Page 46 of All Summer Long

She felt him wriggling, and when she looked at him he’d removed his t-shirt and lay back again with the cap once more in place over his eyes. Glancing around, Alice noticed that his beach-beautiful body hadn’t gone unnoticed by pretty much any woman in the vicinity, and an undeniable thrill of pride rippled down her spine. He drew attention not because he was famous, but because he was hot as hell, even with his face covered.

‘You should probably put your t-shirt back on again, you’re attracting attention,’ she said, rolling onto her side to face him.

‘Too hot. You should probably take yours off,’ he said, feeling for her hand again. ‘You look sexy in that bikini. They’ll all be too busy looking at you to notice me.’

‘Just keep your face covered, for God’s sake,’ she whispered, feeling as if she’d just brought Magic Mike to Barmouth beach. He had a point about her t-shirt though. She was baking, it needed to come off. Besides, bikinis seemed to be the order of the day on the beach anyway, so contrary to what he’d said she felt pretty sure she’d blend in just fine.

Robinson slid his sunglasses back over his eyes and jammed his cap into place on his head, sitting up to mess in the beach bag for a second then rolling on his side to face her.

‘Sun cream,’ he said, flipping the lid on the bottle. Alice went to take it from him but he held it out of her grasp. ‘Let me.’

A small part of her thought of saying no, you really shouldn’t, but the rest of her screamed oh my god, yes, you really should, so she lay still and let him drizzle a blob of white sun cream onto her navel, and then another dot onto each of her shoulders.

‘Imagine we’re on a deserted island in the Indian Ocean,’ he said quietly as he began to massage the cream into her stomach in slow, circular motions. He lingered across the waist band of her shorts, and then flicked the top button open and made her gasp.

‘Robinson, don’t,’ she said, breathing faster.

‘I won’t,’ he said, letting his hand slide up her body again to rub the cream into her shoulders and down the length of her arms. ‘But not because I don’t want to. If we were on that beach on the Indian Ocean, I’d have you naked in seconds.’

Fond as Alice was of Barmouth beach, she wished with all of her heart that she was thousands of miles away at that moment.

‘You’re a bad, bad cowboy,’ she said under her breath, opening her eyes behind her dark glasses to look up at him. ’Want me to do you now?’

He shook his head. ‘Not unless you want me to make good on my promise to have you naked in seconds,’ he said.

Alice laughed softly, enjoying the effect she had on him.

‘You sure? I’d do a real good job. Why don’t you lie back and let me show you?’

Robinson coughed. ‘I’d probably get arrested if I lie back in this state on a public beach.’

‘Want me to tell you what I’d do if we were on that deserted beach in the Indian Ocean?’ she asked, biting her bottom lip. His eyes watched her mouth.

‘Behave, Goldilocks,’ he muttered eventually, his voice gravel-low as he rolled onto his stomach until he was safe to be out in public again.

Alice laughed again, more carefree than she could remember being for a long, long time.

Between them in the sand she drew their initials inside a love heart, like a teenage girl doodling in the back of her exercise book.

Robinson watched her, his eyes on her handiwork. After a pause he wrote ‘I want you,’ beneath the heart.

Alice kissed his shoulder. ‘I want you too,’ she said, loving the sun-baked heat of his skin and the smell of sun cream on their bodies.

‘Just you wait until I get you home,’ he said.

Alice rested her chin on his shoulder and looked out to sea, trying not to concentrate on the way her heart contracted when he said home.

Back in the Airstream a little after midnight, Alice closed her eyes and listened to Robinson breathing steady against her ear as he spooned himself around her. It really had been the most spectacular day in every way, from the unbroken blue skies to the sand in their toes and how he’d made good on his promise to get her naked in seconds as soon as they were alone. An owl hooted somewhere in the trees outside in Borne woods, but as Alice drifted towards sleep she heard seagulls, and the Airstream wasn’t her makeshift home, it was their romantic holiday hideaway.

Alice watched with quiet satisfaction a couple of weeks later as the yurt took shape before her eyes beside the stream. Purchased second-hand from a Welsh campsite on eBay, she’d been lucky enough to drop on sellers who’d been happy to come and show her how to erect it properly in exchange for lunch and the petrol money to bring it over. She’d warmed to the ever-so-slightly bonkers pair of brothers the moment they’d tumbled out of their transit and hauled the yurt down towards the site.

‘He’s Barry Jones,’ one said, jerking his thumb.

‘And he’s Brynn Jones,’ the other said, nodding towards his brother.

‘He likes cheese with his onion,’ Barry said.

‘And he likes onion with his cheese,’ Brynn said, with a grin. They were remarkably similar, both thickset with a mop of dark hair and merry eyes.

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