Page 65 of Sucker For You

She was laughing at the octopus now too, pushing off the cushions and approaching the tank. She quirked her mouth at the two-spot’s impatient arms plastered to the glass, at suckers prodding the mesh lid. “She must be bored with the rockscape already. Bored enough to imitate these polka-dotted throw pillows. But—no, she’s right. It’s feeding time. Octopuses can eat up to four percent of their body weight every day,” she added over her shoulder.

“She doesn’t want a sandy leftover sandwich, right?”

Isabel’s cheek dimpled with a smile. She shook her head. “You already know that answer.”

He waggled his eyebrows while he heaved himself up and strolled into the kitchen for the octopus’s meal—earning his own breath of laughter from her.

Good start.

But: what if they hadn’t needed to start over? If that gull hadn’t dived at them, what would his camera have seen on the beach? With Isabel’s thumb tracing his lower lip, he hadn’t been paying attention to lighting and lens angles.Not at all.He’d been wrestling against an inappropriate, unruly, delicious impulse to suck her finger into his mouth, to soothe the roughness of her bitten nail with his tongue. . . Yes, he’d forgotten about his watching Nikon.

Had she?

However, the two-spot demanded his—and Isabel’s—full attention when she waved her shrimp through the currents of her tank a minute later. Her skin was patterned with deep, stone-speckled purple and flecks of white, her arms clinging to their fingers while another limb crept toward Wes’s watch stowed out of her reach on the credenza. Isabel was quickly so absorbed in the beguiling, intimate wonder of octopus time that she likely wouldn’t have heard Wes if he’d asked her about—honestly, anything. Which was probably for the best. Their hands brushed in the water, and she didn’t draw back.

He kept quiet.

By the time she surfaced, the bungalow’s kitschy clock had edged towardHigh Tide. He’d be in the water in about eight hours. She’d start her inaugural shift of chopping, mopping, and spy-hopping at MORI. When he said as much, Isabel’s smile rose from the aquarium in acknowledgment or amusement. Butit sank just as rapidly. Her nod was brisk while she replaced the tank’s lid.

“Will you report on any unusual animal behaviors that you see in the bay or Elkhorn Slough?” she asked him.

“As long as you call me if anything weird happens during your shift? Deal.” Strapping his waterproof diving watch back on, he raised his wrist. “My phone will ring on this, and I can breach to answer.”

“Should we share contact details?”

They swapped devices to enter their information. Wes didn’t snoop through her phone after he double-checked the letters in his name. Not noticing the volume of her missed calls and unread texts, though? That was impossible. Even while he saved himself as a favorite contact, another notification multiplied her unopened messages into triple digits.

The sender was muted.

It didn’t take a genius to guess who was hounding her.

“Isabel, you—you don’t need a reason to call me. Call about anything. Not just about MORI. Any time.”

“I. . .” A second notification came through as he passed back her phone; her mouth slanted into a frown, her answer fading.

I will.

I won’t.

Why not?

“Chase is still trying to get hold of you, isn’t he?” Trying to touch her, when she so clearly didn’t want to be touched. “Is it getting worse?”

“Yes.” Wincing, Isabel bit her lip. “But only because I’m being a coward.”

“He’s being an asshole.”

One shoulder lifted and she pocketed her device. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. Not tonight.”

Not ever.

Before he could say something idiotic like that out loud, she continued, her feet shuffling in the carpet, “Would it be helpful for us to exchange a few messages and calls? About MORI. Or other things. For the interviewer?”

Thank God.

“Yeah, it would. So—get ready. Because you’re getting a goodnight text from me today,” he warned her. “For the interviewer.”

Another dimple twitched beside her mouth. Isabel replaced the octopus’s dive weights, offered Wes use of their bathroom for a quick shower and an even faster brush of his teeth, and told him as he emerged in his terrycloth robe, “Yes, please send the text.”