A myriad of things flicker through his darkening irises. What I assume is hunger and desire. Need and want. The same feelings that are rioting through me. I slide my finger from my mouth and run my tongue over the chocolate still on my bottom lip. His jaw pulses. His eyes hold fast. Sexual tension sparks when it just can’t.
I remind myself of all the reasons this is a bad idea. How in two days he’s going to leave and go back to his life in Hollywood, and I’ll return to my mixer and ovens and passion. Alone.
So I try to bring us back to the playful part of us. The neutral zone.
“You’re right,” I murmur, a taunting smile on my lips, and a scrunch of my nose. “Not enough cream.”
I more than notice Hayes’s expression: mischief to match mine, challenge, disbelief.
And it’s only a fraction of a moment, a split second of time where we let spontaneity take over, and the kids we used to be emerge. In a frenzy of activity, we both scramble up from the bench and grab the remaining cupcakes from the box. Our laughter floats around us like the rustle of the palm leaves in the breeze. We’re armed and ready for a cupcake war.
He strikes next. A pink frosted one that glances off of my shoulder. My yelp rings out above the waves on the beach. His footsteps behind me tell me he’s given chase down the pathway. I turn a bend where he can’t see me and dart in between a break in the hedge. Just as he passes me, I jump out and smash a vanilla frosted cupcake square against his back.
“Still a little shit all these years later, Ships.” He laughs out the insult as we circle each other like dogs with smiles on our faces, lungs out of breath, and intention in our movements.
“Hmm, you forget how fast I am, Whitley?” I lunge toward him, ready to strike, and he jumps back. We continue this dance until I take one step too many and he grabs my arm and twists me against him, my back to his front.
“I think you forget how strong I am.”
I don’t even have a second to prepare before he lands a cupcake to my collarbone. And with his body behind me and his hand against me, I definitely feel his strength. Using his leverage, he takes his hand and purposely smears the cupcake against my skin and bathing suit.
“You asshole!” I shriek in jest as I escape the confines of his arms and chase after him down the footpath.
He taunts me from ahead. You’re such a wimp. You can’t catch me. How do you like them apples, huh, Say?
“You’re dead meat,” I call after him as we weave in and out of paths. I chuck a cupcake at him from behind, and it bounces off the back of his neck.
“Close but no cigar,” he heckles as I scoop up the dropped cupcake for a reloadable weapon and continue down the path to where he disappeared.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I call when I can’t find him. With a cupcake in one hand, my sarong gathered up in my other hand, and an enthusiastic smile on my lips, I search through breaks in the foliage to find his hiding spot.
I yelp when hands grab my waist from behind and spin me around. “Olly olly oxen free,” he whispers as he cocks his arm back and aims the cupcake at my face.
“No!” The sound is part laughter, part warning. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
We playfully struggle our way into a clearing. There’s laughter around us. I’m sure we are quite the sight—two grown adults covered in various colors of frosting having an epic battle—yet I don’t think once to care. My only focus is the cupcake in Hayes’s hand.
I hear my name. I think I do anyway, and it distracts me enough momentarily that Hayes is able to grab and pull me tighter into him, the cupcake now inches from my face.
We stare at each other in a silent standoff, hearts racing and eyes daring. His gaze flickers over my shoulder and then back to mine as I prepare myself for the smash.
But it doesn’t come.
Instead he eases up and only dabs the frosting against the tip of my nose.
I sigh in relief.
Then gasp out in shock.
Because Hayes’s lips are on mine.
And not just a friendly peck. Not hardly. The hand that held the cupcake is now empty. Chocolate fallen by the wayside for a kiss. His fingers, sticky with frosting, are on my cheeks directing my face. But there’s no thought of the frosting he’ll get on my face or how funny it’s going to look when we walk back to our villa because all I can think about is Hayes.
I could tell myself I part my lips—grant him access—because I’m winded and need to breathe, but that would be a lie. Because the minute his tongue dances against mine, all I want to do is drown in his kiss. In the familiarity of it. In the difference of it. The unexpectedness of it. The comfort of it. In everything about him.