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Once we finished eating, I stand.
“Do you have plans?” my mom asks.
I smile at her and hope I’m not too obvious. “You’ve been yawning throughout dinner. That hike really wore you out. I figured you might want to retire early and call it a night, and I’m just going to walk around, see what’s going on, and maybe find something to do, and if not, maybe I’ll just sit in a hot tub or go swimming.”
“Are you…” Another yawn cuts her off, and she laughs sheepishly. “I don’t mean to conk out on you. It’s our second to last night…”
“Mom, we’ve both having an amazing time. You can’t be upset about that. Go ahead. Sleep. Everything is going to change for the both of us once we disembark, so if you need a night to try to recover and prepare for it, go ahead!”
She pats my cheek and leans over to kiss my forehead.
“Want me to walk you back?” I ask.
“Only if you need to grab your bathing suit,” she says.
“Got it in my purse.”
She eyes my small purse and shakes her head but doesn’t say anything. Just blows me a kiss and off she goes.
My heart is pounding as I stand and handle cleaning up after ourselves and throwing out our trash and stacking our trays. Now that it’s time to try to locate Rob, I realize my palms are sweaty.
If things do go the way I think they’re going to, the last thing I want is sweaty palms.
Then again, aren’t I hoping that things will get hot and heavy, steamy, spicy… sweaty…
He's not in this particular dining area so I move over to another section. It's in the third that I see him sitting by himself in the back corner, all alone but looking completely at ease with himself.
Completely at peace.
A pang settles in my chest, seeing him like that. What would it be like to have not a single care in the world? I wouldn’t know, but he looks like he’s up for anything and yet would be perfectly content to continue sitting there if nothing should happen.
And then he meets my gaze. That familiar smirk settles over his lips, and I make my way over to him, doing my best not to seem overly eager.
I don’t want to look desperate.
“I thought I might take you up on your offer of…” I trail off as I realize there are two trays at his table, both of them filled with dessert, none of them repeated.
“Dessert, right?” he asks with a huge grin. He gestures for me to sit.
I’m shocked, but I can’t deny that I’m pleased. This is so damn sweet, and we try a bit of all of them before picking one each as our favorite and devouring it. Do I feel a little guilty that we waste some of the food? I do, but when I go to let him have the last bite of my peanut butter chocolate cake off my fork, he grabs my wrist, and the spark that’s always been there is positively electric.
And from the lust-filled look in his gaze, he felt that too.
I swallow hard. This is too much, isn’t it?
No, not at all.
He pushes back his seat. “I’m ready for more dessert,” he declares, removing the form from my hand and shifting his hand so that he’s not holding my wrist but interlocking our fingers.
I have nothing to say at all, and it’s only after we leave the dining area that I realize we didn’t clean up after ourselves.
He bypasses the stairs in favor of the elevators, and somehow, we manage to snag on just the two of us. After he presses the button for his floor, I smile up at him, and he takes the hint, leaning in until our lips are almost touching. Our breath mingles, and I can't help but reach out for his arm and wrap my fingers around it. He curls his own hand around my waist, pulling me close. We stay like that for what feels like an eternity before he finally pulls away with a smirk on his face.
"So," he says in a low voice that sends shivers down my spine.
“So,” I echo.
Despite how close we already are, he takes another step closer to me, making the hairs on my arms stand up in anticipation. Then, he moves even closer, until our faces are only inches apart. He leans in, his breath whispering across my cheeks and neck as he moves his lips toward mine.
