I take a slender blue bottle and waggle it toward Cristiano. “Help a girl out?”
He looks at me over the top of his phone, and I hold my breath. I can’t give him time to reply. If he turns me down now, I doubt I’ll have the courage to put myself out there again, so I take my champagne and the sunscreen and move to the end of his lounger, holding the bottle out for him.
When he leans forward and takes the sunscreen out of my hand, I can’t help but bite down on my smile.
“Turn and scoot back,” he commands.
Winnie, what the hell have I gotten myself into?
It’s just one side of my body and not even all of it, I tell myself. He only needs to rub his hands all over my naked back. Ha ha! What’s the big deal? What’s thebigdeal? Cristiano’s hands are the big deal. He has those NFL hands. Quarterback hands.Hands that make me sweat just thinking of them roaming over my body.
The moment his warm palm flattens against my lower back, I have to fight back a gasp. I’msoout of my league here, and raising my shaky champagne flute to my mouth doesn’t help. I pray the fizzy bubbles will settle the butterflies rioting in my stomach, but if anything, they make them worse.
Cristiano doesn’t talk while he works, thank god. I don’t want to have to try to string together a coherent sentence right now. I just want to sink into this feeling, memorize every second his hands are on me, sliding up beneath the ties of my bikini, accidentally loosening it ever so slightly. He gathers up my hair and twirls it around his hand before draping it over my shoulder, exposing more of my skin so he can make sure he gets every inch from the nape of my neck to the hollow of my spine. His hands knead my muscles as he goes. He doesn’t have to be this thorough. His hands don’t have to dip slightly around my torso, encompassing my rib cage just beneath my breasts like a tantalizing promise.
I know he can feel my heart thundering in my chest, can see my unsteady breaths. I’m not playing it cool here so much as falling willingly into his trap.
He’s done rubbing the lotion in. His featherlight touch slips down my spine for no reason other than pleasure now, and then all too soon, he pulls away.
I’m suddenly bereft. I know if he tugged, I’d fall back willingly, flatten myself against his chest and let him rub the sunscreen onto the front of my body as well. I’m half tempted to lie and tell him I can’t reach my knees, just to see if he’d keep going. I want to feel his hands on me again. Even with our audience.
I squeeze my eyes closed and try to quell the surge of longing, the lust swirling inside me, propelling my bad decisions.
“Done.”
He slides his sunglasses on so I can’t see his gaze when I look back. “Don’t you need me to do you?”
I sound absolutely desperate for the job.
He half smiles. “I’m Spanish,” he says by way of explanation.
I hate those damn sunglasses, guarding his true feelings right now. Did rubbing that sunscreen on me affect him at all? I can’t help but chance a peek at his black swim trunks, and I inhale sharply, then quickly look away, smiling like a fiend.
Oh.
There’s my answer.
He shifts and lifts his right knee up; my smile only grows.
“Isabel,” he practically growls.
I correct him with a tsk-tsk.“Elle.”
Then he reaches out to take the forgotten champagne from my hand and drinks the last of it.
“Don’t you want your food?”
He’s referring to the untouched plate on my lounge chair, the little canapés and appetizers I was ravenous for a few minutes ago. Now I’m hungry for something else entirely, and Cristiano knows it.
I steal back the champagne flute and flounce over to my lounge chair, aware of his eyes on my backside barely covered by my skimpy bikini. My food can wait. For now I think I’ll lie out for a bit and work on my tan.
Chapter Fourteen
Isabel
I can’t tell which burns hotter, the blazing Spanish sun or Cristiano’s gaze as I lie on my front, propped on my elbows, flipping through an Ibiza guidebook I brought along in my swim bag. My feet kick slowly back and forth; I’m the picture of innocence.Wink.I don’t even have to check to confirm his attention is on me, the same as it has been for the last hour.
I almost feel bad for the cut of this bikini. Almost.
