Page 39 of The Wrong Sister
The longer we sit, the worse my wet shirt feels on my skin, so I decide to follow her advice, take it off, and put it by the entrance to dry in case the rain stops while we sleep. But once I rid myself of the clingy material, my pants feel what I’d assume wet diapers stuck to the whole lower part of my body would feel like. Not cool.
“Do you mind if I take these wet pants off?” I ask her.
She shakes her head and goes back to staring out of the shelter.
I quickly pull my pants off and place them next to the shirt. Silky boxers don’t feel so good when soaking wet, but it’s better than if I’d been wearing tighty-whities.
“I’m gonna sleep. I don’t know if they’ll find us tomorrow, but we need to look for more food. We need protein for energy. I can’t keep running on sugar.” I shake my head with disgust.
“Yeah.” Her voice is absent, as if she hasn’t heard me.
For a moment, she felt like someone I knew. A person from my life. Despite how fucked up our connection really is. The feeling was faulty. Not helpful.
It’s betterthisway. Separated mentally. We can get by as total strangers forced into circumstances without really knowing each other. If she does get to know me, she might not like what she discovers. And I might like it too much.
I’m her only hope here. As she is mine. If I learn things about her, it might make mewantthings I can’t have. And Ican’t think about anything other than the deal I was going toward. I need it to happen, so all the years I’ve spent going toward my goals won’t go to waste.
I glance at her miserable posture once again, and, with a sigh, I grab the shredded dress shirt from the corner. Slightly twisting my body, I spread it over her bare legs, and turn away from her.
She doesn’t make a sound.
18
Maeve
I’ve been waiting for him to finally fall asleep for so long my eyes almost fell out of their sockets—that’s how hard I’ve been trying to make them look anywhere but at him.
I knew he’s a large man since he’s so tall and that jacket of his is big, but man oh man, I didn’t expect him to be so freaking rippedandlie next to me nearly naked. In a very touchable distance. And he’s like a sculpture ripped. Insanely ripped. How did I not suspect any of this when I saw him in the coffee shop all those times? It may be dark, but I haven’t forgotten his coiled body or how it felt under my touch as I applied mud to it earlier. And now he’s practically naked right next to me.
My initial thought of him being an office rat due to the pale color of his skin that has never seen the light of day still stands. I swear his skin is almost transparent.
But it sure as hell has seen the luminescent light of a gym.Looks like many hours at that. Besides those mega pronounced delta and wing muscles or whatever they’re called, he has these little muscles connecting those big ones. Those muscles have their own muscles, and I could see them all.
When he grabbed that tree and lifted himself up, I swallowed. Hard. When he was up there and took his undershirt off and I got an eyeful of his arms and pecs, I nearly whistled. Because this man has a very impressive physique. Lifting himself up that palm like a giant monkey was not what I envisioned when I called him. To be honest, I had zero expectations that he actually would climb the tree. What I wanted was for him to help me get papayas down by maybe throwing coconuts at it or something. I didn’t expect him to actually get up there. But he surprised me. He does that a lot actually.
I wanted so badly to be the first one to find food and bring it to him as a thank you for not letting me starve the first night, but he managed to find bananas first. Good thing I at least was able to help him with the sunburn. To my utter surprise, I find that I don’t want him to suffer. Yes, my initial hatred toward him was justified.Somewhat.But we’re not there anymore. Plus, he has his own reasons to dislike me. And yes, I labeled him ‘an asshole’—deservingly so—but we’re thrown together into this situation, and he’s proven to have a different side to his assholishness.
To think of it, it all makes sense. The more assholey the assholes are, the better they look, and this one seems to be a descendant of a Greek god. Like maybe Ares or someone equally powerful with a dark cloud of anger and pheromones over his head. Because I don’t know what’s happening, but I can’t stop staring at his back. Maybe it’s the heat talking or near-death experience—who knows. Anyhow, I can’t wait to get all the control over my body back.
His insanely sweet gesture of covering my legs with his last shirt took away the final bit of resentment and anger I had for him. It was so unexpected and thoughtful, my eyes turned itchy. I wanted to thank him but couldn’t in fear I’d start bawling. So I just stayed silent.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting here, but the rain has slowed down and the darkness isn’t quite so thick anymore. Sighing, I try to get rid of his pretty image from my head. Only to move my eyes lower and land them—accidentally, of course—on his butt. I swallow when I see his thighs. Muscular thighs. His suit pants must have been custom tailored to comfortably contain those thick columns.
And where did he get something like that? I eyeallthe big things again. I mean, he’s clearly an office rat and must spend a lot of his time in a chair. I wonder how much he can squat. Can he squat with me in his arms? That’d be awesome.
I wouldn’t mind sinking my teeth into those muscular thighs.
Startled, I sit up straighter.What the hell am I even thinking?It’s probably hunger talking, nothing else, but his thighs do look delicious.
Feeling guilty for being caught even when no one saw me, I quickly lie down and stretch my body as far as possible from the man. Which is not far considering we’re sharing a handmade bungalow, and one of the ‘sharing’ people is very large.
I end up tossing and turning without any hope of sleep. So I turn to his back and start watching his muscles expand with every breath. With every inhale, it grows bigger, sucking all the air out of my own lungs. With every exhale, he breathes it back in.
It’s weird. It’s calming.
I don’t notice when I fall asleep.
I wake up dry and warm. And very hungry. Snuggling my face into the dry warmth, I moan with pleasure. It feels so good.
