“What are friends for?” His hand squeezed my shoulder a little on the word friends.
I was reminded of our conversation earlier that day. “Are we okay with being just friends?”
“Absolutely. I’d never push myself on someone that wasn’t interested.”
I looked up at Jendan’s face in the darkness, unable to make out more than the lines of his jaw and his eyes. “It’s not that I’m not interested,” I admitted. “It’s that the timing is rotten for both of us.”
“I know.” He rubbed my shoulder, staring off into the trees that rustled and moved around us. “Don’t worry about it. I didn’t invite you out here to try and take advantage of you.” He glanced back down at me, and I saw his face move in a hint of a grin. “I invited you out here because I needed your water.”
I snorted and offered him my canteen. “You prince, you.”
He chuckled, but still took the canteen from my hand, unscrewing the lid and taking several large gulps. Once he’d drank his fill, he closed it, handed it back to me, and then rested his head against the tree we leaned back against. “Man, that was good. Thank you.”
I leaned against him, relaxing a bit. “Glad I could help.”
We sat in silence, just enjoying the warmth of each other’s body. At least, I assumed that was what Jendan was doing. I couldn’t help but notice that my breast was rubbing up against his side, and his big, strong thigh was pressed against my own, his arm around my shoulders. And we were both totally naked.
It made for a lot of distraction, at least on my end.
“You got quiet,” Jendan murmured, distracting me. “I’d say penny for your thoughts, but I don’t have one. Coconut shell?”
“Nothing important,” I told him. Liar liar, pants on fire. “Just trying to think ahead in the game a little.”
“Mmm. I was thinking about how strange it is that we’re both naked, pressed up against each other, attracted to each other, and yet no one’s making a move.”
I laughed. “Okay, you caught me. I was thinking the same thing.”
“So it’s not just weird for me? Good.”
“I don’t know if ‘weird’ is the right way to phrase it. Maybe ‘extremely, extremely platonic’ is,” I teased. “I don’t think I’ve ever had such a platonic relationship.”
“Lucky me,” he said dryly.
I laughed at his disgruntled tone, my hand automatically going to his knee. Just that small touch sent a charge straight through my body, and I gasped to feel his warm skin against my fingers. Okay, I was not doing so good with this whole ‘platonic’ thing. Unable to help myself, my hand slid a little higher up his thigh, exploring his muscles. I heard him suck in a breath and looked up into the darkness at his face. He was gazing down at me, his expression intense.
We shifted a little closer. My breast pressed against his arm, and a little sigh of contentment – and, okay, arousal – slipped out of my throat.
“You good?” he asked, voice husky.
“I’m awesome,” I said. “Never felt better.” And it was true. There was sand between my toes, and the remnants of a sunburn fading on my shoulders and I hadn’t washed my hair in over a week. I felt great. Sitting next to Jendan, cuddled under a blanket, I could honestly say that I was utterly content.
And, okay, starting to get turned on.
For one, he had big thigh muscles. Big, rock-hard thighs, and I felt them flex every time he shifted in his seat. His arm occasionally moved, and my breast would brush up against it. My ni**les were aching with the need to be touched, but I closed my eyes and tried not to think about those sorts of things. Instead, I put my cheek on his shoulder and tried to think about sleep.
“I like being here with you, you know,” he murmured, and his voice was so husky and deep that a shiver rippled through me.
“You do?”
“Yeah. You always give one hundred percent. And you’re willing to help me out even though I haven’t done much to help you.”
“It’s because you have a blanket,” I teased, though I felt a little shaky at his soft words.
“You’ve been helping me since before that,” he said with a nudge, and I opened my eyes to see him staring down at me. “I feel like we’re in this together, even though we’re on different teams.”
And his mouth crooked into that little half smile that sent my hormones racing.
And although it was a terrible idea, I was going to kiss him. I kind of had to. I wanted to know what I was missing out on. The moment was impossible to resist. I leaned in, and as I did, he leaned closer to me. His nose brushed against my cheek, then the tip of my own nose. His mouth was so close to mine that I could smell a hint of coconut on his breath, could see the stubble along his strong jaw, and—
Something crashed through the underbrush nearby.
We immediately broke apart, and I jerked to my feet. “What was that?”
Jendan stood and pushed the blanket into my hands. “Hold onto this. I’ll check it out.”
Before he could step forward, though, someone pushed through the bushes and stepped into the trees near us. Someone with curly, shoulder length hair and cussed when he stepped on a rock.
Kip. My partner.
I sighed in annoyance, tucking the blanket around my body. Was there no escaping the jerk? “Kip, what are you doing here?”
“I should be asking that, Annabelle. After all, I’m the one you abandoned to come snuggle with the enemy.”
I said nothing. I had abandoned him to come and snuggle with the enemy. But the enemy was just so darn sexy.
“Hey man,” Jendan said, his tone of voice easy. “Annabelle said she was cold at night so I offered to share my blanket with her. It’s no big deal.”
But Kip ignored him, stomping over to my side. “I can’t believe you,” he hissed. “There are other people on this island and you didn’t tell me?”
I refused to be guilted by my partner. “You might have noticed if you ever set foot from camp.”
“I might have known if you’d have said something,” Kip snarled. “Did you ever think I was tired of just talking with you?”
I ignored the stab of guilt I felt. It hadn’t occurred to me that Kip wanted to meet Sunnie and Jendan, mostly because Kip was so unpleasant I couldn’t wait to get away from him. Maybe he’d have been more pleasant if he was around other people. I supposed we could have pooled our resources…