G A L L O W A Y

......

TOUCH.

She finally touched me.

And I let her.

Her fingers were hypnotically soft; moving over my face, across my lips, lingering on my throat.

My body instantly hardened.

I reached for her, but the touch dropped lower, across my sternum, along my lower belly, feathering on my hipbone to my thigh.

My cock stood up, begging to be granted the same treatment, but the touch vanished, tugging on something around my leg.

My teeth snapped together as the frustration I’d been fighting for months boiled over. Lashing out, I connected with hair.

Not a faceless face or dream-figmented breasts.

Hair.

Real.

My eyes flew open.

The dream ended.

And I shot upright only to slam back down again when I noticed it wasn’t a dream.

Estelle bowed over me. Her knees against my thigh, her fingers unbuckling the seat belts and fabric ties around my splint.

I sucked in a breath, whisper-hissing in the dark. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Her eyes flashed then skittered across the camp to Pip and Conner. They slept in individual beds tonight, not needing each other’s support from the lonely memories of being parentless.

She froze. “I’m doing what you want.”

“What I want?”

A Technicolor porno unravelled in my head. What I wanted was her mouth on my cock. What I wanted was her straddling my hips and me thrusting into her tight, hot heat.

What I wanted was her.

A thousand times her.

I gritted my teeth; balled my hands. I did everything I could to fight the undeniable urges volcanoing in my blood.

“Estelle, I suggest you move away from me.”

I gave her a warning.

I was a gentleman.

If I touched her now, kissed her, fucked her...it would be her fault for coming too close when she knew the uncrossable boundaries between us.

“Just tolerate me for a few seconds and then I’ll be gone.” Her eyes dropped back to my thigh.

Tolerate?

She thought I couldn’t tolerate her?

Shit, I was in love with her. I spent my days falling more and more into goddamn love with her, and she thought I could barely tolerate her?

Stupid, stupid woman.

I couldn’t do it.

I sat up to push her away but the last band of my splint came away and the two sticks clunked to the sand, freeing me.

I groaned in relief. The support had kept my ankle straight, but hell, it’d been heavy and uncomfortable.

She smiled in the darkness. “Feel better?”

I’d feel better with you lying on top of me.

I swallowed, nodding tightly. “Yes. Now, go away.”

Even as I said it, her eyes fell from my mouth to the raging hard-on between my legs.  My heart waged war on every other organ. “Estelle...”

“Yes?” Her normal breath turned into tormenting pants.

“Get away from me.”

Hurt clashed in her eyes. She dropped her head. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know what for. But it’s time for you to leave.”

“I’m sorry for what I said that night.”

“What night?”

I knew exactly what night. The night she told me she wanted nothing to bloody do with me.

Her gaze flashed. “You know what.”

I chuckled caustically. “Oh, you mean the night you said you didn’t want me? That night?” I brushed aside my long hair. “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine. I’m over it.” Sitting a little higher, I growled, “Goodnight.”

She didn’t move.

For a bloody age, she didn’t move and everything inside howled to grab her. I had the control of a priestly saint not to fist her hair and kiss her—regardless what she said before.

But I didn’t.

Because I respected her.

And this island was too damn small to make a mistake with our friendship.

Because if I did kiss her, it would be a mistake.

And I’d made enough of those to last me a lifetime.

Finally, she moved. But not in the fashion I expected and needed. Oh hell no, her hand glided from her lap to my cock.

I jolted as if she’d shocked me with a hundred volts of power. “Goddammit, wha—what—” I couldn’t finish my sentence.

Her fingers stole my vocabulary as they wrapped sensually, possessively around my erection.

My back arched and I fell backward in the sand, giving everything to her because she’d finally touched me. Finally willingly, on her own damn merit, touched me.

This was a dream. I hadn’t woken up yet.

I’m still sleeping.

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

I’d wanted this with every atom in my body. I didn’t deserve to get what I wanted. Estelle would never touch me without the secretive boundaries of slumber. Why should I push away a fantasy when it brought fleeting happiness?

I shouldn’t.

I won’t.

Her hand moved toward the Velcro of my board-shorts, ripping apart the fly and pushing her hand into my underwearless crotch.

The kids.

Screw, the kids.

This was a dream...and if it wasn’t...they could watch, for all I cared. My sainthood had been revoked, and I was nothing but raging blood and throbbing pressure and hissing fuse to the largest explosion in history.

Estelle touched me.

And her fingers felt a thousand times better on my naked flesh. Stars burst behind my eyes as she stroked my length.