‘Well?’ he asked.
‘Well what?’
‘You coming for an evening dip?’
‘Nope,’ I said quickly.
‘You’ll regret it if you don’t. Cools you right down, very refreshing.’
I turned and looked at the sea, and then back at Cam. It did look inviting. I was hot and sweaty and my day had not been the most enjoyable, and that blue water did look like it could wash a lot of that away. A sweat bead dislodged itself from my hairline and trickled down my nose, as if my body was telling me what to do, demanding I cool it down.
‘Okay, fine, I’m coming,’ I said, wondering whether this was something I was going to regret.
Ten minutes later, I was on the beach, fluffy towel over my shoulder. Why were hotel towels always so much better than home towels? The setting sun was causing the sea to look like molten gold, and then there was Cam, bobbing in the water with only his shoulders sticking out. The last of the sun suddenly decided to conspire againstme, shining a traitorous golden beam down on him, accentuating the lines of his muscular shoulders. I rolled my eyes.Yup, definitely going to regret this.
The sand was still warm under my feet, and it pushed between my toes as I walked. I stopped when I reached the water’s edge and looked down at the waves lapping against my neon-yellow toenails. I rolled my eyes again. But the water was cool, so refreshing. As if sensing my presence, Cam turned around and looked at me. Our eyes locked, and then slowly he started to stand up. Now I went for an eye-roll hat-trick, because seriously . . .seriously?
What kind of sick sense of humour did the gods of genetics have when they created this man rising up in front of me now? And why, oh why, did this man also have to move in slow motion whenever his clothes were off?
The water cascaded down his body in little rivulets that slipped between the grooves of his muscles. Cue eye-roll number four. It zigzagged around the sculpted shapes as if it had been the very thing that had made them, like stones carved by a river over millennia. Even the sound of it falling back down into the sea was exaggerated, like one of those maddeningly soothingASMRvideos.For heaven’s sake!
The whole thing was ridiculous. Did he know what he looked like right now? Of course he did. That smug smile on his face as he emerged from the water like a merman god told me everything I needed to know. He knewexactlywhat he looked like and what he was doing. Cam had never lacked self-confidence. It was something he had in abundance. Why did such a deeply aggravating, infuriating, maddening man have to be so ridiculously good-looking? It felt grossly unfair. He walked towards me, his abs emerging from the water, then the tops of his hips, and then . . .
‘Whoa!’ I held my hand up in front of my face, shielding my eyes from what was happening down south. This was the male version of a wet T-shirt contest and his itty-bitty pair of white underpants left nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, to the imagination now. No, scratch that – they left so little to the imagination that even if I hadn’talready seen his dick, I’d still know whether he was circumcised. (He was, by the way.) And wow, was that fact glaringly obvious right now. It was all, so, so obviously . . .lengthy, and girthy, and, and . . .
Cam followed my gaze downward. ‘Like what you see?’
‘Don’t you ever put that thing away?’ I said. I wasn’t about to join him in the water withthatsituation happening.
‘You could just stop looking,’ he suggested, making no attempt to hide it.
‘It’s hard not to look, Cam, when it’s so . . . so . . .’ I waved my arm in the general direction.
‘So what?’ He smiled.
‘You’re enjoying this far too much,’ I snapped back.
‘Go on, so what?’
Big, really kind of hot to look at, sort of begging to be touched . . .
I shook my head, hoping to physically fling those thoughts from it.
‘Why don’t you swim in trunks, like a normal person, rather than tight white underwear that goes completely transparent in the water?’
‘I haven’t brought all my clothes from the boat yet. I’ve been pretty busy today, you know.’
‘Just get back under the water or I’m not coming in.’
‘Fine, fine,’ he said. He started to slink back down, and the situation of a moment ago thankfully disappeared.
He looked at me expectantly, and that was when it hit me: to get in, I’d have to take off this dress. Which meant standing in front of him in one of those ridiculous string bikinis Philly had convinced me to buy. Not going to happen. It was one thing using it on the beach in a power play, but another thing entirely undressing here in such a quiet, intimate setting.
‘Turn around,’ I said quickly.
‘Why?’
‘I want to take my dress off, and I don’t want you staring at me likethat.’
