I jumped when I saw Tobias come up behind me, his plate was heaping full and rounded at the top.
“No,” I said, pointing to the large table of desserts. “I’m gonna eat this, and then I’m going to head over there and try a piece of every single thing on their dessert table.”
He snorted. “Where do you want to sit?”
I looked around, not seeing a single table open. There had to be at least a hundred tables, and every single one of them was occupied.
“I guess we could go outside,” I said. “There were a few tables out by the pool that I remember seeing as we came in.”
He grunted something in reply and started walking. If I was a guessing woman, I would assume that grunt was supposed to be an ‘okay.’
A grin spreading out over my lips, I hurried behind him as he dropped his plate down on an empty table that an older man was just vacating.
“Enjoy,” the old man said as he shuffled off, using his cane as support.
I placed my plate down on the table as I grabbed for the pole that was directly next to us when the ship rocked under my feet. “I see fall hazards everywhere,” I mumbled to him. “That man with the cane. That old woman with the walker.” I gestured to the woman that was shuffling toward the bar. “Then there’s that man in the pool in his Speedo.”
Tobias snorted. “That’s the nurse in you, I’d guess. Just wait until they get some alcohol into their systems. Then their fall risks will go up.”
After nodding in agreement, my eyes went around the large top deck of the ship. “Do you think that’s where they play the movies?” I asked, gesturing toward the large screen hanging above the pool.
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “They said the Super Bowl would be shown on deck fifteen. That’s this one. There’s another side, but I glanced that way when we were coming out of the stairwell, and they didn’t have a TV screen on that side.”
“Hmm,” I mumbled, taking my first bite of spaghetti. Then promptly gagged. “Ewww.”
“What?” he asked, grimacing himself when he took a bite of something brown smothered in gravy.
“Tastes like they only used tomato sauce and not any seasonings,” I mumbled, pushing the spaghetti to the side of the plate as I moved on to the other stuff on my plate.
Each thing I tried was worse than the next, and I ended up twiddling my thumbs as I tried to decide if I should go back in there and grab something else to try.
“They have a burger place over there,” Tobias gestured with his head. “You want to go?”
I looked down at his own barely eaten plate, and then nodded. “Yeah, and it’s right by the bar. We can grab a drink and eat it right there.”
So that’s what we did. Ate burgers and drank free beer as we watched the top deck flurry with activity around us.
“Want to swim?” he asked, those beautiful eyes turning to me in question.
I licked my lips.
Did I want to be in front of the man that I was quickly realizing I had a crush on? Did I want him to see me in nothing but a thin one-piece Speedo swimsuit covering me? No. Did I want to swim? Yes.
“Sure,” I finally muttered out. “I still want dessert, though.”
His grin was nothing less than knowing. “Would expect nothing less from you.”
***
Something changed between us at the pool. There’d been sexual tension between us already, but what happened at the pool ratcheted up that tension.
Once we’d both changed into our bathing suits, we’d returned to the top deck, happy to see that the pool on the opposite side of the top deck wasn’t occupied by anyone but a younger couple in the hot tub that was in an area off to the side of the pool.
While I cautiously laid my towel down on the closest unoccupied pool lounger and shucked my bathing suit cover up, I chanced a glance in the direction of where Tobias was standing.
And my breath caught.
He was beautiful.
His tanned skin made his body seem to glow in the dense sunlight that was pouring down on us.
My fingers itched to run over those hard abdominals, and the moment he came striding toward me, his shirt and shoes in his hand, I reached up and touched him.
He froze, his body half bent over to place his things on the lounger next to mine.
“Woman…”
I grinned and dropped my hand, but not before checking out his V up close and personal.
And, oh boy, what a V it was.
His abs were defined, yes, but that V. That V was so fucking beautiful that it bore repeating.
Over and over again.
“You look like you’re about to lick me,” he chuckled as he reached for the suntan lotion. “Do you want some of this?”
I nodded, and he squirted a healthy dollop into my hand. “You do your front, and I’ll do mine. Then we can do each other’s backs.”
I didn’t argue. Couldn’t.
Not with the way that his hand was moving up and down his exposed skin, enticing me to do much the same.
“You need more?”
I shook my head and started to rub it in, first on the tops of my breasts, and then on the line of my shoulders.
My face was the last thing to get done, and I apparently had done a fairly shitty job at making sure it was all rubbed in because he helped me do just that moments later.
“Turn around,” he ordered once he was done.
When I forgot to be scared, the act of him touching me was so erotic that I nearly moaned.
His hands started at my shoulder blades, picking up where I left off, and smoothed down the length of my back.
I could feel every single callus that resided on his fingers and hand.
His hands did things to me that I wasn’t willing to admit to. Not while we were sitting next to a pool, surrounded by old people.
“Done,” came his raspy voice.
I shivered and got both feet back under me before holding my hand out for the bottle that was still in his hands.
He gave it to me, and I nearly dropped it, my hands still slippery from the suntan lotion.
I only caught it by pulling it tightly into my chest, clutching it in between my forearms and breasts.
At the same time, Tobias also reached for it.
And in the meantime, cupped my boob instead of actually catching the bottle.
“Shit,” he said, pulling away. “I’m sorry.”
The laugh that burst free of me was freeing.
“Turn around, big guy.”
He quickly followed orders, and I grinned wider at the tinge of pink on his cheeks as he did.
The first touch of my hands on his muscled back made my stomach tighten.
He had tattoos, yes, but those tattoos were stretched so tightly over his muscular back that it was almost unseemly. I didn’t see a single ounce of fat on this man, and that was discouraging.