Page 29 of Chasing Caine
“Yes, sir.” She winked at me and sat, staring up at the sun and letting her eyes slide closed.
After locking our items up, I returned to find her lying on her stomach on the sun bed. A glass of sangria sat on the concrete at her head, with a straw long enough she barely had to move.
“You need some sunscreen, you pale thing.”
Her shoulders heaved with laughter and she craned her head around. “I’m guessing you don’t use any?”
“Of course not.” I waved the silly question off. “Look at me. I was born for this sunshine.”
“I put some on before we left the hotel.” She lay her head back down. “What if the conservator who claims to be out sick isn’t really sick? What if she’s the guilty party? You sure Mario shouldn’t report it or track her down?”
I knelt next to her, bringing my face to her level. “Tomorrow.”
She rolled onto her side, and I brushed my hand along her narrow waist. She worked hard to suppress a laugh. “You going to say something about burials again?”
“You liked that?”
“I think you’re ridiculous.”
“You tell me this a lot.” I pulled on her hip so she lay on her front, and I retrieved the lotion. As I rubbed it into her skin, she sighed, a little more of her tension releasing.
“We’re going swimming, right?”
“If you would like, sì.” I kneaded her shoulders, eliciting a low moan. The sound brought me back to all the hours we’d spent tangled in each other’s bodies the last few days. My hands trailed lower, along her toned muscle, under the top edge of her bikini bottoms.
“Watch those hands, Ferraro. We’re in public, you know.”
I pulled on the bow holding her bikini top together at the middle of her back. She started to roll over to knock my hand away, but as the string released, she flopped down.
“Stop that.” She reached for the strings, to retie them, but I pushed her hands back onto the sun bed.
“Let me take care of you, bella.” I leaned down and planted a kiss on her neck before applying more sunscreen. I rubbed it into her sides, brushing my fingers along the curve of her breasts.
The muscles in her hips and ass tensed as she let out a small moan. “Christ, Antonio, that’s no way to get me to relax.”
“But you still need lotion on your legs.”
“You put one hand down there thinking you’re going to put lotion on the insides of my thighs, and I swear I won’t stop talking about that damn fresco.”
“Perhaps you should have another sip of your sangria.”
She raised her head to glare at me, but the corner of her mouth wouldn’t stay down. “Just hang out with me.”
I stood, moving the table from between our sun beds, and pushed them together. “Is this the part—” I stretched out on my bed, next to her. “—where we get to know each better?”
She tied the back of her suit and rolled onto her side. Her brows drew down as she touched my cheek, rubbing a gentle thumb along the faint outline of the bruise. It was fading, but still visible.
Her friend Nathan Miller had a stronger right hook than I’d expected from such a pretty man. But that was in the past, no matter how he looked at her. She was with me and I had one more week to convince her I was worth waiting for.
She blinked slowly, jaw flexing as though she wanted to say something. Words were much easier for me than for her, particularly the emotional ones. This was something else I had to convince her of—that she could trust me completely.
“You want to know why I lied about the Chagall?”
Her hand paused, and she took a deep breath. “Yeah.” The word was quiet, but it held significant weight. She was ready to talk.
I turned my face to kiss her palm and nuzzled into it, placing my hand over it. “You understand how much I regret that?”
She nodded, grasping my hand, taking it in hers to lay them next to her.