Jonathan rolled his eyes, and David met him across George’s snore-rumbling body.
The Sapphires lounged one on each of David’s shoulders. “Do we leave him here to sleep it off?”
“I’ve got this.”
Jonathan flattened his lips on a twitch at the edges. “David and Goliath. I know who I’d bet on.”
David raised a brow and met Jonathan’s eye. One beat, two. A smile pulled free and David’s gaze lingered on it at Jonathan’s lips.
He inclined his head, pivoted sharply to the table and pulled a hyacinth from the vase. The others shrank back, and David bent over George to feather the flower over his nose, his cheek.
Twitches.
A dance of blue at his neck.
A shudder, a slap.
The other side—
Eyes opened and George lurched into a sitting position, rubbing his ticklish skin. He blinked and looked around him, then heaved to his feet, cheeks pinking. He cleared his throat. “Sorry.”
Everyone looked at David in disbelief, except Jonathan.
Jonathan smiled.
“Up,” Jonathan murmured at David’s ear.
David groaned and lifted all the sheets he’d stolen in the night over his head.
Jonathan pried them back and pulled them off the bed. David curled into a cursing ball, arms and legs and the slip of his back peeking out from under his t-shirt pebbling with goosebumps. “I thought you cared.”
“I thought you liked breakfast.”
This had David blinking the sleep from his eyes. He focused on Jonathan standing at the side of the bed, showered, shaved, dressed. “What time is it?”
Jonathan told him.
He leapt up. “You let me sleep in that long?”
He’d looked so peaceful . . .
Jonathan handed him a folded towel. “Shower.”
“You and your one-word commands.” A yawn, with an accompanying cat-like stretch. “If I couldn’t still feel your kisses on my nape, I’d wonder if I dreamed you spooning me all night.”
Jonathan swatted David’s arse in the direction of the bathroom, the flat of his palm a gentle, audible smack. “Quick.”
David laughed and disappeared; a cloud of steam soon billowed out the open bathroom door into the main room. Jonathan lingered in it at the doorway, white wisps curling around his bare calves, debating . . . He stepped forward—
His phone buzzed, and he retreated.
Savvy: What’s the challenge?
* * *
Jonathan: It’ll be announced it after breakfast.
* * *
Jacquie: We’re rooting for you, from this glorious white-sand beach.
* * *
Savvy: Thanks soooo much for bringing us with you.
* * *
Jonathan: That was all David.
* * *
Savvy: Then tell David we love him.
* * *
Jacquie: What Savvy said :P
* * *
Jonathan: Stop it.
* * *
Savvy: :P ;)
Steam thickened, drifted higher up his thighs, over his arms, his wrist. Honey shower gel perfumed the air. David was humming; it vibrated, misty-wet.
They’d been too exhausted to continue their interrupted conversation last night, but Jonathan hadn’t stopped thinking about it since he’d woken this morning to a sneaky strip of sunshine through the curtains.
The last ICon, David had been waiting for him.
A hand attached to a leather-wrapped wrist wiped through the steam on the shower doors. A wet face peered out at him, smiling shyly. “Are you coming in or standing there?”
He paused. “Standing here. Or we’ll be very late for breakfast.”
David shifted beside him at the breakfast table. The same table as last night, brighter in the sunshine stretching in from the wall of windows. Every tired line showed up on their faces. Every determined line, too.
“At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.”
“Plato.” David and Jonathan glanced at one another.
“Fitting challenge for our location. We look forward to what you come up with. The twist” —a glance at the time— “you only have one hour. Two groups will go through to the final, to be announced tomorrow. Should the losing team wish to split and support a team each in the final, the judges will share one post of their choosing at any point in the next year.”
A thoughtful consolation prize. But a consolation prize. Nothing that would help them.
Their hosts left, and the Sapphires, George and Mira, David and Jonathan looked at one another. They stood, smiling grimly, and then split off, heads bowed, plotting poetry.
David murmured, “Good for us that you write.”
“I write. Doesn’t mean I’m any good at it.”
“I’m sure you have lots of pretty words up your sleeve.”
A raised brow. “Not one-word commands?”
Jonathan’s ringtone interrupted David’s grin. He stopped in the lobby, back to the cliffs, and David watched him taking in Jacquie’s panicked voice.
“I can’t find Savvy. They got a call at breakfast and took it to the room but when I went up, they weren’t there. They left their phone on the bed. I looked at it—I’ve seen their passcode. That’s a breach of trust, I know, but I was worried, we’re in a foreign country—”
“What was on it?”
“A message, from Nate.” Jonathan tensed, and Jacquie’s voice crackled. “He broke up with them.” A long-drawn breath. He glanced at David, and shut his eyes. The ache of first heartbreak.