I strip down and put on the bikini, wincing at the scrape of plastic tags on my bare skin, at the tight elastic barely holding me in. The tags are easy enough to yank off. Meanwhile the elastic strap nestles in my butt with disturbing intimacy.
Two little triangles cover my breasts. And one down below.
The towel that had felt so revealing yesterday now seems like an exercise in modesty. I can’t really imagine going out like this, but I want to. For reasons that have nothing to do with stealth or escape. I want to see what Niko’s expression will be when he sees this bikini.
I grab a towel and a half-empty bottle of sunscreen before heading outside.
Sunlight hits soft, private skin for the first time. I shiver despite the warmth. Crossing the patio I settle into one of the reclining deck chairs beside the pool. Throw my hair over my shoulder. Somewhat discreetly adjust the band of my bikini top so it covers me.
The entire time, Niko continues to power wash. He doesn’t even look over.
Well, I tell myself reasonably, he probably didn’t hear me. That machine is pretty loud.
Disappointment pulls a loud sigh out of me.
Right then, in the space of seconds as breath leaves my mouth, Niko glances back at me. A moment later he’s looking back at his work, having not even given me a second look—but he doesn’t have to. It’s enough. Enough to know he’s aware of me, maybe even as sharply aware of me as I am of him.
Smiling a little, I apply creamy white sunscreen to my arms and legs.
I smooth it across the slopes of my breasts.
Every cell in my body is attuned to the man who’s resolutely not looking at me. Except he’s running out of brick on that side of the grounds. He’ll need to stop soon. Maybe he’ll pick up and move to a different side of the house. Or maybe he’ll go inside the house again…
Setting the bottle on the speckled concrete, I turn over and lay myself flat on the plastic slats. I let my head drop lazily over the edge. The sun beats on my bare neck and back, its insistent heat a warning. There’s no sunscreen back there.
The machine stops, leaving only ringing silence.
My eyes close and open, slow with a self-assuredness completely new to me. A shadow crosses over me, almost a cool touch across hot skin.
“You’re going to burn like that.”
I don’t even lift my head. “I can’t reach.”
“Is that your way of asking for help?”
“Is that your way of offering?”
Electricity crackles through the air, the kind that has nothing to do with the bright orange extension cord or the glittering blue pool. We’re creating our own current—his body, mine. It steals all the air, making my breath come faster, my breasts pressing harder against the plastic slats of the lounge chair, but I don’t care about that. All this power between us, all this promise.
The only thing I care about now is seeing it fulfilled.
My axis shifts as he bends down, as his dark hand picks up the sunny yellow plastic bottle. A pop as he opens the top. The faintest sound of cream as he puts some in his hands.
The anticipation crests inside me, frothy and white. I have to close my eyes as he reaches for me. Close my eyes to block out the bright water and the green grass, the neon plastic slats of the chair and the flecks of blue in the patio. All of it so bright, but it’s only a mirage. I know about geography; and this is my desert. This man, so dark and so secret—my oasis.
His hands touch my arms first, a place where it’s already smooth with lotion. He runs his hands lightly along the outsides of my upper arms, his fingertips slick, almost obscene, making goosebumps rise.
He moves inward, over my shoulder blades and down my spine. My back does this little arch that can only be suggestive. He ignores it; his touch not impersonal but instead tender. It’s more intimate than a kiss, when he touches me like I matter to him. Like my pale skin burning really bothers him. Like he gives a shit about protecting me.
It’s just another way to lie.
His hands run over the elastic string of my bikini top, coating it with lotion as if it’s my own skin. I think we’re going to pretend about that. This is as far as it will go. Regret whispers through my chest, a cool ribbon of awareness across the scorching heat of my summer.
“This is in the way,” he says, lifting the string away from my body.
He doesn’t wait for me to respond. With deft fingers he unties the knot. The two ends fall away, over the metal-pole sides of the lounge chair, exposing the sides of my breasts, revealing the narrowest strip of skin at my back. He could have reached that without removing the top; we both know that. I don’t argue. I don’t complain.
