Page 60 of Swiped
The waiter appeared and set down two checks. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said.
Rami grabbed them. “My treat. For your birthday!”
Allison winced. “No! You don’t have to.”
“Please.” Rami suddenly never wanted anything more in his whole life than to pay for this adorable woman’s brunch. He placed his hands on the table. “Please let me perform this miracle.”
Her face twisted with a suppressed grin. “Well, thank you.” She gave his hand a quick, shy touch. “I hope all San Francisco people are like you.”
“Well, I don’t like to brag, but I’ve actually celebrated almost all of my birthdays in the city.” He dropped his voice to sound serious. “I’m something of an expert on what to do.”
Allison matched his businesslike tone. “Is that so?”
“I’m sensing that you don’t believe me.”
She crumpled instantly. “No, I do!” She laughed.
Rami shook his head and raised his hands in surrender. “Fine, if you insist on being skeptical, then I guess I’ll just have to show you how to have an awesome birthday in the Bay.”
Her face was pink with excitement. “Really?”
He rubbed his chin solemnly. “It’s my civic duty.”
Allison clapped her hands in front of her chest so quickly that she rattled the dishes on the table. “OK, yes! Let’s go do some birthday things . . .”
Chapter 16
Nat pulled the plush, velvety robe around her neck as she stepped into the open-air hot tub suite. Thom was perched on the edge of the natural stone bench in the same cream-colored robe.
“This is officially too much,” she said as she padded toward him with bare feet on the cool stone.
“Well, you’ll notice that I’m partaking in everything, too,” he said, standing as his robe winked open against his body, and she clocked the tonedVleading into his swim shorts.
“I noticed,” she breathed.
“So, it’s hardly a sacrifice for me.”
Nat sighed and craned her neck to take in the burnt orange sky of dusk above them. Gray-blue clouds drifted across the open-air roof as the first stars twinkled into sight.
“Shall we?” said Thom. “They tell me it’s quite important to them that we test out this part of the property, specifically.”
“I mean, if they need our help . . .” Nat gestured to the steaming water. “It would be a crime not to.”
In one fluid gesture, Thom shrugged his robe to the floor. His black trunks clung to him as he slowly lowered himself into the aqua water. He cupped water in his hands and slicked it back over his head. His darkened blond waves framed his high forehead. His cheeks flushed with the heat. Water droplets ran over his pink lips, and his deep eyes were on her, round and open.
Nat could barely move in her robe.
“Shall I turn around?” he asked, somehow making the question sound proper and unbearably suggestive at the same time.
“Stop, it’s fine.”
He gave her a devilish grin through the steam. “No, no! I insist on being a gentleman lest you think this is merely some tawdry ploy.”
Nat’s face scrunched with charmed delight. “No, how could getting me into a hot tub ever be a ploy?”
Thom laughed. “It’s medicinal, I tell you!” But he turned around and made a show of covering his eyes with both hands.
Nat gingerly slipped out of her robe. There had been a selection of black two-piece swimsuits hanging in the spa changing room when she’d gone in. In a karmic burst of mercy, one was her size and also, in a true gift from the gods, high-waisted.
