A nude beach.
“What do you think?” he asked, still wearing that grin.
I was speechless.
All around us were naked people. I wasn’t a prude, and I’d been to a nude beach or two on various vacations, but this felt totally different. Mainly because I was with Ford. The person I was trying desperately not to be in love—or lust—with.
But he had just laid out a blanket for us under the shade of a few palms, and was already stripping down to his birthday suit. There was no turning back.
His thumbs hooked into the waistband of his swim trunks, and I watched—rapt—as with one smooth movement, he whisked them away, exposing his hard, gorgeous body in its entirety. I was probably imagining it, but I was certain I could hear the sound of the entire female population on the beach letting out a sigh of appreciation.
Part of me wanted to throw my hands over him and shout, “Mine!”
The other part of me wanted to do whatever I could to avoid any kind of attention at all.
Ford didn’t seem to have that problem. He looked amazing and he knew it. And yeah, I had to admit that his flawless body was worth a few fantasies of its own. With his hands on his hips, he faced the ocean, looking like a Greek god in the sunlight. My mouth went dry at the sight of him, and because he wasn’t looking at me, I could stare at him as much as I wanted.
Nothing that had happened over the last few days had tamed my desire for him. Not one iota. Especially now that I had personally experienced the full scope of what his body could do.
Turning around, his hot gaze swept over me.
“You’re not going to keep that on, are you?” he asked.
I was still wearing my beach dress and my swimsuit. Compared to everyone else, I looked like I was practically in formal wear.
Taking my clothes off was the last thing I wanted to do, but people were starting to stare. Staying fully dressed was obviously drawing far more attention than being naked would.
Ford was watching me expectantly, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
“Just a minute,” I said, feeling flustered.
I took off my hat first, dropping it onto the towel, and then loosened the ties of my dress and unwrapped it. Trying to ignore Ford’s eyes following my every movement, I slid down one strap of my swimsuit and then the other. But then I looked up, and our eyes locked. With all the heat in his gaze, I completely forgot that we were on a crowded beach and I was about to do a striptease for a hundred strangers. I pushed my swimsuit down, exposing my breasts.
I knew that Ford liked my breasts. Licking his lips, sending a shockwave of want through me, his gaze moved down and continued to follow the path of my swimsuit as I tugged it over my hips, past my narrow landing strip, down my thighs, and then let it drop to the sand.
I swallowed hard, wondering what he would do next. I half expected him to throw me over his shoulder and run all the way back to the hotel. But when he looked at me again, he was suddenly the same man who had been waiting for me at the end of the aisle earlier that day. His face was impassive. Cool. Impossible to read.
“I’m going for a swim,” he said.
“Me too,” I said, but he was already striding toward the water, turning heads as he did.
Feeling more naked than I had when I first got undressed, I followed, wanting to hide.
The water was crystal clear, which didn’t provide much cover, but I still felt better when I dove in. The ocean was warm and perfect. I felt the weight of the day lift off my shoulders as I swam into the softly cresting waves. Ford stayed nearby, diving under and reemerging farther out with a toss of his head that flicked a cascade of water into the air.
I took a break to put on more sunscreen and have a snack, watching Ford swim. When he realized I’d gone back to our towel, I held up the bottle of wine to lure him over, but he just tapped his wrist as if to say “in a few minutes,” and by the time he got out of the water, I was ready to get back in. Or I guess, ready to avoid the possibility of us sitting on a towel naked and wet together. It was too tempting.
We stayed until late afternoon. Making my way over the sand toward our shady spot, I pulled my hair over my shoulder to squeeze the water out of it, savoring the delicious exhaustion coursing through me after hours of sun and swimming. I had just dropped to my knees on the edge of the towel when strong arms lifted me up, and I found myself gazing at Ford.
“What are you—” I began, wondering if he was about to kiss me.
“Centipedes,” he said, and I looked down and realized that he wasn’t being romantic at all. Instead, he’d just rescued me from stretching my naked self out on top of a couple of the island’s native black and red bugs that had made themselves at home in the folds of the towel. I’d heard they were venomous, but I hadn’t been prepared for how gigantic they were.
Shuddering in his arms, I said, “Fuck. You’re my hero.”
Ford’s expression went shuttered and distant right before my eyes. “Don’t mention it.”
He set me down and helped me shake out my clothes so I could get dressed. Then he checked inside the beach bag to be sure we weren’t inadvertently taking any of the critters with us before heading back to our villa.
