“Um, no. It feels…good.”
He let that go, told himself not to overthink the word good. He felt all around her lower leg and when he didn’t sense anything out of the ordinary, he shrugged. “I guess we’ll see when you stand. You need to get up anyway. Daylight only lasts so long.”
Happy to get away from her, he pushed to his feet. Instinct had him holding out his hand before he thought better of it.
She slid her fingers into his palm. The same fingers that had just touched and squeezed her naked breast. Electricity zinged up his arm and heated his skin all over again.
He let go quickly. “Try walking around.”
She reached out to the wall and tentatively took a step with her bad leg. Slowly she made her way down the length of the wall.
“How is it?”
She turned at the corner and made her way back. “Okay. Whatever spell you cast seems to have worked. For now.”
“Well, I am a half witch, Princess. Maybe you’ll luck out and it’ll break all over again.”
A hurt look rushed across her face. She glanced to the side, crossed her arms under her breasts. “What’s all that?”
He wasn’t going to feel guilty. “Supplies.”
“From where?”
“Crates that washed up on the beach from some sort of shipwreck.”
He moved for the blankets and tossed a small box her way. She caught it with two hands. “The most I could find was junk food and some toiletries. But it’s better than nothing.”
She looked down at the box, turned it, and read the word Crest on the side. “Toothpaste? You found toothpaste?” She ripped the box open and rubbed the minty paste all over her teeth, then moaned as if she’d just eaten the most decadent dessert or experienced the most pleasurable orgasm.
The image of her head kicked back in pleasure rushed into his mind. And just that fast his cock jumped to alert.
Damn. Time to refocus. Again.
He turned away and pointed off toward the trees. “There’s a stream through there. We’re going to need water. I brought up some plastic buckets I found.”
“What about those creatures?”
He grabbed the buckets and headed out toward the front of the ruins. “We’re safe in the daylight. The creatures on this island are nocturnal.”
She struggled to keep up, but he didn’t slow his pace. The more distance he put between them right now the better.
“What do you mean, nocturnal?” she asked at his back. “That harpy came out into the sun. So did that boar.”
“I didn’t say they were vampires who couldn’t go out in the sun. I said they’re nocturnal. They rest during the day, hunt at night. I need to run back down to the beach and gather the rest of what we’ll need.”
She trailed along behind. “I’ll go with you.”
No way. He needed to be alone right now. “I’ll take you to the river, help you fill the buckets. You should be able to carry them back on your own. While you do that I’ll go to the beach and get the rest of the supplies.”
She didn’t argue, which was the first thing she’d done all morning that didn’t amp him up. But after five minutes of her slowly picking her way around rocks and limbs and anything that might send her off balance, he realized that at this rate it was going to take them an hour to reach the stream.
“Oh, for crying out loud.” He turned back and swooped her up in his arms. Then regretted it, because white-hot heat erupted everywhere their bodies touched. He ground his teeth together.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Fucking fantastic.”
“You don’t look fantastic.”
His face burned. It was all he could do to keep his eyes off her and on the path in front of them. “I’ll be better when I’m back on the beach.” And away from you. And your body. And oh, shit, stop thinking about her hot little body.
She was silent a moment, then asked, “Um…so how do you know those crates are from a shipwreck?”
Finally, a topic not related to sex. “Know much about Pandora?”
“Obviously not. Before yesterday I thought it was mostly myth.”
“Pandora exists in the human realm, but no one’s ever been able to find it.”
“That’s a little convenient, don’t you think?”
A sexy crease wrinkled her forehead and he took a deep breath to avoid looking at her full-on. “Imagine what an unsuspecting human would think if they landed here by accident.”
“I see your point.”
“The first guardians trapped the monsters here and then sealed off the island.”
“With what? And by whom?”
He frowned. “Are you always full of a thousand questions?”
“Always. As the future leader of our realm, I find it interesting no one’s bothered mentioning any of this to me. Aside from a few brief history lessons in school, this is news.”
“Your father probably didn’t think it was a big deal. Like I said, no one’s ever been able to find it. The area around Pandora messes with electronic readings of any ships and planes that venture into the area.”
“You mean like the Bermuda Triangle?”
“You know about the oddities in the Caribbean?”
“Who doesn’t? Another myth.”
“Most civilizations are rooted in myth. Ours as well. And many that disappeared from the map are also entrenched in myth.”
“Wait. You mean like Atlantis? Are you saying Atlantis is somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle? That that’s the reason for the strange shipwrecks and disappearing planes in the region?”
He shrugged. “I don’t have proof. But yeah, that’s what most of us think.”
“‘Most of us.’ As in the Argonauts?”
He didn’t answer, but he also didn’t miss the shocked expression on her face. As she pondered the ramifications of that, he kept his mouth shut and kept walking.
Finally they reached the stream. He set her down and moved off to crouch by the edge and splash as much cold water on his face and arms and chest as he could. Not the same as dunking himself in the ocean, but it was better than nothing.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.
“I told you I was fucking fantastic. Stop asking the same damn questions over again.”
“You must like that word. Fucking. You use it a lot.”
The sound of her dainty lips uttering that one graphic word reignited the erotic image from earlier in his mind, then triggered an all-new one: her naked on all fours in front of him. His body pressed in tight behind her, thrusting deep while she mouthed the word fucking again and again.
Blood pounded straight into his cock. He grew hard in an instant. The only thing that kept him from losing it was the fact he was angled away from her and couldn’t see her face.
Focus, breathe, stay in control.
He dropped the buckets by the edge of the water and rose as fast as he could. He had to get out of here. He couldn’t stay. And he definitely couldn’t give in and show her just how much he really did like that word.
“Don’t linger,” Demetrius said again as he looked anywhere but where Isadora wanted him to look.
“I won’t.” What was wrong with him? He was avoiding eye contact like he was the one who had something to be embarrassed about, not her.
Thank the gods he hadn’t seen what she’d done in the ruins. Heat rushed to her cheeks all over again. If he’d been just a few minutes earlier…