Christian immediately dug his wallet out of his jeans pocket and loped away across the sand. Out into the sun, she noted, worrying about his allergy. Fortunately, it was a slow moment at the booth and he was back quickly with two margaritas.
"It's kind of early for alcohol, isn't it?" Carolyn asked as he bent to give her one of the drinks. By her guess it wasn't yet noon. Maybe 11 am.
"I didn't know what else was good," Christian said with a shrug as he settled on the sand next to her. "One shouldn't hurt us."
"Hurt us, no," she agreed. "But I'll probably fall asleep."
"Considering neither of us got a full night's sleep, that doesn't seem a bad thing. A little nap in the shade sounds good to me."
Shrugging, she sipped her drink. It really was good, cold, tangy, refreshing, the perfect drink for a hot, sunny day with a book.
"Do you think Beth will feel better by tonight?" Christian asked, sipping his own drink.
"Probably not. Why?"
"Julius wanted to know for the reservations," he explained.
"The reservations?" Carolyn asked uncertainly.
"For dinner." Seeing her blank expression, he reminded her, "Dinner and dancing tonight. Dinner before we play our set, dancing in town after?"
"Oh, right." She'd forgotten that business from last night. But now supposed that meant she could expect kissing or nuzzling to take place tonight to convince his family they were witnessing a blossoming love affair. The thought made her raise her glass, but she remembered about brain freezes at the last moment and only sipped the drink.
"It's just one night," Christian said quietly. "I'll book tours and dinners for the rest of the week to ensure it doesn't happen again."
Carolyn nodded at the reassurance and took another swallow of her drink.
"Do you have any tours you're particularly interested in?" he asked.
Carolyn shook her head. "I don't even know what's available. I know we're booked for a market shuttle and Bethany booked us for the day sail up the coast to see a drive-in volcano and a cocoa plantation. But other than that, I'm clueless when it comes to what's available."
Christian tossed back the last of his quickly melting margarita and stretched out next to her again. "I'll grab a pamphlet when we go to lunch and we can check out what's available while we eat."
Carolyn nodded and drank the last of her own drink, then set the empty glass in the sand beside her seat and lay back to open her book again. But she was smiling now, she noted. It was a comfortable, relaxed smile. She wasn't alone.
"Cara?"
"Hmmm?" she murmured sleepily, blinking her eyes open to find she'd turned onto her stomach on the lounger.
The sun had moved in the sky and their shade had slipped away. She was now lying out in the open, the sun beating down on her. She was hot and sweaty, the skin of her back sizzling under the midday sun.
"You'll burn. You need lotion."
Christian's voice from her other side made her lift her head and turn to peer at him. He sat, one hip perched on the edge of her lounge chair, and was still in only his swimming trunks, but now held a bottle of lotion in his hand. Opening the bottle, he squirted some into his palms and then let the bottle drop to the sand.
"Should I put some on for you?" he asked, rubbing his hands together to spread it over his fingers.
Carolyn opened her mouth to say no, she'd do it, but bit off the sound before it was even quite formed when he bent to run his hands over her back. The way he massaged the cream into her back and shoulders should have been soothing. She was pretty sure it would have been with anyone else, but it just wasn't with him. Her skin tingled everywhere his hands moved and rather than relaxing, she found herself growing tenser under his touch. Biting her lip, she closed her eyes and tried to force herself to relax, but it was impossible. Gay or not, he was a handsome, sexy guy and he smelled damned good.
"You're getting a tan line." He'd leaned forward to speak, his na**d chest pressing warm and hard against her equally na**d back and his breath soft against her ear.
"Shall I undo your bathing suit top?"
Carolyn blinked her eyes open with alarm at the suggestion, and then wondered with confusion when she'd removed her T-shirt and shorts to reveal the bathing suit she'd worn beneath. She'd been too self-conscious to do so when she'd first arrived, but now her clothes were gone, her bathing suit her only covering. A tug on the string at her back dragged her attention from this concern to another as her bathing suit top fell away to pool on the lounger on either side of her, leaving her back completely bare, and her sides exposed. It wasn't indecent or anything, her br**sts were still squished beneath her on the lounger and hidden, but it made her feel oddly vulnerable, and then Christian bent forward to whisper in her ear again.
"Hai la pelle bella, cosi dolce." His voice was husky and soft, his hands running down her back, sliding toward her bathing suit bottom. "Ritiene buon sotto le mie barrette."
"Hmm?" Carolyn mumbled with confusion, not understanding what she presumed was Italian.