Meet Me in Hawaii by Georgia Toffolo (best affordable ebook reader TXT) 📗

he could somehow magic away the whole situation. He’d been an idiot and he’d likely put her in danger too. It had been foolish, reckless, stupid even, and to his horror, he could feel a foreign surge of heat creeping into his cheeks.

Beside him there was a swoosh as she dropped to her knees, a soft curse falling from her lips as her hand fell to his chest. Her palm was warm despite the clinging wet fabric of his shirt.

He couldn’t peep, if he did, he knew the blush – a blush, for goodness’ sake – would spread. And he was trying to force it back. He didn’t blush, he didn’t get embarrassed and he sure as hell didn’t need help. He was always the one to give help. And yet… the sea water swishing around in his gut, currently threatening to make a reappearance, and the way his knees almost knocked told him he’d definitely needed that help.

‘Hey.’ Her hand pressed into his chest. ‘Hey.’

Still he didn’t react.

‘Hey!’ There was nothing soft about it now, her palm was hard, urgent as it shoved at him. ‘Are you OK?’

He took hold of her wrist before she could shake the sea water out of him and gave a laugh. Not that he really felt like laughing. And that made it a nervous laugh and he hadn’t produced one of those since… well, for ever.

‘I’m OK, save for my ego. That’s taken a hit.’

He opened his eyes to look up at her and the whole world seemed to stop. For the briefest moment, all he saw were a pair of piercing eyes only a foot away, close enough to feel her harried breath mingle with his. They were cat-like, so dark as they glittered at him, captivating him, and he had the ridiculous notion that he was drowning all over again… until they narrowed and flashed with another surge of rage.

‘Your ego is the last thing you should be worrying about.’ She pushed off him, rocking back on her heels. ‘What on earth did you think you were doing out there?’

It wasn’t just her eyes. It was the angle to her cheekbones, her perfect almond-shaped face and lips that were plump in spite of their tight, grim line.

He swallowed. He really needed to get a handle on this situation. He felt unsteady, rocked to his core, and now he wasn’t so sure whether that was from his near-drowning or her.

‘Are you going to answer me?’ She fisted her hands back on her hips and continued to loom, the angle drawing his eyes to her chest, the narrow slant to her waist, and swell to her hips… and he wasn’t overheating with pure shame anymore.

He scrambled up onto his elbows with a cough and she scuttled back, just a little, but the space was good, really good. It gave him the clarity he needed, to drag in air that wasn’t tainted by her coconut sea scent.

‘I’m really sorry.’

‘Wading straight into a rip current and refusing to listen to a single instruction I gave you.’

‘Hey, I listened.’ He raised a hand to ward off the onslaught of her words. ‘I just couldn’t understand why you wanted me to do that.’

She shook her head so fiercely droplets of sea water fired at him, her mass of hair already springing up into corkscrew curls as they released her fury on him. ‘You never try and swim against it, no one can beat it.’

‘I just wanted to get back to shore before the riptide pulled me under.’

She laughed. The sound sudden, unexpected and glorious. At least she wasn’t livid now. ‘For your information, you were caught in a rip current, and no one gets dragged under by it, you get swept out.’

‘OK.’ He said it slowly. ‘That’s not what I’ve seen on the TV.’

‘This is real life. So in future, you get caught like that, you do as I say and you either swim parallel to shore, or you go with it until you feel the pull soften. Then you get out of it before attempting to swim to shore. Understood?’

Understood? He couldn’t remember the last time someone had spoken to him in such a way and he had the ridiculous urge to roll his eyes. ‘Yes, Mum.’

‘This isn’t funny, dude.’

‘I didn’t say it was.’ But she’d just called him dude and now he really did want to laugh. How interesting it was to be stripped of his identity and just be one of the masses again, or the dudes, as she put it.

She was studying him intently and he realized too late that his amusement certainly wasn’t amusing her. He tried to straighten his face, to look serious. Was there another lecture brewing?

‘You could have died out there,’ she admonished, but it was softer now.

‘Yes, I got that much, thank you.’

‘Unless that was your intention?’ She frowned and swept an eye over his length: shirt, chino shorts, socks… at least he’d had the foresight to toe off his trainers and drop his mobile in them before running in. ‘It’s not normal to go swimming dressed for dinner.’

‘Look, I was trying to rescue a dog.’

‘A dog? You ran in the water where there’s no lifeguard, the light is almost gone, to rescue a dog?’

She didn’t sound like she believed him. Great, did she now think he’d put himself in danger intentionally? His amusement morphed back into embarrassment just as swiftly. This was getting better and better. Where was the dog anyhow? He started to scan the beach and then a thought occurred to him.

‘Hang on, you were way out in the water when I got here, you’d gone in with no lifeguard, limited light… yada yada yada.’

She lifted her chin. ‘I know what I’m doing, plus I’m a qualified lifeguard.’

‘Oh, so you can rescue yourself when in difficulty, yes?’ He’d swear she was the one blushing now, and even if she wasn’t, it suited him to think she was. ‘That’s a cracking skill.’

She shook her head and