Chapter 12
TWELVE
Vince was regretting his choice not to get that rash guard at the store that morning.
Sure, he wouldn't need it in Chicago, and he would definitely not need it in Maine, but in Hawaii?
He should have worn it, or hell, he could have worn his undershirt at the beach.
No, it wouldn't have looked good, but he wouldn't be hurting so much.
Looking at his face in the bathroom mirror, he wanted to kick himself.
He'd gotten some sun.
Okay, he'd gotten a lot of sun.
And his pale skin wasn't all that thrilled about it.
In fact, his skin was doing a great job of complaining about his treatment of it.
Lifting up his hand, he felt the beginning of a burn across his skin and when he pushed a fingertip into his cheek, the mark it left behind was white.
Yeah, he was burned.
He shook his head at himself. He'd done something stupid.
He'd wanted to impress the girl.
All of his workouts would come in handy on the beach.
He wanted her to see that he took good care of himself.
Sure, it was part of the job, but he enjoyed working out.
He liked running, too.
It would be incredible if she liked running as well, and he'd planned on asking her later, but how fit would he look if he walked up to her as red as a boiled lobster and talked about what he liked to do to keep fit.
Vince was sure that was not the way to impress the girl. And he wanted her to be impressed.
"Vince?"
He heard a soft knock on the bathroom door and turned to answer Cora, but that quick turn of his head was the wrong move.
The skin on his neck was sensitive.
And boy, it hurt.
"Vince? You okay?"
He heard the concern in her voice, but he also heard something else.
Opening the door, he saw Cora standing outside the door with a big, over-sized bath sheet wrapped around her body.
Her wincing smile worried him. "What's wrong?"
She looked down at her chest and lifted a hand to gesture at her exposed skin. "I burned."
She sounded so dejected that he had to fight off a smile, but when he looked up into her face, he saw that she was smiling at him. "You, too?"
He lifted his arm into the light, and she put her arm beside his.
The two of them were matching shades of red.
"Oh, boy," she laughed softly. "I don't think we picked the right level of sunscreen."
He nodded. "Looks like."
Giggling softly, she sighed. "I think we might have bought some Pam cooking spray instead of sunscreen."
"Ha!" Vince clapped a hand over his mouth and mumbled behind it. "Sorry."
"Go ahead, and laugh," she answered back, "I think we need a little laughter because it's either laugh or cry."
Someone rang the doorbell and Cora looked at her phone.
"Oh, that's my Instacart order."
He lifted a brow at that. "Instacart?"
"Aftersun lotion," she told him. "I messaged Kawehi, and she suggested it."
The doorbell rang again, and she started to head for the door.
"Wait!" Vince reached out to take her by the arm to stop her but stopped just short of touching her. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. "I'll get it."
"Oh I can-" "Let me."
He gestured at her. "I love the towel look, but maybe you should let me get it."
She looked down to see what he was gesturing at and when she lifted her head to look at him, her cheeks were blazing red. "Yeah, I don't want the delivery guy to think that this is some kind of bare-bones plot porno."
He burst out laughing as he headed for the door. "I love the way you make me laugh, Cora."
Vince heard her laughter following behind him as he reached the door.
The guy at the door looked like he'd rather be anywhere else than there. "Hey," he looked down at the package, "you, Cora?" The driver looked up at him with both brows raised in question.
"I'll take the package." Vince reached out to take the package from his hand, but the driver pulled it back, so it was just out of reach.
"I'll give this to the lady."
The man's tone of voice and the set of his features said that he didn't want to give the package over.
Vince tried to reach for the package again, but the man again pulled it out of reach and lowered his chin to give Vince a pointed look.
"The lady," Vince let him know, "is just out of the shower and in a towel."
The man's instant grin gave away his thoughts. He looked more like a wolf than a man at the moment.
"Sweet. I'll give this to her." The man lifted the package in the air, held between his two fingers and craned his neck to look over Vince's shoulder.
Vince's instinct was to make the man swallow the package, but he knew that Cora wanted the aftersun lotion and he wasn't going to keep that from her. When the delivery man leaned in the opposite direction to look over Vince's other shoulder, Vince snaked out his hand and snatched the package away and then closed the door with more than enough force in the man's face.
"What an asshole."
"What's that?"
Cora peeked out around the corner, much of her body hidden from view, but he could still see the towel around her thighs.
"Is everything okay?"
He smiled and felt something shift inside of him.
What if , he asked himself, this was what he had to come home to every day?
His smile deepened.
Then I'd be a fucking lucky man.
"Everything's fine." He held up the package. "Your lotion, miss."
"Oh, good!" Her shoulder sagged in relief, and she stepped into view. "I was afraid I was going to turn into a pile of embers if that didn't get here soon."
Cora moved closer and took the bag from his hands and opened up the top, pulling the tape off of it. Reaching in with a smile so pure it looked like a child getting a long-awaited piece of candy, she pulled out a clear bottle with bright green goo in it.
"That's the lotion?"
She read the label carefully and he saw her grin. "That's what it says. Kawehi said she could bring over actual aloe from her yard, but she said it smells a little and it would turn my skin a certain shade of yellow. And this," she turned the bottle around so he could see the label, "is going to be a lot faster and easier."
Popping off the top she tried to find a place to set the brown paper bag, looking around her with a frown.
"Here, I'll take that."
Vince took the package and walked into the kitchen to drop it into the trash can.
He heard a soft squish and turned around to see her smoothing one hand along her arm.
A shiny trail of liquid followed her hand, and she sighed. "Oh my god, this feels great!"
Watching her look so happy, that was great.
"Oh, this feels amazing!" She turned her arm, and he saw the difference between the top of her arm and the underside. "Oh," she groaned, "maybe I should have spent more time on my belly."
He looked down his own arm and turned it in one direction and the other. "Or maybe we both could have gotten a higher SPF. Like one made for the surface of the sun."
She looked up at him, startled.
Then her eyes moved down his arm and she grimaced, her teeth closed, and lips parted.
"Yikes. I thought it was just me that burned almost to a crisp."
He felt the stretch and burn across his skin, but he shrugged to blow off the suggestion that he was hurting.
And had to hold back a grunt of pain.
"Here." Cora moved closer and squeezed more of the lotion in her palm.
She held out the bottle to him and he took it in his hand.
"Thanks." He was about to squeeze some into his hand when she reached out and slicked the lotion over his bicep on both sides.
Wow.
The lotion was cold to the touch, chilly enough to make him start, but he didn't pull away.
It would take a lot more to make him do that.
The look on Cora's face mesmerized him.
She looked serious.
Studious.
As if she was examining his skin to see where he needed the lotion most.
And there, under it all, he wanted to say... he was fairly sure, he could see real concern.
If he didn't already find her gorgeous and an incredibly beautiful person inside and out, that would have clinched it.
"Oh, wow." Her tone was hushed. "I didn't realize you'd been burned so badly."
He smiled, a self-effacing half-grin. "I was hoping it didn't show. I'm not used to burning."
She looked up at him through the fall of her hair. "Me neither. I think I underestimated how different the sun exposure would be here."
Her hands trailed down over his forearm, and he had to fight off the arousal that had already been simmering under the surface since he'd seen her in her bathing suit.
It had only gotten better/worse when he'd seen her wrapped up in a towel.
Now, she was touching him, her hands almost caressing his arm and the blood that had been steadily working its way down below his belt was pooling faster the longer she was touching him.
Vince turned the bottle over and squeezed some of the lotion into the hand of the arm she was holding before he set the bottle down.
Her gaze lifted to meet his, but he didn't look directly into her eyes.
He didn't want her to see the plain truth in his gaze.
He didn't want her to see how much he wanted more than a kiss.
Wanted more than just a touch.
He took her arm in his hand and smoothed the lotion over her skin, covering her arm from shoulder to elbow all around, carefully skirting her underarm. He didn't think it would be a good feeling to have that cool lotion there. He smiled to himself. He wanted to know if she was ticklish, but this wasn't the time.
Vince moved on to her lower arm, using one hand and then the other, trailing over her skin.
He knew that he was doing a little more than just applying the lotion, but if she pulled back or tensed, he'd stop.
"This lotion is incredible." Her voice was softer than it had been. Breathy.
And it was doing things to his body that he didn't want her to see. He didn't want to break the spell.
"But..."
He swallowed at the knot that had formed in his throat.
"Vince..."
He lifted his gaze to her face and saw her blinking at him, her eyes darker than they had been just moments before.
"You're burned more than I am."
"I'd rather we get this on your skin first. If there's any left, I can use it, but-"
She shifted, turned slightly and caught at his arm with her free hand.
He stopped for a moment, looking into her eyes.
"Why can't we help each other?"
If he hadn't been half hard at that moment, it wouldn't have mattered.
Her tone, the look on her face, the effect that just a simple touch of her skin willingly against his.
He was hard, achingly so.
"I think," his voice sounded deeper to his ears, his blood pumping through his veins, "if we did that, things might get a little... out of hand."
Oh, fuck.
Her teeth sank into her bottom lip, and he felt it, wanting to feel her bite into his.
"And I think," her voice was deeper, her shoulders lifting and falling with her breaths deepening, "I wouldn't mind that in the least."
He smiled and felt his heart pounding against his ribs as he reached for the bottle. Keeping his gaze on her face he put more lotion in his hand. "Where should I start?"
He gently rubbed his hands together and set his hands on the sides of her neck.
She drew in a breath between her lips and lifted her face toward his.
His lips touched hers as his hands slipped down from her neck to her shoulders and they moved together toward the wall.
For a moment, Vince thought he should stop and leaned back, but Cora gripped his arms and drew him back with her.
She had his head spinning.
When she reached the wall, they broke apart and his gaze met hers. They were both breathing heavily, shoulders raising, eyes searching.
"Are you... are we-"
She nodded. "Oh, yeah-"
"I don't want to push-"
"You're not-"
"Good-"
She raised up on the balls of her feet, or at least that's what he assumed, because her lips were on his.
He had a feeling they'd be getting here sooner or later, but he wasn't going to complain.
Not at all.
Her lips parted and he swept his tongue inside her mouth.
Crazy, that's how he felt. Crazy for the girl.
His hands moved over her back and the towel bunched up under his hands.
He couldn't believe how amazing it felt to kiss her, he was falling and falling fast.
Everything about her was-
CLICK CLICK
The sound started to clear the fog in his head, but not fast enough.
He had half a clue, but that was all he managed before the front door swung open.
"What the fuck?"