The Dare

Chapter Sixteen

"Romance aside, what happens if your little love plan doesn't work?"

Grandma's smile fell as she placed her hands on the table and rose to her full height. "I don't fail."

"But surely you've thought of the possibility that—"

"Listen, Gus." Grandma's penciled brows furrowed together. "I've been doing this for a long time. I've got moles older than you, so don't get your panties in a twist, son. My ways may be…" she waved flippantly into the air, "unique. But I always make my match. Always."

Jace

Cold shower? Not working.

Cold shower. Grandma? Hairy chested men named Brett?

Working.

Definitely working.

I leaned against the tiled wall and focused on evening out my breathing. I'd set out to make Beth feel better and where had that left me? Sexually frustrated enough to want to scream.

Or maybe I just wanted her to scream? My body seemed to be confused, because at that point I had to keep telling myself that in five days I was walking away. Until then, all bets were off because I hadn't realized until that moment how much Beth needed the chance to see how spectacular she could be. Hell, I'd only known her for days, and even I could see it. How was it possible that when a person looked in the mirror all they saw was what they'd been told by other people their entire lives?

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.