“Move!” I ran past him and jogged back to Max’s hut. I knocked twice, three times—the bastard didn’t answer!
And then I remembered his confessional.
Stupid Becca, stupid, stupid Becca! We’d had sex. In the ocean, of all places. Of course we hadn’t been safe!
I hadn’t been thinking.
He clearly hadn’t been thinking.
I found Max talking to Rex using wild gestures.
Yeah, so he was acting normal.
I waited patiently.
Finally Max turned.
I motioned him over while Rex shouted, “Becca, just in time for your confessional.”
“One sec!” I yelled back as Max approached.
He sighed. “I miss the nakedness.”
“Max!” I gripped his arm. “Last night, in the ocean—”
“I’m going to stop you right there before I have to excuse myself and take a cold shower.”
“No!” I gripped his shoulders. “Max, listen!”
“O-okay.” He sat down on the sand with me. “What’s wrong?”
“We . . .” Oh, my gosh. I couldn’t say it. Why couldn’t I say it? “You know how with the shrimp . . .” Awesome, and I was officially turning into Max. It was only a matter of time before we had our own nickname, BecMax or something stupid like that.
“Did the shrimp make you sick?”
“No! Okay, you know how you cover the shrimp with, er, sauce? And I mean not everyone likes sauce so sometimes it sucks that you have to dip it, but whatever, the sauce keeps you safe, Max!”
He leaned in. “Am I the shrimp or the sauce?”
“You’re the shrimp and something else”—I held out my hands—“is the sauce, and while most guys don’t particularly enjoy eating with the sauce it’s necessarily to prevent . . . types of . . . disease.”
“Okay.” Max nodded and then his gaze shot to mine. “Ohhhhh, okay. Gotcha. So you’re worried because the first time you ate the shrimp there was no sauce.”
“Right.” I exhaled in relief. Because yeah, sure, I was on birth control, but still!
“My sauce is boss.” Max grinned and then gripped my hand. “Becca, you have nothing to worry about. Granted we could have been smarter and were when we got back to the love hut . . .”
“Please don’t call it that.”
He winked and flashed me that gorgeous smile again. “But how do I put this carefully . . .” He nodded. “Right, so before the show I was examined by a complete monster, who did everything within his power to keep it so that when I wanted to eat shrimp I cried instead. Classically conditioned me to hate all doctors and men over the age of fifty, but the point is, my shrimp is awesome, even without the sauce my shrimp is still perfectly fine and yours . . . is . . . too . . . wow, this conversation would have gone a lot better had you straight-up asked me if I’d been tested for STDs.”
I sighed and leaned my head against his shoulder. “Right, but I was trying to do it the Max way.”
“Always more complicated but tons of fun, mainly because there’s usually props,” he agreed. “We okay?”
“Yes.” I swallowed. “A lot better.”
“Good.” Max kissed my cheek. “Because I’m buying stock in shrimp and probably going to tie you to my hut so you can’t escape.”
“Empty threats.” I waved him off.
“See you on the last date. I may have convinced Rex that we should save the girl I liked for the very end.”
“And he was okay with that?” I asked, surprised that Rex even cared.
“More than okay.” Max winked. “Let’s just say I promised him that if they filmed it, I’d finally kiss one of the girls like I meant it.”
Warm fuzzies radiated through my stomach. “Oh.”
“See you later.” He kissed my cheek again, then lingered. “Damn, I don’t want to go.” When he rose he put on his sunglasses and sighed. “Dream of shrimp, Becca, because I know I will.”
CHAPTER FORTY
MAX
Becca walked off toward Rex to do her confessional and I stared . . . I mean, it wasn’t one of those creeper stares that get a lesser man arrested; it was more of an appreciative . . . glance. Now that I’d seen that body of hers up close and personal, well, let’s just say I was going to try my damndest to convince that girl we should join a nudist colony, you know, to save money on clothes.
“Hey,” Reid yelled from behind me. Sadly I stopped watching Becca and turned around.
“Yes?”
He tapped his fingers against his mouth, then leaned forward and sniffed.
“What the hell!” I pushed him away.
“You had sex.”
“I did not!” I did, I did, I did. My body rejoiced, Little G popped up in my pocket, and I’m pretty sure had Hades been on the beach I would have given him a significant head nod.
“Did too.” Reid scowled. “How’d you manage to escape the cameras? Was it with Becca? Wait, does she know?”
“Um, she was there,” I said defensively.
“I knew it! You did have sex with her!”
“Keep your voice down!” I smacked him in the shoulder. “And of course she knows it happened.”
“You never know.” Reid huffed. “Apparently you snuck drugs into a foreign country so yeah, I wouldn’t put it past you.”