff with no end in sight.
His eyes moved to my mouth for a split second. Then he let go of my hands and got off me.
I sat up on the bed and watched him pick up Nerf bullets in the hallway with his back to me.
When he was done, he set them on the dresser and then came back to the bed and sat down. He set his hand near mine and my pinky touched his. “When do you want me to leave?” he asked.
The question came out of nowhere. My heart bottomed out.
We hadn’t brought up him going home. It was like both of us wanted to pretend that the time on this island was infinite and never had to come to a close.
I didn’t reply.
“Emma?”
I answered him by climbing over him and straddling him. Then I pushed him back on the bed.
He put his hands on my thighs and looked up at me calmly.
“You can stay,” I said. “You don’t have to leave. Unless you have to get the kids. Or Brad.”
“Leigh’s fine with them. They’re having fun. Sarah doesn’t come back until Sunday. Brad’s with his namesake. He’s taken care of.”
“Don’t you miss him?”
“I’d miss you more.”
My pulse picked up and I had to look away from him. Then I wrinkled my forehead. “How did you get here?” I asked, looking back at him. “Did someone give you a ride?”
“I paddled on the unicorn floatie.”
I blinked at him. “Are you joking?”
“I am not joking.”
“You paddled here,” I deadpanned. “On the unicorn floatie.”
He put a hand behind his head in a way that made his bicep bulge. “Are you impressed I have that kind of upper body strength?”
“Justin!”
It must have taken him forever. The wind and the waves and the—
He rolled onto his side and took me with him, hooking a hand behind my knee to keep my leg wrapped around him. He draped an arm over my waist and scooted closer until his forehead touched mine and he closed his eyes.
“I had to get here,” he said. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
We lay there, the air humid between us. Our mouths inches from touching.
I studied him up close while he wasn’t looking. The cupid’s bow at the top of his lip. The beard that had started to come in since he got here. I liked it. I put a palm to his cheek to feel it, and he smiled a little.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
