Page 115 of Replay
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They swam.Alle for less than ten minutes before she swaddled herself in a towel and collapsed into the embrace of one of the sun-loungers.Spook did forty-odd lengths, head down, legs kicking.He couldn’t hold his breath from one end of the pool to the other like Rock Giant could; nevertheless he was a decent swimmer, and he liked the water.It was easy to tune out and concentrate purely on the coordination of muscles and breathing.There wasn’t space in his mind for thoughts while he was doing that.
Afterwards, they showered in their own rooms, then Alle joined him in his cabin, and they settled on the bed together and watched a film.At some point, he figured they must have both drifted off, because he woke in the dark and found the tablet wedged between their bodies, the screen dark, and the battery dead.
Spook pushed it onto the bedside unit, which required a few contortionist tricks with his arm so as not to disturb Alle, who had her head resting in the crook of his shoulder.Her breathing was soft, lulling.
“Are you okay?”she murmured sleepily.Her eyes remained closed.
“Fine.Go back to sleep.”
“Mmm,” she sighed, and planted her hand in the middle of his chest.Her fingers curled, playing with the light smattering of hair that formed a diamond-shape between his nipples.
It was a miracle to him that she still desired such contact.Not so much over the issue of Xane.He’d explained that as best he could, but he wasn’t entirely sure she understood.Perhaps no one on the outside of it would ever entirely comprehend.Their bond was composed almost wholly of raw emotions, and other things so ephemeral, so lacking in concrete substances, that it was impossible to catch a proper hold of them.There was no way of pinning them down for inspection.He guessed, in a similar vein, his feelings for her were just as undefinable.Still, the true miracle was that she wasn’t horrified by him.She hadn’t recognised him as the monster he saw peering out of every reflective surface.She’d screamed injustice and offered him a space in her blanket fort.She still trusted him enough to lie curled around him at night.
“Your heart’s pounding.Are you sure you’re okay, Spook?”
“Certain.”He cuddled her closer, and willed the tremors he was feeling under his skin to cease.They didn’t.Of course they didn’t.
“Are you weaving dark thoughts in that head of yours?”
He scraped his teeth over his lower lip.They were more like dark-adjacent thoughts.He still wasn’t sure he deserved her.Deserved this.
Alle lifted her head a fraction, and he realised she was studying him.The moment he noticed, she put her head back down.It was her fingers that started walking next.Up, and along the ridge of his collar bone.Down and around each of his nipples, so that they tightened.
“I love that you’re being so still and letting me do this.”
Then, down, down, down, to his navel, but no further than that.Nevertheless, he thickened in response.
Alle’s teasing touches fluttered up next, over the apple-like swell of one bicep, before returning to his chest.She began drawing patterns on his abs.Was she spelling something?He couldn’t grasp what, if she was.However, when her teasing moved on to making concentric circles around his tummy button, he caught hold of her wrist.
Alle peeped up at him from under her eyelashes, a smug, cat who’d got the cream smirk upon her lips.Go ahead; make a decision, her glittering green eyes seemed to prompt.Are you going to slap my wrist and tell me to stop being so naughty, or are you going to encourage me to do super dirty things?My vote’s for super dirty, in case that’s not clear.
She licked her lips.
Spook’s semi thickened out immediately as a hundred different possibilities stirred his thoughts.
“Want me to go down?”
He wasn’t sure which one of them was in control when her fingertips made fleeting contact with his cock through the thin fabric of his boxer briefs.Spook eased a breath in between his teeth.He didn’t deserve this.He ought to be on his knees making grovelling apologies, but when he tried to say that, Alle rolled over and silenced him with the press of her lips.
Her tongue teased his mouth open, and danced urgently with his.“I don’t want to hear it, Spook.You’re a screw-up, we’ve established that, now let’s move on.Kiss me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She straddled him, which set his cock off bucking like a wild thing.How crazy was it that she barely had to do more than whisper against his skin and he became putty in her hands.God, she was precious.He didn’t—he really genuinely didn’t deserve her.
His cock was in her hand now, swollen against it.Needy.He groaned around the invasion of her tongue.She knew just how to handle him to elicit the maximum response.
“How’d you like to make my night?”
She was already well on the way to making his.
He slid a hand down between their bodies, speared between the lips of her sex with two straight fingers.
Alle batted his hand away.“Not like that.”She caught his gaze, communicated her desire with a single look.
Spook eased a breath between his teeth as she reared above him, all fiery waves and ivory skin.She knew everything.Knew what he was, and still wanted him.Wasn’t that something?Now wasn’t the time for holding out on her, or reaffirming his past vows.It was time he started shrugging off the restraints, and perhaps leaving them off.Moving forward.
