Page 16 of Down Shift (Driven 8)
“Which part—the naked part, the sock part, or the holding-me-at-wand-point part?”
Images flash through my mind. Visuals of his physical perfection accompanied by the pangs of desire I refuse to acknowledge flickering to life. Ones I don’t think I ever felt with Ethan. “How about none of them?”
“Good. That’s good to know. Since they will no longer appear, then neither will my good mood.” He holds a beer up, offering it to me, taunting smirk in place. I just shake my head to decline, but the widening smile on his face and the humor in his eyes slowly win me over.
“Liar,” I say playfully, but something flashes across his face and is momentarily lost in the shadow cast by the bill of his hat. He looks out to the ocean and I sense that my comment unintentionally touched a nerve.
“If you want to talk about lying, let’s just go there. Why did you come to the island?”
“Why did you come here?” It’s an immediate knee-jerk reaction on my part: my wont to avoid talking about me. Hide the skeletons that need to remain buried in the closet.
“The Socratic method thing doesn’t work for me, Socks.”
“And your point is?”
“And yet another question to answer my question?” He lifts his eyebrows.
“I thought you didn’t want to do the wasted-breath bullshit thing. Weren’t those your words?”
“Yet another question?” he says, but when I just stare at him, he bobs his head up and down a little before relenting. “Well, yeah . . . But I was rude, and I waited out here to tell you so, because I owed you an apology.”
“Oh.” The sound falls from my mouth, my mind taken aback by this change of events. I know mood swings, am used to tempers being flipped on at the flick of a switch, but apologies are not something I’m familiar with. And I can tell that even though he means the words, they still make him uncomfortable. “Ah, and the good mood returns.”
He laughs at my persistence. The sheepish look on his face is such a stark contrast to his dark hair shadowed in the streetlight, and I hate that a tiny part of my frozen heart thaws at the sight. Taking me by complete surprise, he grabs my hand and tugs slightly so that I stumble forward to wherever he is leading. And I do stumble. Not because he pulled with such force, but rather because the minute his hand touches mine, I swear it feels like my entire body has been shocked with an electric current.
Normally I’d roll my eyes at someone who made a comment like that, say she’s overreacting and playing up the whole I-obsess-over-Regency-romances-so-much-I-have-a-wall-lined-with-bookshelves-to-store-them, but I can’t this time. Because this is me. And it just happened. That unmistakable zap of chemistry. My neurons catching fire. The stilted hitch of breath in reaction.
And for a split second I think he feels it too. Because with our arms stretched between us, fingers linked, we stand motionless under the glow of the streetlight. Time stops and for that fraction of a second, we see each other in a completely different way. I avert my eyes. Want to shake it off. But when I glance back, there’s something in the way he looks at me—interest, intrigue, desire—that tells me I need to sit down and have a beer with him on the beach.
“Maybe just a smidgen of a good mood,” he teases; his words break through the sexual tension crackling in the air and bring me back to reality, where chemistry doesn’t ignite and touches don’t make you want. And yet I want. “C’mon, Getty, let’s go sit on the beach, share a beer, and talk about crap that doesn’t matter, since we’re both intent on keeping our reasons for being here close to the vest.”
“You mean you want to bullshit?” I feign shock, since that was the one thing he was insistent that we avoid.
“Mmm-hmm. Exactly that. Bullshit. Too bad it’s so cold or I’d go make you jump in the water with me, the proper island welcome, or so I was told by the locals tonight. It could be our way of—”
“Breaking the ice?” I finish for him, and tuck my tongue in my cheek at my lame attempt at humor.
“Ahhh, look at that, the lady has some jokes.”
“You better be careful,” I say as I realize my feet have started moving without my consent and are following him the short distance toward the sand. “I see a glimpse of the nonmoody Zander again.”
“Shit. I guess I need to summon Mander back up.”
“Mander?”
“Moody Zander. Mander.” He raises his eyebrows like he has absolutely no insecurities over his manhood in calling himself that ridiculous moniker.
And I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’m exhausted from work, that Zander is making me laugh with his silly humor, or that for the first time since I’ve arrived to PineRidge Island, I don’t want to head back to the heavy silence of an empty house, but his comment, his poking fun at himself, causes the guard I’ve been holding up so high to slip a little.
Laughter I haven’t felt or heard in so very long bubbles out and over. Tears fill my eyes. The sound rings around us and melds with the soft crash of the waves on the shore. I hold my hands up as if I’m telling him to stop, but in reality I’m not sure what I’m doing other than making fun of his ludicrousness.
When I come back to myself, Zander is staring at me over the top of his can of beer. “You done yet?”
“Not hardly, Mander.”
A lopsided smirk tugs up the corner of his mouth. “You can’t make fun of me and then not sit and have a beer with me. Mander rules.” He holds a can out to me and after I stare at it and then back at him, I relent.
“I don’t really drink—” I stop myself when he gives me puppy dog eyes. “Fine. Just one.”
