Beneath a Hot Tequila Sun (8 page)

“You’d better start practicing.” Jake, barefoot, shirtless but wearing jeans, rummaged in one of the rucksacks. He found the binoculars and carried them to the pyramid steps, using them to look toward the river. “There’s a boat just tying up at the jetty,” he called out. “And there are more behind.”

“Boats?” Kayla leaped up, ignoring her protesting muscles, and began to search frantically for her clothes.

“First one seems to be full of my students,” Jake said. “They’re unloading the supplies that should have come yesterday. Dammit. They’re never up this early. The other boats look to be full of tourists, so we’d better get a move on.”

Kayla saw her shorts and snatched them up. She found her shirt and boots, but everything else was gone, presumably lost in the storm. Clutching her prizes, she dived into the temple to dress. Hopping from foot to foot, she managed to get the shorts on, then slipped her feet into her boots, not bothering to look for socks or taking the time to do up the laces.

“Where is everyone now?” she yelled. “Can you see them?”

Seth followed her inside, to where he had spread his own clothes out to dry. He pulled his trousers on with the swift efficiency of a man used to dressing in a hurry, though he winced as he forced his impressive erection into his trousers and struggled to fasten them. Shaking his T-shirt out, he walked back to the doorway.

“Can’t see anyone yet,” he reported.

Light streamed in from the doorway, subtly highlighting his powerful body, and Kayla paused her panic long enough to check him out in daylight. She glimpsed his tattoo before he pulled his T-shirt over his head—a sword, wings, and a banner with a motto she couldn’t read but wished she had time to explore.

Seth turned and caught her staring. “Hells bells, woman. How do you expect me to ever get rid of my hard-on if you’re going to walk about topless?”

Kayla, still wearing her shorts, boots, and nothing else, felt her nipples harden into tight little peaks at the look in Seth’s eye.

“Are you blushing?” asked Seth, and she thrilled at his teasing, bantering tone. “You are. Jake? You’ve got to see this. Who’d have thought you were a blusher! A woman who can take two men in her—”

“Seth!” Kayla didn’t consider where she could take two men to be appropriate conversation for the bright light of day.

Hiding her grin, she stuffed her arms into the sleeves of her shirt. With nothing under it, the thin cotton was barely decent, and the fact she had lost most of the buttons didn’t help. In desperation, she tied the ends in a knot under her chest. Her breasts were way too full to be contained like this, but it was the best she could do.

“How much time do we have?” she asked, making sure her all-important sketch pad was in her bag before slinging it onto her shoulder and going outside.

Jake was fully dressed and tying his bootlaces. He gave Kayla’s outfit an appreciative once-over. “Not enough for what I want to do to you right now.”

Kayla’s blush deepened, and her smile widened. In fact, unused to so many compliments, she felt as if her whole body was smiling. Going to the top of the steps, she shaded her eyes with both hands, peering down toward the river. Thankfully, as far as she could see, everyone still seemed to be on the jetty.

Jake jammed his hat on his head and came to stand beside her. “You should go down first and stall them for five minutes.”

“On my own?” she asked, horrified at the thought of facing a bunch of strangers.

Jake pointed at the front of his jeans, and she saw that, like Seth, he too had an erection. “If you think I can walk down those steps with this, you don’t know much about men. And it will never go while I can see your boobs bouncing around like kittens in a ball pool. Besides, Seth and I need to clean up this mess.”

Kayla had no experience of morning-after etiquette, especially for the morning after a night like last night. She would have expected some awkwardness, but all she felt so far was appreciated.

She followed Jake’s gaze, seeing the sleeping bags and empty beer bottles. It looked as if an orgy had taken place on the priceless monument. Which, of course, it had. She realized that while she might face embarrassment if anyone arrived now, Jake had a lot more to lose. His professional reputation for one.

“Okay, I’ll go first. Will…will I see you on the bottom?” she asked, suddenly wondering if sending her down on her own was, in fact, a brush-off.

“Sweetheart, we’d better.” Seth paused in the act of rolling up a sleeping bag and gave her a huge grin.

As Kayla began the steep descent, she quickly became aware of stiffness throughout her body. Her thigh and calf muscles protested yesterday’s ascent, but she was also aware of a glorious tightness in muscles that until last night had seen very little use. Despite the ache, she too smiled, knowing that whatever happened now, the woman going down these steps was not the woman who had walked up them. Jake and Seth had seen to that.

When she cleared the tree line, the group on the jetty turned as one to look at her and fell silent. Kayla fixed her smile in place and fought a cringe. Grubby, braless, knicker-less, with sunburned cheeks and a mad grin, she must look a sight. Self-consciously she swung her bag off her shoulder and clutched it in front of her chest like a shield.

“Would you look at the state of that?” murmured a girl patting her own, sleek bob as if scruffiness might be contagious.

One of the boys whistled softly. “I wouldn’t kick her out of bed.”

The girl jabbed him with her elbow. “Seriously? Even if the prof and Seth
weren’t
gay, they’d never hit on that.”

Gay? Jake and Seth? Kayla struggled not to laugh.

“Hi,” she said, stepping onto the jetty. “Am I glad to see you. And the boat.”

“Where’s the professor?” someone asked.

Having trouble with his erection
. “Messing around with the generator, I think,” Kayla said vaguely.

“It must have been a terrible ordeal for you,” said the boy who wouldn’t kick her out of bed. “Especially in the dark.”

“We managed,” said Kayla, avoiding everyone’s eyes.

A tourist boat drew alongside the jetty. As the boatman jumped nimbly onto the bank, something in the water caught his attention. Following his gaze, Kayla saw her hot-pink thong eddying against the riverbank.

“Does anyone mind if I help myself to a drink?” she asked, indicating a case of plastic-wrapped bottles near the water’s edge. Without waiting for an answer, she bent to liberate a bottle. Dipping her hand into the water, she scooped up the thong, squeezed it out, and stuffed it into her pocket. Looking up, she saw the boatman watching her. His knowing grin left her face flaming.

Thankfully an excited clamor among the students announced Jake and Seth’s arrival.

“I hope you guys are here to work,” called Jake cheerfully.

“Professor, we got stuck behind a mudslide.”

“The bus slid right off the road.”

“It was so cool.”

“We could have been killed.”

“And yet here you all are,” said Jake. “Right. Everyone start moving these supplies up. Seth and I will join you after we’ve had breakfast.”

“You’re not coming? But we’ve already lost a day,” grumbled one of the girls.

“
You
may have lost a day playing in mud, but I can assure you Seth and I have been hard at it. Kayla here can vouch for our dedication and selfless toil. We’re having breakfast, and we’re cleaning up,” said Jake. “You guys make a start on yesterday’s work plan. And to save you the trouble of a fruitless trek across the island, I should warn you that your stash of illicit alcohol might have been washed away in the storm.”

The students loaded up and trudged off, less spirited now they knew their beer was gone.

The two boatmen had been chatting. Now, at a word from Jake, one slipped the rope free as the other leaped onto the boat.

The narrow boat wobbled precariously as Kayla stepped on more cautiously and the man offered her a steadying hand, saying something that made the other boatman snigger.

Jake and Seth leaped on board. “He hopes your ordeal on the island wasn’t too traumatic,” Jake translated.

Head down, Kayla muttered her thanks for his concern. “They know,” she whispered to Jake as she took her seat.

“They don’t know,” Jake soothed.

She edged the wet thong out of her pocket and showed him.

“Ah.” His eyes twinkled. “In that case, they probably do know. I think the temple still has a bit of a reputation locally.”

Once on the river, the noise of the engine made conversation impossible. Kayla enjoyed the cool breeze. But she enjoyed looking at the men even more, and caught herself consciously memorizing everything about them, from the alert way Seth scanned the passing riverbank to Jake’s lazy dozing in the sun with his hat over his face.

Two hot, sexy men. And they really seemed to be into her. Even if she never saw them again, Kayla knew she would never forget just how good she felt right now.

Seth helped her out of the boat when they reached the mainland. “I don’t know about you, but I need food before I wash up,” he said firmly.

A shower sounded good. But the men didn’t seem bothered by her appearance. “I’m in,” she agreed.

Jake and Seth led the way to a tiny café on the riverbank, with a palm-frond roof, one table, and a few plastic chairs. From a griddle set over a charcoal fire, a bustling woman somehow produced an amazing meal of eggs, salsa, guacamole, and tortillas.

“This is delicious,” Kayla said, only now realizing how hungry she was.

“You like Mexican food?” asked Jake. “I mean, I know technically all the food here is Mexican, but you know what I mean.”

“I love food in general,” she said. “Which I think is pretty obvious.”

“Me too,” said Seth, happily stuffing his face.

“You’ll have to excuse him,” said Jake. “He approaches each meal as if there is a famine coming.”

Maybe he did, but Kayla noticed that each tortilla Seth assembled was piled with healthy choices. “You’re a soldier?” she asked him, remembering something Jake had said.

Seth nodded. “I am. It’s a great life. I get to travel the world, all expenses paid.”

“Don’t fall for that line,” said Jake. “He was born to protect. He’s like a great big mother hen.”

Kayla laughed, but she could see an element of truth in Jake’s statement. Even enjoying a meal with friends, Seth remained sharp and watchful as a hawk. “What made you pick archaeology?” she asked Jake.

Jake pushed his plate away with an air of repletion. “I get to wear a cool hat and dig in the dirt. What’s not to love?”

“You could be a farmer and do the same,” she pointed out.

“True.” Jake stretched his legs out in front and linked his hands behind his head. “Okay, there’s nothing quite like digging up an artifact, knowing that no one has touched it for eight hundred years. It could be pottery or a piece of jewelry. And you hold it in your hand knowing that someone held it just like you. Not a king or a queen. Just an average Joe. I love that sense of the past, knowing that it exists all around us, that every single person who has ever existed has left some mark on the world.” He broke off, looking embarrassed.

Kayla half expected Seth to crack a joke. But what she saw in the other man’s eyes as he looked at Jake was…sympathy?

“Plus, I get to run away from snakes,” said Jake. “What about you?” he asked Kayla. “Are you really a sculptor? Or was that just a line to get us naked?”

“Up until recently, I worked in an office. No snakes. But I intend to reinvent myself as a sculptor.”

“Any particular reason?” asked Seth.

She thought of the years her art had been consigned to a hobby while she tried desperately to make her marriage work. “It was time,” she said briskly, then changed the subject. “Does anyone have a phone I can borrow? Mine’s dead, and I should call my friends.”

The men exchanged a look. “About that,” said Jake diffidently. “Seth and I were talking, and we wondered how you would feel about staying on for a while.”

Spend more time in paradise with these two? How wonderful would that be? But, alas, reality beckoned. And for her, reality didn’t include threesomes with two hot men. “I have to fly home tomorrow,” she said wistfully.

“We’re renting a cabin,” said Seth, just as diffident as Jake. “Not staying in tents like the students. It’s way more comfortable than the top of a pyramid.”

Even one more night with them sounded blissful, but changing her flight would cost money she didn’t have. Besides, what would her friends think if she stayed on with two men she had only just met? And Jake’s students too. What would they think? No, tempting though it was, staying on would only delay the inevitable; if she didn’t leave now, she’d have to leave tomorrow. Or the next day. And the longer she stayed, she suspected the harder that would be.

“I have appointments over the next few days to look at some studios to rent. Which means I need to get back. What about you two? How long are you staying?” she asked, already seeing herself curled up on her sofa in wintry London, drawing them living in the sun.

“I have at least another three weeks,” said Jake.

“Whereas I’ll be leaving at the end of the week,” Seth told her.

“The thing is,” said Jake, “the world isn’t all that big.”

“Meaning?” She glanced from one to the other.

“Meaning that last night was pretty special. Seth and I were talking after you fell asleep, and we’d very much like to repeat the experience. I’m sure there will be times when all three of us are on the same continent. How would you feel about meeting up?”

Kayla’s heart skipped, but she wasn’t clear on what he was asking. “Meet for a booty call?”

“Actually,” said Jake, “we hoped it might be more than that.”

“More?”

“A relationship. What I felt last night…” Jake’s cheeks darkened in a blush. “It blew me away.”

“Yes.” Seth nodded. “Me too. What he said.”

“A relationship? With both of you?” An excited shiver passed through Kayla, making her scalp tingle, but she knew she must be missing something. They couldn’t mean what she thought they meant.