Yes, topless.
I can’t see much because she is stretched out on her stomach. The ties of the white bikini lie loose on the ground beside her while she reads. Her olive-toned skin glowing with health and sunscreen. She adjusts the oversized sunglasses and turns the page of her book.
“Whatchya reading?” I ask once I’m within pouncing distance.
She jumps and almost loses her top. Unfortunately, she catches and carefully reties it before flipping over.
“You don’t have to do that for my benefit.” I gesture to the straps holding the top in place. “Wouldn’t want you to have tan lines.”
“Very thoughtful of you, but I’m fine,” she says with a wry twist of her lips. “I was heading in soon anyway. I don’t want to burn.”
She slips a thin cover-up over her head. The words “cover up” in relation to Banner should be outlawed. Struck from the English language. Hiding that beautiful body she works so hard for is criminal. There’s a glimpse of swelling breasts and full ass and hips before the offending cloth covers her.
There’s two books on the ground. Hunger by Roxanne Gay and another opened pages down, the one she was so engrossed in before I came. I angle my head to read the cover.
“All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation.” I serve up some sarcasm with my grin. “Just some light beach reading, huh? No half-naked man on the cover of a romance novel for you?”
“Oh, I have those, too.” She laughs over her shoulder and walks ahead of me. There’s a newborn ease to the swing of her hips and a looseness in her shoulders I don’t recognize.
“You’re relaxed,” I tell her when we reach the verandah.
“How could I not be?” She points through the floor-to-ceiling window. “When that’s my view?”
Crystalline water laps at the white sandy beach. Palm trees sway. Verdant, grassy mountains rise and fall along the coastline.
“It is beautiful,” I agree. “I just wasn’t sure you’d be able to put everything behind you long enough to unplug.”
She pulls on my tie and grins up at me, shorter than usual in her bare feet.
“I’m not the one dressed like I’m on my way to a business meeting.”
“Well, I was on my way to a business meeting, but now I’m done.” I drop a kiss on her cheek and risk a hand at her waist. “For the rest of the week.”
I kiss her lips lightly. “I’m all yours, if you want me.”
We share a look that silently sizzles in the afternoon heat and draws tight in the balmy island air.
“Lucky me.” Her laugh sounds nervous.
Or maybe not nervous. Tentative? Uncertain? I feel that, too. We practically broke Banner’s desk having sex last week, but it feels like we are on the verge of our first kiss. Like there’s some invisible line we are poised to cross. Whatever it is, it makes me hesitant, which I rarely am. I’m decisive and pursue what I want as soon as I want it. Maybe this feels fragile because it’s been broken before. Something we’ve just pieced back together. The glue is still drying and I don’t want it to fall and break again.
“You don’t want to know how the meeting went?” I ask, knowing that business is always firmer ground for us, even if we are on different sides of the field.
“We are on opposing teams,” she says. “I don’t want you to feel awkward about telling me anything.”
“I signed him,” I offer without reservation. I trust her.
“Oh my God!” Her eyes saucer and her grin spreads. “Seriously? Huge, huge deal, Foster.”
“Yeah, it is,” I agree immodestly.
“This calls for a celebration.” She clasps her hands together under her chin. “Should we go out?”
She’s browned some from the sun, and my seven freckles sprinkle across her nose like flakes of cinnamon. With her bare face and feet, and sporting her bikini, no one would think she’s one of the NBA’s most powerful agents. She’s unadorned and in her own skin. Looking like this, she could bring me to my knees.
“What if we stay in?” I tug at the loose knot on her head, and the hair spills over her shoulder in a single file line of silk. I toy with the ends, deliberately allowing my knuckle to brush the curve of her breast. “Could that work?”
A deep breath lifts her chest under the cover-up, and she swallows, lashes fluttering from the subtle contact with my hand. We haven’t made love since her office, and I hope she wants it as badly as I do. She did ask for her own room, though. So maybe not.
“I forgot to ask how your room is,” I say, dropping her hair and taking up with her hand, lacing our fingers together.
“It’s, um, great.” She looks from our joined hands to my face. “Beautiful actually. Thank you for this. For all of it. I needed it.”
“So did I.” I loop an arm at the small of her back and scoop her sun-warmed curves into me.
She stiffens at first, and then I can almost see her make the decision. To relax. To enjoy. To let herself want me. I can’t know for sure what the decision is, but she leans into me instead of away. The sun melts her expression into a smile, into pleasure. She props her elbows on my chest and works her fingers into the hair by my ears. It feels so good, I close my eyes and wait for more of her touch. She doesn’t disappoint, walking her fingers to my temples and adding gentle pressure, coaxing a groan from me.
“That feels incredible.” I slide my hands lower on the swell of her hips, lower still to cup her butt. “You have such a great ass, Banner. Have I ever told you that?”
She fixes her eyes on the tiles at our feet and licks those perfectly symmetrical lips, sinking her teeth into the bottom.
“No, you haven’t.” The words come thin, like the breath has been sifted from them. “You don’t think it’s, um, too square?”
“Square?” I laugh at the unexpected question and squeeze the firm roundness overflowing my hands. “I have no idea what that means, but I want to bite your ass every time I see it, if that answers your question.”