Page 36 of Beach Bodies

‘What are we doing?’ I whisper, my hand reaching up to run against the grit of his stubble, like I’ve wanted to dosince I saw him that first morning at the coffee alcove. God, it feels good. I like him rough, and the entire surface area of my body is wondering if he gives it rough, too.

His eyes probe mine. The corner of his mouth lifts. His voice is hypnotic as he murmurs, ‘You tell me, Lily Lennox.’

I lean into his neck. His spicy, sweaty smell overwhelms me, and just like I knew I would, I want more. I lean into his ear and, against my better judgement, from some hungry place Daniel Black has opened in me like a cavity of desire, I whisper, ‘How close is your room?’

Chapter Thirteen

The storm lashes against the window of Daniel’s room. In the dim light, it feels like we’ve left the world behind and entered some liminal dream space where anything might happen. He turns the deadbolt on the door, then walks towards me slowly. I don’t break our gaze as I step out of my sweatpants, now dressed only in my bathing suit. My heart is drumming in my chest. It’s been so long. Do I even know how to do this?

He stops a few inches from me and strokes my jaw with his thumb. Daniel’s breathing is even, his movements controlled; this is a man who is not in a hurry. I might not even know that he wanted me right now, except for the erection pushing against his pants.

‘Are you sure?’ he says.

I nod, mute.

‘If at any point you want me to stop—’ he says.

Without breaking eye contact, he peels down the top of my bathing suit. His eyes say,Still OK?and I send backyes.

Outside the window, the furious ocean rolls on to thebeach in punishing waves. The wind beats at the glass, and our bodies are cast in grey light.

His gaze drops and tracks over me, taking in the fall of my breasts, still without touching. But my body responds as if he was, my breathing growing heavy, my nipples contracting, a dull pulse pounding between my legs.

Daniel tilts his head, his gaze returning to mine. ‘What do you want, Lily?’

I lick my lips. What do I want? A lot, suddenly. His tongue on my breasts. His mouth between my legs. His dick, as deep in me as he can get it. But all I can manage to say is, ‘You.’

The same way I just answered his question,What are you scared of?Maybe it’s always the thing we’re afraid of that we also want the most.

My head is swimming with heat. I’m very, very wet. Which I hope Daniel will discover very, very soon. I feel greedy for the moment his fingers discover how vigorously my body responds to him.

‘Come here,’ he says. He peels off my bathing suit the rest of the way, and we fall on to the bed together. He pushes me on to my back and straddles my hips. I run my hands up his muscled torso, taking him in– his solidity, the tattoo on his arm I can now see is a dragon with the tail curling around his forearm. Slowly, I trail my finger over its lines.

Bracing his arms on either side of me, he leans in and gives me a look that says,You like what you see?I sigh my agreement. Then, his mouth is on mine, warm and wet. He kisses me with a slow, deep urgency. I can feel the promise of the weight of him hovering just above me, and I want it so bad, all of him, crashing down on me. Instead, all I get is the brushof his chest, feather-light on my skin. I arch my back so that my breasts push into him harder.I need you now.

He cups my neck with one hand as his kiss deepens, and then his hand moves down me, taking me in by touch– the swell of my breasts, the plane of my stomach, the tender, sensitive flesh between my legs—

Ah.His fingers slip into just the right place, and I groan. Daniel in bed is just like Daniel out of bed. Deliberate. Focused. There’s a wordless communication that somehow flows between us, and I know based on his micro-adjustments as he explores my body with his fingers, with his mouth, that he’s reading my every sigh, my every movement, learning from my reactions, zeroing in on what I want.

It doesn’t take long until a searing pleasure is burning between my legs, a sensation so close to pain I can hardly take it. Daniel’s strong, patient fingers and his capable tongue bring me to the edge.

As the burning becomes nearly unendurable, I cry out, ‘I can’t—’ because the feelings are so strong, and my body isn’t used to this any more, but he says, ‘You can. Let go,’ and that’s what sends me over.

‘Ahh—’ I gasp, and it’s all I can do to smother a scream as I fall into a release that feels like a sun-flare ripping through me in wave after wave, destroying everything but hot sensation.

It’s only after I’m whimpering in the aftermath, legs trembling, that Daniel takes his pants off and rolls on a condom. He lifts himself above me, powerful arms braced, and plunges in, angling our bodies just right so that each thrust hits that spot.

‘You’re going to make me come again,’ I whimper.

‘Good,’ he says with wolfish pleasure, as my body opens for him like a cloven fruit, my hips pushing up so that he can thrust even deeper. I’m no longer in control of anything, least of all myself. All I want is to be taken over by this– by him– by this devastating feeling that is more powerful than I am, that demands my utter surrender.

I cry out as my eyes squeeze shut, my body arching under his. I have a moment of panic as I sense another mind-erasing crush of pleasure about to take me. I could fight it. Try to stay in control. But I let go, and in the release I’m gone, nothing but hot waves drowning me again, pushing me under to where life is nothing but this single moment of feeling.

*

Afterwards, we lie on his bed, the sheets cluttered around us, my body still thrumming. I’m on my stomach, he’s on his side, idly stroking my back.

Even the storm outside has calmed somewhat, as if the weather is somehow responding to the two of us.

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