“Are you okay?” I ask, taking a step back to avoid being whacked by her legs as she swings them over the side of the bed.
“I’m going to take shower,” she announces. Without any warning, she pulls her dress straps down and tugs it off her body. She’s completely naked underneath it.
I think about all of those old men who touched her tonight, and see red.
“Were you like this… all night?” I ask, my voice tight with irritation.
“Yup,” she chirps and then bends over to rifle in her bag giving me a full view of her naked ass and the lush dusky flesh between her legs.
“Regan, what are you doing?” I growl.
She stands with her light pink silk robe in one hand a bemused frown on her face. “Oh, I figured since you’d seen it all before you wouldn’t mind. Sorry.” Her voice is clipped with irritation. She slips the robe on strides toward the front of the tent.
“Regan--”
“Don’t wait up,” she calls just before she disappears through the flaps.
I sit on my bed, feeling like I just got hit in the head with a two by four. What the hell just happened and why the hell is she mad at me?
A few seconds later, the sun shower that’s right to our tent comes on. For five torturous minutes, I listen to the sounds of water splashing and imagine her hands moving over all the places I want to touch.
When the shower cuts off, I pick up my book and pretend to read. When she walks back into the tent, I manage a casual, “How was the water?”
“Hot,” she sighs with deep satisfaction and it takes all my willpower not to look at her. The flutter of fabric my periphery draws my gaze to her. But I keep my eyes on the floor where her discarded towel lies in a sodden heap at her feet.
Only when she turns so I’m looking at her heels instead of her pretty pink -painted toes, do I let my gaze roam up.
Her pink silk robe is belted tightly around her body. Before I can appreciate the way it hugs her still wet skin, she loosens the belt and shrugs it off. It slides down her lean, graceful back in a torturously slow unveiling of her delectable figure.
It molds to the curve of her hips and ass, right below then the twin dimples at the base of her spine and the tattoo that sits in between them. It hangs there for a few seconds before gravity flexes its muscle and the rest of her body is revealed.
When she bends over to pick up a bottle of lotion from her bed, I want to howl from the effort it’s taking not to reach for her.
And, as addled as my brain may be, I know better than to even try it. So, I close my eyes.
But it’s no good. The scent of lemon fills the tent. The whisper of her hands sliding over her bare skin only makes the torrid images in my mind more vivid. I imagine her fingers gliding over her jutting dark nipples, cupping her supple round breasts, sliding between her thighs, running over her shoulders, smoothing the rest of the lotion over the curve of her neck… By the time my fevered imagination has worked its way over her body, my balls are aching.
I open my eyes just as she steps into a pair of white lace panties and pulls a white tank top over her head.
She turns around, and I look back at my book, staring unseeingly while I pretend not to feel her eyes on me.
“Thank you for today. It’s the best day I can remember having, ever,” she says quietly before she dims her lamp and climbs into her bed.
I lay in the dark, hard as a rock and confused as hell. I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I know that I’m blowing this, badly.
“Uh, you know… I-- I’m going for a swim,” I say, hop up, and hustle out of the tent. I pretend not to hear her call my name and ignore my impulse to answer her. I need distance and I need to get rid of this erection so that I can fucking think.
I wade until the water reaches my waist, and then dive, headfirst, into the waves. The water is cool and calm, and I cut through it quickly, pushing myself until my shoulders ache before I turn back to swim