Before we finish our meals, we combine our tables into one instead of talking across the aisle. We get more than a few side eyes from the others for laughing a little too loudly in the more formal dining area of the hotel. When we’ve eaten our fill and annoyed the other vacationers enough, we decide to take our private party to the exclusive beach and enjoy some fresh night air. The moment we step outside, Kevin and Tracy ditch us in favor of taking a stroll meant for two.
Rod smiles and extends his hand. “How about a drink, a short walk, and a comfy lounge chair with a view?”
“Just one chair?” I think I know what he means, but I’m a little rusty at this whole dating thing, or fake dating, or vacation flinging, whatever we’re doing, I’m rusty at it.
“One chair. You lying in my arms under the stars with no one else around. Is that okay with you?”
“That sounds like heaven on the beach to my ears.” It really does.
“Perfect. What do you want to drink?”
“A cosmopolitan. It’s my all-time favorite.”
We stop at the poolside bar and he orders our drinks. Then we leave our shoes on the boardwalk and stroll barefoot through the sand to the more secluded area. I hold his drink while he drags the lounge chair closer to the water. Once Rod settles in the lounger, I sit between his legs and lean my back against his chest. The warm air gusts over my skin, but the man behind me causes the goosebumps covering my body.
“Are you cold?” Before I have a chance to answer, he sets his beer bottle in the sand, raises up, and removes his jacket. Then he leans back, pulling me with him, and covers me.
Now his scent really is all over me. It’s a masculine scent I wouldn’t mind bathing in, spicy and woodsy, mixed with an intoxicating aroma that’s so unique to Rod I’d recognize blindfolded. I sip on my drink from under his coat, though I don’t need it. The gesture has my head spinning. I’m wrapped in the warmth of Rod from all sides.
Lying in his arms is the stuff dreams are made of, or at least the kind of dreams my escape into steamy romance novels gives me. I’m not sure he’d meet Tracy’s minimum qualifications of a billionaire badass biker who secretly wants to fall in love, but I do think he has an enormous heart he tries to hide from the world. The brief mentions of his sister were with a distinct tenderness in his expression.
When I finish my drink, he takes the glass from me and places it in the sand beside the chair. Then his arms snake under his jacket, glide across the silky material of my dress, and brand my skin with his touch.
“Part of me wants to take you to the nightclub on the rooftop and dance the night away. Another part wants to keep you right here, where it’s quiet and we’re all alone. But I’ll do whichever you’d prefer without complaint.” His lips brush against my ear as he speaks. But he doesn’t move while he waits for my choice.
He’s right there. I could turn my head with very little effort and kiss him. The quick one I planted on him in the ocean was a spur of the moment decision, prompted by the circumstances, and it was a couple of days ago. In this intimate setting, I’d send a very different signal, one I’m not sure I’m ready to follow through on just yet.
The mere thought of it conjured it into being because here I am, turning toward him, and pressing my lips against his. He responds by turning so we’re lying side by side. I push his jacket off me and caress his cheek with my fingertips. His eyes search mine for a moment and a flash of uncertainty lights in them, but I don’t know what question he’s asking me. He slowly shakes his head before capturing my mouth with his.
What starts as a slow burning candle quickly morphs into a fully involved inferno. His tongue glides across the crease of my lips, asking for entrance, and I instantly comply. He threads his fingers through my hair and grips the roots, tugging just enough to make the pain and pleasure mix deliciously. The urgency in his kiss isn’t demanding or aggressive, it’s empowering to me. The way he’s mastered the art of kissing should come with a warning label.
He leaves my lips and moves his mouth along my jawline toward my ear, then down my neck. The light nips, warm licks, and soft caresses he leaves have my body churned up like the ocean in a ship’s wake.
“Damn, Daisy, you taste so fucking good. I’ve thought about your lips on mine all fucking day.” His hungry growl reverberates against my skin, effectively erasing any mental capacity I have to reply.
He moves lower, sliding down my body until his tongue flicks against the skin between my breasts exposed by the deep V in my dress. “I would love to eat you alive. You smell so fucking good.”
When he runs his tongue along the middle swell of my cleavage, I nearly come undone in his arms. My fingers curl into his shoulder of their own accord in response to his intense assault on my libido. I’m at the tipping point, ready to tell him to take me to his room, my room, or take me right here on this chair.
But he lifts his face and returns to his original spot. “I want nothing more right now than to bury myself as deep inside you as I can get, all fucking night long, until the entire island knows my full name and they give me a star in the resort’s hall of fame. But I don’t want you to make a heat of the moment decision tonight that you’ll regret the
