forgotten it was injured; but while Holden had been giving my breast such careful attention, I’d absentmindedly went to shift my weight from foot to foot, and a sharp pain in my ankle had been the result.
“When I heard the siren, it startled me, and I tripped on a piece of driftwood and twisted it or something. And I don’t think very bad, but...just bad enough to keep me from walking on it. Which is why I bounced right out of my top. I was kind of hopping on one foot to get back to the village.”
Frowning, Holden knelt to examine my ankle. “I’m so sorry. Instead of asking you what you were doing away from the village, my very first question should have been to ask you if you were okay.”
“Oh, it’s fine. You were upset, and I don’t blame you. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I feel terrible. Very first thing, I should have asked if you were okay.”
“Well, you can make it up to me right now by continuing what you were doing a minute ago.”
I couldn’t have cared less about my ankle at that point. I just wanted to feel his tongue circling my nipple again.
Still frowning, he finished checking out my ankle and stood. “Not a chance. We need to get you back to the village and have the doctor check you out right away. Your ankle’s clearly swollen, and it could get even worse if we don’t—”
“But I don’t care. A few minutes isn’t going to make a difference in whether or not I recover from a little sprained ankle...and by the way, I’m pretty sure that I will make a full recovery. So, let’s just stay here on the beach and keep on doing what we were doing.”
“While all the while, your ankle swells to the size of a grapefruit.”
“A little dramatic, don’t you think, Holden? But then again, I’d expect nothing less from a triple son of a freak like you.”
He sighed, trying to maintain his stern frown, I could tell, even while a hint of a twinkle came to his eyes.
Encouraged, I smiled. “Now, why don’t you help me get off my sprained ankle. You could lie me down right here on the beach if you wanted to. Just to take the pressure off my ankle, you know.”
The twinkle in Holden’s eyes became a bit more pronounced, and all traces of his frown disappeared.
Holding me around the waist, he lifted me off the sand, pulling me close to his body and a distinct hardness straining against the front of his jeans. “Well, I’ve never been one to refuse help to an injured person. Especially when that person is as stunning and sexy as you are.”
Grinning, I pressed my lips to his for a moment. “That’s the right attitude.”
After returning my kiss, scooping me up in his arms at the same time, he lowered me to the warm, pale sand and then positioned himself beside me. We began kissing again with our hands roaming freely, and it wasn’t long before we were both completely naked. It crossed my mind that anyone could come along and see us at any time, but I quickly dismissed the thought. I figured that the majority of Holden’s men were off chasing the Form, and those who weren’t were guarding the village. And as far as Cora, Amy, and everyone else in the village, they’d been told not to step foot outside, and unlike me, I doubted anyone else would be absentminded enough to wander down the beach. I hoped they wouldn’t be, anyway.
But after a short while of Holden caressing my naked rear while we kissed, limbs entwined, I heard a noise that made me immediately break our kiss, gasping.
“Oh, God.”
The sound had been like someone saying hello repeatedly from a distance of only thirty or forty feet away.
I glanced at the gently rolling ocean, which was only a few feet away from the tips of our toes. “Maybe we can hide in the waves. We’ll get in up to our necks and just pretend we’re out for a swim.”
Holden just chuckled, still running a hand over my rear. “That was just a parrot in the jungle. And I doubt he or she is all that interested in what we’re doing.
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