“It’s pretty much perfect,” she agreed.
She closed her eyes and floated on her back, drops of water clinging like stars to her lashes. Blake forced himself to swim a few laps to get his brain back. He wasn’t supposed to be noticing things like eyelashes, and the little curve of her nose, and the way her lips parted when she sighed.
He was supposed to be having fun and forgetting anything that might make him linger. Resisting the pull that might draw him to one person, one place for too long.
They swam until they were tired, came out for cold beer until they were hot again, and jumped back in the pool. Then Chris suggested a place in town for dinner, and they piled five into a cab, Julia wedged tightly between Chris and Blake in the back seat.
He could feel her body pressed against his side, his thigh, smell her shampoo and a faint, clean whiff of chlorine. Her hair was still damp from the shower and only the fact that it was too cramped in the taxi to move kept him from brushing it back with his hand.
She sat across from him at dinner, and at first he was disappointed, but on second thought he didn’t mind the view. They filled their plates from a buffet laden with grilled fish, spicy sausage, and a thick smoky stew. There were black-eyed peas and empanadas, fresh green beans and pickled beets, and a large fruit spread with mangoes, star fruit, and the pear-like cupuaçu.
Julia was thorough about trying everything, sucking on the pulpy flesh of a cashew fruit as she tried to think of what it reminded her of. Blake wanted to be the one licking the juice from her fingers, tasting the fruit on her lips.
For the cab ride back, he announced that his arms couldn’t survive another ride being pinned against the door and flagged down a second car. Somehow he wasn’t surprised when in all the confusion of who was going where, he wound up alone with Julia in the back seat.
“Good Lord,” she moaned, “I hope I get to eat like this every day this week.”
“That’s what vacation is for.” He smiled at her happiness.
“Yet another thing I’ve been missing out on,” she murmured, and looked away at the lights of the town drifting away, lost for a moment in her own thoughts. Blake could hear a trace of sadness in her words and wondered if she even realized she’d spoken aloud.
“Still feeling bad about your birthday?” he asked.
She laughed, pulled back from whatever place she’d just retreated to that he couldn’t touch. When she looked at him again, she was smiling. “This has been a great introduction to thirty. I’m beginning to realize life actually does go on.”
“Sometimes it even gets better,” he joked.
She shook her head. “It’d be hard to top that pumpkin flan.”
“I’m sure we could think of something.” He slid across the back seat, next to her.
She looked startled, but he couldn’t believe that she hadn’t been thinking about it all night. Not with the way they’d been looking at each other, pulled into conversations across the table even when everyone around them was talking about something else.
The taxi was climbing the hill toward the hostel. He didn’t have much time. It wasn’t some grand romantic gesture, but who cared? The night was slipping away and he had to act fast. Before the taxi made the next turn, he lifted her chin with his first two fingers and pressed his lips to hers.
Even in the dark of night she tasted like sunlight and fruit, and he felt the warmth flood him as her mouth opened to him. He could feel her back arch, her neck tilt to draw him in. She’d been wanting that kiss, he could tell.
The car shuddered to a stop as they pulled up to the lighted entrance of the hostel. There was a volley of car doors as the rest of the crew piled out of the cab ahead of them.
Blake pulled away reluctantly. Julia’s eyes were still closed and he remembered the water on her lashes, how she was lost to the world. He wished they could have kept driving, but he knew this wasn’t the end.
He wasn’t done showing her how good her birthday could be.
Chapter Three
Julia tossed and turned on the narrow bed and tried to make her brain—and her body—stop sparking like fire crackers on the Fourth of July. She lay on her back. She lay on her side. She settled onto her stomach only to find herself rolling over again. She hoped that to anyone else awake, her sighs sounded like someone settling into sleep and not like someone so damn horny she couldn’t lie still.
She closed her eyes and tried to relax, but she kept drifting back to that kiss. Blake’s warm hands, the press of his lips, the way she’d wanted that taste of him more than she’d ever wanted anyone, anything, before. She’d actually dared to slide her hands over his arm, feeling his muscles through his shirt, remembering how delicious he’d looked soaking wet from the pool.
Everything had been going so well. So how the hell had she wound up lying alone in the dark in a room full of lightly snoring women, frustrated beyond all belief?
Stupid brain, she cursed herself again. Always popping up at the worst possible moments to lecture her on what not to do.
Part of her had longed to stop the car, stop time, and erase everyone around them so that it was just her and Blake and that kiss, with no past or future to stand in their way.
But another part knew she never could.
That was the Julia who yawned and told everyone she was beat from her long bus ride. The Julia who could barely bring herself to make eye contact with Blake when she said goodnight. The Julia who knew the smart thing was to leave.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Sensible. Prudent. The only way to keep herself safe.
It was fine to share a little kiss, but then she had to be responsible and go to sleep.
Alone.
Except it wasn’t just a little kiss. It was a great kiss. An excellent kiss. A soul-shattering, spine-tingling, forget-your-own-name kind of kiss. The memory of his skin alone was enough to make her clasp her thighs together under the thin sheets, trying not to make any noise.
She’d thought the right thing to do was to back away. Stay strong and in control of herself.
But now, in the cover of darkness, alone with her thoughts, smart, sensible ideas looked different than they had in the light. Her whole body was on fire, unable to stop replaying the moment when he slid toward her in the back seat of the car and her heartbeat raced into overdrive. His eyes had searched hers in the darkness and even before he leaned in to the kiss, she’d found herself lifting her lips to his. She wanted it, whether it was a good idea or not.
And now she was kicking herself for letting him go.
She pressed the light on her travel alarm, eyeing it under the sheets so it wouldn’t disturb anyone else in the room. When the party petered out and the other assortment of hostel guests returned from their evenings, Julia had stayed curled with her back to the room, eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. She didn’t know whether Chris knew anything had happened between her and Blake, but she didn’t want to face any questions about what they’d done—and why it hadn’t continued.
Now it was well after midnight and instead of congratulating herself for making the right decision—“the Julia decision,” as Liz would say—all she could think about was the feel of his body pressing against hers in the cab.
She’d never be able to put herself back in that car and make a different choice. She’d always be stuck wondering, “What if?”
She bit down on her lip to keep from whimpering out loud. There was no way she was falling asleep. Quietly, she slipped out of bed.
If anyone woke up from the creak of the door opening or her flip-flops padding down the hall, she’d look like she was going to the bathroom. Like any normal, sane person might do in the middle of the night when they definitely weren’t aching for someone’s touch.