The Truth About Sex & Surfing [Featured Story]

Chapter eight

Later, Hailey tried to imagine what she must have looked like—her face, that is. A deer in headlights? She rejected that as too predictable. She was even a little embarrassed that nothing more original occurred to her. A deer—what? That sees the grill of an SUV bearing down on it (her?), and recognizes it as an SUV and not just some dark object hurtling from space? Some fairly intelligent, talented deer, then, who understands that grill is about to grate her like a parmesan, but who also realizes that she’s just won American Idol and that she has the winning ticket to the mega-millions lotto there in her hand? Or hoof, to be exact. But then why would a deer be buying lotto tickets and belting out unnecessarily quavery Motown covers on TV? And why did it have to be a deer, anyway? Oh god, never mind…

The thing was, it didn’t even matter what her face had looked like at that moment she’d finally finished ripping off the rashie. It was the look on Dylan’s face that counted, and she didn’t have to imagine that because she’d seen it:

His hair was falling over his eyebrows. His green eyes, as they flicked back up to her face, were the darkest she’d ever seen them, with this subtle gleam to them. He wasn’t smiling, but his lips curled up the slightest bit. Not sarcastically, more as though he was concentrating hard.

When she’d handed him the rashie, he hadn’t looked down at it. He’d just kept looking at her, even as their fingers touched, for a second, somewhere in the folds of fabric. And the thought jolted across her mind, blotting out every other thought: He wants me just as much as I want him. Well, maybe not as much as I want him, but he does want me.

She couldn’t remember what else she’d said to him as they were standing there, or even anything that he had said to her after that either, though they’d gone on making small talk for another minute or two. Especially after Paul Weston stalked off, muttering under his breath.

“What’s up with him?” Dylan might have said. “What’s his problem?"

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Hailey might have said, her voice perhaps an octave higher than it usually was. “Do you want to come upstairs now? My hotel room has two double beds. We could try out both of them.” (Okay, she definitely had not said that, only wanted to.)

By the time Dylan left and Hailey finally got to the elevators, Kate Fisher was gone and so was Paul. Maybe they’d gone up to the honeymoon suite together—who knew? Who cared? Dylan Shane was attracted to her, and if there was a more perfect specimen on the entire planet Earth to have casual sex with—a lot of it, repeatedly—Hailey couldn’t picture one.

She leaned one shoulder against the cool of the elevator wall as she rode up. From the combination of sunburn and excitement, her skin felt prickly, hot, flushed, tight. No, it didn’t matter what her face had looked like. Or that her nipples had been… Because now she could not stop thinking about what sex would be like with Dylan Shane. Did the register even go up that high? She’d watched him during that first lesson, how he’d moved. The man would know what he was doing. He would make her body implode with pleasure. If he just touched her, she’d… Like, in a second.

The phone on the nightstand was ringing as she unlocked her hotel room, and a crazy hope that it was Dylan calling from downstairs (“Hailey, I have to see you right now”) made her heart start to hammer. Even if it’d make her look way too eager, she’d invite him up. She dove for the phone.

“Oh Jesus, I finally got you. Why haven’t you returned any of my calls, goddamnit?”

“Jimmy?”

“Yeah, it’s me. I’ve been trying to get you for days, Hail. Been calling your room for hours now.”

“What, is everything okay?” The deli, Serg, Mildred and Joe, the two-dollar Corona special and the karaoke jockey with his terrible haircut singing “Sweet Caroline.” Home. In an instant, it all came back to her. “Or are you just calling me to complain about how bad Serg is at waiting tables?”