Page 53 of Sucker For You

Isabel had her priorities straight. There was nothing wrong with that.

But trailing after the windy ripple of her hair and her slender shadow back along the boardwalk, he wrestled with his body’s visceral reaction to that thought for a minute—before huffing into the breeze and acknowledging that he had to rememberwhyshe’d let him kiss her in the first place.

Get your head in gear.

Like that had ever helped.

It’s not real.

That rasp in her throat, the clench of her fingers—

He scrubbed a hand hard over his blistered neck.

Not real.

What was real:MORI assignment. Interview. Visa. Tax benefits. Boat.

Plus their octopus in the reef tank.

Assuming the bored, mischievous predator hadn’t already escaped the aquarium and flooded the bungalow, of course.

Getting electrocuted from a wet socket would throw a major spanner into Wes’s wedding plans.

He lengthened his stride, grimacing.

However, when Isabel made an impatient gesture for him to keep pace as she threaded through the noisy, pungent market, winding past the tourists ogling window displays in Carousel Candies and toward Baby parked in the wharf lot—when she paused with afternoon light spangling the parted curve of her flushed, wet lips (she was breathing defensively through her mouth) to verify that he was here, that he was following, that he was with her? No amount of self-flagellation or gross smacks from the seafood bags against his thighs could stop him from breaking into a jog.

This might not be real, but when had he ever wasted a good thing, or a good time?

Damn, he was in serious trouble.

He couldn’t help grinning.

11

The octopus hadn’t shorted either the bungalow’s ancient wiring or Monterey’s electrical grid in their absence. She hadn’t even left her tank. However, she’d employed the ribbon of drill-like teeth on her tongue to bore a hole through the oyster’s shell, injecting it with a salivary venom before presumably consuming it. She was now batting Isabel’s deconstructed bottles against the aquarium lid, swinging a bivalve half-shell in one arm like a racket.

The other half of the shell?

Spreading a wet stain on the carpet.

“What the hell?” Wes retrieved the discarded calcium carbonate. The octopus unfurled herself from her coral nest and flowed over to him in a rush of red when he tapped that disc to the glass. “You see this? This is rude.”

Examining the tank’s steel netting for punctures, then checking the polystyrene packed around the pump tubes, Isabel shook her head. “She doesn’t understand you.”

“Bullshit. I don’t care if some scientist somewhere thinks I’m anthropomorphizing her. This isn’t a research project.” He pointed at their two-spot with the shell. “You understand, don’t you?Rude.”

The other half of the shell materialized again in the fluid tangle of her arms. She tapped back.

“No remorse? Then maybe you don’t want this shrimp.” He plucked a crustacean from his market bag. “Or this crab?”

She dropped the shell instantly. All eight ingenious tentacles roiled forward. Her ocelli flashed. Her argent eyes followed the crab in his left hand, then the shrimp in his right. But she was clever. Despite his provocation, she remained submerged, keeping the secret of how she’d jettisoned the oyster’s half-shell out onto the rug.

“Fine.”

Wes clicked his own tongue to his teeth. Then he removed the tank’s dive weights, lifted its mesh while Isabel occupied the juvenile’s creeping arms, and surrendered the crab and a couple of prawns to their two-spot. The octopus flipped upside down to pass both prawns from the tips of two tentacles, along a conveyor belt of suckers to her parrot-like beak (located in what for a human would have been her armpit)—before swallowing them. She flourished the crab in another arm.

“Toying with her food again. But at least she’s not a picky eater. Messy, though.” He rasped his thumb against the oyster shell. “The shrimp was a good idea. Maybe the crab will keep her occupied for an hour. We could buy a live one next time.”