I swipe at my mouth again, but this time, I’m trying to rub the smile off so I can match his seriousness. “Even commoners on coastal islands have to eat, and sometimes they like their food to taste good.”
“Yoohoo! Mr. Rutherford? We won’t look if you want to kiss on Ms. Begonia here, but we heard you were having an impromptu romantic date, and we thought you might like some music.”
I glance up the small hill to where three locals are descending with violins, and I can’t help clapping my hands. “Oh my gosh, yes! That is so sweet of you!”
“You haven’t heard them play yet,” Hayes mutters.
“Don’t be so negative. How often do you get serenaded by people who rarely have an audience?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Hush and eat your peas, or there’s no pie for you. And if that pie tastes half as good as it smelled while it was baking this afternoon, you definitely want pie.”
His gaze lands on me, lit only by the crackling fire, and I suddenly wonder if he wants “pie” to be a euphemism.
That searing look says yes.
Or it might say I’m going to murder you in your sleep.
“We’ll take a minute to get warmed up, and then it’ll be nothing but the best music you’ve ever heard outside of a symphony hall until our fingers fall off or you decide it’s time for you or us to go home,” the ringleader of the violinists calls. They’re setting up a little way down, like they know just the right amount of space to give us so we can enjoy the music but still hear each other talk.
“Thank you so much for giving us music,” I call back with a smile. “I’m sure you have better things to do tonight.”
“Just the dishes.” All three of them laugh.
I smile at Hayes. “What’s the strangest place you’ve ever been serenaded?”
He holds my gaze while he sips discount wine out of the silicone cup that the local post office manager donated to our picnic tonight. “I was with Jonas in Los Angeles, with limited security. He was coated in stage make-up that made him look approximately sixty-five for a fifty years later scene, and he wanted a cheeseburger from a local joint just outside the studio’s gates. Seemed safe enough, but a small gang of teenage girls spotted him and recognized him.”
I laugh. “Hyacinth totally would’ve been in that group. So you were serenaded in a burger joint?”
“No. We took off at a run, and we ended up thinking we’d lost them when we dove into a single port-a-john at the edge of an alleyway, but teenage girls are terrifyingly smart, and they surrounded us, belting out the tunes from that god-awful film where he played a rock star until security arrived and rescued him.”
I try to stifle a giggle, and I fail miserably. It takes me a minute to stop long enough to whisper, “At least you know this performance can’t possibly stink like that one.”
A rare smile tilts his lips behind his wine cup. “I concede your point.”
Maybe it’s the wine. Maybe it’s the campfire under the stars. Maybe it’s the first notes of the violins sending music out into the world. Or maybe it’s his smile.
Whatever it is, I can’t stop myself from leaning over and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “For appearances,” I whisper.
He’s stiff as my former mother-in-law, but he slides a hand around my waist, tugs me close, and tilts his head to mine, capturing my lips in a long, slow, languid kiss.
My hand wobbles, and he takes the flexible cup from my hand, still kissing me, coaxing my lips apart, his large hands gripping me more firmly, and all I can think about is my horrible proposition earlier.
Does this mean he’ll do it?
Does it mean he’ll have sex with me?
Or is this for appearances?
Hayes Rutherford should taste like charcoal and day-old dishrags, but instead, he tastes like sin and temptation. He’s in a tux, on a homemade quilt loaned to us by a woman he dated once, the firm muscles in his arm brushing against my chest while his fingers dig into my hip and waist and his thumbs rub up and down over my dress. The sea breeze is making the kiss salty, the violins settling into “Serenade in G Major,” and I wonder if this is what it would be like to make love to him.
Quiet.
Intense.
Thorough.
A light flashes behind my eyelids, and he breaks off with a muttered curse.
“Hey! Hey! Get back here.”
The music stops, and one of the ladies playing takes off at a run up the hill. “Paparazzi! Paparazzi!”