Stuck in Paradise with You

Chapter 31

31

LUKE

‘Is there a reason you’re literally watching my every move?’ I ask Joe. He’s not stopped staring at me the whole time we’ve been layering the last wall of bags, not since he interrupted whatever that was between Carrie and me.

What was that? Was she going to kiss me? Was I going to kiss her? I fucking wanted to.

Joe pouts, plants his hands on his waist, and remains silent, his gaze flicking to Carrie then back to me.

Would it bother him if something happened between the two of us? She’s the business advisor, sure, but it hasn’t occurred to me before now that Joe would care.

Not that anything is going to happen. No matter how sold on the idea I might be – am I? – Carrie is dead against it.

I think.

Like a magnet, she drags me to her, again. She’s finished, at last, and she stands back to assess the work we’ve done, reaching up her arms to stretch out. Her hoodie, my hoodie, creeps up, exposing her hips in those sprayed-on pants. Hips that fit perfectly the shape of my hands. When I’ve trailed my fingers across her skin just there, bumps have risen on her skin. She’s shivered, the way she did under my touch on the boat yesterday.

That’s how I know there’s hope.

I swallow, wetting my dry throat. We’ve been there before and it ended in disaster. It almost ended me. But goddammit, I don’t know how to be around her and not want her.

I hope I haven’t been watching her for as long as it feels I have because Joe is still staring at me.

Hoping he didn’t notice how my skin heated watching Carrie, how it chilled thinking about how badly it ended last time, I stack the last sandbag on the wall we’ve erected and slap my hands together to rid them of grit.

‘Can’t read your mind, Hettich,’ I tell him.

He scratches the back of his head. ‘Right. Ah, I need to speak with you about something.’

I shrug, coming to stand by his side. ‘Shoot.’

‘Not here.’ He side-eyes Carrie. ‘When there’s just the two of us.’

So it is about Carrie. I need someone else’s thoughts on whatever is going on with me like a hole in the head. I’m confused enough without having to think about my boss, or my best friend, whichever capacity he wants to speak with me in.

As my boss, okay, if something happened between Carrie and me, it would be taboo. But not the end of the world. As my best friend, well, he had me hiding out here for almost a month when the shit really hit the fan last time, so, yeah, to spare his life disruption, he probably wants to caution against it.

Maybe it’s nothing to do with any of that and I’m imagining that it is because for the last four days, all my mind seems capable of doing is thinking about Carrie.

Carrie, Carrie, incredible, beautiful, annoying-as-hell , no good for me Carrie.

So instead of telling him not to worry, that I’ve got this, I know what I’m doing, I give him one curt nod.

Then that switch that so often flips in my chameleon friend flips. He bounces on the spot, then does knee-ups like he’s a football player about to go into a big game, claps his hands like a snapping crocodile and says, ‘All right, folks, that’s a wrap. Let’s head on back to the house.’ He starts walking up the hill, the sun setting behind the clouds, and despite the thickening sky, there’s a glow of orange, a hue of pink seeping into the murk. ‘Leave the truck down here. If it isn’t tied down, I don’t want it near the house.’

For the first time, I sense his nerves. This storm is going to be big. None of us know what to expect. Yet that isn’t what’s making me nervous.

I hang back as everyone else makes their way up the hill. Maybe it’s the storm; it’s heightening everything, upping the stakes. But I suddenly have an overwhelming sense that I can’t let the sun set on today without… I don’t know. Without something. Without speaking to Carrie one more time. Without being in front of her again, as close as we were by the truck, and finding out what would happen. Would she have leaned in? Would we have kissed? Maybe all I need is more answers to why, but something tells me that won’t satisfy the thunder rolling inside me.

‘Lost your legs, old boy?’ Joe calls back down to me. His words seem to remind my body how to perform the basic motion of putting one foot in front of the other.

Hands in my pockets, head down, I follow the group, wondering, if I had one question, what would I ask her?

If I had one action, what would I do?

Jesus, I’m a mess. But I don’t know which kind of mess: the way I was right before we got together, when nothing else in the world seemed to matter if I couldn’t kiss the neck I watched from my desk each day, pull my fingers through her long red hair, feel her body against mine. Or the kind of mess I was when it all imploded.

Probably something between the two but I do know that my judgment is clouded, my vision blinkered, and I need to get her alone.

The hill flattens out to the pathway through the pods, heading toward the main house.

‘Chef has made Italiano, apparently,’ Joe says. ‘Very informal. All welcome.’

Food couldn’t be further from my mind, so thank fuck Carrie says, ‘I think I’m going to shower and change, Joe. Please don’t wait for me; I might make some calls.’

Joe nods. ‘It’s there if you want it.’

Carrie tapers off for her pod and I swear I could be hallucinating but if I’m not, she casts a look back across her shoulder in my direction. It’s subtle, barely there, but the way her gaze falls to her feet afterward makes me think it was real.

And she’s going in the shower? Kill me now. Put me out of my misery, because the thought of her naked under a hot waterfall is a form of slow and painful torture.

‘So that we’re all on the same page, I want everyone in the bunker before daylight breaks,’ Joe says. ‘That’s when the wind really starts to pick up.’

The others walk toward the main residence. Carrie has moved out of sight, her pod between us, and Joe hangs back.

‘Luke, is now good for that talk?’

‘Huh?’ His word pulls my mind to him, or the small part that’s willing to not focus on Carrie. ‘What talk?’

My feet are moving and they aren’t following the others. They aren’t even going to my own pod. I’m not sure what Joe says next but I tell him, ‘Later. There’s something I’ve got to do first.’

I think I hear him mutter, ‘Oh boy,’ but honestly, I couldn’t say anything for sure, except that I’m heading to Carrie’s pod.

My heart is jackhammering in my chest, my palms are sweating, my stomach is rotating like a jet in a flat spin.

Her door is open. She’s expecting me.

In the middle of the pod, she watches me approach, not at all perturbed, as if she knew I would. And she’s lifting up the hem of my hooded sweater.

Hell, no , I want to be the only person who takes her out of my clothes.

I’m so tightly wound, I could burst out of my own. So I surprise even myself when I stay in the doorway and ask her, ‘Did you love me, Carrie?’

Her hands drop from my hoodie. This time, I have caught her off guard. As her hands fall to her sides, she watches an invisible spot on my chest. Her voice is barely a whisper when she tells me, ‘Yes.’

I don’t know what I expected but that word seeps into my skin, into my veins, and it warms my entire body, making me weak with the heat of it, the heart of it.

‘Then why did you return my letters? I get that you might have been hurt, I can see that now. But I wrote six letters to you, Carrie. I explained everything. I apologized for everything. I told you how much I wished…’ My words catch in my throat. ‘Every single letter was returned to sender, all but the first unopened. Why? ’

‘You wrote to me?’

She didn’t know?

‘Every month for six months. I told you in my very last letter that if you didn’t reply, I’d leave you to get on with your life. So that’s what I did. Even when I came back to New York, I didn’t look for you, I didn’t try to get in touch. Nothing. Until you showed up here.’

‘Luke, I never got any letters. Not one.’

‘You didn’t? But they were returned to sender. The first one had been opened and resealed with tape. It wasn’t you who returned them?’

She shakes her head. ‘My lease was coming up anyway and I just… I needed a change from everything when you left. As much as I could change.’

She didn’t send them back? She didn’t even get them?

She loved me and she didn’t get any fucking explanation as to why I left? She didn’t even know I’d attempted to explain?

Christ.

The enormity of it hits me and knocks the air from my lungs. Outside, the wind is picking up, creating background noise that wasn’t there earlier today. The sky is purple and darkening further.

And the woman in front of me looks broken and sexy as hell in equal measure. I want to take her in my arms and hold her, then make love to her, the way I know we can.

What a mess we made.

I drag a hand through my hair in frustration and replace my cap on my head. This feels like a crossroads and every route feels like the wrong way, but looking at her, seeing the way she’s looking at me, through her lashes, her breasts pushed up and round beneath my hoodie, in that sinful workout bra…

‘I’ve got to… I’m going to…’ Jesus, I just need to get out of here before I start something that won’t be good for either of us.

I practically run for the door and hear Carrie turn on the outdoor shower before I’m even off her front deck. I look to the sky, asking the universe if it’s having a laugh at my expense.

SEALs training would be easier than walking away from this.

I force myself back to my own pod and, like Carrie, I turn on my own outdoor shower. I need to wash away the day. The dirt on my clothes, the grime on my skin, every confused thought and emotion in my mind.

I kick off my sneakers and step under the monsoon head fully clothed, leaning my head back and asking whoever’s listening up there for mercy.

I feel Carrie’s presence before I even open my eyes into her hooded ones. She’s right in front of me, wearing just those tight pants and bra, staring at me through the mist and steam of the shower water.

This could be a really bad idea for so many reasons. It always was.

It could be the second-worst decision I’ve ever made, but the first was walking away from Carrie, so I’ll be damned if I can stop it.