Page 66 of Sucker For You

“Great.”

With that, the bedroom door closed behind her. Listening to the singing of water in the pipes from the shower as it switched on again, he grinned, tossed off his robe, and flopped onto the couch in his boxers to review the Nikon’s pre-jellyfish photo roll from Saturday and tonight’s time-lapse pictures: a bobbing otter pup, a pelican tussling with a cormorant, a grouchy sand dab. No almost-kiss by the waves. But despite the low light levels on the beach and a slow camera shutter speed, his lens had managed to snap the seagull’s attack on their picnic. The Nikon had caught them leaping off their towel, their mouths blurred and wide with surprise.

Snorting, he ported the image onto his phone.

Then he opened Isabel’s new contact.

Wes Monaghan (voice-to-text)

G’night. Sleep for real—and don’t let the seagulls steal. (Sandwiches, dreams, whatever.)

He followed up with his fuzzy image of the gull.

Photo Sent

He waited while the shower drizzled off, and while Isabel—probably—stepped out onto the bathmat. He went on waiting while he imagined her toes curling in the nubbly fibers (already damp with his own footprints) as she patted a towel over her flushed cheeks, stomach, and thighs, then rifled the cloth through her hair, matting it into a wet tangle that had his fingers kneading the couch’s afghan blanket, itching to smooth those silvery strands and tease the fine wisps kissing the nape of her neck—

No, get a grip!

He held himself to an impatient patience as she twisted up the towel on her head, slipped into her own robe (lace panties underneath, or plain white cotton?No, stop it), and padded into the bedroom. She’d check her phone in a minute.

Her huff of surprise—or maybe it was another sweet burst of laughter?—came quickly.

Whichever it was, the noise plucked hard at something not-at-all sweet in his groin.

She hadn’t locked her door.

He dropped his head back onto the armrest, his groan fighting against another smile. He wouldn’t get up from these couch cushions. He sure as hell wasn’t going to knock on thatdoor. He returned to his photo roll and deleted a few hundred images off the Nikon’s memory chip. He forced his brain to focus on framing angles and levels of light saturation. On brainless plankton, too, counting their almost-invisible specks. . . and eventually—eventually—sometime around two o’clock he’d managed to wrestle his shots into order and his body temperature down.

Between clicking from one cloudy picture of purple urchins to the next, he blinked awake to Monday’s daylight.

The bedroom door was still closed; their octopus hadn’t slithered over to crank open its knob overnight in a daring escape from her tank. In fact, she was still sleeping within a nest of her own arms in the coral. The bungalow’s shellacked clock pointed toSunscreen: five in the morning. So Wes retrieved his camera from where it had gotten wedged between the couch cushions, grabbed his photography bag, and stepped into the kitchen to start the kettle. He piled cleaning sprays, lens ports, and strobes onto the counter, plus a laminated sheet of Monterey Bay species. Then, while water pattered on the stove, he pulled his hair into an elastic, popped in his earbuds to review an audio transcript of his MORI project, and got started on equipment maintenance.

Assignment (50 dive hours, 1,500 high-resolution images): photographer will document the Monterey Oceanic Research Institute’s ecological restoration work in the Monterey Bay marine forest region, with supplementary documentation of the intertidal zones as appropriate. Private property restrictions must be observed. Fauna of interest:Enhydra lutris nereis(com.: California sea otter),Aurelia aurita(com.: moon jellyfish)—

The rash discoloring his shoulders, back, and calves twinged.

—Octopus bimaculoides(com.: California two-spot octopus).

“You’ve got the paparazzi on your trail,” he called to the octopus, just as Isabel stepped into the kitchen.

She stopped, eyes wide and dipping down, then very quickly away from him. “Um.”

Shit.

A jolt of adrenaline pummeled his stomach. He was still in his boxers, and shirtless. Not that she hadn’t seen him bare-chested and mostly bare-assed before. But this time she was wearing slouchy jeans belted under her sweatshirt. A flannel collar peeked out against her throat, work boots swung from her shoulder by their laces, and her hair was braided back and threaded through a baseball cap. She had a small smear of sunscreen under her right ear.

So competent. So damn beautiful.

Boxers were totally inadequate for containing his body’s response.

The refrigerator door squealed when he yanked it open. Wes whacked his shins, but at least shielded himself from the waist down. A blast of arctic air escaped into the overheated room. His voice cracked, too loud with MORI’s assignment instructions still playing through his earbuds. “Sorry—I,uh, lost track of time. Give me two minutes and I’ll be ready to—to drive to Moss Landing?”

Isabel’s chin jerked, eyes still averted. “I’ll feed the octopus.”

“Thanks.” Cursing silently, he covered himself with his waterproof species list and his camera bag in a sidling route tothe living room. Isabel ducked into the refrigerator for a handful of sea snails. As he extracted gear from his duffel and slathered his own sunscreen over blisters and ink, urging his brain to focus on water temperatures—cold, very cold, colder than the refrigerator, very, very, very cold—instead of that creamy smear on her neck, he willed his voice not to wobble again and told her, “I’ll call the courthouse on our way over to MORI. Sound good?”

She emerged with the two-spot’s breakfast. Her gaze flickered so briefly over his board shorts that he might have imagined it. Then she dropped gastropods into the tank for their drowsy octopus. “Yes. We need to schedule a date as soon as possible.”