I don’t stop until I’m standing over her, my shadow shading her face. She pushes her sunglasses up into the smooth sheet of her straight black hair and focuses those amazing eyes on me.
“I’m sorry that I interrupted your bath,” I say, pausing to inhale the decadent scent coming off her skin. “I’d have apologized at the time if I hadn’t been so . . . distracted.”
Her lips quirk, but just at the corners. “Distracted?”
“A bit, yes.”
“Hmm, what on earth had you distracted?”
She likes to play. God, this is going to be fun!
“The local . . . scenery changed today. It became much more . . . dazzling. Took my breath away, in fact. Made it hard for me to think. My manners went right out the window.”
“That’s understandable. I was a little, um, preoccupied myself.”
“I thought you might’ve been. You looked deep in . . . thought.”
Her lips spread all the way into a full-on smile this time, making her even more striking. The only sign of embarrassment is the tell-tale pink stains that appear on her cheeks.
“I was definitely . . . thinking.”
The innuendo is as thick as the humid air seems to be. “Care to share what had you focused so . . . intently?”
“No, not yet.”
“Not yet?” I ask. She shakes her head, mouth still curved. “Well, whenever you’re ready to talk, I’d love to hear all about it.”
“I might take you up on that.”
I nod. “Will you be eating in tonight?”
“I will, yes.”
“Is there something particular you’d like? I can let Mom know.”
“Anything that goes well with a Chiara red. I’m in the mood for red.”
“I see that,” I say, nodding to her red strappy top. “Anything else you’re in the mood for that I should know about?”
She shrugs her shoulders, drawing my eye to the crease of her cleavage. “A surprise. Surprise me.”
“Oh, I can definitely surprise you,” I reply with an enthusiastic grin.
“Will you be joining me tonight then? You and your mother, I mean?”
“Isn’t it frowned upon to mingle with the help?”
“Nobody is here to care, is there?”
“Not a damn soul,” I say. “Seven?”
She nods and lets her head drop back. The way she’s staring up at me with that sleepy, sexy look on her face . . . the way her body language seems to be begging me to touch, to taste, to take . . . Holy God!
I nod and turn to walk away, only because if I stay any longer, she’ll be coming out of those clothes. One way or the other.