It’s still very hot when we get out of the car. The sky is a deep dark velvet blue spattered with stars like one of the stained glass windows that we’d seen earlier. He veers to the side rather than walking up the steps to the front door, and I follow him until he reaches the swimming pool.
The water is totally still and reflects the stars so that for a second it looks like a piece of the sky has fallen to the earth. The air is headily perfumed with the scent of jasmine and the sweet smell from the orange tree that grows near the pool, and I take a deep breath.
“It’s gorgeous isn’t it?” he whispers looking out at the multi-coloured lights of Cannes, and I stare out too welcoming the slight breeze that blows over us bringing the faint tang of the sea. “I am very hot though,” he says almost casually and I go to agree with him but my words stutter and die away in my throat as I watch him undoing the buttons on his chambray coloured short sleeved shirt one by one, his long fingers looking elegant and dexterous.
“What -” I clear my throat and he grins knowingly. “What are you doing?”
“Well Johnny I’m taking my shirt off.” He matches his actions to his words and the shirt flutters to the ground, and then his fingers move to the fastening of his cargo shorts.
“Don’t tell me, let me guess what you’re doing now,” I drawl mockingly and he grins, his smile white and wide in the moonlight.
“That’s your expensive education and the fancy letters after your name showing right there,” he laughs and I smile, charmed as ever by him before gulping hard.
“That’s right and my time at Eton tells me that you are actually getting bloody naked,” I croak as his Vans hit the patio, followed by his shorts and red stripy boxer briefs and as a final gesture he takes off the band that had been holding his hair back in a ponytail so that his hair falls loose around his shoulders.
He stands there confidently for a second letting me stare at him without showing any signs of embarrassment. He’s so confident in his body that I almost envy him.
“I am naked because I am going for a swim,” he says happily. Then he laughs loudly, clutching his side. “Oh Johnny you look like an outraged Victorian chaperone. You just need a pearl necklace to clutch.” He waggles his eyebrows lecherously. “I can definitely help you out with that.”
“Oh my God,” I groan. “Stop!”
He laughs again and then gestures to me. “Come on then, chop chop.”
“What?” I ask slowly.
“Get naked Johnny.”