“Fine, I’ll wear it,” she said breathlessly when I put her down.
Damn straight!
I held up the beach towel while she changed, taking a few sneaky glances. She was so preoccupied with not being seen by anyone else on the beach that she didn’t even notice. She tugged at it a few times, trying to cover up a little more, but there was a reason I’d picked out that swimsuit.
“I can’t wait to take that off you,” I whispered into her ear.
She gave me a half smile.
“Sex or surfing, Sebastian?”
“Sex,” I said at once. No brainer.
Her cheeks pinked up, but then she laughed and shook her head.
“Well, you’ll have to take a rain check—we haven’t booked that room for the night yet. And I’ve warned you what will happen if you get arrested.”
“You owe me a lot of rain checks, Caro. I’m going to enjoy cashing them in.”
Giving her a look that told her I always collected a debt, I yanked off my t-shirt, enjoying the way her eyes tracked across my chest and stomach, then I dropped my jeans and briefs, standing buck naked in the sunshine.
“Sebastian!” she hissed, glancing around to see if anyone was watching—but not before she’d taken a long look herself. Oh yeah, my woman loved to look.
But I’d already pulled on my boardshorts by the time her eyes flicked back to me. I laughed at her surprised expression.
“Years of practice changing out of my wetsuit in windswept parking lots along Sunset Cliffs, Caro,” I explained. “I’ll show you how quick I can get out of my clothes now if you like?”
I wasn’t joking and she knew it.
“Go. Surf,” she commanded.
I pulled off my dog tags and placed them around her neck, and fuck me if it wasn’t the biggest turn on, the way they nestled between her breasts.
“Here—look after these for me.” I took a deep breath and dragged my eyes up to meet hers. “Those look hot on you, Caro. Really fucking hot.”
She fingered the small pieces of metal, a smile lifting the corner of her mouth. That finished me, so I pulled her into my arms, kissing her thoroughly, dipping her so low her hair brushed across the sand. Then I stood her back on her feet, holding on until she stopped swaying. She shook her head in amusement, but I didn’t miss her slight breathlessness or the heat in her eyes.
I winked at her, scooped up the rented board and jogged down to the water’s edge.
The ocean had always been my safe place—away from my parents, away from school, or work, or whatever was weighing on my mind. When I was 17 and Caro came back into my life, the beach became our place, away from prying eyes and the judgment of the world. And when she left me, the ocean was the place I came to remember and to forget. Catching waves, being one with the water, whatever bullshit reason you wanted to make up, the ocean gave me peace, because when you’re catching a wave, you don’t have the time or space to think of anything else. In that sense, it’s a bit like sex. Fuck knows what Freud would have said if he met me.
When Fido was killed by an IED, I’d been in the south of Iraq and couldn’t get home for his repatriation and funeral. So on my next leave, I’d organized a paddle-out with a few of my buddies and the guys who’d known him. He’d have liked that.
Today was the first chance I’d had to surf in over a year. I’d missed it. Being in a dump like Afghanistan, surrounded by nothing but deserts and death, Stone Age villages, and women hidden away, the ocean seemed like a dream from another world.
I surfed for an hour, reveling in the freedom, the salt spray in my face and the sun on my body. Every now and then I’d look back at the beach, checking on my girl, watching her relax in the sunshine.
But the next time I glanced over, some fucker was hitting on her. I caught the first wave back to the beach and jogged across the hot sand.
By then, the asswipe had disappeared in the other direction, so I assumed Caro had given him his marching orders. The amused expression on her face told me the rest.
“What did he want?” I asked, trying and failing to keep my voice neutral.
“Don’t blame me, Hunter,” she said, raising one eyebrow, “You’re the one who bought this itsy bitsy teeny weeny bikini for me. Anyway, I told him my boyfriend was surfing, so you don’t need to worry.”
Not fucking acceptable. Fucker should have stuck around to get his face rearranged.
“Did you have fun?” she asked, and I knew she was trying to distract me from homicidal thoughts of any other guy touching my woman.
“Yeah, not bad. Got some good rides.”
“I know, I was watching,” she said, pointing to the camera, “I got some great shots, too.”
“Really? I’ve never seen any pictures of me surfing.”
I sat down on the towel next to her and scrolled through the photos she’d taken. I was impressed, both by the way she’d framed the shots and the quality of the images. I knew her camera was expensive, but these photos were good enough to make it into Surfer magazine.
“Wow! You’re a really great photographer, Caro.”
“I have excellent subject material,” she smiled, then snapped a close-up of me.
“What’s that for?”
“Just so I know you’re real. I think you’re a figment of my overwrought imagination, and you might disappear when I wake up. But now,” she said, waving the camera at me, “I have proof.”
I grinned, loving the current easiness between us.
I pressed her back into the beach towel with my body, kissing her the way I wanted to with no apology. She ran her fingers over my damp hair and smiled up at me.
“You’re cute when you’re wet,” she smiled.
“So are you,” I teased.
We ate our lunch on the beach, some bread and fruit sold by a kid under a sunshade. I felt deeply relaxed. Even the shadow of imminent deployment couldn’t dampen my good mood. I even fell asleep in the sun, something I never normally did.
When I woke up, I wanted to head out for a final surf. The guy in the rental shop said that the air pressure was rising and that tomorrow the sea would be flat. And there was something else I wanted to do; I wanted Caro to ride the board with me—tandem surfing—something I hadn’t done since the last time we’d been together.
“Come on, Caro, I’ve wanted to try this for a long time. Let’s take the board out and catch a wave together. I’ll do the paddling and I can stare at your gorgeous ass while I’m doing it.”
I pulled her to her feet and she tried to adjust her bikini top so her beautiful tits didn’t spill out. God, I loved that bikini.
Once in the water, Caro lay on the board first, and I jumped on behind her. I couldn’t resist giving her ass a quick bite.
She squeaked and tried to slap my arm. Too fucking cute.
We paddled out to just behind where the waves were breaking, then as the water started to rise, I turned the board around and we began to speed down the front of the wave.
“Get ready to pop up!” I yelled. “Go!”
She scrambled to her feet and the board wobbled slightly so I had to make some minor balance adjustments before I popped up, one hand steadying her hip as we raced down the face of the wave.
It was the best feeling—pure joy with no bullshit, no one else but us.
When we caught the last wave back in, Caro’s skin was cool to the touch and she was shivering slightly.
“Your nipples are hard,” I remarked, studying them carefully.
“Well, what a shocker,” she snarked. “I’ve never seen them like that before.”
“Is that right?” I said, raising my eyebrow. “I’ll see what I can do about it later.”
“Promises, promises,” she sighed.
What the fuck? I didn’t care if it was a joke—that was what I’d call a challenge.
“Bed, woman. Now.”
Caro’s eyes grew really big and she bit her lip.
“Don’t you want to find somewhere
to have dinner first?”
Hell, no. I shook my head, my eyes raking up and down her body, hypnotized by the way droplets of seawater rolled into the amazing valley between her tits.
I tugged her along the beach to the shop, only slightly repentant that she was having to jog to keep up, but she didn’t complain. We got the key to our room quickly, but when the owner wanted to talk surfing and whether San Diego or Monterey had the better break, I was grinding my teeth with frustration. I wanted to tell him to take a hike, but seeing as he’d cut us as a deal on the room, I didn’t want to piss him off.
Caro winked at me and walked down the beach to our cabin. My eyes followed the movement of her ass the whole way.
“You have a very beautiful girlfriend, signore,” said the owner, his smile too fucking appreciative by a long way.
I cleared my throat and his eyes snapped back to mine.
“Yeah, I know. And I’m taking her for dinner tonight—can you recommend anywhere?”
“Ah, si! I know just the place. L’Acquapazza in Marina di Cecina. Just five kilometers. Is very good food, very good views. My cousin, Lazzero, is the owner. Tell him Salvi sent you.”
I nodded my thanks and headed to the cabin. By the time I got there, I was revved up and ready to go. So I was somewhat fucking disappointed that Caro wasn’t naked in bed, but shutting down her laptop. I guessed she’d been catching up on her messages.
“What’s so funny?”
She looked up, a huge smile on her face.
“Oh, I just had an email from my friend Nicole in NYC. She wants me to have mindless sex with an Italian stallion.”
Was that supposed to be funny? “Why is she saying stuff like that to you?” I bit out.
Caro rolled her eyes.
“Oh, don’t be such a prude, Sebastian! It’s just a joke. She’s always nagging me to find a man.”
“What about me?” I growled, my tone angrier than I’d intended.
Caro huffed quietly. “I haven’t told anyone about you. I like having you to myself. But I will, if you want me to.”
Was she ashamed of me? Was this just a summer fling to her after all?
The old fears rushed back—I was a secret, her dirty little secret. Again.
“I want to know your friends, Caro,” I tried to explain, before my anger and fear bubbled through. “Although I’ll fucking tell ‘Nicole’ that she can keep her comments about ‘Italian stallions’ to herself.”
Suddenly her phone rang and she stared at it in surprise. It was the first time I’d heard it ring since we’d been traveling.
She picked it up, her eyes widening as she read the caller’s ID.
“Nicole, hi! Wow, it’s great to hear from you. How are you?”
I wandered around the room, moving her shit off of the bed, listening to one half of the conversation.
Then she said, “Nicole, I sent you a picture of him. His name is Sebastian.”
So she had mentioned me? I couldn’t help looking across and smiling at her.
“No, seriously, Nicole. That’s a photo of my friend. I promise you.”
Caro was smiling and shaking her head.
“I’ll tell you some other time … I can’t. Later … because he’s standing right here, Nicole … it’s true.”
She raised her eyebrows at whatever was being said. “What?” She shook her head again then she handed me her cell. “She wants to talk to you.”
Surprised, I took the phone. “Hi, Nicole. This is Sebastian.”
“Wow! So you really do exist!” said a female voice with the clipped voice of a native New Yorker. “Well, listen up. Lee is my best friend and one of the nicest, most honest people I’ve ever meet, so if you’re planning on using her, don’t even think about it. If you do anything to upset her, I will hunt you down to the ends of the earth and rip your balls off with a blunt spoon. Capiche?”
I understood that she was looking out for her friend, but yeah, I didn’t appreciate the way she said it.
“You don’t want me to use her?” I confirmed, glancing at Caro. “Well, Nicole, I was planning on taking her to bed and using her in ways that aren’t even mentioned in the Kama Sutra, but now you’ve told me that, I think I should go take a cold shower instead.”
Caro glared at me and snatched the phone back as I grinned at her.
“Sorry about that, Nic!” she huffed out. “Nic?” Then she started smiling at whatever the über-bitch was saying to her. “I’ll get back to you on that, Nic.”
As far as I was concerned, the conversation had gone on long enough, so I started untying the straps of Caro’s bikini and kissing down the back of her neck. She gasped when I tossed her bikini top to the floor, massaging her nipples into tight little peaks.
“I’ll have to call you back, Nic,” she said breathlessly, then ended the call and threw herself at me, knocking both of us onto the bed.
She straddled me and I let her push my hands above my head as her mouth met mine and her breasts were crushed against my chest.
Our tongues were twisting together, our teeth clashing, and I was achingly hard.
I sat up suddenly, cradling my arms around her waist as she squeaked in surprise. I kissed her neck, running my tongue over her throat.
“You taste like the sea,” I rumbled against her, “and your skin smells like sunshine.”
She moaned happily, and I ran my fingers up her back, letting them tangle in her hair, then pulling her face back down to mine.
“I want to be inside you, Caro.”
I could hear the need and desperation in my voice. But she smiled against my lips, then rolled off me, scooting down to the bottom of the bed.
“Raise that glorious ass,” she said, tugging on the hem of my boardshorts.
I grinned at the way her eagerness matched mine, lifting my hips from the bed. She pulled off the shorts, threw them behind her, then sat back on her heels staring down at me.
As her eyes wandered along my body, I propped myself up on my elbows, wondering what differences she saw between now and the boy of 17 that she’d known. There was a small white scar across my left hip where a piece of shrapnel from an RPG attack had nicked me. I had another puckered scar across my right shoulder from parachute training where the webbing had gotten twisted and left a mark almost like a burn. That had been fucking painful, but the mark was faint now.
And of course there was the Semper Fi tat, but I got the impression she liked that.
“You’re beautiful, Sebastian,” she whispered, her voice soft and so fucking sweet. “I love to look at you. I love to see you like this, when it’s just the two of us. Why does it feel so right?”
I shook my head slowly, a little stunned by the depth of sincerity I saw in her eyes.
“Maybe it was just meant to be. I mean, shit, could we have had any more challenges thrown at us?”
“We’ve certainly had our share,” she sighed.
I sat up and held her cheek with my hand.
“Don’t be sad, Caro. We’ve got our second chance … or maybe we’re on our third … I kinda lost count already.”
“That is very true,” she laughed, lightly. “Now you seem to have a very desirable hard-on there, so what say we have some fun with that?”
I smirked at her as she licked her lips.
“I’m all yours.”
She grinned and jumped off the bed. “Are the condoms in your toiletry bag?”
“Yeah, baby.”
I watched as she rooted through the overnight bag until she found what she was looking for. But when she looked up, her expression was irritated.
“Sebastian, there’s only one condom left in here,” she said, shaking the box at me.
“Shit! You’re kidding! Fuck, how did I … ah, crap. Give me that fucker—I’m going to make the most of it.”
I reached for the condom, but she backed away from me, smiling
“Oh no, Hunter,” she said, waving the foil packet at me, “this one is all min
e.”
I swear my cock swelled some more and twitched, just from the way she was looking at me. She’d always turned me on more than any woman I’d ever met.
“Feeling a little needy, baby?” she chuckled, as she walked around the bed.
“Fuck, Caro!” This woman was gonna kill me.
I tried to catch her hand, but she danced away.
“Dear me, someone is impatient,” she laughed, determined to torture me.
“Yeah, very!” I agreed quickly.
She stood at the end of the bed, looking down at me, her expression heated and amused.
“Would you like me to take these off?” she asked in a sing-song voice, tugging gently on the delicate laces of her bikini bottoms.
Fuck, yeah! I nodded silently.
“Or maybe you’d like to take them off me?”
She climbed up from the foot of the bed and crawled all the way up until she was poised above me, the foil packet held in her teeth. I reached up to untie first one, then the second ribbon, and the small strip of material fell away.
I let my hand drift up the inside of her thighs and then gently slid my index finger inside, massaging her slowly. Her eyes were locked on mine: watching me, watching her, watching me. Her gaze was scorching and my body overheated quickly.
I pushed another finger inside her, moving faster, and her breath began to come in short gasps.
“Come on, baby,” I encouraged, my voice strained.
She clenched around my fingers and then tried to push my hand away.
“No, baby,” I crooned to her, “you can take more.”
“I can’t! I can’t!” she gasped, her eyes begging, but I wouldn’t stop, and another orgasm ripped through her, arching her spine as her body shuddered and trembled.
Then she collapsed onto my chest, and I stroked her back, running my hands down her spine, feeling soft tremors still running through her.
Gently, I rolled so she was on her back, then kissed her neck and chest, sucking and tugging on her nipples with my teeth until they were tight little fists. Her body was limp and pliant, so when I pushed her knees apart, there was no resistance as I slid inside her.
Only then her body tensed up and she gripped onto my shoulders.
“Sebastian, no! Don’t!”