Free Rebound by Michael Cain Page B

him. He couldn’t have what he wanted, not when it came to
Susan. The world didn’t work that way.
    If he slept with
Susan, and Kevin could already feel himself taking her in his arms,
crushing her curves against himself, feasting on her mouth, on her
flesh, being inside her...
    But she was in pain.
That was her exact word for it. How could she be ready to sleep
with him if she was still in pain over shit-head Mark! It had to be
something like a one-night stand, a rebound thing. And that was
empty. That was always a mess. And if he was just her rebound guy,
then...
    Then he wouldn’t be
her friend anymore. He’d be the guy she used to get over Mark.
    And he’d lose
her.
    Kevin took a deep
breath of the unbelievably clean tropical air. Everything about
this place was pure and beautiful, and not worth a damn if Susan
wasn’t with him. Somehow he’d have to find a way around this. Some
way to make Susan forget trying to bed him. Because it was a bad
idea. She needed time to heal, not a one-night stand. She needed
her friend Kevin, not his horn-dog evil twin.
    He couldn’t chance
losing her, no matter how badly he wanted her.
    Pussy!
    Suddenly there was a
rustling behind him, on the other side of the clearing, and Kevin’s
eyes widened as he turned to see Susan drop through a stand of
young palm trees and land flat on her face in the tall grass.
    Kevin gave a quick
snort of laughter. “So, I can’t even get a couple of minutes to
think?” he grumbled to God under his breath. “You had to send her
all the way up here just to screw with me.”
     
    * * * *
     
    The trail had
gotten steep and rocky, and then littered with fallen trees, and
finally covered in vines until there was no trail left. And just
when Susan was about to freak out, wishing hard for a big machete
or an industrial strength weed-whacker, she unceremoniously tripped
and fell. Her life flashed before her eyes, for she was sure she
was about to fall right over The Virgin Drop, and to her death. But
her life was short and whizzed by far too swiftly to comprehend.
When she hit the nice solid ground and didn’t go tumbling head over
heels, or simply pitch down into the seething ocean, she sent a
hysterical Thank
You up to heaven.
    She looked up
to see Kevin staring at her, hands crossed over his chest, and then
he snorted. Kevin didn’t snort. So Susan was pretty sure she looked
ridiculous. As she stood, and tangles of dead vines and bits of
palm and grass fell out of her hair, she rescinded her Thank You, replacing it with Asshole !
    She realized Kevin
had turned away from her and hadn’t so much as lifted a finger to
help her. “Thanks for the helping hand.”
    He didn’t move a
muscle, but Susan could tell he stiffened all over. “I wanted to be
alone. Is that so hard to understand?”
    Well, yes...Susan had
to rein herself back. She couldn’t just start yelling at him
    “A plane could’ve
gotten you.”
    Kevin’s head jerked.
“A plane?”
    Susan felt silly. She
made it sound like an airplane was some sort of ghoulish monster
out of a B movie.
    “I’m a paranoid
former jilted bride with abandonment issues,” Susan paraphrased
Liz. “Give me a break.”
    Kevin grunted and
shook his head. “I wasn’t going to leave. I just needed...”
    “Some space?” Susan
said to utter silence. “Some time?”
    “To think.”
    “That’s never a good
idea.” Susan tiptoed over, trying to get closer without scaring him
off.
    “You have room to
talk,” Kevin said, still not looking at her. “When your thoughts
don’t have you jumping your best friend, they’ve got you in a
coma.”
    Ouch . But Susan pushed that barb right out
of her head. She had to fix what she’d done. She had to get him to
forgive her.
    “Funny,” she
grumbled. “So, can I buy you a drink or a shiny new car to make up
for it?”
    She could tell Kevin
was smiling, and it made her heart skip a beat. He was going to
forgive her.
    “Since you attacked
me last night after a