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He stood and began to clean up. “Sit down, relax,” he ordered. “I’ve got cleaners coming in today. I just want to stack these dishes. And don’t worry if you’re hungry, I’m planning on fish and chips in the park after our swim today.”
“You know the way to a woman’s heart.”
He no doubt remembered her love for battered fish with golden and crunchy chips. There was nothing like salt air and the sound of the surf to induce a need for greasy but tasty takeaway food.
He went and changed into board shorts and a T-shirt while she finished her drink. By the time she’d rinsed her glass in the kitchen sink, he’d grabbed a picnic blanket and a couple of towels.
“You don’t need to work today?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Believe it or not I have a lot of days owed to me. With Galan taking a month off to be with his heavily pregnant wife, we’re lucky we have amazing staff we can delegate much of our workload to. Plus, Liam is always floating around somewhere, making sure everything is running like clockwork.”
She covered a smile at the obvious affection he had for his brothers. All three of them could have been models, with their ripped bodies and chiseled faces, not to mention their height and their aura of cockiness. Even she had a soft spot for Liam, he’d been so young and gangly in her memory, and yet to grow into himself.
How things had changed. He was as sought after by the ladies as his brothers had been. Had been? Galan might be off the market but Aiden was far from it. She had to make these last few days count.
Was that why she wanted to snuggle closer to him as the elevator took them to the ground floor and they stepped outside into the brilliant sunshine? Why she noticed him towering next to her when she didn’t have on her heels? Why every minute spent with him already seemed like the last?
She sighed softly and he peered down at her. “Don’t tell me you’re sad on this bright and sunny day?”
She shook her head and smiled. “It would be impossible to be sad today.”
Even the birds were twittering in the shrubbery and trees of the residential front yards the size of handkerchiefs. And across the road in the park, a small flock of noisy, yellow-crested cockatoos squabbled over berries in a wide-spread tree.
Once on the beach, Aiden spread out his picnic blanket. It seemed natural to then lay on it and let the sun envelop them in its blanket of warmth. Until they were too hot and sticky to lie still any longer. While Aiden took off his T-shirt, she slipped off her white dress to reveal her bikini body.
Then hand-in-hand they walked toward the ocean, enjoying the cool rush of salty water that sucked and released at their toes, their legs, and then their torsos as they waded in deep.
As a wave rolled in toward them, she dived under it, loving the small taste of power created by Mother Nature. Aiden popped up beside her, brushing a wet lock of dark hair off his face before he waded closer, then cupped her ass with his big hands.
“This sure as hell beats work,” he said with a grin.
She hid a grimace. Her career had been everything to her. For the most part it’d focused her mind onto other things besides the heartache that had almost broken her. But thinking of being boxed into the small confines of yet another metal bird didn’t sit right with her, not anymore.
Not while she was out here in the open, with the sea an endless entity at the back and the sand curved like a golden-white horseshoe at the front.
She curled her arms around his neck. “It sure does.”
Their shared kiss was salty, and she moaned as he pushed his tongue inside her mouth to entangle it with hers. There was something so personal and intimate about an open-mouthed kiss, something so distinctly indulgent.
He pulled back and said, I better step away from you now or I might have some explaining to do to that granny on the beach who is watching us with a giant frown on her face. I’m thinking seeing my erection behind my board shorts will only exacerbate her bad opinion.
“Or we could give her something to really talk about,” Luna said with a husky laugh.
“I’ve created a monster,” he growled softly, before he dove away from her with a splash.
When they finally waded back out of the water, they dried off under the sun on the picnic blanket before shaking the sand out of it and transferring it and the towels onto the grassy expanse under the trees, away from the raucous cockatoos.
There was something to be said about laying on her back and staring up at an endless blue sky framed by swaying green branches, the gentle crash of the surf breaking onto the sandy shore nearby. Not to mention the charismatic man lying right next to her as though he didn’t have a care in the world, as though he’d never broken her heart along with her spirit.
He turned to her then. “Are you hungry? We could have an early lunch then watch a movie in bed.”
She giggled. “How much of that movie do you think we’ll actually watch?”
“That depends,” he said with a waggle of his eyebrows.
“Depends on what?”
“On whether it’s an action flick or a romantic comedy.”
