The Dare (15 page)

Beth was drop-dead gorgeous. With billowy
lips, gorgeous thick brown hair, exotic eyes and a figure that
started wars
—
it was no wonder that Brett
had been an ass to her in high school. He'd been intimated, and
that made me want to cause murder.

I was intimated and nothing intimidated
me.

Was it so wrong to feel smug that, out of all
the men in the world Beth could have asked to help her, she'd asked
me? Granted, we were kind of stuck together, but still.

It was me.

And I didn't fail. Grandma and I had that in
common.

I turned off the shower and wrapped a towel
around my waist. When I opened the door to the bathroom, Beth had
already brought our luggage in and was pulling out her own charger
for her phone.

A moment of genius chose an opportune moment
to make itself known. I swiped her phone and put it back in her
suitcase. "No phones."

"How is that fair?" Beth tried to dig for her
phone charger, but I held her hands hostage.

"It's fair because I won't use mine
either."

She didn't look convinced. Her eyebrows shot
up in shock. "Right, you're just going to refuse to answer your
phone after the media portrayed you as a dirty rotten
politician?"

"Rick will take care of it," I said evenly.
"No phones. Just you and me. You want the fairytale. Pretty sure
Prince Charming didn't have a Twitter account. We unplug. All week.
Deal?"

Her eyes narrowed.

I held out my hand.

She took it. "Deal, but no cheating."

"Please, I don't cheat."

"Says the senator," she sang.

"Low blow."

"You make it too easy."

With a grin she patted my chest, and, if it
were at all possible to be more aroused, it happened. All because
she placated me, she patted me like a small child, and here I was
ready to throw caution to the wind and take her on the bed.

"Jace?"

"Huh?" My head snapped up.

"Lunch?"

I pulled my watch off the nightstand and
exhaled, giving my body enough time to calm the hell down. "You're
right. It's still early. Let's do it."

Beth pulled out a sheet of paper and
frowned.

"What?"

"It says we have three restaurants to choose
from, and that we have some sort of mixer tonight for dinner? What
do you want to do?" She twirled a piece of hair between her fingers
as her mouth fell into a pout.

Hell and damn. I wanted to pull her hair.

That's what Viagra does to you. It makes you
think about doing things you shouldn't be doing during the
daylight. Like asking if you can pull a woman's hair, just to see
what her face would look like when you're doing it.

Her eyebrows pinched together as she mouthed
the restaurants and then bit down on her lip.

Never mind. I wanted to pull her hair and
bite her lip. Or maybe I'd bite her lip first then pull her
hair.

"Jace? Thoughts?"

"Sex," I blurted like a pubescent twelve year
old.

"What?" The paper floated out of her
trembling hands onto the bed.

Bed, bed, bed
, my body taunted. Damn
it!

I winced. "I'm glad we're going out instead
of having, uh, sex?"

Yeah, she didn't believe me. Her mouth
cracked into a silly grin as she crossed her arms and gave me a
very judgmental look. So I said, "I'm a guy. I can't help it."
Right, like that was a solid excuse. I may as well have pulled down
my pants and pointed, "Look, me boy, you girl," and grunted.

"The Viagra making a comeback?" she
teased.

"Yeah, let's blame it on the tiny blue pill
crushed into my tea." I had a moment of panic when I wondered if
Grandma had slipped anything else into there, like a stupidity
pill, because I sure as hell wasn't earning points toward Mensa
membership.

"Tell you what." Beth picked up the paper
again. "You pick where we eat. After all this is my fairytale. I
don't want to know all the surprises."

She had a hopeful look on her face, the same
look girls get on Valentine's when they expect you to be the one
guy to do something other than flowers or chocolate.

Smiling through my nervousness and intense
need to impress her after the Viagra incident, I took the paper
from her hands and examined it. All the restaurants sounded good.
But good wasn't good enough. It was food. I wanted more than food,
and I figured she did too. After all, how romantic can a person get
over a hamburger and fries? Especially considering she hated fries?
I should probably get to pull her hair for remembering that.

Beth stretched her arms above her head.

Down boy. We needed to get out of the hut
before it turned into the hut of shame, and I made a complete ass
out of myself by getting on my hands and knees and begging. I
crumpled the paper onto the ground and stalked over to the phone
and dialed the concierge.

"This is the concierge desk. How may I help
you?"

"I want to romance my girlfriend," I said
evenly into the phone, using my best politician voice. "Does this
hotel have any excursions we can participate in?"

"Of course." The man chuckled. "When would
you like your outing to take place?"

Beth bent over to pick up something off the
floor. Holy shit.

"Now!"

"Alright, you don't have to yell."

"Sorry." I croaked. "I thought I saw a…
turtle."

A turtle?
Beth mouthed.

"Sir, tortoises aren't predators."

"I know, I just…" I licked my lips in
irritation. "The excursions? Please?"

The man was silent for a minute. "At this
moment, all we have available is the noon excursion to a few of the
sugarcane fields with a lovely picnic and a horseback ride through
the waterfalls."

"Sounds perfect."

"Great, but I should warn you
that
—
"

"Money isn't a problem," I interrupted.
"We'll be in the front lobby in ten minutes."

I hung up the phone with a smug grin. Yeah, I
was basically kicking Iron Man's ass. A horseback ride? Hiking
through sugarcane fields? And a picnic? Slap my ass and call me
charming. Fairytale, here we come!

****

"Jace?" Beth gripped my arm and stepped on my
foot for the second time in five minutes. I winced in pain.
"Sorry."

"What?"

"I think we're lost."

"We're not lost," I snapped. "We're
exploring."

Exploring:
A word men
use when they're lost.
See also:
Stubborn as a mule.

"Oh." Beth sighed.

I took a sip of water from my water bottle
and soldiered through. The picnic had gone pretty well. But now we
were supposed to be touring the sugarcane fields, and in a moment
of pure genius, I'd taken a step in and asked Beth to follow me.
After all, how big could a sugarcane field possibly be?

It was like being in a giant cornfield, only
the spiders were bigger than Mars and had fangs that made them look
like tiny vampires ready to feed on our souls.

Note to self:
Sugarcane
fields are where people go to die.
See also:
Hell
.

I pushed through some more sugarcane stalks
and swore when I realized we'd have to go back the way we came.
There was no way we could walk out of this place and actually make
it back to the van in time for dinner. I wasn't Bear Grylls, and I
could have sworn I saw a spider waving at me a few minutes ago. No
way was I giving him a chance to get up close and personal.

"Jace..." Beth whispered.

"Not now. I'm trying to decide what direction
we're facing," I snapped and looked up at the sky. North was ahead
of us. The hotel was south
—
"

"Jace!" Beth swatted my back.

"Beth, seriously, don't interrupt a man when
he's exploring. It's like our natural habitat, okay? Throws us off
and freaks us out when women try to help."

She swatted me again, this time hitting me in
the back.

"Beth,
seriously
." I turned
around.

Her eyes were big as saucers, and then
everything happened in slow motion. A tree-trunk-shaped hairy leg
appeared in my line of vision. Beth screamed and started running in
the other direction, and then something I can only describe as a
species not yet discovered on this planet began crawling down my
face.

Not a proud moment when a man screams like a
small child and begins pulling off all of his clothes.

"R-uuun!" I shouted.

Beth had already taken off.

The creature bobbed against my line of vision
as I ran. I swatted against it to get it to fall off of my face,
but somehow it managed to cling to my arm. I imagined its tiny
fangs sinking into my skin just as the sugarcane parted into a
clearing.

Beth was hunched over, breathing hard, and I
was still shaking my arm, trying to get the creature or spider or
whatever the hell it was off.

"Shh…" A Hawaiian man approached, hands high
in the air. "You're scaring Frank."

"Frank?" I stopped moving my arm and looked
at the offensive creature.

"Very old," the man nodded, "very wise
guardian of the cane."

"Oh, dear Lord."

"You mustn't remove Frank," our guide said in
low tones. "He removes himself when he's ready."

"Would that be before or after he kills me?"
I asked. "Just curious."

"He does not
kill
." The Hawaiian man
actually looked upset that I'd even suggested such a thing. "He
brings life into the cane and guards it from evil."

"So I'm evil?"

"No." The man took another step forward. "He
must have been attracted to your scent. Tell me, are you
aroused?"

I blinked a few times. Was this real? Or was
I hallucinating?

"Hell. No." Was he accusing me of being
sexually attracted to spiders? Is that what was happening?

"During mating season, the spider senses can
often be affected by the scent of arousal. Have you and your lady
friend been…" He coughed.

"No," Beth chimed in. "Lady friend says
no."

"Interesting." The man finally stopped in
front of me. "But you want to, with your lady friend?"

"Uh…" Oh, what the hell. "Yes."

"It could be the Viagra," Beth chimed in.

I sent her a seething glare while Frank
clenched harder onto my arm.

"A young man such as yourself? Needing
Viagra?" The guide chuckled. "No wonder Frank's attaching himself
to you. He smells your desire."

"I AM NOT ATTRACTED TO MALE SPIDERS!" Yeah.
I'd snapped. I'd take that assassination attempt any second
now.

"Nobody said you had to mate with him." Beth
giggled.

"You." I pointed and made a cutting signal
with my free hand
—
you know, the one that
wasn't getting humped by the spider. Words I thought I'd never
utter.

"Perhaps Frank senses your desperation. Maybe
you should stop prolonging the inevitable and mate with your lady
friend." He pulled out a carrot and began gnawing on one end of it.
"Besides, you only have five days to decide your fate. That curse
must be working. It's magic."

"Curse?" I repeated.

"Yeah, your keiki is off."

"My keiki is fine."

"Frank's upset," Beth piped up. "He's getting
on his haunches."

"Shit!" I waved my arm again. "First off,
Frank," I pointed to the offending spider, "is still attached to
me. Second, how do you even know how long we're staying, and third,
are you, or have you been in the past hour, high as a kite? And
were you the one that cursed me?"

"I give drugs, not hugs. Hang loose, man." He
grinned and reached for the spider. "Most guests only stay six to
seven days, but you two were easy to peg. I read it in your
reservation you made this morning. And my cousin's the boat
captain." He grinned and took another bite off his carrot then held
out his hands to Frank.

The spider slowly crawled off my arm and into
the guide's waiting hands. The minute his hairy ass was gone, I ran
toward Beth and shook my entire body.

When I approached her for comfort, she took a
step back.

"Oh no, you don't. You could have more Franks
in your pants. No way I'm taking a chance of one of them touching
me. Who knows what voodoo that Viagra cast on you."

"So many things wrong with that sentence,
Beth. So many things."

"Be free, Frank!" The guide let the spider
loose and turned to face us.

"Bye, Frank!" Beth waved.

"Stop waving." I grabbed her hand.

She jerked free of my grip. "Chill. It's not
like he bit you."

"And you noticed that when? Before or after
you took off screaming, leaving me to die in the middle of the
sugarcane field?"

Beth's eyes narrowed. "You're just pissed
because you're the worst explorer ever, don't know where North is,
and would totally get voted off
Survivor Island
."

"I would rather bomb the island with me on
it, than have to run through a sugarcane field again. But if you
wanna try out for
Survivor
, be my guest."

"Ahem." Our guide cleared his throat. "If it
is okay with you two, we'll continue our expedition with the
horseback ride."

"Saddle up, cowboy." Beth winked and slapped
my ass. "Or are you scared of horses too?"

"I will ride that horse so damn hard…" I
stopped talking. My body had failed me earlier today, and now it
seemed my mind was last to go.

Beth's eyes shone with humor.

Our guide brought over the horses. I assumed
the short ugly one who looked like a hundred years old was Beth's,
but she was already getting on a different one, leaving me with
Donkey from
Shrek
and a sinking feeling that one of us
wasn't going to make it through the jungle alive.