native foods like mahi-mahi and poi, and everything just seems right with the world. He may be the wrong guy, but . . . I don’t know if that’s even true anymore.
He might just be the right guy. No matter how much he denies me. Maybe I just need to convince him.
“I had fun today. I should stop worrying about what other people think,” I tell him, “and just live in the moment more.”
“You should,” he says, dragging me out into the line of hula dancers, with Ivy and Natalie. The dancers give us grass skirts and tell us how every movement tells a story. And they show us how to move our hips in time with the music, in a sultry and sensual way. I’m terrible at it, but I’m in good company.
I think I’ve finally found something that Luke can’t do.
But it doesn’t matter. We’re up here, not giving a crap what anyone thinks.
And it feels amazing.
It feels even more amazing when he turns to me and hooks a finger toward me, drawing me to him like a puppet on a string. The cameras are on us, capturing the act of him taking the lei off his chest and putting it over my head. But they can’t possibly capture the way his eyes glint at me, like I’m the only girl in the world. They can’t see the need in his expression as he tugs on the edge of the T-shirt.
I know what he’s asking, even though those eyes make it impossible to think sane thoughts. It’s getting dark, and the mai tais are dulling my nerves, and the T-shirt is still kind of wet, which is making me chilly.
So I reach down, peel it off, and hand it to him. “Good?”
“Yeah. Good.” His voice is a low rumble as his eyes drift over my body appreciatively. His arms wrap around me, his skin melts against mine, and his fingers dig into the bare skin at the small of my back. “Very, very good.”
Luke
Well, yeah. It felt like we were almost at the end. The game was stressful. It was good to just let go for a night. We all needed it.
—Luke’s Confessional, Day 14
It’s after midnight by the time the torches of the luau fade and it’s time to go back to our cabana.
The rest of the competitors have been getting along well. But none of them, not even Ace and Marta, have what Penny and I have. I didn’t want to leave her side for a second. I stayed next to her, holding her near me, cameras be damned, wanting to brand her with my touch, mark her with my scent, make every last damn person on the beach know she was mine.
We’re still in the game, and that means she’s still mine.
And there were plenty of other fuckers sneaking looks. Doubt that Penny—sweet, naive Penny—had any idea how she made their tongues wag in that little bikini. She had them all on a string, like a little fucking temptress, and the craziest part about it was she probably didn’t see a thing because her eyes were on me.
I drank like a fish, trying to get a little buzz going so I wouldn’t be so hyperaware of every last thing she did. Even the smallest, most insignificant moves fixed me with the need to taste her, even right there in the open. I kept leaning toward her, scenting her, drinking her in.
By the time we walk back on the beach, alone in the full moonlight, frustration and anger are surging hot through my veins. Anger directed at her. At myself for unleashing this monster in her, for being half the man she wants.
She’s happy, which is only feeding my shitty mood. Holding my hand, moving her hips in the way the hula dancers showed us. Wearing that little grass skirt and that bikini and flowers in her hair and around her neck, and I just want to throw her on the sand and sink into her.
We get to the lanai, and I drop her hand and fall down onto the lounge chair, facing the moon.
She spins in front of me, still hula dancing. Moving her hips in mesmerizing circles and her hands in the way we’d just been taught means come to me. She holds my gaze, and I’m not going to give in to her. Give in to this temptress who has no fucking idea what she’s getting herself into.