Стейси Кестуик - Wet

And horny.

This dry spell wasn’t my fault. After all that shit had gone down with Asshole, I hadn’t even wanted to look at another guy for months. I shuddered at the memory and pushed him from my mind. He didn’t deserve anything from me anymore. Not even a single disgusted thought.

I sidestepped to miss a glob of jellyfish, almost rolling my ankle, and the sound of a mournful bay from up ahead caught my attention. Squinting, I could see a huge black and tan dog running up and down the waterline, a piece of driftwood in his mouth. Out in the ocean, a handful of guys were surfing the early morning waves. The glare from the sun made it hard to get a good look at any of them, but I could see bare chests and muscles, and my pulse kicked up a notch. My missing food group .

They must’ve been locals.

Reynolds Island wasn’t very big. It was one of South Carolina’s barrier islands, mixed in with Fripp, Kiawah, and Edisto, cuddled between Beaufort and Charleston. It was prime real estate, though. Property values were ridiculous, especially oceanfront. Unless you had bought the property over thirty years ago, odds were, you were doing pretty well for yourself.

The beach here on the south side of the island was where the locals and the wealthy summer transients stayed. It was easy to tell which houses belonged to which group. The transients had huge oceanfront mansions. Show-off houses. Farthest south, toward the jetty, were the more reasonably priced houses the local working class occupied. To the north were the rental properties and the Water’s Edge resort. I lived with Rue midway down the island, in one of the rental properties, even though Rue was considered a local since she’d moved here permanently after she finished her MBA last year. I was a local now too since moving in with her five months ago, in the wake of that mess with Asshole.

The baying dog — some kind of hound — ran alongside me for a distance as I passed the surfers. Slobber flew from his jowls, and his long droopy ears flapped like wings. As big as he was, I think he was still a puppy. His paws were huge for his size, and his skin hung on his frame. A surfer called out eventually, and the dog turned back.

I didn’t bother to really study the guys, after my initial ogling. One thing Rue had drilled into me, was that locals weren’t for flings. That’s what tourists were for. Hot guys delivered weekly, ready for a hook up, and already prescheduled to leave, erasing the chance of awkward future run-ins.

A fling was exactly what I needed. While I didn’t distrust men now as a whole, the thought of starting up another relationship just seemed like too much damn work. I wanted something easy. Disposable. If a relationship was equivalent to a five-star restaurant, then I was searching for the nearest drive-thru.

Rue had an almost foolproof system in place. There were three bars on the island — two frequented by tourists, and one by locals. She stuck almost exclusively to the tourist bars, picked out her flavor of the night, then went back to his place. Always to his place. It was that simple.

And it worked. Rue went through men like Halloween candy, unable to pick a favorite and in a hurry to try them all. And they all seemed just as eager to sample her, no strings attached. She had been begging me to go out with her, and I was finally ready to cave. It was time to see if I remembered how to flirt, in any case. Appetizers , my dirty mind chimed in.

Zoned back out to my music, I reached the jetty at the end of the beach, where the sand disappeared into coastal scrub. I hadn’t meant to run this far, which meant I had even longer to go to get back. Great . Taking a break, I bent over at the waist and tried to catch my breath. I downed a third of my water bottle and looked out over the Intracoastal Waterway, my chest heaving from exertion.

The sun was higher now, so I was no longer half-blind from the reflection off the water. And I had warmed up, sweat darkening the part of my sports bra under my breasts. I eyed the waves, knowing the cool water would feel refreshing, but stayed where I was, safely on shore. I was afraid of the ocean in a vague, but very real sense. Who knew what kinds of dangerous things lurked under that murky surface, just out of sight?

Taking one last deep breath, I turned back the way I had come, following my footprints still visible in the sand. It was official. Starting tonight, I would be following a new Atkin’s based diet. Meat friendly.

I grinned. Rue would be thrilled. We’d hit the bars, and after a good one-night stand or two, I should be feeling as good as new. Surely orgasms were the equivalent of nature’s vitamins? All those endorphins?

Partway back, with my calves aching, the craving for Krispy Kreme hit hard. Since I had run at least a mile more than I’d planned, splurging on a hot glazed breakfast seemed like a fabulous idea. Krispy Kreme doughnuts might be the only thing I craved as much as sex. I picked up my pace.

Macklemore played in my ears, and I smiled and matched my stride to the beat, covering ground quickly. A nervous crab guarded his hole but darted away when I got too near. Silly crustacean, I was just as scared of him as he was of me.

The spot where the surfers had been was just up ahead, and I saw the giant puppy still playing on the beach. He spotted me and started loping my way, his tongue lolling to the side. I glanced out at the waves rolling in, but I didn’t see the surfers anymore. The dog reached me and jumped up, his sandy paws knocking my water bottle out of my hand and bringing me to a stop, his tail wagging furiously.

I knelt down, rubbing his huge ears, murmuring to him. “Hi there, big boy. Who do you belong to? Did they forget you out here?”

The hound rolled to his back, begging for a belly rub. I played with him for a few moments, looking around for the guys from earlier. Surely the dog belonged to one of them.

Finally, I spotted a lone surfer floating out just past the breakers. Cupping my hands around my mouth, I hollered at him. A light morning breeze was blowing inland, so I wasn’t sure he could hear me over the waves. The dog zipped up and down the waterline, baying with delight. It sounded more like the noise a seal made than a bark.

The guy was floating on his back. I waved my arms at him and yelled again. Still nothing.

I turned back to the dog, who was crouched beside me with his head down and his hindquarters up in the air, and wrestled with him for the piece of driftwood in his mouth. He surrendered it without much of a fight. I threw it as far as I could, and he raced for it, bringing it back and dropping it at my feet. He knew how this game worked. I threw the stick a couple more times, laughing at the dog’s antics.

I was about to start running again when I turned back to the surfer. Still floating. The wind whipped strands of my ponytail in my face, and I batted them away. In fact, he hadn’t moved at all. I frowned, putting my hands on my hips, and walked to the foamy edge where the waves rushed the shoreline. What the hell was he doing out there?

When a wave cresting early crashed over him and he still didn’t react, my lifeguarding instincts kicked in.

“Shit,” I muttered, toeing off my running shoes and tossing them toward higher ground, along with my phone and ear buds. Gasping at the coldness, I waded out into the surf until I was submerged waist deep, then dove into the waves. After I passed the breakers, I swam toward him with practiced strokes, angling a little to account for the current trying to pull me farther away. A surfboard was floating a few feet from the guy. Behind me, the dog howled.

The surfer’s feet were just in front of me, bobbing with the swells, and I went to swim around him to approach him from behind, but my arm brushed along his calf. Flinching, he folded in on himself, jackknifing in the water. His foot slammed into my gut, right in my solar plexus, and the air whooshed out of my lungs.