Tease (10 page)

Pura Vida

“What does that mean?” I asked him, tracing over the letters with my finger.

“Live purely. It’s a popular saying in Costa Rica.”

“It’s beautiful.”

He nodded. “Kind of embodies the way I try to live.”

“The whole surfer dude attitude, huh?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Hmm, I sense a story.”

“No story, not really. My parents fought a lot when I was growing up. Never really in front of me, but when they thought I couldn’t see. Kids always see that kind of stuff, even when they aren’t looking, you know?”

I nodded and rested my head against his shoulder as he spoke.

“Eventually they got divorced, and both of them were so much happier, so much nicer to everyone around them. It taught me that people shouldn’t make life so hard. If they aren’t happy, they should change it. They should do what makes them happy. We only get so long in life, why spend any of that time being with people who are bad for you or doing things you don’t really want to do?”

“How old are you?” I asked, thinking he sounded pretty wise for someone that looked so young.

“Twenty-three.”

“No college?”

“School isn’t really my thing.”

“Art is though,” I said, reaching out once more to finger the design on his board. “You painted this design, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“So you surf by day and bartend by night.”

“Sometimes I give surf lessons and I’ve made a couple custom boards and done some artwork for some friends. Bartending at night just frees up my days, and the money is pretty good so I can save up for that surf and board shop I was telling you about.”

“The view’s not bad either, right?”

He laughed. “Yeah, the view doesn’t hurt.”

“Have you ever dated a stripper?” When I took the job at the Mad Hatter I never thought about what other people would think, probably because I hadn’t planned on telling anyone. I certainly hadn’t thought about what a guy would think—a guy that I might want to date.
Date.
Did I want to date Cam?

Oh yeah.

I got this uneasy feeling, not because I wanted to date him, but because I thought he might not see me as relationship material because I took my clothes off for other men. How could he respect someone like that? How could he be okay with it?

“Define date,” he replied, giving me an ornery grin.

I sat up and gave his shoulder a shove. “Spent any time with one with clothes on.”

“Then, no, I don’t think I’ve dated a stripper.”

I nodded, my suspicions confirmed. I guess I couldn’t really blame him. I probably wouldn’t get in line to date a stripper either. Heat flooded my cheeks when I thought about earlier this morning. I’d certainly enjoyed his hands and mouth all over me. He probably thought I was some loose floozy who had sex all the time and took off her clothes for everyone.

“Hey,” he said. “Where’d you go?”

“Nowhere. I’m still here.”

His eyes narrowed on my face. “You know just because I haven’t dated a stripper doesn’t mean I
wouldn’t
.”

I didn’t answer because it seemed like every answer I could give would be the wrong one. If I said “good,” then that would imply that I was trying to date him. And seeing as how we just met, he might think I’m some crazy stalker. But if I told him my real thoughts, about how strippers might not be good girlfriend material, I would basically be insulting myself (not to mention Roxie and all the other girls at the club).

“So you actually going to get on this thing?” he asked, patting the surfboard.

“Well, I do owe you.”

He flashed a grin and stood, reaching for my hand to pull me up with him. He used one hand to pull off his T-shirt and toss it into the sand next to my bag. He eyed my cover-up so I slid it off, letting it fall around my ankles and then kicking it over beside his shirt.

“Day-um,” he said, a low whistle slipping between his teeth.

The desire from earlier that still swirled inside me threatened to overtake me like a really strong tidal wave, and I did my best to ignore it as his eyes perused every single curve of my body. I adjusted the string bikini bottoms and then the top. The string around my neck had loosened and I turned my back to him and pointed to the string at the back of my neck. “Can you tie this a little tighter?”

His warm fingers felt like a soft caress to the back of my neck and I resisted the urge to shudder. Geez, he was going to think I was a nympho if I kept reacting like this every time he touched me. He worked awfully slow, untying the top completely, adjusting the strings, and then retying them snuggly at the base of my neck.

“How am I supposed to forget about this morning when you’re wearing the sexiest bikini I’ve ever seen?” he whispered into my ear from behind.

“Want me to put on your shirt?”

“Hell no. The thought of all this,” he said, running his hands across my shoulders and then down my sides to play with the ties at my hips, “rubbing against my shirt could quite possibly send me over the edge.”

“I have a cure for that,” I said, turning and smiling at him ruefully. I grabbed his hand and tugged him a few feet toward the water just as a swell rushed up and splashed over our feet and up our calves.

“It’s cold!” I squealed.

“It’s not that bad,” he scoffed.

“So you’re a morning person
and
you like cold showers?” I said, making an appalled face. “We can’t hang out. You’re like an alien to me.”

He grabbed me around the waist and tossed me over his shoulder, wading farther into the waves. I pounded on his back with my fists, demanding he put me down.

“You asked for it,” he called over the sound of crashing water.

I started to protest, but it was too late.

He dumped me into the surf.

I slipped under as the chilly salt water closed around me. I started to stand and a wave chose that moment to pummel me, knocking me off my feet and tossing me around in the churning dark water.

Strong arms wound around my waist and towed me up, pulling me against his chest. I sputtered, wiping the water from my eyes and pushing my saturated hair out of my face.

“Harlow, are you okay? I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, the concern in his voice genuine. Another wave crashed over us and his arms tightened around me and he turned so it broke into his back and his body shielded me from the worst of it.

“Harlow?” he said again once the waves calmed.

I pushed back and looked up, hiding my grin. He was watching me warily, probably wondering if I was going to dissolve into tears.

I launched myself at him, a cry slipping from my lips. I leapt, wrapping my legs around his waist as he caught me, but he wasn’t ready for my weight and we both toppled over into the water. We both surfaced several seconds later, both of us still sitting on the sandy floor and laughing.

Our little water war lasted for a while, both of us splashing and leaping at the other. When we tired of the game, we let the waves carry us to shore and I waited while he grabbed his board and brought it out to the water.

“First rule of surfing,” he instructed. “Don’t fall off.”

“Ha. Ha.” I said. “Something tells me it won’t be that easy.”

He launched into a really thorough but entertaining breakdown of the basics of surfing. Before I knew it, he had me on the board and I was learning how to balance and stand. It wasn’t easy, staying on a very buoyant moving object in choppy water took a lot of muscle tone that I unfortunately didn’t possess.

As we played, the tide began to come in, the waves getting just a little bit rougher. After a mouthful of awful-tasting water, I sat on the sand bar that had formed in the water and told him to show me his moves.

He didn’t hesitate and grabbed up the board, wading farther out into the deeper water to catch a wave. I couldn’t help but admire the way he looked with his waterlogged board shorts hanging low on his hips, plastered to his butt and thighs, and his broad shoulders glistening under the rising morning sun as droplets of water trailed down over his corded muscles.

He knew the water. He understood the waves. He moved so confidently and assuredly I could have called him the water whisperer. He was so in tune with the surf that he seemed to understand exactly how each wave would crest and how to follow it expertly.

Suddenly, getting up at six a.m. seemed like the best thing I’d ever done.

After catching a few waves, he slid to a stop beside me. “Want to give it one more shot?”

“Sure,” I said, and he wrapped his hand around mine, keeping hold of it while we jumped over waves.

I could get used to this.

Early morning kisses, coffee on the beach, playing in the sun and the sand. Cam was definitely on to something with the whole “Pura Vida” thing. Of course, none of this would have been as much fun if he wasn’t with me.

“Looks like a good one’s coming in,” he said, pointing out into the distance where a wave was just beginning to form.

He positioned the board and me, repeating what to do one more time as the wave traveled closer. Then he was yelling for me to go, to catch the wave.

His passion was catching and so I went, concentrating on everything he showed me, wanting to make him proud.

And then I jumped up on the board, my legs wobbly and threatening to collapse as cool sea air sprayed my skin. I was afraid I might fall, but I held firm as I coasted along with the wave. I smiled. It was incredible.

Behind me, Cam let out a great whoop and I turned to smile at him.

That was my mistake.

I stopped concentrating. I wasn’t paying attention. Well, I was paying attention, just not to what I was doing.

The surfboard crashed into the sand bar where I’d just been sitting and I went flying, plunging into the churning, dark waves.

8

Washed up. That’s exactly how I felt in the moment. The waves were punishing, tumbling over me every single time I thought I found my footing. The sand beneath me would feel like concrete in one moment; then the next it would give way like a sink hole and suck me farther into the water.

I flailed my arms about, trying to swim toward the surface, trying to break free, but because of the way I was being pounded, I began to lose which way was up.

I opened my eyes, trying to discern the direction, but all I could see was cloudy water that would suddenly turn white when a new wave crashed around me. I fought hard, twisting and turning, holding off the panic that sank into me like a set of icy, sharp claws.

When I finally managed to break the surface and gasp for air, I was punished by yet another huge swell of water that shoved me back under with the force of a bulldozer.

And then my legs were somehow above my head and I was sinking, sinking until the back of my head struck something so unforgiving that my struggling ceased.

Even though I stopped moving, my body did not. It was still being tugged at by the very greedy sea.

Finally I settled, sinking to the hard-packed sand where I rested my cheek against the warmth.

The water hadn’t been this warm moments ago.

The sand didn’t feel quite as gritty as it usually did.

And the sound… the sound of the waves seemed farther away.

“Breathe, damn it!” someone yelled. “
Breathe!
”

I began to cough—my throat making these retching gurgling sounds—and then water began to ooze out of my mouth. I was thrust onto my side as the water continued to come up and I continued to cough.

When the water was gone, oxygen arrived. It filled my lungs completely. What was once empty was now overfull. I gasped in great breaths, relief pouring through my body and making me sink back onto the ground.

“Harlow,” a voice said.

It was a really good voice and my body rolled toward it.

“Baby, open your eyes.”

I did, blinking away the water that made my vision blurry and squinting against the sun peeking through a cloud.

“Cam?” I said. The back of my throat burned and so did my nose.

His face was pale, his hair plastered to his forehead, and he was hunching forward over me like I needed some kind of shield.

I almost drowned.

I groaned. “There went my surfer of the year award,” I whined.

His laugh was strained as his arms encircled me and dragged my sand-crusted body into his lap. “I think you just took about ten years off my life.”

“I’m sorry.”

“This isn’t your fault,” he said, stroking my cheek. “I should never have set you loose on that wave. The water was getting too rough.”

“I had a good time,” I protested, trying to sit up. Pain shot through my head. “Until I hit my head.”

“You hit your head?” he said frantically as his fingers sank into my hair.

I yelped.

“Fuck,” he swore. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“If it wasn’t for you, I’d be shark bait right about now.”

I felt a faint shudder move through his limbs when they tightened around me. “I tried to get there sooner. The current grabbed you and pulled you away.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t,” he said, his voice hard. He slipped his arm under my shoulders. “Can you sit up? I need to check your head.”

I did and then lifted my fingers to where my skull throbbed.

Cam brushed away my fingers and then gently probed the area I pointed out. “You’re not bleeding, thank God,” he announced. “But you have a knot the size of a walnut back here.”

“I’ll live.”

“I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“I don’t need to go to the hospital. I’m fine.” Not to mention, I wasn’t going spend all the money I just made on a doctor bill.

“You could have a concussion.”

“I don’t.”

“Does anything else hurt?”

“No.”

“Can you stand?”

“If you want me to stand, you have to release the death grip you have on my body.”

He released me and stood, gingerly helping me to my feet. I really didn’t feel that bad, just a little dizzy and very water logged. He put his arm around my waist and supported some of my weight as we walked over toward our stuff.

“Wonder what time it is?” I said and bent to retrieve my cell phone from my bag. Bending over wasn’t a good idea, as all the blood rushed to my head way to fast and I swayed.

“Whoa,” Cam said, pulling me back up. Then his mouth pulled into a grim line. “We’re going to the doctor.”

“I have to work at ten,” I protested.

“Call in and tell them you can’t make it.”

“I can’t do that! I might get fired.”

“They aren’t going to fire you for having a head injury.”

“I can’t miss work.” I worried, thinking about the money I’d be losing.

Cam pretty much ignored me and grabbed up my cover-up and then gently pulled it over my head. I lifted my arms and he pulled it down, adjusting it so it covered my bikini.

“Sit down for a second. I’m going to go grab my board down by the water. Then we’ll go.”

It felt good to sit down. My body was so incredibly tired. I suddenly felt like I’d just spent ten rounds in a boxing ring and I lost every single one of them.

Cam returned, tossed on his shirt, and grabbed up my bag and his board. “Wait here,” he said as he jogged it all toward the car.

I got up, brushing away what I could of the sand and followed after him. I made it about twenty feet when everything kind of tilted on me. I stopped walking and just focused on the ground, pushing away the worst of the dizziness.

Cam appeared, slowly picking me up and carrying me to the Mustang. I wasn’t about to complain because he was touching me and I loved when he touched me.

He didn’t say anything as he sat me in the passenger seat and buckled the seat belt around my body. Before he pulled away, he pressed a tender kiss on my lips.

“What was that for?” I asked.

“It wasn’t for you. It was for me.”

Well, if that wasn’t just the most perfect thing he could say. Like ever.

I pretty much replayed those words in my head until he pulled into the parking lot of some kind of medical clinic. “We don’t need to be here.”

“Humor me.”

I sighed. And gave in. There wasn’t one woman on this earth that still had ovaries that wouldn’t have given in to his pleading, concerned stare.

Before going inside, I called my boss and explained that I fell and hit my head and was currently at the doctor being looked at for a concussion (I certainly wasn’t going to tell him that I was out surfing before work). I thought he would be angry about it being only an hour before my shift started, but he was very understanding and asked me to bring in a doctor’s slip clearing me for work and being out in the heat when I came to work next.

“Well, at least now I can be home to help Roxie move in,” I said as we walked through the parking lot.

“Roxie’s moving in with you?”

“Yeah. She kicked her cheating boyfriend to the curb and I needed a roommate to help cover rent.”

“Wonder what Adam will say about her newly single status?”

“Why would Adam care?” I asked, watching him out of the corner of my eye.

“I see the way he sometimes looks at her.”

“Probably the same way she looks at him.”

He opened the door to the clinic and ushered me inside, depositing me in a chair and then insisting on checking me in. I settled into the seat and got ready for a wait. All these clinics had a wait. It was the most annoying thing ever.

My phone started ringing, the sound partially muffled from inside my bag. I pulled it out just as Cam was sitting down in the chair right beside mine. The phone rang again and I glanced at the screen and groaned.

It was my mother.

Third time she tried to call this week.

I shut off the ringer and stuffed it back into my bag, promising myself I would call her back after we left the doctor.

“Didn’t feel like talking?” Cam asked, casually draping his arm across the back of my chair. I leaned toward him. The air-conditioner in here was set to arctic.

“It was my mother,” I said, like that explained it all.

“You two don’t get along?”

“Actually, we do. But my mother has very clear ideas about how she thinks I should be living my life. Being here isn’t really one of them.”

He arched a brow. “She didn’t want you to go to college?”

“Maybe community college or a technical school in Beaufort. But moving to Myrtle Beach to study psychology? She didn’t approve.”

“She give a reason?”

“I think she just wanted me close by where she could give an opinion on every aspect of my life. She wanted me to work at a bank, settle down, and get married. Be like her. There isn’t anything wrong with that. It just isn’t what I wanted.”

“Seems like you have a little
Pura Vida
of your own.” The way he said those two words… they flowed silkily with a slight roll of his tongue. I leaned into his side just a little closer.

The nurse came out of the side door at the front of the waiting room and called my name. I should have known. The one time I actually didn’t mind sitting around and waiting was the one time they called me right back.

Cam stood when I did and I gave him a surprised look. “I’m going with you,” he said in a voice that left no room for argument.