The night wind wrapped around them, heavy with the salt of the sea, while the kiss lingered a moment longer—intense and charged with that chemistry they had always shared.
Thomas pulled back slightly, his hand still resting on Ashley's cheek, and the sapphire-blue panel faded into the air like a fleeting illusion. Their eyes met, shining with a mixture of complicity and newly awakened desire.
Ashley smiled—that mischievous smile that always managed to disarm him—and bit her lower lip with feigned innocence.
"Well…," she murmured, her playful voice breaking the silence. "Are you going to take your payment, or just stand there staring?"
Thomas let out a low laugh, pulling her back against him by the waist.
"Of course I will."
His fingers traced a teasing path down her back, feeling the warmth of her body through the thin fabric of her clothes.
She laughed softly, the sound blending with the murmur of the waves, and gave him a playful shove in the chest.
"Then take me."
