Page 50 of Final Approach

Stripping off my T-shirt like an awkward giraffe caught in a slip and slide, I let the warm rain wash over my skin. I slid down the shorts barely hanging onto my waist and laid them on a larger flat rock just a few feet away, determined not to get my only pieces of clothing muddy. Stepping out of my now sopping shoes, I placed them on the rock, heels up.

There. Bra and panties, like I’d paid for a beach vacation and wasn’t traumatically stranded in a rainforest. The sweat, grit, and general grossness melted away with each fresh drop, but I lusted after the floral scents making their way through the earthy ozone.

“Can I have some of that?” I turned to face them and shouted over the din. Nikki looked up from scrubbing his own shirtless chest and paused, like I was a deer in his headlights.

Modesty had never been one of my virtues. We all had bodies, all shapes and sizes, and fretting over the voluptuous one I’d been given had never entered the equation, except when I had to pull on those godforsaken tights for my uniform.

But the ravenous look in my friend’s eyes made me flush all the same and heat pooled in my belly in a way it really shouldn’t. My body certainly enjoyed Nikki’s attention, regardless of how my mind felt about it.

Colleagues and friends, Marley. He’s just a flirt. Colleagues and friends.

But did a friend have to look at me like that?

“Yeah.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Here.” He took the few steps forward to hand me the tiny tube, and I took it gratefully, pretending not to notice the outline of a hairspray canister in his pants.

It was good to know the attraction wasn’t one-sided at least.

Squeezing a dollop of the gel into my hand, I lathered it up over my belly and breasts and underarms, and turned to discreetly clean beneath my underwear. No need for a full exhibitionist display today. The pounding rain immediately rinsed the soap suds down into the earth, and I squeezed a final pearl of shampoo for my hair, scrubbing it ferociously into my roots.

A lumbering presence made itself known on my left side, standing the hairs on the back of my neck on end. Madman was just a few steps away when I looked up. He’d taken off everything but a pair of tight black boxer briefs, and stood tall with his arms folded across his chest toward our camp, like my personal guard. Colorful artwork covered most of his exposed skin, the black and grey shading of a laughing skull wearing a fedora prominently displayed across one half of his torso, scrawling script of “Clube de Morte” emblazoned across the bottom. His gang tattoo?

Wringing a tiny drop of the remaining shampoo onto my clothing to give them their own bath, I walked forward and tapped his arm, holding out the small tube. He turned, those watchful eyes roaming over me.

He never lingered on one part for long, but his gaze held enough intensity to harden my nipples into sharp points.

I tried very hard not to do the same, but the man’s body was beautiful, rough and rugged, corded and toned. I didn’t know what a prison diet looked like, but he couldn’t have eaten an ounce of fat in his life. Droplets of water trailed over colorful ink and puckered, patchy scars, down the ripples of muscle and smooth edges of an Adonis belt into the fabric of his shorts.

I could climb him like a tree.

I firmly shook my head. Was this a trauma response? This compulsion to procreate when human life was in jeopardy? It was the only explanation for the sudden desperate need to jump a passenger.

“What are you doing?” I asked when he finally took the bottle from my hand.

“Protecting you,” he declared with finality. “Some eyes do not deserve to see you.”

My eyebrows hit my hairline. This man was so … well, maddening.

My gaze followed his to our outpost just a few long strides away. Danny was sleeping under the shelter amid the bags, and Brooks was rinsing off closer to the tree line. Tessa was helping Vanessa rinse soap out of her hair next to the now doused fire. Detective Diaz was hovering on the opposite end of our camp, under the protection of a large tree that loomed over the riverbed and watched us with narrowed eyes.

I immediately understood who Madman intended to protect me from. My heart twinged at the fierceness in his glare toward our shifty detective, all while soaping every ridge of his very enticing body.

For my protection—mostly from my untamed horniness—I stepped back, leaving the two men to their pissing match, satisfied in the end Madman would win.

Now fully clean, I struggled to pull my wet clothing back onto my body. After a battle I hoped no one witnessed, I left the shoes for now.

Ambrose was grappling with his shampoo, unable to raise his arms above his shoulders to get at his hair. Nikki leaned in to say words I couldn’t hear. Ambrose’s shoulders dropped as if in defeat and Nikki moved behind him to—give him a scalp massage?

The man closed his eyes as Nikki’s deft fingers moved through each silky black strand. Ambrose still had on all his clothing—the white muscle shirt suctioned to his chest and abs like a second skin, and the chino shorts outlined thick thighs while rivulets of water ran down molded calves. Transfixed, I watched every facial tic of pleasure on his face before Nikki tapped on Ambrose’s shoulders and flashed a signature grin, releasing his hold.

When Nikki removed his glasses and put his own face up to the rain, the water saturated his curls into elongated ringlets. In this light—in every light—he was so pretty.

Something was definitely wrong with me.

The ground beneath my feet grew boggy, and I realized the rain had been pounding for a good ten minutes, maybe more. Small pools formed at various points along the riverbed, and our good fortune took on a heaviness.

Would we be able to rebuild our fire? Would Ambrose and Danny—even Madman—need their bandages completely redone after exposure to the microorganisms in the rain?

As if hearing my thoughts, the raindrops became sheets stinging my skin with their force. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. It was as if someone was pouring an endless bucket of water over my head.