Dylan rolled his eyes. He’d cut his teeth on all that stuff, it was second nature.

“For sure. But I’m not doing it for you now.”

“You so are,” Kara placed her Cava down. “I’d like a Sex on the Beach, please barman, followed by a Slow Comfortable Screw.”

Dylan shook his head, the trace of a laugh on his face.

“Predictable.” He measured Hierbas into a glass cup and then into a silver beaker.

“A Screaming Orgasm then?” She tilted her head to one side winsomely and batted her eyelashes. “Please?” Just saying the words warmed the pit of her stomach, because Dylan Day was capable of exactly that with just a few flicks of his fingers. It was verging on embarrassing how easily the man could make her come.

He lifted his amused eyes to hers, and then reached for a mortar and pestle. She sat for a few seconds as he plucked fresh mint from a plant on the back of the bar then set to work. She watched his hands, the slow grinding motion as he crushed the leaves. She wanted them on her instead.

Reaching behind her neck, she pulled the ties of her halter necked sundress open and let it fall to her waist.

Dylan ran his tongue over his lips. He paused, then seemed to think better of it and continued to add a little Cava to the crushed mint.

Kara unclipped her strapless bra and peeled it from her body, holding it up for a second and letting it fall fluidly from her fingertips. She didn’t need to look down to know that her nipples were hard. Her body was screaming for him.

“Slippery Nipple?” she said, her eyes on his as she slid her hands over herself, tweaking her nipples lightly for his benefit. She had him and she knew it. His eyes darkened. He set the cocktail equipment down to one side and walked slowly round to her side of the bar.

Swinging her stool around to face him, he opened her knees and moved to stand between them.

“I think I’d better test that claim, English,” he said, and Kara sighed into his mouth as it covered hers at the same time as his hands covered her breasts. He rolled her nipples slowly, his tongue sliding over hers.

“You lied,” he murmured. “Not slippery.”

He reached for the bottle of Hierbas and tipped a little into his mouth, then lowered his head and closed his mouth over her nipple. His hands spanned her ribcage above her pushed down dress, holding her steady as he kissed his way over her curves to give her other breast some attention. Heat, and the slide of his tongue around her sensitive nipple, then delicious suction.

“Now they’re slippery,” he said as he raised his head. “Slippery, and sexy, and delicious.”

His mouth tasted of warm, sweet summer sunshine when he kissed her again, a sensual assault, his hands sliding into her hair.

“If I fucked you right now, would you be slippery there too?” he breathed, pressing the hardness of his cock into the silk of her knickers below her rucked up skirt. Just as Kara decided that Hierbas was her favourite drink in the whole wide world, he pulled back, dropped a kiss that lingered on the hollow at the base of her neck, and then returned to the other side of the bar.

She stared at him, her breath coming in less than regular gasps.

“I’m working,” he said, steadily. “And you’re a beautiful distraction.”

He strained the mint infusion into the Hierbas in the metal shaker. His eyes ran over the coloured spirits in front of him.

“Which one, English?” he said. “Which one would you choose?”

Did he actually expect her to have a lucid opinion on anything other than how much she wanted him to get naked? In the background, Bob Marley helpfully suggested she should stir it up as she scanned the bottles quickly.

“The blue one,” she said, at random.

He frowned thoughtfully, then shrugged and picked the blue curacao out of the line up. Lurid as it was, its bitter orange flavour might just harmonise well. He measured it out and added it to the mint and Hierbas in the shaker.

Kara crossed her legs and picked up the glass of Cava he’d just topped up for her, learning patience, now beginning to enjoy his slow game because she was pretty certain that it would end with what she so much wanted. She held out a cautionary hand as he screwed the top onto the cocktail shaker and hefted it.

“Take your shirt off before you do that.”

“Before I shake the cocktail?”

“You heard me, Sailor.”

He sighed for effect, but she didn’t mistake it for genuine boredom because his eyes told her how hot he was for her. He was as into this as she was.

She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and held it there as his fingers worked the buttons on his shirt open, revealing inch on inch of golden goodness. His shoulders gleamed as he rolled them to shrug the shirt off and dropped it.

“Better?” He lifted his hands to the side, palms up.

She slowly released her lip, now plumped from having been bitten, and watched his eyes follow the movement, with satisfaction.

“For now.” She sipped her wine. “Now, toss things.”

He looked away, shaking his head, half laughing.

“I don’t do this stuff anymore,” he protested, picking up a bottle of neon yellow liqueur by the neck and flicking it in a graceful arch over his head. Kara watched, wide-eyed, as it somersaulted a couple of times then landed neatly in his other hand. She clapped with delight.

“Wow!” The display of his body moving under the bar’s spotlights and the way he made his showmanship look so easy was thoroughly intoxicating.

“Topless barmen. Write that down for your next business meeting with Lucien.” She rolled her gaze deliberately over his body. “A winner every single time.”

“Sexist, English. So sexist,” he chided.

She shrugged, not in the least bit sorry.

“Now, make me a cocktail. Something sexy.”

She sat back, unselfconscious with her body on display. He was in her thrall and he knew it. He studied her for a few seconds, and then seemed to make his decision. He turned his back on her, and she caught her breath, admiring him all over again. He was a man at home in his skin, from his lithe, sun-kissed shoulders to the lickable dip at the base of his spine revealed by the jeans slung low on his hips. Tawny lights gleamed in his hair when he moved, stretching for a bottle. There was a grace and a strength to the man that stopped her breath for a few seconds.

And then he tossed a cocktail shaker over his shoulder and caught it as he turned about, flipping a bottle from the bar so a little of its peachy nectar went into the shaker. Rum flew overhead next, the bottle spiralling into his hand to be tipped into the shaker too. It was like a well-rehearsed circus act, as natural as walking the tightrope for the acrobat. Bottles rolled from his wrist to his shoulder and back into his hand again in a blink, ice cubes jumped one, two three in the air before hitting the tumbler. And then he was done, screwing the lid on before shaking the concoction high then low. He slid a glass along the bar and tipped the cocktail out with a final flourish, crushed ice suspended in glittering golden liquid.

“One Naked Lady.”

Kara gave him another burst of applause, her eyes round with delight. His hand caught hers as she reached for the glass.

“Not until you’re a naked lady too.”

She paused for a heartbeat, then kicked off her shoes and shimmied down from the stool. Her dress didn’t take much encouraging to fall down her hips, leaving her standing in the briefest scrap of midnight blue silk.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on full nudity, lady. House rules,” he said, his fingers still around her glass. The gravelly edge to his voice told her that he appreciated what he saw.

“I really do want to taste that drink,” she murmured, running one finger inside the top edge of the silk.

“I really want you to taste it,” he said. “Take your panties off, English. Be naked for me.”