It’s no accident that he’s found me now.
I’m stretched out on the warm, golden sand, letting the last rays of sun kiss my skin until it glows café au lait. The oversized sunglasses hide whether my eyes are open or closed, but I felt him arrive long before I heard his footsteps—felt the shift in the air, the way the cove suddenly feels smaller, charged. There’s no one else here, just the hush of the tide and the slow drum of my own pulse.
He kneels beside me without asking, the way he always does, as though permission is something we decided on years ago and never needed to speak aloud again. His hand closes around the bottle of oil at the foot of my towel. I hear the soft glug of liquid, then the warm slide of his palms along the fronts of my thighs.
I smile behind the dark lenses. “I wondered when you’d finally get here.”
“Finding you alone is a task that comes close to being Herculean.”
“And yet you seem to have achieved it.” He does, doesn’t he?
His hands move in long, possessive strokes—down the outsides of my thighs, up the fronts again. My skin drinks the oil and the heat of his touch. I feel myself tightening, loosening, tightening again, the way a cat arches under a hand it pretends not to need. The light-blue bikini I chose this morning is already scandalously small; the triangles over my breasts barely qualify as fabric. A few minutes ago my nipples were only faint shadows beneath it. Now, at the first slick pass of his palms, they stiffen, pushing impudently against the cloth. I know he’s staring. I want him to.
His fingers brush the knot at my hip.
“What are you doing?” I ask, letting real surprise colour my voice. Startling me takes effort; I reward the effort with widened eyes he can’t see.
“We can’t.”
“We can.”
“What if someone comes?”
“They won’t.”
“What if he comes?”
He smiles up at me, slow and wicked, and tugs the second knot loose. The scrap of blue slips away like it was never meant to stay. “He’ll have to wait his turn.”
A helpless laugh escapes me as he eases my thighs apart and settles between them. I’m already wet—not just from the oil—and the salt air kisses the heat of me. His breath fans over my mound first, then his lips, soft, reverent, filthy. I tremble. He notices; of course he does. The first press of his mouth is almost chaste, a greeting. The second is hungrier. By the third I’m lifting my hips to meet him, chasing the flick of his tongue.
He cups my ass, lifts me to his mouth like I’m something precious and starving at the same time. I feel the tremor in his hands and it undoes me—knowing he’s as lost as I am. His tongue traces lazy circles, then pointed, merciless ones. I grip his hair, not gently. He groans against me; the vibration shoots straight up my spine.
“Oh yes,” I breathe, the words torn out of me. “Right there—don’t you dare move.”
He teases anyway, because that’s who he is: cruel in the kindest way. He brings me to the edge, lets me hover, pulls back until I’m shaking with frustration. Only when my thighs quake uncontrollably does he give me what I’m begging for—steady, relentless pressure until the world whites out and I come with his name caught somewhere between a moan and a curse.
I’m still floating when I feel him shift, hear the rustle of his shorts hitting the sand. My body welcomes him before my mind catches up—slick, open, greedy. He slides in to the hilt in one slow push and we both exhale like we’ve been holding our breath for days. The rhythm we find is the oldest one in the world: tide in, tide out, sun sinking, hearts racing. I drag the useless triangles of my top aside, bare my breasts to the cooling air and to him. He latches onto a nipple like a man possessed; I arch, cry out softly, hold his head there.
I’m close again—so close—when he slips a hand under me, angles deeper. Pleasure coils tight, snaps. I bite his shoulder to muffle the sound, rake nails down his back hard enough to brand him. He pulls out at the last second; I wrap my fingers around him, feel him pulse, watch the arc of his release catch the dying light before it spills onto the sand.
After, there is only the hush of waves and our breathing.
“That was lovely,” I say, suddenly shy for no reason I can name.
“I thought so too.”
“Perhaps we could do it again?”
“I’d like that.”
“Me too.”
I kiss him once more—soft, lingering—then pull on my sarong and the oversized white t-shirt that hides every wicked inch of what we just did. I walk away first, barefoot, hair whipping in the salt wind. I don’t look back. I never do. By the time I reach the path to the hotel, the only evidence is a faint sheen on my inner thighs and the lazy, satisfied throb between them.
He’ll follow when he’s ready. He always does.
