***
A shrill scream woke Ella from a sound sleep and she looked sleepily around the room trying to locate the source. What she saw made her want to pretend to go back to sleep. Holy shit, am I dreaming? Please let me still be asleep!
After blinking a few times, the figures of her mother, her father, and her sister remained firmly in place in front of her. She cringed when she looked down and realized that she was still sprawled out on a now awake, but obviously confused Declan. “What the hell . . . ,” he began before she clamped a hand over his mouth.
Her hysterical mother finally shook herself out of the daze by saying to her father, “Bob, go call the police, now!”
Her father appeared to be looking anywhere except at her and the bed.
And if she wasn’t mistaken, her sister was actually ogling bare-chested Declan. “I wouldn’t bother, Dad,” Crystal said with a smirk, “Premarital sex might be a sin, but the last I heard, it wasn’t illegal.” Giving another long look at the way Ella was tangled around Declan she added, “And I think we can rule out the whole against-her-will thing.”
“Crystal!” Her mother huffed, “What has gotten into you?”
Everyone in the room turned to look at Ella’s sister when she joked, “I think that’s a question for your other daughter, isn’t it, Mom?”
Ella couldn’t believe that her perfect sister had just made an off-color joke and, even if it was at her expense, she had to admit that at any other time it would have been pretty funny. She felt Declan shift under her and knew that some kind of explanation was in order.
“Ellie—”
She took pity on him knowing that he was at the worst disadvantage; naked in a room full of strangers. “Um . . . Declan these are my parents and my sister, Crystal. I . . . didn’t know they were coming today.” Then turning her attention away from him, she pulled the covers up to her chin, covering both her and Declan and turned back to face her family. “What are you doing here and how did you get in?”
Her mother averted her gaze from the bed and said, “I have that key you gave me for emergencies and since you didn’t answer your door, we thought you might need some help.”
“It looks like she’s got this one covered, Mom,” Crystal snickered. Her comment set off another round of scolding from their mother, and their father looked like he wished he was anywhere else. Declan’s head was going back and forth between them like he was watching a tennis match. She thought he was probably in some type of shock over the whole ordeal.
She almost jumped out of the bed when Declan suddenly bellowed, “Stop! You might be Ella’s family, but I have had enough of this! You barged in here without her consent and now you are standing in her bedroom arguing amongst yourselves with us as your captive audience. Now please leave. Ella will call you later—if she wants to. But for now, we would both like you to stop invading our privacy. Your daughter is an adult and I’m sure she would like the courtesy of a phone call before you decide to drop by the next time.”
Ella, along with everyone else in the room, gaped at Declan. She couldn’t get over how he had just come to her rescue. Her mother straightened up to her full height sputtering, “Now you just wait one minute, young man,” before Ella’s father surprisingly put his arm on her shoulder to stop her.
“He’s right, Dorothy; this isn’t any of our business.” Despite the protests from her mother and her sister, he herded them through the doorway, throwing over his shoulder, “Please call your mother later, Ella, or nothing I do will stop her from coming back.” She could hear her mother continue to argue all the way through the apartment and then finally all was quiet again and she turned warily to look at the man still lying halfway beneath her.
“So . . .” Ella began weakly, “I guess you’ve met my family now.”
Declan released a deep breath and looked at her with a slightly dazed expression. “Yeah, no shit, Ellie. They sure know how to kill the morning wood.”
At her confused expression, he looked pointedly down at his crotch and she blushed, “Ohhh, sorry about that. You’re taking this awful well. I figured you would be up and dressed by now.”
“To tell you the truth, I’m too damned scared to walk out that door right now. I’m afraid your mother may be out there waiting to drive her car over the fornicator.”
Ella started laughing at his serious expression. “She’s never actually injured anyone that I know of. Maybe we should get up though just in case she comes back.”
“Honey, you don’t have to convince me of that. There is no way I want to meet any of your family again with my pants off.” After a brief kiss, he did indeed jump up out of bed and start pulling on his clothes. Looking at her over his shoulder he asked, “What’s up with all of the remarks from your sister? I thought she was supposed to be the uptight one?”
Ella shook her head sighing, “I have no idea. Usually she’s a carbon copy of my mom, but today she was different. I even caught her checking you out.” Declan gave her a cocky grin, but wisely refrained from commenting.
“What do you say we get out of here for the day and let the smoke clear?” he asked.
She had been afraid that he was going to take off after this and avoid her, like he had before, so she was more than eager to extend their time together. “I’d love that. What did you have in mind?”
“Well, this is Myrtle Beach so why don’t we get our suits and hit the beach for the day?”
“That sounds great, except I don’t even own a swimsuit. My parents never spent much time on the beach and I just never got around to buying one when I moved here.”
“I could use a new one, so we’ll stop on the way and get what we need.” He smiled as she bounced on the bed excitedly. He kept the smile on his face even when she accidently head-butted him while trying to give him a kiss on her way to the bathroom. “Something tells me that being involved with you is going to be hazardous to my health,” he joked.
She gave him her best pout as she walked away. She was grateful that he had been sensitive enough to throw her his shirt before she had left the bed. She was comfortable with him, but it was still a strange feeling to be naked with a man, even Declan.
***
Declan still wasn’t sure where the invitation to spend the day together had come from. He had further complicated things by convincing Ella to purchase her first bikini. Looking at her wading in the ocean a few yards in front of him, he cursed his own stupidity. Not only were his eyes glued to her slender, curvy body, so were every other man’s. This idea of a day on the beach had sounded innocent enough a few hours before. Truthfully, he had been so desperate to get out of Ella’s apartment before her family returned and shot him that he had grabbed onto the first idea he had. Probably not his best, but it had to be better than staring down the barrel of a Smith and Wesson.