Blissed out and melted across the lounger, she would’ve been down for more. Yet I’d pulled back despite wanting her so badly I’d ached. I’m still aching for her now.
But it wasn’t supposed to be this way. I’d planned on purely transactional.
“Well?” She seems almost hesitant, like she’s looking for approval. I notice her makeup is dark and kind of dramatic. She looks older than her twenty-four years.
“You look gorgeous,” I say. Why would she think otherwise? The woman would look good in a rice sack, which is partly why we’re going out tonight.
Got to try to keep my hands to myself somehow.
Her smile is instant, and she dips her head and kind of bounds two more steps deeper into the room.
“I guess I better behave myself,” I add, sorry she had to prompt me to a compliment. “You look kind of kick-ass. A Lara Croft-Barbarella mashup.”
“I can cope with that!”
Her husky laughter ties my stomach in knots. I’m beginning to think she can cope with just about anything.Make the best out of anything.
“Drink?” I turn to the bar rather than keep on staring at her.
She nods. “Vodka and soda. Ice and lime, if you have it.”
I turn to the built-in bar and pull her drink together. “You’ll have to explain the intricacies of your packing to me sometime.”
“You gave me, like, five minutes!” she protests, beginning to count out her points with the fingers of her right hand. “You said sunshine, one night, and…”
Our gazes catch, and heat pulses through me.
One night. My purchase. Her promise.
Her gaze slides away. I turn back to the bar and feel the heat of her eyes on me instantly. I turn back, passing her a glass. She murmurs her thanks and we both pretend that moment didn’t just rock us both.
She lifts it to sip at her drink. “What else would you expect to find in my tiny backpack? I mean, apart from a wedding dress.”
“I see you managed a spare shirt.” I lift my own glass, admiring the garment a little more than is polite. Nothing to do with the cut unless we’re talking about how it’s so tight it clings to the fullness of her breasts. Or how it offers a peep show of skin at the dip of her waist and clavicles, leaving her finely molded and sun-kissed shoulders bare.
“No, this is the same one as earlier,” she offers happily, spinning around to show her mostly bare back. “It’s a viral hack where you use the sleeves to sort of tie yourself in.”
“Viral hack sounds like the effects of a common cold.”
“Dad joke,” she mutters. I frown, not that she notices as she puts her glass down. She begins to undo the knot at her almost bare back.
Fuck.I bite my fist as she messes with the ties at her back.
“Nearly… almost.” It’s her own little pep talk. “Got it!”
The fabric slips, inadvertently flashing me the round of her right breast. Not that she even notices. She’s just so damned pleased at her own ingenuity.
She makes me feel like Methuselah. Ancient and gray in the face of her gleeful demonstration. He must’ve been a horny piece of work because I want to bite my way down her rib cage. Then bury my face in her ass.
I’m not old, and I’m not a green boy. I do not get a hard-on at the flash of a tit.Though present circumstances (almost) point otherwise.
“See?” She tugs the ties that turn out to be sleeves of her T-shirt. The fabric is just pressed to her chest, kept there by the knotted sleeves.
There’d be nothing to stop me from sliding my hand in there.
Apart from willpower.
And the pretty solid punch to the head she might deliver. Deservedly so.
