Underneath the pout was a hint of real reproof.
And nobody could be unhappier with the situation than him. “I don’t have a choice. I’ve been here a week already. You should have gotten here earlier.”
She rolled over onto her belly. “Better late than never.”
“Better than most things I can think of.” He sat beside her and stroked his hand down her back, tracing the groove of her spine, sliding up and over the rise of her ass. “How’s your condom supply holding out?”
“I’ve got more back in my room.” She leered at him. “Want to come search with me?”
“Maybe. What do you have planned for today? I figured maybe we could hang out.” He kept his voice light. She was there with friends. She might need to spend the day with them. She might have been going on some kind of tour or activity, in which case, he’d do his best to tag along, even if it meant swimming with dolphins.
Although he drew the line at shopping.
“I was planning to lay on the beach, drink, maybe learn the merengue. What have you got to offer?”
He leaned down to press an open-mouthed kiss on her bare ass. “Besides the obvious?”
“Besides that.”
He moved around behind her and began to spread her legs apart. “Let me think.” He licked the inside of her thigh and watched the goose bumps form. “Eric’s diving again today but I wanted to go see Tulum. You could come with me.”
“Tulum? The Mayan ruins?”
He nuzzled her. “They’ve got a pyramid there. Not quite as big as the one at Chichen Itza, but it’s right on the beach. We can rent a car.”
At that, she perked up and scrambled away from him. “Only if I can drive.”
“Why does that thought make me nervous?”
She pulled her dress on over her head. “I don’t know why it would. I’m a very moderate driver, I’ll have—”
He tugged her into his arms and fastened his mouth over hers. “I don’t think you’re moderate at anything,” he murmured against her lips. “It’s one of the things I like about you.”
“Oh, really,” she said breathlessly. “You want to tell me a few more of those things?”
“The fact that you’ve got absolutely nothing on under that dress?”
“It’ll give you something to think about on the way over to my hotel. Now about the rest of those things.”
“Come with me to Tulum and I’ll tell you.”
“Let me drive.”
He reached out to pick a ten-peso coin off the bureau. “We’ll flip for it.”
“I STILL THINK THAT WAS a two-headed coin,” Delaney grumbled as they headed down the bleached concrete highway that led to Tulum. On either side of the road rose the low, green tangle of palmetto jungle, broken up with the occasional brightly painted bodega or gas station.
“Do you think I’d do anything so devious as use a two-headed coin on you?”
“Heck, yeah,” she shot back.
“That’s slander.”
“I don’t think it’s slander if it’s just the two of us. I think then it’s merely an insult.”
“After all I’ve done for you, you insult me?”
She regarded him with a raised brow. “I’ve done a few things for you back.”
“True. So I’ll ignore the insult.”
“And let me drive home?” she asked, surfing her hand in the slipstream outside the window.
“We’ll see.”
“The ultimate parents’ line. You sure you don’t have kids?”
“Positive.”
“You drive like you’ve got kids.”
“I drive like I’ve got a vehicle that can barely stay running,” he corrected.
“It is kind of shaky.”
“These old Bugs are like that.” They’d rented a rust-dappled blue Volkswagen that looked as if it had done more than its time on the roads. And sounded it.
“Eighty kilometers an hour,” Delaney read off the road sign. “How fast is that in American?”
Dom thought. “About fifty.” He reached out to slide a hand down her thigh.
“Careful. You don’t want to get a ticket for reckless driving.”
“Why do you think I made sure you wouldn’t be behind the wheel?”
Delaney folded her arms and scowled. “Just for that, no blow jobs in motion.”
“I’d rather have one while I can give it my full attention, thanks.” He squeezed her thigh. “Especially coming from a master like you.”
“Well, at least you appreciate me.”
“Devoutly,” he assured her. “I’ll be happy to demonstrate at first opportunity.”
“You already spent the morning demonstrating after we found my condoms.”
“I took it as a challenge. Relax. It’s still early afternoon. We’ve got a few hours yet.”
The village of Tulum was bigger than she’d expected, a collection of hotels and shops and restaurants clustered around the highway. And the ruins were purely and simply magical.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.” Delaney stared around her, amazed. She’d expected a single pyramid but the massive walls of the city enclosed over a dozen grayish stone structures, each covered with carvings simultaneously elaborate and crude. The largest temple, El Castillo, sat poised on a cliff overlooking the blue waters of the Caribbean. There was a grandeur to the broad sweep of steps that ran up each side, a dignity to the geometric lines.
“I wish we could climb it,” she said. “Can you imagine the view?”
“You used to be able to. I guess they’re getting too many people these days.”
She gave him a quick, startled glance. “Have you been here before?”
He nodded. “When I was in college. A couple of buddies and I came down. We slept in hammocks on the beach.”
“You mean down there?” She squinted in the direction he pointed, then looked again. “Wait a minute. They look like they’re na—”
He chuckled. “You
