He hadn’t planned any of it, but that didn’t make her touch any less inviting. There was nothing suggestive or sexual about it, but his mind didn’t seem to know that.
“I’d have planned it better,” he told her.
Her fingers ran to his lower back, right above the waistline of his swim shorts.
“How so?” she asked.
“I’d be lying down instead of standing on the side of a road.”
“If we were back at the hotel, I’d suggest you lie in the shade.”
He glanced over his shoulder, caught her staring at his back. “Not sure I buy that.”
She snapped her hand away, closed up the sunscreen, and handed it to him. “You might want to get your face. Skin cancer leaves holes after the doctor cuts it out.”
“See, you care.”
Shannon rolled her eyes and walked toward Leo.
Victor followed, laughing.
Shannon waited for the last second to shed her cover-up. Even though all the important parts were covered, she couldn’t help but feel naked when Victor looked at her.
In his defense, he did try to look away, but failed.
She didn’t spend any serious time at the gym, never really had to. The yoga studio she had a membership with saw her a couple of times a week, but she wouldn’t say she had one of those bodies. Still, Shannon knew she looked better than a lot of women wearing bikinis on the beach. She’d always thought of her body as long and willowy. Partly because she never grew out of a B cup bra. In her college years, she’d wanted more curves. But as she grew older, she embraced the body she’d been given and dressed to enhance what she had.
Like now . . . with her sun-kissed tan, her white bikini crisscrossed over her back, holding her breasts in place, while the adequate bottoms hid enough but showed off a lot.
Avery had whistled when she helped secure the top before Shannon left that morning. “Way to pull out the big guns,” she’d commented right before returning to the bathroom and revisiting the liquor from the night before.
If it wasn’t for Avery yelling at her to leave her to die in peace, Shannon would have bailed on the day.
But she’d been in Avery’s position before and preferred to suffer alone.
Shannon looked up to find Victor staring.
Channeling her inner Avery, Shannon turned to the side and cheated her butt to the man. “Do I have something out of place?”
He narrowed his eyes, cleared his throat. “That suit should be illegal.”
His honest groan empowered her. “It probably is in Dubai.”
Leo heard them, laughed, and handed them their snorkeling gear.
On the shore, Leo helped her into the front of the kayak and encouraged Victor to climb in the back. Once they were all set, Leo rowed in front of them into the bay.
“I haven’t done this in years,” Shannon told Victor over her shoulder.
“I can beat that. I haven’t done this at all.”
“Really? Not even at summer camp?”
She matched Victor’s pace with the paddle, digging left and then right, until they found a rhythm that would take them away from shore.
“I never went to summer camp.”
“That’s a shame. The best things in life happened at summer camp.”
“What kinds of things?” Victor asked.
“Things like this. Kayaking, getting dumped in the water from a canoe. Campfires and ghost stories. First kisses.”
“Ohh, tell me about those.”
She grinned. “The ghost stories?”
He splashed her with his paddle. “The kisses. What was his name?”
She looked back at the memory. “Russell Lipski.”
“Lipski? You’re making that up.”
“Why would I lie about a name like that?”
Victor laughed. “How was Mr. Lipski?”
“Cold, wet hands. Dry lips. It was over before it started. I ran back to my cabin to tell the other girls that he’d kissed me. What about you? What was her name?”
“Wendy Simmons,” he said in a dreamy voice.
Shannon looked over her shoulder, caught him smiling. “That good?”
“She was older than me.”
The image of a teenage cougar came to mind. “How much older?”
“Fifth grade when I was in fourth.”
Her jaw dropped. “Your first kiss was in fourth grade?”
“It was the last week in school before summer.”
“I’m not sure that’s any better.”
Victor laughed. “I think Wendy did it on a dare, but that didn’t stop me from bragging about it all summer long.”
“So it was never repeated?” Shannon turned around, kept rowing.
“Nope. Wendy’s parents moved them away that summer. I was devastated until Halloween.”
Shannon was afraid to ask. “Why Halloween?”
“Because Mia Fletcher dressed up like a cat and made me forget all