Xavier had put some music on, and the smooth and clubby beat bounced through the speakers suddenly making me feel as if I was in a music video. Or a dream. The singer sang sexily in a reggae sounding beat. Something about needing to let go, but also about never going back. I inhaled and closed my eyes, a smile on my face even while my heart thumped heavily. I never thought I’d ever have an experience as all sensually encompassing as this—the place, the situation, the man, the emotions. No matter that our time together would end tomorrow and my heart would splinter to leave Xavier and Dauphine and the crew, I was still suffused with the joy of the experience.

“What are you thinking about?” came Xavier’s rough voice behind me.

I inhaled through my nose. “I was wondering who this artist was singing?” I lied.

“Dennis Lloyd. He’s from Israel. Tel-Aviv.”

Strong arms came around either side of me, and Xavier’s warm body pressed against my back. “Mmm. I like it,” I said, only half talking about the music. “So was Paco mad that you wanted to take the boat around here?”

“Non.” His lips settled against my bare shoulder, nudging the strap of my summer dress off. Prickles of lust raced over my skin.

I tilted my head back and my gaze dragged up the cliffs to the sea birds wheeling. The boat hardly swayed, the waves were so gentle lapping at the rocks it was hard to believe they could be so scored and sheared. One would expect violent, crashing white sprays battering them up endlessly. There were no other boats around to indicate any other swimmers or divers. A glimpse of white sand between a gash in two towering cliffs could be seen every few minutes over the gentle swells of water.

“Are we swimming to that beach?” I asked, pointing and then letting my other hand scrape through his thick soft hair next to my cheek.

“We can take the tender.”

I pressed back, giving myself space from the railing, and he stepped back. Grasping the bottom of my sundress, I pulled it up over my head and off and dropped it on the deck until I stood in my bikini. Then I climbed over the silver rail. “I’ll race you,” I said to him with a glance over my shoulder.

He was watching, eyes dark, a thumb running over his bottom lip.

I grinned, and then lifted my arms either side of me and dove.

It was graceful, a talent developed in the summers during high school. The water rushed toward me and then my hands and my head and my whole body streaked into the cool.