Okay. Thank you for understanding.
• • •
It stormed that night. The next day dawned sunny but comfortably cooler. He grinned when he saw her already sitting on the beach when he broke the tree line.
“You’re early,” he said, soaking in the image of her. Her long hair was pulled back in the ponytail she always seemed to wear for swimming. Again, he noticed how the hairstyle emphasized the tilt of her pretty eyes. She wore some kind of sarong that twisted above her breasts and left her arms bare. It matched the color of her green eyes.
“To make up a little for yesterday?” she said, standing and smoothing the sarong.
“You don’t have to make up for anything,” he said, setting the cooler down on the beach. For a few seconds, they just soaked each other in. She stepped forward at the same time he did.
She tasted like peaches.
“You’ve been eating the peaches,” he muttered against her mouth a moment later. He dipped his tongue between her lips, feeling every nerve in his body sizzle with excitement at the sensation.
“I just had one.” She separated slightly from their embrace and pointed behind her. A plastic bag rested on top of her towel. Inside it, he saw several golden globes of fruit. “I thought I’d bring a few for you, since I was talking about them the other night,” she said, her smile going all the way to her eyes. “I stole one while I was waiting. I hope you don’t mind.”
He grinned. “We have plenty. I brought some for you too,” he said, hauling her back into his arms.
“What?”
He nodded his head in the direction of the cooler he’d brought, unable to peel his gaze off her. “In there. I went to the fruit stand you were telling me about and got some.”
“I can’t believe you did that. Thank you,” she said, looking a little amazed. “They’re sweet, aren’t they?”
“You’re sweeter.”
“You know,” she murmured teasingly, “somehow you manage to make it not sound like a line when you say things like that.”
“That’s because it’s not a line. You know that.” He touched her cheek. She was so soft. “I keep thinking about you singing that song the other night. You were incredible,” he said, stroking her
. “I brought back your notebooks. I hope you don’t mind, but I read some more of the lyrics. Your poems too.”
Her eyes widened. “You did? Which ones?”
“All of them. You really do have a gift. You should be studying music or poetry, not business.”
“Thank you.” She looked embarrassed, but very pleased. Which pleased him.
“Was it your parents’ idea? For you to study business?”
She shrugged slightly.
“Laila?”
“Yes, but I agree with them. I have to study something practical. Something I can make some money at. I can’t expect anyone to pay me for a song or a poem.”
“Then you expect too little of yourself.”
She blinked in surprise, and he realized he’d sounded very blunt. It’s just that it bothered him a little. She was so incredible, and yet she hid her gift as a matter of course. “Anyway, I never got to thank you . . . you know. For putting it out there. Bringing the music. Playing for me. For trusting me enough to do it.”
“I thought maybe you did.”
“Huh?” he managed to say once her words penetrated and he peeled his gaze off her lips.
“Thank me,” she whispered. “With what you said afterward. What you did.”
The vision of her wearing nothing but her panties and leaning back on the piano lost in sensation flashed into his mind’s eye. “I thought maybe you thought I was acting like a selfish pig.”