“Yeah. They’re just friends,” Fitz muttered sarcastically, punctuating it with two-fingered air quotes. He hadn’t moved from his seat, so Lilah stayed put too. No point in getting lost in a strange place full of rabid hunters on the trail of fifty thousand dollars.
“Well, I wasn’t going to say anything.” She tucked her tongue into her cheek. “But the evidence does indeed point to something a little more friendly than just friends.”
“So you’re not privy to the story there, either?” Fitz swirled a hand at the couple.
“No. It was news to me.” And it made her feel slightly better that Jack hadn’t clued in his friend on the nature of the beast while Thora had left her out in the cold.
Jack turned and motioned them both over a bit frantically, so they climbed out of the boat to scurry over to the bench. Thora’s eyes seemed to have sunken into her head in the few minutes that had elapsed.
“Thora is going to let me take her to the hospital.” Jack held up a finger to Thora before she could open her mouth, which she’d clearly been about to do, and shushed her. “Yes, she is. And we both want you to continue on without us.”
Without... Jack and Thora? Continue on with Fitz? By herself? “What is this craziness you’re talking about?”
“Please, Lilah,” Thora whispered, her eyelids drifting to half-mast. “It would mean a lot to me if you didn’t quit. We already paid the entry fee, and I… want you to win. Split the money two ways if you do. We insist.”
Frowning, Fitz scrubbed at the back of his neck. “That would be lame, you guys. We can’t go do this without you. I would feel like a heel, especially if we won.”
Nodding like a bobblehead, Lilah scouted around for another plausible reason that it would be sheer madness to assume that sticking her on a boat with Fitz—alone—made sense. “I want to go to the hospital with you. Make sure you’re all right.”
Yes, well, of course that was her first concern. Thora was sick. What kind of person jetted off on a wild adventure with a hot guy while a friend went to the hospital in a strange country?
“I’m fine,” Thora muttered. “Jack’s going to be very embarrassed when the hospital says so.”
Jack waved that off as if she hadn’t even spoken. “I’m going to take care of her,” he insisted to Lilah. “You don’t trust me?”
“Of course she does, moron,” Fitz growled with backhand cuff to Jack’s bicep that would have knocked a less solid man off balance, but the blow just glanced off. “But this is her friend. Cut her some slack.”
“Right,” she said gratefully. “And how do you know Fitz is safe, huh? Maybe he makes a habit out of kidnapping unsuspecting women and taking them back to his lair to participate in depraved sex acts.”
Um… maybe she could have thought of a different way to phrase that.
His scowl swiveled in her direction. “I don’t have to kidnap women to get them back to my lair for any kind of sex acts. They come willingly. All day long.”
Which, come to think of it, was a thousand times more likely. But still… the man had danger stamped all over him with invisible ink. You could probably only read it under black lights. There was not one single thing about him that said bring me home to meet your mother.
Her risk-adverse little heart rolled over and pleaded for mercy.
Jack rolled his eyes. “He meant to refute the depraved part of that statement too, by the way. Look, I would trust Fitz with my life. And have. Many times. There is literally no one I’d have more confidence in keeping you safe than this guy.”
“Give us a minute,” Fitz suggested and put a hand to the small of Lilah’s back as he guided her off to the side with literally no pause for her to argue with his trajectory.
Oh, goodness. His palm zinged through her shirt, and the current warmed her whole backside. Walking. There was supposed to be walking. But her feet had grown roots down into the wooden planking of the dock, and if he kept putting his hands on her, the heat might burst a few blood vessels.
“Maybe you could not do that,” she whispered, and he must not have heard what she said because he leaned in, wafting a whole lot of masculinity in her direction. Her parched insides soaked it up faster than a lush at happy hour.
“Do what?” His breath stirred against the skin of her neck. “Try to help you see the logic in doing this thing with me? We’d rock it out. I have no doubt that we can kick the ass of every team out here. Come on. This is your adventure, Lilah. Grab it.”
Something unfolded inside as his enthusiasm and simple belief in her abilities washed across every nerve. What, did he have a distant relation to the Pied Piper or something? All at once she had the strongest urge to follow him. Wherever he wanted to lead her.