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Was he bored with her already? That put her off her yoghurt. She turned away from him, tossed the carton in the bin and threw the spoon in the sink. Maybe she was about to get dumped, too. He’d done his Pygmalion thing, turned her into a lady for the night and now it was back to the real world.
“Spoon do something to offend you?”
“What?” He could not read something from a clink in the sink.
“I do something to offend you?”
Maybe he could. She affected a laugh. “Of course not. You think you’re scaring me. If you asked me to referee a fight you’d be scaring me, parasailing—hah. I’ve been parasailing and skydiving before. It’s not cheap. I’m happy to come with you, but I’ll stay on the ground.”
He made a slow hmmm and a fast track around the counter, hand to her back, then he pinned her against the sink. His lips were on her wet hair.
“That tells me two things. The first is that I should’ve said it was my treat. I wouldn’t ask you to pay, especially on no notice. The second is that I have offended you, because you think I’d rather go adventuring at altitude than between your sheets, between your legs.”
“No, I.” Oh God, he already knew. “Yeah.”
He let go of the sink and placed his hands low, warm on her abdomen, pulling her against him. She considered resisting for less than a blink.
“I thought you might be sore.”
“Oh.”
He travelled one hand to cup her mound and she put her whole heart into groaning, her head tipping back and around to find his lips.
He played with the kiss, not letting her take it too deep, his other hand coming to rest over the length of her neck. “Did you think I was so ready to get away from you? Did you think I was lying when I said you were more than one night?” He nipped her bottom lip. “So we’re clear. You’re my new favourite food, my new favourite thing to do.” He turned her so he could play those kisses more directly, then broke off to rest his forehead on hers. “My new favourite colour.”
The crackles in his voice were pitchforks of feeling stabbed all over her body, leaving her aching from the sweetness.
“If you’re not too sore, we can go do whatever you like.” His hand under her shirt, thumb stroking along her spine.
She licked into his mouth. There was butter on his tongue, sugar in his words and they melted her anxiety. She was sore, but the kind of tender that would only last as long as it took for the adrenaline rush to take over, which was to say, hardly sore at all. She was already parasailing with no desire to ever come down.
He bundled her hair in his fist and pulled so her chin came up, and she looked in his face. His eyes were focused on hers and he knew every one of her doubts. “It’s my intention to get very naked with you again very soon and very often, but I thought you might like to come out in the sun and fly with me in a different way.”
She would fly with him without straps, without wings, without a net or a re-entry plan.
She should be worried about that, the speed of the fall because it was already upon her. She stood on her toes and raked her fingers through his wet hair, studied his face: the offset dimples, the one on his chin that was constant, the one in his cheek that was fickle, only showing up when he was amused, the scar above his eyebrow, the curve of his cheekbones, and the fan of his lashes. The eyes so steady, so bright, it was difficult to imagine them sightless.
She was falling, falling, hopelessly fallen, and it was too soon, too impossible, too present and too wonderful to escape. “I like your intentions.”
She got dimple, she got soaking kisses, lashings of tongue and hands that roved with the aim of pushing them both into new airspace, somewhere between joyous freefall and heart-rending plummet.
She got out, “Not in front of Fluffy,” and he responded with an evil laugh, and made things even dirtier, dropping his towel, lifting her leg under her knee to open her hips to his.
They might’ve ended up horizontal again, but he backed off as abruptly as he’d started up. They were going parasailing. All of them. Damon arranged it in a frenzy of phone calls. One to Angus, one to Taylor, one to Sam, one to the parasailing operator. This was not what she thought she’d be doing and she wasn’t ready to share him, especially with his gang again so soon. But she struggled to be a sour lemon in the face of his snap, crackle and pop. It was a beautiful day, why not spent it in the sun?
She tidied the kitchen and listened to him joke, persuade, and argue with Taylor. He was excited about this and resenting it was a waste of energy. She wasn’t in a competition with adventure sports for his time. Still, she was grateful he couldn’t see her sulky expression and she did no more spoon tossing or cupboard door banging to give herself away.
When he had it all arranged, the meeting place, the car-pooling, he made his way to the bedroom and got dressed. She gave him a few minutes and went in to him. He was sitting on the end of her bed, dressed
but with his shirt unbuttoned. He had his head down, eyes closed. After his energetic organising, his posture was a surprise. She backed away. It felt like the right thing to do, like he needed a moment to himself. She didn’t get far.
“Georgia.” He was behind her in the hall. “Your place or mine tonight?”
She couldn’t get her sulky pout out of the way quick enough to answer.
“I need this.” He flapped an arm at his side, his eyes closed tight. “I can’t explain why, but it’s not because I don’t want to be alone with you, so your place or mine tonight? You have to work tomorrow, so I thought I’d pack a bag and come here. Does that work for you?”
It worked in ways she was embarrassed to admit, starting with the rush of heat to her face and the need to blink away tears. He had to have guessed how she felt. He was extra affectionate, keeping her close, both hands on her as they went down to his cab. He leaned against it to kiss her, and if it wasn’t for the driver she’d have done her best to prolong the moment. As it was, she had to open the door and push him inside or no one was doing any kind of sailing.
