Island Affair (Keys to Love #1) - Priscilla Oliveras Page 0,48
him.
“Cari?o, with me, either one could get you into trouble.”
The endearment felt natural when it came to her. If him calling her sweetheart bothered Sara, she didn’t show it. Instead, she tipped her head back on a husky laugh that had lust tightening his jeans.
And damn if he didn’t feel like a red snapper caught on the end of her fishing pole. Only, fool that he might be, he wasn’t squirming to be released.
* * *
Sara sighed in full-on swoony appreciation.
There was something seductive about studying a man who looked at home on a dance floor. His hips fluidly moving to the beat of a quick-tempoed salsa or merengue. Swaying to the sultry rhythm of a bachata.
She watched as Luis guided her mother in another spin around the open area between the outdoor bar at El Meson de Pepe and the small stage where the band played. Enclosed on three sides and raised a couple feet high in the air, the stage provided shelter from inclement weather. Although the thin walls also kept out the breeze wafting in from the ocean. That’s probably why the three men had recently returned from their first set break, refreshing drinks in hand.
“Your mother appears quite taken with your young man.”
Sara turned to her left to find her father standing next to the wooden pillar she leaned against. A warm, heartfelt smile deepened the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth.
She followed his gaze back to where Luis and her mother stood, facing each other, in front of the band.
“She certainly does,” Sara murmured.
Under the glow of the streetlamps dotting the area and the hanging lights over the patio bar, Luis held her mother’s hands in each of his while patiently demonstrating, once again, the one-two-three-four count footwork for the bachata. “Loose-hipped” would never be a description used for Ruth. Still, she seemed hell-bent on trying to add the little hip hitch on the four and eight beats that came so naturally to Luis. Like so many other moves he made.
Yes, Sara had definitely taken note of how deftly he mastered the dance floor, even in well-worn work boots and loose-fitting jeans that hung low on his trim hips. As had a group of middle-aged women seated at a nearby table openly ogling the handsome firefighter.
She and Luis had danced a salsa and bachata together earlier. Then, with Sara’s pulse still racing after the floor-sweeping dip he’d shocked her with at the end of a salsa, they’d swapped partners. He’d gently swept her mom up in his strong arms, then followed up with Carolyn. Much to their delight.
Despite Jonathan’s good-natured cry of, “Show-off,” to Luis, Sara’s brother had rallied long enough to trounce on her toes a few times before she cried uncle.
Ultimately, Luis’s contagious pleasure on the dance floor coupled with the lively music had diffused any sign of her family’s earlier discord. After taking the time to teach them a few basic steps, he was the hit of the evening with pretty much everyone. Even sour-faced Robin had been convinced to join him for an easy merengue.
Sara knew she should be thankful. She hadn’t seen her mom so full of life and laughter in . . . well, ever probably. Luis was single-handedly winning over them all. Just like she’d wanted.
If only she could stop her imagination from four-counting the two of them off the dance floor and into a different, decidedly more private space. Specifically, the bedroom they would share for the next week.
The smooth hardwood flooring at the rental house would prove a much better dancing surface than the bricked walkway here. And if that surface happened to lead to a softer, more giving one . . . namely the queen-sized bed . . .
Ooh, the thought of a private bachata lesson with Luis sent a delicious shiver through her. Body aflame from her sensual musings, Sara fanned herself with the paper To-Go menu she’d snagged from the hostess stand earlier.
“This humidity is something else, isn’t it?” her father asked. He wiped the sweat glistening on his brow with a handkerchief.
Sara lifted her hair up with one hand to fan the back of her neck. “We’re not in Arizona’s dry heat anymore, Toto.”
Her father chuckled.
“You know we mean well, right, princess?” Leaning his shoulder on the curved wooden support beam, her dad peered around it. A garish green streaked across his forehead from the neon beer sign above the bar behind her.