"Stop." I laughed, pushing against him.
"That's not a word I hear often." He winked then lifted himself out of the pool, but not before dropping his linen pants into a heap on the floor, leaving him oh-so-gloriously naked. "Whoops," he called as he padded all the way to the bathroom and shut the door.
I chose that moment to reflect by dunking my entire person into the cold water.
Chapter Sixteen
"Romance aside, what happens if your little love plan doesn't work?"
Grandma's smile fell as she placed her hands on the table and rose to her full height. "I don't fail."
"But surely you've thought of the possibility that—"
"Listen, Gus." Grandma's penciled brows furrowed together. "I've been doing this for a long time. I've got moles older than you, so don't get your panties in a twist, son. My ways may be…" she waved flippantly into the air, "unique. But I always make my match. Always."
Jace
Cold shower? Not working.
Cold shower. Grandma? Hairy chested men named Brett?
Working.
Definitely working.
I leaned against the tiled wall and focused on evening out my breathing. I'd set out to make Beth feel better and where had that left me? Sexually frustrated enough to want to scream.
Or maybe I just wanted her to scream? My body seemed to be confused, because at that point I had to keep telling myself that in five days I was walking away. Until then, all bets were off because I hadn't realized until that moment how much Beth needed the chance to see how spectacular she could be. Hell, I'd only known her for days, and even I could see it. How was it possible that when a person looked in the mirror all they saw was what they'd been told by other people their entire lives?
Beth was drop-dead gorgeous. With billowy lips, gorgeous thick brown hair, exotic eyes and a figure that started wars — it was no wonder that Brett had been an ass to her in high school. He'd been intimated, and that made me want to cause murder.
I was intimated and nothing intimidated me.
Was it so wrong to feel smug that, out of all the men in the world Beth could have asked to help her, she'd asked me? Granted, we were kind of stuck together, but still.
It was me.
And I didn't fail. Grandma and I had that in common.
I turned off the shower and wrapped a towel around my waist. When I opened the door to the bathroom, Beth had already brought our luggage in and was pulling out her own charger for her phone.
A moment of genius chose an opportune moment to make itself known. I swiped her phone and put it back in her suitcase. "No phones."
"How is that fair?" Beth tried to dig for her phone charger, but I held her hands hostage.
"It's fair because I won't use mine either."
She didn't look convinced. Her eyebrows shot up in shock. "Right, you're just going to refuse to answer your phone after the media portrayed you as a dirty rotten politician?"
"Rick will take care of it," I said evenly. "No phones. Just you and me. You want the fairytale. Pretty sure Prince Charming didn't have a Twitter account. We unplug. All week. Deal?"
Her eyes narrowed.
I held out my hand.
She took it. "Deal, but no cheating."
"Please, I don't cheat."
"Says the senator," she sang.
"Low blow."
"You make it too easy."
With a grin she patted my chest, and, if it were at all possible to be more aroused, it happened. All because she placated me, she patted me like a small child, and here I was ready to throw caution to the wind and take her on the bed.
"Jace?"
"Huh?" My head snapped up.
"Lunch?"
I pulled my watch off the nightstand and exhaled, giving my body enough time to calm the hell down. "You're right. It's still early. Let's do it."
Beth pulled out a sheet of paper and frowned.
"What?"
"It says we have three restaurants to choose from, and that we have some sort of mixer tonight for dinner? What do you want to do?" She twirled a piece of hair between her fingers as her mouth fell into a pout.
Hell and damn. I wanted to pull her hair.
That's what Viagra does to you. It makes you think about doing things you shouldn't be doing during the daylight. Like asking if you can pull a woman's hair, just to see what her face would look like when you're doing it.
Her eyebrows pinched together as she mouthed the restaurants and then bit down on her lip.
Never mind. I wanted to pull her hair and bite her lip. Or maybe I'd bite her lip first then pull her hair.
"Jace? Thoughts?"
"Sex," I blurted like a pubescent twelve year old.
"What?" The paper floated out of her trembling hands onto the bed.
Bed, bed, bed, my body taunted. Damn it!
I winced. "I'm glad we're going out instead of having, uh, sex?"
Yeah, she didn't believe me. Her mouth cracked into a silly grin as she crossed her arms and gave me a very judgmental look. So I said, "I'm a guy. I can't help it." Right, like that was a solid excuse. I may as well have pulled down my pants and pointed, "Look, me boy, you girl," and grunted.
"The Viagra making a comeback?" she teased.
"Yeah, let's blame it on the tiny blue pill crushed into my tea." I had a moment of panic when I wondered if Grandma had slipped anything else into there, like a stupidity pill, because I sure as hell wasn't earning points toward Mensa membership.
"Tell you what." Beth picked up the paper again. "You pick where we eat. After all this is my fairytale. I don't want to know all the surprises."
She had a hopeful look on her face, the same look girls get on Valentine's when they expect you to be the one guy to do something other than flowers or chocolate.
Smiling through my nervousness and intense need to impress her after the Viagra incident, I took the paper from her hands and examined it. All the restaurants sounded good. But good wasn't good enough. It was food. I wanted more than food, and I figured she did too. After all, how romantic can a person get over a hamburger and fries? Especially considering she hated fries? I should probably get to pull her hair for remembering that.
Beth stretched her arms above her head.
Down boy. We needed to get out of the hut before it turned into the hut of shame, and I made a complete ass out of myself by getting on my hands and knees and begging. I crumpled the paper onto the ground and stalked over to the phone and dialed the concierge.
"This is the concierge desk. How may I help you?"
"I want to romance my girlfriend," I said evenly into the phone, using my best politician voice. "Does this hotel have any excursions we can participate in?"
"Of course." The man chuckled. "When would you like your outing to take place?"
Beth bent over to pick up something off the floor. Holy shit.
"Now!"
"Alright, you don't have to yell."
"Sorry." I croaked. "I thought I saw a… turtle."
A turtle? Beth mouthed.
"Sir, tortoises aren't predators."
"I know, I just…" I licked my lips in irritation. "The excursions? Please?"
The man was silent for a minute. "At this moment, all we have available is the noon excursion to a few of the sugarcane fields with a lovely picnic and a horseback ride through the waterfalls."
"Sounds perfect."
"Great, but I should warn you that—"
"Money isn't a problem," I interrupted. "We'll be in the front lobby in ten minutes."
I hung up the phone with a smug grin. Yeah, I was basically kicking Iron Man's ass. A horseback ride? Hiking through sugarcane fields? And a picnic? Slap my ass and call me charming. Fairytale, here we come!