Page 9

Jean watched the pen’s rotation slow, waiting until the last possible second to flick it again. This game sucked, but she was too fidgety to sit still and couldn’t leave the concierge desk until Pauline got back from break.

Was there such a thing as a two-night stand? Jean couldn’t shake the feeling that it would look pathetic to show up at Charlie’s cottage again. She was debating an ironic towel delivery (was it too soon for inside jokes?) when the phone rang.

“It’s an amazing day at Dolphin Bay, even in the middle of the night,” she said, trusting that whoever it was would pay more attention to the faux cheery tone than the actual words.

“Jean?”

She slammed a hand over the pen. “Who wants to know?”

“It’s me.” There was a long pause. “Charlie.”

“Refresh my memory.”

“Well, I’m tall and I have glasses—”

“Charlie,” she chided. “I’m kidding.”

“Oh.” He sighed in relief.

“You’re still around, huh?” Jean already knew the answer, because the fancy phone system had lit up to show it was a guest call, not an outside number.

This way she sounded nonchalant, which was essential to maintaining the correct power dynamic.

Jean refused to be one of those chumps who lets herself fall for a tourist, especially after watching her roommate go gaga over a short-timer who (shocker!) ghosted her after returning to the mainland.

That was Dating While Living in a Vacation Hotspot 101.

Know the score going in or live to regret it.

“Would you maybe want to come over after work?” Charlie asked, all shy and uncertain. Before she could answer, there was a surprising addendum. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Are we talking money or sexual favors?”

“Not money. I have something of yours.”

“You stole my panties?”

“No! It’s your cards.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, even though Jean was the one in a public building. “I’m holding them hostage.”

“How devious of you, Dakota. Perhaps I’ll swing by.” She could kiss him for making it so easy to do what she wanted.

“That would be—great. Wonderful. Perfect.”

“But don’t hold your breath,” she cut in, before he tangled himself in a thicket of synonyms.

“Of course not.”

“I’m an unpredictable person.”

“A wild card,” he suggested.

Jean wondered if he could hear the smile in her voice. “Exactly.”

Charlie opened the door before she could knock, not even pretending he hadn’t been waiting.

She handed him the beers she’d wheedled out of one of the bartenders.

“Would you like to watch a movie?” he asked, as if this was a real date. “Or I could order food?”

“I had something different in mind.” It was important to establish up front that she was calling the shots.

Jean considered the couch, quickly deciding that her supervisor would lose it if they stained the upholstery. She headed straight for the bedroom instead.

“How do you feel about art?” she asked, yanking the duvet off the mattress and throwing it onto a nearby chair.

“Uh, positively? I mean, I’m in favor. Though not all art is good… or so I’m told. I’m not sure I always know the difference.” He trailed off with a worried frown, on the verge of working himself into a state.

Dropping her supplies on the bed, Jean walked the few steps back to where he was standing, grabbed hold of his shoulders, and pulled herself onto her tiptoes. When his mouth was in range, she silenced him with a kiss.

“How do you feel about me painting you ?” she clarified, when he was still and settled, holding her at the waist.

“You want to paint me?”

Jean nodded.

“Uh, sure.” He bit his lip. “I wouldn’t know how to say no to you anyway.”

The power! The responsibility! Jean took a second to let the thrill wash over her. “Good. After you take off your clothes, you can lie down on the bed while I get set up.”

When she returned from the bathroom with a glass of water, he was stretched out on his side with his head propped on one hand, like a naked woman in an eighteenth-century oil painting.

“Is this okay?” he asked, bending one leg at the knee. “If you want me to hold a piece of fruit or something, I have bananas in the kitchen.”

“Just out of curiosity, where are you imagining I’d put the banana?”

He started to give a serious response before noticing her barely suppressed laughter. “I don’t know much about art,” Charlie confessed.

“And I don’t know much about snakes, so we’re even. Glasses off.” She held out her hand for them, placing them on the bedside table.

“Don’t you need something to paint on?”

“Nope. Roll over.”

Charlie blinked in confusion. “Over where?”

“Onto your stomach.”

“You’re painting my back?”

“Exactly.”

She knelt on the bed beside him. “Are you ticklish?”

“Just a normal amount.”

“Good. This might feel a little cold. And wet.”

Despite the warning, he flinched at the first stroke of the brush. “You’re painting me ?”

“Like I said. Now relax. I have big plans for your backside.”

An hour later, Jean cracked open a beer. “Drink,” she said, holding it to his lips.

“I can use my arms,” he protested, starting to lift himself at the waist.

She pressed him down with a finger to the shoulder blade. “It needs to dry.” A tilt of the can cut off whatever else he might have said. Jean used the sheet to wipe off a few droplets that spilled from the corner of his mouth. “What do you think?”

“It’s a pale ale. Light, refreshing, not fruity exactly but there’s something different. An herb, maybe?”

“I was talking about your modeling career, but okay. Somebody knows his booze.” She must have stumbled onto his secondary passion, right after things that slither. A stray thought wormed its way to the front of Jean’s brain: Would she ever land on Charlie’s list of obsessions?

“It was hard to avoid, growing up.” He sounded so gloomy about it that Jean braced for a story worthy of a country song.

“My family loves their beer.” There was a pause, during which he seemed to realize how that must sound.

“I mean—in a normal way. There was beer around. For the adults. Not that they were drunk all the time or neglecting me.”

“I won’t report them,” she promised, giving him another sip. “It’s a flower, by the way. Hibiscus. The big red flowers with the thing”—she wiggled her finger—“in the middle.”

“The pistil?”

She shrugged. “Sure.” Setting down the can, Jean crawled across the bed to kneel next to his hips.

“How does it look?”

“Not to toot my own horn, but if Hieronymus Bosch wasn’t such a downer, he could have painted this.

” She’d started with the snake, adding in a tree that stretched upward to follow the line of his spine and then slowly filling in the garden around it.

Two naked human figures were waiting for faces.

Jean hadn’t decided whether the Adam in her Eden should be wearing his glasses.

“Can I see it?”

“Not yet.” She picked up one of the tubes of paint, squeezing a blob of carmine onto his skin before shaping it into an apple with her brush. “Are you sick of me poking you?”

“I could stay like this forever.”

Total sincerity, no hint of cheesy self-consciousness, like he was trying to wow her with a line.

It knocked her for a loop hearing him say things like that.

She wanted to ask the universe, where did you find this one?

But she already knew the answer: right here, in this cottage, hidden away from the world.

Hopefully this wasn’t one of those tragic timeslip situations where he was stuck in a parallel dimension fifty years in the past.

“Maybe they should add body painting to the spa menu.” She fanned the bristles over his shoulder blade, adding a peacock to the scene.

Lush foliage climbed the walls, like something from Where the Wild Things Are , only sexier, because no one was wearing a wolf suit (or anything else).

“Do you think people would pay for this?”

“From a stranger?”

“That’s generally how it works.”

“And—you’d both be naked?”

“Just the customer, usually. Like when you get a massage.”

He was conspicuously silent.

“You’ve never had a massage? You should book one while you’re here. Make the feds pay.” She felt his back rise as he sighed.

“I’m not actually a government witness,” he admitted. “I hope you’re not too disappointed.”

“You have other qualities. Like your big, thick… back.” She poked him. “No laughing.”

“It’s hard.”

“Already?”

“Jean.”

She trailed the brush lower. “So you didn’t stumble onto a gang of thieves.”

“Snake smugglers would be more likely,” he pointed out.

“Is that a thing?”

“I’m afraid so. A man once transported three Burmese pythons across the border in his pants.”

Jean’s hand stilled. “On a plane?”

“A bus.”

“That’s messed up. On so many levels.”

“I think geckos would be more uncomfortable. Because of the legs.”

“Like if you had to rank what kind of reptiles you’d least want in your pants, that would be the top one?”

“No, a Gila monster would be worse.”

“I’ll try to remember that next time I’m packing for a trip.” She waited until the vibrations of his laughter settled to add teal spots to the peacock’s tail.

“I told my friend about you.”

Jean ignored the rush of pleasure. “Did you?” The plan was to leave it at that—cool and neutral—but curiosity got the better of her. “What kind of friend?”

“An old friend. Since I was a kid. She’s a woman.”

The brush swished in the glass, further muddying the water. “But not your woman?”

“No.” He huffed at that, the sound muffled by the pillow under his cheek. “The other way around, maybe. Mugsy definitely thinks she’s the boss of me. Probably because she used to be my babysitter.”

“Ah.” Once the initial relief passed, Jean replayed the rest of his statement. “So was this ‘Mugsy’ your sexual awakening?”

“No.” His face went up in flames. “But I thought her girlfriend was pretty cute.” His shoulders twitched, followed by a guilty sideways glance. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to move.”

“It’s okay. I’ll add a bolt of lightning to cover the crack. You were saying?”