feels the urge to answer. He’s American and it seems the hospitable thing to do.
“I came the day before yesterday.”
He simply nods, moves in closer. She cannot take her eyes off him. When she does glance up, his gaze is focused on her face. The sun is glaring but she can see his eyes, dark and earthy, and they make her tremble inside.
Why does she feel as though he can see right through her?
She is suddenly very much aware of the water rushing like silk between her thighs as the waves surge, then retreat. The bare skin exposed by her turquoise bikini, the same shade as the ocean out beyond the waves, makes her feel naked beneath the stranger’s gaze.
She watches him. He licks his lips. She wants to kiss him so much her own mouth waters. He takes another step closer, until he is standing so near she swears she can smell the salt on his skin.
She doesn’t dare move, to break the spell of this moment. They are doing nothing more than watching one another. She doesn’t want to have to speak. Her whole body feels raw with yearning. She just wants to touch his skin; she doesn’t want to think about why.
A wave rolls in, splashing against the small of her back. With his elemental gaze still locked on hers, she can imagine it is his hand that caresses the tender flesh there. And again, she feels as though he can see right into her, as though he knows who she is deep inside.
“Swim with me,” he says.
They splash out into the waves, and he dives through them, coming up dripping, like some fantastical merman. But he is some fantasy creature. Her mind is making up stories about him already—erotic stories, sensual daydreams. His hands all over her naked skin, on her breasts, between her thighs. His mouth on hers, moving over her flesh…
She dips below the water to cool off. When she surfaces, smoothing her long brown hair from her face, he is right there. He puts a hand on her arm, just a small feathering of fingers she can barely feel, yet it goes through her like an electric shock. Her nipples come up hard beneath the wet fabric of her bikini. Her sex goes warm. She wants him to touch her again.
She moves closer, letting the waves bring her right up against him. His body is every bit as hard and strong as it looks. And his solid erection presses into the soft flesh of her belly.
In her mind is one word: Yes.
His hand grasps her shoulder, slides down her arm, and the next wave crushes them together, her breasts pressing against his hard chest. She looks up, sees his mouth, wants to kiss him still. And as though reading her mind, he lowers his head and his mouth comes down on hers.
His lips are lovely, soft, salty with the ocean. When he parts her lips and slides his tongue inside, she melts all over. Her sex grows molten with need, and she kisses him back, hungry for whatever he offers. He fills her mouth; his tongue is hot, wet. She needs more.
Pulling away, she presses her lips to his neck, slides her tongue down his throat and hears a small moan from him. Her body pulses in response. Moving her mouth, she licks the tattooed skin of his shoulder, swirls her tongue over the design there. Salt—the salt of sweat and of the sea. And something else, something almost sweet, vanilla-like, beneath the salt. Something which is simply a part of him. His hands go into her hair, his fingers curling, but he lets her move freely.
She pulls back to see the landscape of his body, the angles and curves of him. Reaching out to touch him, she finds his nipples hard beneath her fingers. She wants to pull them, one at a time, into her mouth, and she does, while the strength of the ocean moves them around.
His hands slide down her sides and slip beneath her bathing suit top. Finding her nipples with his fingertips, he caresses, pulls, teases, until her sex is throbbing with heat. She moves back to his mouth, licks his lower lip, takes it into her mouth, sucks on it. He pinches her nipples, hard, and she breathes out,“Touch me.”
His arm comes around her waist, pulling her into his body. His hand snakes down between them, beneath the water, pushes aside the edge of her bikini bottom. And delves inside, finding her swollen folds. She can hardly stand it, his touch, the warm rush of the water, the heady scent of him in her nostrils. He moves his fingertips over her clitoris, which is hard and alive and needy. He begins to rub.
She is aching, nearly hurting. Reaching beneath the water, she pulls his engorged cock from his trunks and is thrilled with the size and the weight of it. And even more with the feel of the heavy steel ring embedded just below the head. Immediately fascinated, she runs her fingertips over the cool metal, playing with the ring, tugging on it a little.
She strokes him in cadence with his hand between her thighs. He is guiding her legs with his free hand now, wrapping them around his waist, so that he is holding her, weightless, in the water.
Sensation builds. Blood pounds through her veins, her pulse beating into his mouth where it is sucking on the flesh of her throat. Her sex beats in time, a low, thrumming rhythm, matched by his pulsing cock in her hand. She loves the way he fills her palm, that she can barely wrap her fingers around him. But she doesn’t want him inside her yet. She wants them to come into each other’s hands first.
When he pushes a thumb inside her she almost loses it. She grasps his cock tighter, strokes harder, hangs on until she hears him moan again, feels his body tensing all over. She moves her hips into his hand, trembles as he presses onto her clit, taking her up and over the edge. Pressure is building inside her, like a vessel filled to overflowing. He moves his hand faster. Pleasure swims through her veins, through her head, overtaking her. And as her orgasm washes over her, she pumps his cock, feeling the hot rush as he comes into her palm. She shakes with the force of it, thrusts her hips, presses harder into his fingers. And he doesn’t stop, stays with her, while her sex clenches, while pleasure arcs through her sex, through her body.
Her hand is sticky with his come, but soon the cleansing ocean water washes it away, leaving her feeling a little sad. She clings to him, her sex still pulsing and warm, her breath a ragged panting in her own ears.
And all around them, the ocean moves to its own eternal rhythm.
With his fingers, he wipes her wet hair from her face. Such a tender move from a stranger, but with his softening cock still in her hand, he is hardly a stranger, is he?
They stay together in the water, letting the ocean rock them, her head against his chest, until the sky begins to streak with pink and amber. Neither seems to want to let go, to end the experience.
Finally he asks her, “Are you tired?”
“No, not tired at all.” And for the first time in days, she realizes this is true. She feels the energy in her body like a banked fire he has sparked to life.
He is quiet a moment, then he whispers, so softly she can barely hear him above the pounding of the surf, the call of ocean birds, “Take me to your room.”
She looks up at him, nods her head. Slowly, she unwraps her body from his, uncoiling like a long strand of seaweed, the tension gone from her body. She feels a sense of release. And yet, a new and exquisite tension is building simply from the soft tone of his voice in her ear. At the implication of what might lie ahead tonight.
He takes her hand and follows her out of the sea. On the beach, she grabs her towel from the sand, her straw hat, the book she brought along to read, but which she wasn’t able to concentrate on.
Together they move across the sand. At the door to her room she turns to look at him. His skin is beaded with water, the tips of his short, light brown hair still dripping. She offers her towel to him. He takes it, but rather than drying himself he smoothes the towel over her skin: her shoulders, down her arms, across her stomach. When he kneels to dry her calves, moving up her thighs, her sex gives a hard squeeze.
Yes…
In a moment he is on his feet again, roughly rubbing himself dry. He lifts his chin, motioning for her to open the door. She pauses, and he smiles at her.
His smile is brilliant, radiant. As beautiful as