The heat between her thighs was immediate and embarrassing, and she pressed herself closer rather than farther away because the pretending was over, and she was done with the pretending.
The sketch was on the sand somewhere behind her.
She didn't look for it.
His hands.
That was the thing.
Both hands were present and accounted for, and both were offering the same unhurried, proprietary attention with the ease of a man who managed plural situations by instinct rather than effort. One palm curved over the swell of Nara's ass — the thin fabric bunching at the crease, his fingers settling there with the familiar weight of ownership — and she made a sound against his neck that she converted, partially and unconvincingly, into a hum.
The other hand moved to the base of Gia's spine and then lower, curving, his fingers finding the bottom edge of the rabbit-fur waistband and pressing her hips forward by the barest, most precise degree.
Gia's jaw set.
