that you are, indeed, quite stubborn.” I blew out a breath and turned resolutely toward the far side of the island. “Okay. More plovers. Onward.”
I marched insistently toward the birds on the far side of the dock.
“I like you, Toby.” Beale hurried up behind me. “You seem like a great guy.”
I whirled to face him. “You’d better not say ‘but’ unless it’s to compliment the perfection of mine.” And not fucking Silvio’s.
“However,” Beale said instead with a little quirk of his lips that made his blue eyes flash. “I don’t really know you. And you don’t know me. True?”
Weirdly, this did not feel true. I felt like we’d been through several wars together. I figured this was just because I was overwrought and needy, though, so I nodded.
“I’ve tried hooking up with guys I don’t know a couple of times, and it didn’t work. I mean, it worked,” Beale added quickly with an impatient gesture at the front of his cargo shorts that made me snicker. “It just didn’t feel right or easy. It made me feel bad after. Disconnected and anxious, like when you’re super hungry and you eat a candy bar, and then your body starts to feel gross and jittery. That’s why I’ve been waiting until I meet the right person to have sex. You with me?”
I shook my head sadly. “Not even a little, sweetness. Candy is delicious. If I didn’t have to be ruthless about my carb intake, I’d eat it every day. If I looked like you, I’d eat it twice a day. I think you’re going about this wrong.”
“I am?”
“You definitely are.” I tapped my lips thoughtfully. Poor Beale lacked all the confidence a man as smart and funny and hot as him should have. He’d also saved me from grievous injury multiple times in twenty-four hours, and I felt that debt keenly. Now I knew exactly how I could repay him. It might not be the smartest thing to do, given the real reason I’d come to Whispering Key, and the whole thing might end in tragedy, but it still felt like the right thing to do. Not coincidentally, it was also the thing I wanted to do.
“Now, here we go. Ahem. Dear Virgo the Virgin.” I batted my eyelashes at him.
“Oh, no.”
“Not every person you have sex with will be your soul mate, Virgo.”
He gave me another “you’re ridiculous but enjoyable” glance, this one slightly lighter on the “enjoyable,” but it still warmed me from the inside in ways I didn’t want to think about too much. “I know, Hagatha.”
“But you’d be foolish to turn down a fake soul mate you’re attracted to who’s gonna be sharing your bed for a week anyway. Love, Auntie H.”
“And that’s your professional advice, huh?”
I blinked. In truth, my professional advice would probably be more like, “run away from the man trying to peer pressure you into sex.” But we’d already established that Hagatha was totes incompetent.
“I don’t think I can make an unbiased judgment since I have a vested interest in the outcome. But weren’t you the one who said learning new skills made you more confident?” I fluttered my eyelashes.
“I was talking about audiobooks!” he said a little desperately.
“Sex is better than audiobooks.”
“Maybe you need better audiobooks.”
“Beale, honey, maybe you need better sex.”
He opened his mouth to retort, but I held up my hands.
“Fine,” I said in defeat. “The truth is, I’ve wanted to climb you like a tree since thirty seconds after we met. You’re gorgeous and you’re funny, and I apparently have a kink for guys who are really capable or something. Also, abstinence makes me twitchy, and you’re my only option for the next week, fake soul mate.” I blinked my eyes in my very best starving orphan impression, though I wasn’t looking for gruel so much as one particular enormously hot male.
“And you’re not suggesting this because you feel like you owe me, are you?”
I hesitated, running my tongue over my top lip and studying him like a puzzle. “Which answer would make you more likely to agree?”
“Ah, fuck it.”
He bit his lip and pulled me nearer, his eyes fixed on my mouth, and I’d have sworn I could feel his heartbeat pulsing in the air between us. Or maybe it was mine.
He wrapped a hand around the back of my neck, lowered his head… and sank his teeth into my bottom lip. It was so arousing and so fucking unexpected I gasped and shivered.
I saw the flash of