“Okay,” she said slowly, not sounding sure of her voice. “I’ll go to an animal park with you, and I’ve always wanted to check out Little India, so that would be good, too.” Her lower lip pouted just a tad. “Maybe you won’t put me to sleep again.”
Did she have any idea how beautiful she was? How much he wanted to make love to her at this exact moment? But what was happening between them was too fragile to cloud the issues with sex. What issues he didn’t want to cloud he wasn’t sure, just that he’d made the right choice, however difficult, in delaying their mutual gratification.
It was simply a delay.
“If you go to sleep again,” he threatened in his most menacing tone, “I’ll toss you to the tigers and return to the ship alone.”
“Hey.” She reached out and punched his arm, then re-crossed her arms over her chest.
“Of course,” he continued, unfazed, “that snore of yours might scare the stripes off them.”
“I thought you said my snore was cute and little?” she shot back, without moving from where she lay, staring straight up. Her voice held a teasing quality that he could quite easily get addicted to.
He leaned over, but made no play to touch her, just moved into her line of vision, studying the way her hair lay about her head in tangles, how her makeup smudged beneath her eyes, how her lips pouted with the need to be kissed. A thousand sunsets couldn’t compare to her beauty. “I called it sexy and little, but I might have exaggerated.”
“You think?” She giggled and something shifted inside him and he wondered if he was too late, if perhaps issues were already so cloudy that eventually a storm would hit no matter how carefully he proceeded.
“I don’t even want to think of all the ways I humiliated myself last night,” she continued.
“Then don’t. Last night doesn’t matter. Today’s a new day.”
“You’re right. It is a new day. Let’s get started.” With that, she darted from the bed, presenting him with the most delectable view of her bottom in tiny royal blue silk panties as she disappeared into the bathroom.
Later that day and for the dozenth time, Amelia wondered what was she doing and, just as she’d done each time, she shoved the thought aside.
She had the right to be with Cole. He was single. She was single. They were healthy, consenting adults going into this with their eyes wide open. The past didn’t matter.
She didn’t really buy her mental pep talk, but she deceived herself that she did. Otherwise she wouldn’t be able to justify how her hand rested in Cole’s as it had done most of the day. Neither would she be able to justify how they’d talked, laughed, enjoyed each other’s company. Like lover
s.
For crying out loud, she’d let him feed her bites of his lunch. The scrumptious pieces of fish they’d bought from a street vendor had practically melted in her mouth.
Just as she was melting in Cole’s hands like butter in a hot frying pan and she was enjoying every sizzle.
“Come on,” he urged, pulling her into a shop doorway.
She’d been too lost in her thoughts to pay attention to where they were, but looking around the luxurious, tranquil setting she knew.
His eyes sparkled with a happiness she hadn’t seen in…years. Happiness like that they’d once always shared. Together. Because being together had made her happy and, looking back, she realized that being together had made Cole happy, too. He’d always smiled for her. A real, deep-down-from-the-heart smile.
No one’s smile had ever lit up her world the way the man grinning at her did. In that moment just how much she’d missed him hit her. Oh, Cole.
“No one can come to Asia without getting a massage.”
“Oh?” She arched a brow, intrigued by him having brought her there. “Is that in the travel guide?”
“Word for word. I memorized it when you went back to your room this morning to shower.” He winked, talked to the Malaysian woman who greeted them, then handed Amelia over to her care. “Go with her. You’ll be glad you did.”
A massage was tempting, but not as tempting as the man whose hand she already missed. She hesitated only a moment. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Are you going to get a massage, too?”
His lips curved at the corners. “You think I need relaxing?”
“Actually, you look more relaxed than I recall seeing you in years.”