I open the door and usher her inside. Most of the lights are off, apart from a small lamp in the living room. I guide her upstairs to my bedroom, which is also mostly dark, and as far away from my brother’s as it can possibly get. I don’t flick on a light until I reach my private bathroom.
We both hiss at the sudden brightness. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, and I cross to the shower, turning on the water.
“What’re you doing?” Rian asks.
“Warming you up with a nice hot shower.” I turn around and pull my shirt over her head, sand fluttering to the floor around her feet.
She arches a brow. “Are you planning to join me?”
“How’re you going to get your back if I’m not in there with you?”
She braces a hand on the vanity and scratches her leg again. “Seriously, why am I so itchy?”
“It’s probably the sand.” Or the friction from the sand. I turn her around with the intention of unzipping her dress. “Oh shit.”
“That doesn’t sound good.” She meets my slightly horrified gaze in the mirror.
I clear my throat and try to make my eyes look less like they’re about to pop out of my head. “You’ve got a few bites.” A few is an understatement. Her shoulders to her mid-back and from mid-thigh to ankle are covered in tiny, angry bites. There have to be more than a hundred.
“What kind of bites? How many is a few?”
“Um, judging from the look of them, I’d say sand fleas.”
“Fleas?” Her shriek echoes in the confines of the bathroom. She spins so her back is facing the mirror and cranes her neck to see over her shoulder. Her mouth drops. “Oh my God! Oh my God. A few bites?”
“It’s not that bad.” It’s actually worse than that bad.
She checks out the back of her legs, which are a mass of tiny, raised red bumps. She reaches behind her, likely with the intention of scratching. I grab her hands and clasp them in mine. “Don’t do that. It’ll make it worse.”
“But I’m so itchy. I need to get out of this dress. What if there are sand fleas stuck under it?” She starts hopping from one foot to the other.
“Let me help you out of it, then you can get into the shower. I have antihistamines and I’ll draw a bath. I have salts I use when I have allergic reactions. They’re holistic or whatever.” I don’t know why I’m explaining, other than I feel bad and I want to fix it. I also don’t want this to be the last time Rian and I have sex—selfish of me, I know.
I get Rian out of her dress. Thankfully, most of the bites seem isolated to the backs of her legs and her shoulders, although a few managed to get under the fabric. I’ll inspect her better when she’s done with the shower.
I find the antihistamines, both in pill and cream form—I’m definitely going to take the opportunity to rub it all over her body in penance—then start the bath.
“There’s so much sand in my hair,” she calls from the shower. “It’s like half the beach is in here. God! Are there fleas in my hair? I’m so itchy! I hate you so much right now.”
“I promise I’ll fix it, hotness,” I call back, dumping the oatmeal, Epsom salts, and lavender pouch into the giant Jacuzzi tub.
She sticks her head out of the shower and glares at me. “You do not get to call me pet names, a-hole.”
“Is that my pet name?” I don’t even bother to fight my grin as she shoots me the bird and disappears back into the shower.
The glass is foggy, but I can make out her silhouette, all soft curves and long hair streaming down her back. I fill a glass with water and strip out of my own pants. Gathering our discarded clothes, I drop them in the washing machine and put it on the sanitize cycle.
Now that I’m naked too, I see that I haven’t escaped unscathed. My forearms have suffered the same fate as Rian’s back and legs, and I have a few scattered bites on my chest. Nothing compared to her, though. I wrap a towel around my waist so I’m not swinging free when she gets out of the shower.
I’m going to have to take excellent care of her if I want to get back in her good graces tonight. I have a few ideas on how to accomplish that. The shower turns off, and she steps out onto the mat, nipples tight, body covered in a flash of goose bumps as the cool air kisses her skin.
I wrap her in a towel and hand her the glass of water. “You should take this.”
“What is it?”
“It’s an antihistamine.”
She inspects it, the name is stamped in the pill, so that must appease her, because she pops it in her mouth and drains the glass of water. She scans the bathroom floor. “Where are my clothes?”
“I put them in the wash. It’ll be about thirty minutes before I can put them in the dryer.” I motion to the tub. “I poured us a bath. It should help with the itch until the antihistamine kicks in.”
She regards the tub, and then me, skeptically.
“I don’t have to join you. Whatever you prefer.”
Her gaze moves over me, assessing, considering. She drops her towel. “You can join me.”
Stepping up to the tub, I hold out my hand and help her in. She sinks into the water on a groan.
“Where do you want me?” I ask.
“You can go sit in the corner.” She motions to the other side of the tub. I get in and spread my legs so they frame hers, running my hands up her shins under the water.
“I’m blaming the dress for this.”
Rian snorts. “Nice apology.”
I shift, water sloshing over the edge of the tub as I straddle her thighs and brace a forearm on either side of her. I get right in her face, rubbing the end of my nose against hers before I back up far enough that I can see her clearly. “I’m sorry you’re so irresistible. I’m sorry I was an asshole. I’m sorry I couldn’t wait to until we were here, with access to a comfortable bed, before I got inside you. Is that better?”
She bites her lip and ducks her head. “A little. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m still itchy as heck, though.”
“Give the bath a few minutes to work its magic.” I settle back against my side of the tub. “Tell me how you got into real estate.”
Rian’s eyes shift away from mine, moving to where she swirls the bubbles on the surface of the water. “When our grandmother passed away, she left us a duplex. Marley and I moved into the upstairs and rented out the main floor. I guess that’s when we started to see the value in property.”
There’s something in her voice, and the tension in her shoulders that makes me want to push for more. “I’m so sorry she passed. Were you close to your grandmother?”
“Yeah. She was a special woman. Smart, savvy. She would’ve been a force if she’d been born in this generation.”
“Kind of like you, then?”
She laughs. “I don’t know about that, but I hope one day I can achieve even half of her success. What about you and your brother? You said this was his hobby, but it seems like he takes it pretty seriously.”
I run my fingers absently up and down her shin, under the water. “He’s been dabbling for a year or so. I think we’d both like it to be more than a hobby, eventually anyway.”
“Well, everyone needs a place to live, and there are always people with money looking to buy beachfront. Most people either don’t have the vision or the interest in fixing up a place. You have both. When you have capital and the ability to see the beauty in possibility, you can do well in this industry.”