I was saved by the fact that we were pulling into the parking lot by the Santa Monica Pier. It was the closest beach to the Tower Bar, though it wasn’t my favourite. Even on a weekday in January, it was packed with locals and tourists alike. I grabbed a loose knit sweater from the pile of clothes in the back seat of my car to ward off the cool ocean breeze. We were quiet as we walked down the pier to grab ice cream, but Sebastian stayed close, his shoulder brushing mine as we stepped in tandem down the wooden boards. The ocean was so different here than back at home in Maui, less vibrant and tropical, spreading out like muted blue velvet from the caramel sand, but it still brought me untold comfort to be near the waves.
He smiled quietly to himself when I ordered bright blue Cookie Monster ice cream.
“What?” I demanded, taking a big scoop of the sweet cold dessert onto my spoon. “I thought you wouldn’t judge me for anything, hmm?”
Sebastian’s eyes crinkled with mirth, and he lifted his shoulder in a Latin shrug. “That was before I saw you get a flavor named after a blue children’s puppet. It’s not even a real flavor!”
I took another large spoonful and hummed my delight before sticking my tongue out at him. “It’s delicious. You don’t know what you’re missing out on.”
“Your tongue is blue,” he noted dryly as he accepted his own cup of chocolate and coffee ice cream.
“Don’t judge until you try it,” I tsked, waving my spoon at him in condemnation.
The motion flicked droplets of melting cream onto my cheek.
Sebastian chuckled, that belly-deep rumble that made my thighs clench, and reached over to collect the blue liquid on his thumb. I could not have looked away from that golden gaze orthose full, sensual lips parting, even if a nuclear bomb went off beside us.
His mouth closed around his finger, and his throat worked as he sucked at it.
A little gasp escaped me at the sight of him.
“Not bad,” he deduced with a crooked grin. “But I will stick withcioccolatoandcaffè. Though American ice cream is never so good as Italiangelato.”
I blinked at him, still momentarily struck dumb by what might have been the single most erotic experience of my life thus far, and he hadn’t even touched me.
“I wouldn’t know,” I said, my throat parched. “I’ve never been.”
Sebastian clucked his tongue and shook his head despairingly as he led us back down the pier. A few teenage girls noticed him and tittered behind their hands as he passed by. He flashed them a megawatt grin that would probably fuel their fantasy for years to come.
“I will take you one day,” he said conclusively as if it was that simple and obvious. “You will love it. The people, the scenery, thefood. It is all a sensory delight.”
“Everything is magical to you, isn’t it?” I asked, happy to say it aloud when I’d thought it every time I received one of his postcards, filled with cramped, spikey script as if he was in a rush to communicate with me the joys of his life. “Even the bad things.”
Sebastian hummed as he sucked ice cream off his spoon, causing a passing woman’s mouth to fall open at the sight. I hid my smile behind my own spoon as we took the stairs down to the beach.
Instantly, Sebastian toed off his expensive leather shoes and dug his toes into the sand. I followed suit, the cool, dense sand like heaven against my skin after the high heels.
“Do you want the truth?” he asked as we started to walk down the beach. It was a gorgeous day, so it seemed that everyone was out on the sand.
“Of course.”
“I like the bad things just as much as the good,” he admitted, angling so that we cut down to the water and he could walk through the frothing edge of the waves. “They remind me not to take anything for granted, not even for a minute.”
“Wow, you’re scarily well-adjusted,” I muttered.
He laughed, throwing his head back to do it to the heavens. Someone sitting on the beach snapped a photo of him, but I couldn’t blame them.
He was glorious.
And I was lucky enough to count him as a friend.
“I have my burdens,” he told me with a slight shrug. “But overall, how could I not feel lucky? Even now, just at this moment, I am walking along a beautiful beach under a bright sun with one of the most beautiful and interesting women I have ever known.”
“I grew into my face a little,” I quipped, because I’d never known how to accept a compliment gracefully.
Sebastian stopped suddenly, so I mimicked him. Only then did he reach out and rub his thumb along the thick arch of my ash-brown eyebrow, shades darker than my hair.
“I think you’ve grown into yourself,” he corrected. “You don’t seem happy, exactly, but you have this light about you.Luminosità. Luminosity. I would like to get to know you better, Linnea. In person, again.”
