Page 68 of The Girl Who Was Taken

“Like we need an invitation from you guys?” Nicole said.

“We’re going,” Jessica said. “She’s crabby.”

“Matt too shy to talk to us?” Nicole asked.

“I don’t know,” Tyler said. “He’s being weird.”

Nicole stood and placed her smoothie on the table. “I’ll go see what his problem is.”

She sauntered down the stairs in her bikini and best seductive walk, knowing they were all watching her. She pranced along the dock and jumped onto the boat.

“You can’t come up to say hi to me?” she asked Matt, who was rearranging water skis and wetsuits in a floorboard compartment.

“Hi,” he said without looking at her. “Just stopped for a second because my boys have a thing for your friends.”

Nicole sat in the captain’s chair and playfully kicked Matt in the thigh as he knelt on the ground and wrestled with a wedged water ski.

“Give my offer any thought?”

Matt managed to free the ski and align it with the others, then shut the hatch and stood up. “What offer?”

Nicole cocked her head. “My offer from the other day, when you and I were all alone. . . .” She pointed below deck. “Right. Down. There.”

Matt grabbed a towel and dried his hands. He looked wholly disinterested. “You know something, Nicole? I can’t understand why you need so much attention. But offering someone sex is a stupid way to get it.”

Nicole swallowed hard when she heard his words, flashed her best persuasive grin to hide her embarrassment. “I figured you’re not getting any from your girlfriend, so I’d help you out.”

“Trying to convince me to cheat on my girlfriend is not the best way to get noticed. Do something original, Nicole. Then people will pay attention to you.”

She stood up. “I thought you said you didn’t have a girlfriend.”

“Things change.”

“Really? Megan McDonald?”

“Why do you care?”

“She’s so not your type.”

“You don’t know my type.”

“I used to, because I was your type.”

“We dated last year, Nicole. Let’s get over it.”

“I was your type the other day.” Nicole came up to him and put her hands around his waist. “I promise you, she’s not going to give you what I can.”

Matt grabbed her wrists and squeezed with his powerful forearms. “I’m scared to find out what you’d give me, and so are most of my friends.”

Nicole tried hard to hide the pain he was causing in her wrists. “Let go of me.”

“That’s what everyone thinks about you, you know that? That you’ve become an STD-spreading slut. Slutty Cutty they call you.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“And you’re a whore.” Matt pushed her away. “Get off my boat.”

Nicole smiled. It looked forced and fake, worse than the last one. “You know what’s going to be really funny? When I have a little talk with the princess about what happened between us right down there.” She pointed below deck again. “I’m sure your Duke romance will flourish when she hears that you couldn’t get your hands off me, or your tongue out of my mouth.”

---