Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

Amelia

After a very brief meal as the restaurant was closing, Van and I ride the elevator in silence up to our room.

Our one room.

Though I started yawning heavily and almost fell asleep while eating my grilled shrimp salad, I am suddenly wide awake and tense. For the first time pretty much all day, aside from when he was listening to me in the bathroom, Van is quiet. Other than the crinkle of the plastic bags carrying all of our current worldly possessions, the elevator ride is painfully silent. I almost wish for terrible instrumental versions of pop songs to play through the speakers.

Twisting Mom's ring, I try to look at Van without turning my head, but I can only see his black dress shoes, winking as he shifts his weight.

Is he as nervous about this as I am?

Because despite how comfortable I feel with Van, we're about to share a single hotel room with a single bed.

Both of which turn out to be even smaller than I expected.

I mean, I knew it wouldn't be the suite Drew showed me pictures of when he booked the resort. But I also didn't expect a space barely big enough to fit a bed and a couch.

"That's not a king bed," I blurt. "Is it?"

Van is frozen just outside the door, like he's a vampire, needing an invitation to enter. His eyes scan the room, landing on the bed. "No," he agrees. "Not unless there's such a thing as a Florida king, which is somewhere between a twin and a double."

"It's fine," I say, as much to myself as to him. "We'll try to get a manager or something to move us to the suite tomorrow."

"Right," he says. "Tomorrow." He's still standing just outside, keeping the door propped open with one dress shoe.

"Are you coming in?" I ask.

He starts to step inside, then hesitates, his eyes meeting mine. "Are you sure you're okay with this?"

I wonder which part of this he means. The this where I'm sharing a room with a man I've spent a sum-total of less than twenty-four hours with in my whole life?

Or the this where we're practically going to be sleeping on top of each other?

Probably not the this where I'm feeling an unsettling attraction toward him.

I can only hope he can't tell. Because the last thing I want is for Van to think I'm looking for some kind of rebound hookup. Or any kind of rebound.

"We're both adults," I tell him, but the crack in my voice undermines my words, making me sound like a teenage boy in the middle of puberty.

"Right," he agrees.

When he still doesn't move, I drop my bags on the bed and stride the four steps it takes to get to the door, dragging Van inside by his shirt sleeve. It seems important right now that I touch fabric, not skin.

The door slams behind him. A very final sound. One that has me swallowing hard and smiling too wide. Because the room suddenly feels like a trash compactor, the walls inching closer and closer as all oxygen seeps from the room.

We are standing in the narrowest part of the room, between the bathroom door and a tiny closet. Only one lamp near the bed offers any light in the room. Should have thought of that before I yanked him in here. Van's face looks dangerously handsome cast in shadow, his eyes inky and dark as they hold my gaze with an intensity I can't quite read.

Whatever exhaustion I felt during our meal downstairs has evaporated completely. I am now wired. It feels as though every cell in my body has been activated, and they're all tiny satellites, tuned to Van.

"Night swimming," I blurt, and he blinks like I've broken him out of a trance.

"What?"

"We should go swimming. Now."

"You're not tired?" he asks.

"Not anymore. Are you?"

Slowly, he shakes his head. When he speaks, it's in a rough rasp. "Not even a little."

"Then it's settled." I dart back to the bed, grab the two bags with my new Walmart digs, and sidestep Van on my way to the bathroom.

Before I can step inside, his fingers curl around my wrist. "Hey," he says, whatever expression his face held moments before replaced with a divot between his brows and concern in his dark eyes. "Are you sure you don't want to sleep? You practically face-planted into your salad at dinner."

"I …"

Glancing around at anything but Van—the watercolor of a beach scene, the little metal sprinkler in the ceiling, the emergency exit map on the back of the door—I try to locate an answer. I'd rather not admit how uncomfortable I feel. Which has nothing to do with not trusting Van and everything to do with not trusting my feelings. Or my decisions. Or my hands, which practically shake with the desire to touch him.

"I don't want to sleep," I say finally.

Van waits, like he can tell there's more. And there is.

"Because when I wake up tomorrow, I think this all might hurt more," I whisper.

While I am nervous about sharing this tiny space with the big man still clasping my wrist, I'm surprised by this truth, which I just confessed so easily.

"Today is like a weird bubble," I continue, my words gathering momentum as they fall out of me like a long line of dominoes tipping into one another. "Doesn't it feel like it's been ten days?"

"It does. And also like it went by really quickly."

"Tomorrow is the start of a whole new chapter. It will all be real," I explain. "And I'm not ready."

Van nods, though I'm not even sure if this makes sense and is a very deep thought or if it's pure nonsense stemming from emotional overwhelm and the late hour. His fingertip brushes over the inside of my wrist before he releases me, and the champagne bubbles in my blood return with a vengeance. I'm practically drowning in them.

It's not a bad way to go.

"Then we put off tomorrow in favor of today," Van says with a grin. "Suit up, Mills. I'll race ya."

The only problem with this is that the water of today is much colder than I suspect the water of tomorrow will be.

"It's freezing!" I shriek.

Van only smirks, backing deeper into the water, his expression a clear challenge. "If you put more than your pinky toe in, maybe you'd get used to it."

"Shut up. You skate on ice for a living. Do you even feel cold?"

"I feel nothing," he says.

I roll my eyes, taking the tiniest of steps forward, sucking in a breath as a wave submerges me up to my ankles. Surprisingly, we aren't the only late-night beachgoers. A few other couples walk hand-in-hand along the shore, and there are two people making out in a lounge chair. Just down the beach, employees are cleaning up after a wedding. I have to swallow down a knee-jerk emotional reaction as a man on a stepladder takes down flowers draped over an archway.

Forcing my eyes away, my gaze snags on Van. It's a much better view.

I tried not to stare when he dropped his shirt in the sand a few minutes before, but now, I look my fill. He's broad and bulky. Solid and strong. And I can finally see his full tattoo, which is a dragon tattooed across one of his pecs and extending down his ribs.

Flames shoot from his open mouth, and thin plumes of smoke curl out of his nostrils almost to his collarbone. It's all done in delicate black lines, save the golden eye of the dragon, which is done so that no matter where I move, it's always watching me.

The whole thing is gorgeous.

If we were living in a fantasy novel, the tattoo would be some kind of enchanted creature. Like a familiar—a magical guardian that would be able to peel itself away from Van's body and come to life. An inky companion.

"Come on, Mills. Don't be scared."

Van cups his hand and arcs a spray of water my way. I squeal and jump back. But when he laughs, a deep, low sound of amusement I can feel all the way down in my toes, something snaps.

I practically rip the thin coverup over my head and sprint into the water.

Running into a much-too-cold ocean while sporting a neon-green Walmart bikini whose seams I don't quite trust?

Not on my bucket list.

More like on my nope list.

But Van's teasing, his challenge, and most especially, his laughter, emboldens me. He has that effect, like he is somehow able to reach in and tug at the heart of me. I can feel something shifting, lighting up as Van sends sparks of life into what was cold and dead.

Okay—that's a little dramatic. Into what was dormant . Not dead.

"Uh oh," Van says, backing up until he's waist-deep, just past where the waves curl and break. "Looks like I woke the beast."

"Are you calling me a beast?" I ask, feigning outrage. I stop a few feet away, hands on my hips, rocking a little as waves slap gently at my middle.

His smile widens. "Are you fishing for a compliment, Mills?"

"No." Was I? "But I'd prefer not to think of myself as beastly."

Especially on a day like today . I barely swallow rather than say those last words. Maybe I am fishing for compliments.

Or just a sense of being wanted, being desired. Even if, in the end, I didn't want Drew, he didn't want me first.

There's something about having a man choose someone else over you, or even choose someone else along with you in my case, that's shaking my confidence down to its roots. It sends thought cockroaches scurrying across my mind, the sort of worries and ideas that creep out in the darkness when you're lying in bed.

And I don't need Van seeing any more of my vulnerabilities when he's already been witness to so much humiliation.

There's a tight pinch in my chest, and suddenly, it's hard to catch my breath.

I may not have spoken the words, but I swear, Van knows. The smile slips from his space, and the crease reappears between his brows.

"Mills—" Van starts.

Before he can finish whatever pitying words he's about to say, I dive beneath the surface.

The shock is exactly what I need to zap away the icky feelings. I can't give weight to the unwanted emotions when all I can feel is cold .

Kicking off the sandy bottom, I swim toward where Van stood, hands outstretched. Almost immediately, my fingertips brush Van's calf.

He has the reflexes of a cat—or, I guess, or of a hockey player—and darts to the left. But not quickly enough. I wrap both arms around his knees and push off the bottom, lifting his legs off the ground and sending him toppling backwards as I surface.

Thank you, buoyancy and the Archimedes principle. And high school physics, I guess, for teaching me these terms I've never thought about until now.

The moment Van tips over, I release him and duck back under water, kicking away. When I come up for air, he's already back on his feet, sputtering and gasping, frantically scanning the water. His eyes land on me, and I can visibly see his shoulders sink with what looks like relief.

Was he worried about me?

Just as quickly, his eyes narrow and his expression shifts to something darker and dangerous. Keeping his gaze pinned on me, he shakes water from his hair, tilting his head to one side then the other, like he's clearing out water from his ears.

I grin. Sorry, not sorry, big guy.

"Quite a display of strength there, Mills. And subterfuge."

"Quite a display of vocabulary."

"I told you; I like to read," Van says, and before I start to pick that statement apart with a million questions about his reading, he speaks again. "Have you been lifting weights, Mills? Is wrestling your sport of choice?"

"Neither. I simply used the element of surprise combined with the effects of buoyancy against you. It's what happens when people call me a beast."

Van narrows his eyes and takes a step forward, his movement predatory. I take a step backward, my heart starting to hammer in my chest.

"You didn't let me finish," Van says, continuing to advance.

Slowly. Steadily. My heart feels as though it might fling itself right out of my chest as I continue to back away, needing to take two steps for each one of his.

"Oh? Did you have another insult to add?" I ask.

"Hardly."

But Van doesn't tell me whatever else he planned to say, and I can tell from the gleam of his smile that he knows it's driving me mad. I realize too late that Van has changed his angle, sidestepping until he's now between me and the shore, putting the deep water at my back. Which means I can only go so far. I'm already almost shoulder deep as he advances toward me.

I have no idea how well Van swims, but he's without a doubt more athletic than I am. I don't need to watch the droplets of water tracing a slow path over his pecs and down the start of his blocky abs to know how fit he is. My swimming prowess extends to some third- and fourth-place swim team ribbons when I was a kid. Somehow, I don't think breaststroke is going to help me now.

I may not need to watch, but I find myself mesmerized for just a moment by the ridges of muscle and—wait. Is he flexing his pecs on purpose?

My steps have slowed while I was distracted, allowing Van to get almost within reach.

I dart back and a little to the side, water sloshing up to my chin. "Stop that!"

"Stop what?" He laughs. "Chasing you? Or distracting you with my pecs?"

"Both."

"Maybe if you stopped ogling me?—"

"I wasn't ogling!" When he arches one dark brow, teeth gleaming in the moonlight, I splash him. "Fine! But I was?—"

Van leaps forward, cutting off my words as his hands grasp my waist. I shriek.

"Calm down or someone will think I'm murdering you," he says through a laugh, then lifts me like he's going to toss me.

"No! Please!" I beg, trying to find a handhold on his body. Aside from attaching myself to his torso like I'm a barnacle and he's the prow of a boat, I can't hold on. My fingers slip over his slick skin, struggling to hold onto the swell of his shoulders.

" No please , what?" Van asks, eyes gleaming and lips curving up in a smile.

"No, please don't throw me," I say, not even caring that I'm begging.

"Who said anything about throwing you?"

But even as the question is leaving his mouth, Van jerks me higher, loosening his grip like he's going to toss me, only to tighten it again. Such a tease. He pulls me back to his chest, laughing. I start to scream and one of his hands releases my waist to cover my mouth.

"No screaming," he says. I nip at his finger and he drops his hand, going back to gripping my waist. "And no biting."

"I make no promises," I tell him.

"Fine. If you don't like being tossed, how do you feel about spinning?"

Without waiting for my answer, Van adjusts his grip and starts to spin us. Tight circles pinwheeling through the water. My own personal spinning teacup ride.

Okay, this I don't mind.

I tilt my head back, reveling in the dizzying feeling of motion and the closeness of Van's solid body, the warmth and strength of his hands on me. There's too much light pollution to see many stars, but there are scattered pinpricks of light against the curtain of black sky.

It's a beautiful night, and I want to wrap it around me like a shawl. To revel in the lightness and joy sparking deep in my chest.

And to think—I was supposed to be married tonight.

Had my life gone according to plan, I would be here with Drew. Though, not here . Our flight was supposed to be tomorrow, and Drew is not a night swimming kind of guy.

And until now, I don't think I would have considered myself a night swimming kind of woman. Whatever we would have been doing, I'm so grateful I'm here instead.

As Van slows down and comes to a stop, staggering dramatically as though too dizzy to keep his balance—okay, maybe he actually is too dizzy to stay still—I brush his wet hair back from his forehead.

"Thank you," I tell him, tasting salt on my lips.

He tilts his head. "For not throwing you?"

"No. For making this fun instead of miserable. For giving up Vegas or whatever else you could have done on this break. I know your schedule will be ridiculous when you get back. You're giving up your time to be with someone you barely know."

"It doesn't feel that way," Van says.

"You mean it doesn't feel like you barely know me?"

It's the same for me. From the very start, Van felt like he wasn't new to me. Like he'd always been there, like an invisible seed making itself known in spring when shoots break through the surface, the roots already spreading wide.

"That—and giving up. This isn't a sacrifice, Mills. I'm having fun too."

There's an instant shift in the air between us, reminding me of the way a cold front blows in from the mountains, dropping the temperature rapidly with a few strong gusts of wind.

Now, we're staring at each other as though our gazes snagged and are linked together.

A lush headiness diffuses through my limbs as Van continues to stare. Because the way he's looking at me, it's almost like?—

No.

He can't want to kiss me.

He can't be feeling the same strong tug I am, a riptide drawing me out to sea.

The best way to fight a riptide , I remind myself, is not to fight .

You let it draw you away from shore, then when the riptide ceases, you swim parallel to the shore until you can come back in. My dad drilled that into me every beach trip we took. Which wasn't many. He had an irrational fear about riptides or, more likely, just about me drowning.

Is it bad to think about Van like a riptide? To stop fighting this pull?

If I let it take me out, when this attraction ends or when we go home or when he stops being so sweet and looking at me like he wants to kiss me, I can swim away and head back to shore. And to normalcy.

Then again, if he keeps looking at me like this, I'm not sure I'll survive it.

Maybe the rules of riptides should not apply here. I have a sneaking suspicion I'll be dragged out to sea, then left without the strength to get myself back to shore at all.

Fueled by a sudden sense of self-preservation—along with the need to not kiss this man on the day I was supposed to marry another one—I break the moment, shoving at his chest lightly.

"Shut up."

His gaze snaps from my mouth back to my eyes, and he loosens his grip on me, allowing my feet to touch sand again. I back away one step. Two.

"I didn't say anything," he says.

"You were thinking about it. Stop."

His smile is brighter than any star I can see. "You've got it. Whatever you ask for, Mills."

And I shiver, not because the cold of the water is finally seeping through my bones, but because I realize that in his simple offer of whatever I want, Van just gave me more than Drew ever did.