“Fuck, you’re wet, baby. Is that for me?”
I pushed my hips forward, pressing my pussy tighter against his hand.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
I muffled a cry against his shoulder as he penetrated me with his slick fingers, all the while massaging my throbbing clit. Voices and laughter sounded in the distance, and I froze in his arms.
“They’re down by the water, and we are wrapped in what is now my favorite blanket. No one can see you but me,” he said. “No one can touch you but me.” His fingers dove deeper. I arched my back to take him in farther, tightening my pussy around his hand each time.”
“God, Seth, I’m— close— already.” The words came out haltingly. I was tucked against him in the warm cozy cave we’d made for ourselves, with the starlit sky above and the rhythmic roar of the ocean for music. My body shuddered and writhed against his touch as I headed toward that cliff that would send me into ecstasy. His touch was nothing short of masterful. Again, I muffled a moan against his hard arm as my pussy contracted around his fingers, sending delicious waves of pleasure through me. I curled against him, completely spent, deliriously satisfied and now content in his protective arms.
“Oh my god, you are good. I know I should probably be upset that you’re so damn practiced at making a girl come, but instead, I feel as if I want to thank all those other girls for helping you achieve this skill level.”
He squeezed me tighter and laughed. “I guess all my hard work has paid off.”
“In a sense, yes.”
He kissed my forehead. “Then I’m glad I made so many sacrifices. It’s been a long, hard road, but well worth the effort.”
I reached down between us and rubbed my hand along his fly. His erection pressed back against my hand. “I do think I need to offer some form of payment though.” I unbuttoned his pants. Now it was his turn for the quick, choppy breaths. I pushed my hand down into his pants, and my fingers wrapped around his thick, hard cock. He peered down at me with glassy eyes and heavy lids. I scooted off his lap and knelt down next to him. In the shadow of the blanket, I stared down at his cock as my hand stroked it, making it harder and wetter with each movement. I leaned forward and stroked his bottom lip with my tongue. Then I dropped down and lowered my mouth over his cock. He wrapped his fingers in my hair as I made love to him with my mouth. The satisfied deep groans that rained down on me as I brought him to climax pressed warm against my heart. I loved making him come as much as I enjoyed his touch. I’d found someone to open up to, someone to be myself with, someone to laugh with again.
Chapter 18
Seth
I’d worked with Greg on the boat all morning. I was glad to have something to do while everyone was working. A gym down the street took month to month memberships and so I’d forked over the thirty-five bucks to join up. After a two hour workout, I went home to shower before picking Noelle up for lunch. My phone rang as I walked to the car. It was Gage.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Just checking in on my rowdy little brother. Heard you got yourself fired from the beach gig.”
“Yeah, the boss was a big blown up bag of shit, so I’m glad.”
“You should come here if you get bored.”
“Uh huh, you just want a whipping boy to shovel all that horse shit. I’m leading a life of leisure, man, and it’s pretty fucking sweet. Sleeping late, no time schedule, two hour workouts at the gym, water sports—”
“And, you being Seth Barringer, plenty of fucking too, I imagine.”
“What do you mean— me being Seth Barringer? There was a time when the notorious Gage Barringer was known for bed hopping too.” I thought about the past week with Noelle, and now I understood the sudden change in both my brothers after they’d met their forever girls. “I met someone Gage.” I scrubbed my hair with my fingers. “Not a minute in the day passes when I’m not thinking about her.”
“Like someone has reached inside your head and messed with your brain cells?”
“That about nails it.”
“What’s that stupid word you used after I met Summer?”
“Gobsmacked?”
“That’s the one. Welcome to the gobsmacked club, buddy. Luke mentioned that you two hadn’t really been hitting it off though. What changed?”
I got into the car. Noelle had left her sweatshirt on the front seat. I lifted it to my face and breathed in. It was scented with her citrusy smelling perfume. “Persistence, Gage. And a healthy dose of the Barringer charm, which, as you know, I have the lion’s share of.”
Gage’s deep laugh rolled through the phone. “If you say so. Just remember if you run out of money or charm, or if she gets tired of you, I’ve got an extra mucking fork in the barn.”
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind. Got to go. I’m picking Noelle up for lunch.”
“Noelle? Pretty name.”
“Goes nicely with the girl. Stay away from falling trees, out of control chainsaws and grizzlies, bro. I’ll talk to you later.”
On the way to pick up Noelle, I thought about what Gage had said about her getting tired of me. Just the thought of it weighed heavily. It was a strange feeling, the possibility of heartbreak. Shit, I didn’t like the idea of it at all.
Noelle met me at the front door. She hopped up and kissed me. “Do you mind if we swing by Greg’s house and pick him up. His truck won’t start, and he needs to be working on that custom surfboard.”
“Not a problem.”
“It’s just a few miles away.”
We climbed back into the car. “Oh, my sweatshirt, I was wondering where that went.”
I smiled, thinking about what I’d just done with it.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“That is not a nothing look.”
“All right, but promise you won’t think this is creepy. I was talking to my brother, Gage—”
“The hunky lumberjack?”
“Yes,” I said with some annoyance, “only to me he is the guy who used to give me fucking noogies on my head until my hair knotted up and I promised to do all his chores. So, you’ll excuse me if I don’t refer to him as hunky. Anyhow, on to the creepy part. I saw your sweatshirt, and I pressed it to my nose to see if it had your fragrance on it.”
She looked at the side of my face.
“Creepy, I know.”
“I love that you did that,” she said quietly.
I looked at her. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She pointed ahead. “Turn right on this next corner.”
Greg’s truck was in front of a small, yellow house with a flat roof and wood siding with paint peeling so badly it looked as if someone had taken a giant vegetable peeler to it. A surfboard was leaning up against the front of the house, and a white wicker chair sat next to it. We both got out.
“This place needs a lot of work,” Noelle said. “Hayden had promised to paint it when he got back from his tour. It’s just fallen into disrepair now.”
“I can paint. Maybe Greg will let me have a go at it.”
“That would be great. If you had the time, of course.” We got to the front door and stepped inside. There was not a lot of furniture, just as I’d expected. The pieces that were there looked worn and comfortable.
Greg walked out of the bedroom surrounded by a cloud of smoke and with eyes that were nearly as red as his sunburned nose. “Hey, Seth, thanks for taking the time to pick me up. Don’t know what’s wrong with the truck.” He snorted a laugh. “Maybe it was damaged in that big accident with Moondoggie and his expensive car.”
“That might have done it,” I said.
“Now that you’re here, it reminds me that I wanted to pull out that steering wheel.” The day he’d brought up the boat’s steering wheel, he’d fallen into a rare dark mood. It was a reminder of the day when they’d received the horrible news about Hayden. Today, he seemed to be taking the idea of hauling it out in stride. Might have been due to what l
ooked like a pretty good round of pot while he was waiting for us to pick him up. A little numbness never hurt in times like this.
Noelle went to the kitchen to get a glass of water, seemingly oblivious to the connection between the steering wheel and that day. No doubt, the day had blurred into such a nightmare, she’d wiped away any memory of the package.
Greg leaned down into a small entryway closet and shuffled around in it, first emerging with a slightly mangled boogie board, followed by a snorkel and mask. He looked at the mask. “Wondered where that went.” He bent back down into the closet. Noelle came out to see what the commotion was about.
“What the heck are you doing, Greg?” she asked.
“Ah ha, here it is.” Greg stood up out of the closet with the box. There was a stack of mail on top of it. “Look at that. A two year old electric bill.” His face flattened, and his mouth pulled tight. “I guess I shoved the mail into the closet with the box,” he said with a quiet laugh.
It was just dawning on Noelle what Greg was digging out of the closet.
Greg forced a weak smile and flipped through the mail. “No wonder that credit card was cancelled,” he said again with a rough laugh. Then he stopped, and his suntanned face lightened several shades as he lifted an envelope from the pile.
“What’s wrong, Greg?” Noelle asked.
Greg looked across the room at her. Greg’s throat moved as he swallowed hard.
“Greg?” she asked.
“I must have slid the mail into the closet with the box. I never looked at it, Elle. I’m sorry.” He held out an envelope with slightly bent corners. “It’s a letter from Hayden.”
Noelle froze next to me. She stared at the envelope in Greg’s shaky hand.
“He must have written it just before—” Greg said, with no need to finish the sentence.
A sob escaped Noelle, and she pressed her hand to her mouth. She stepped forward and took hold of the letter. From behind, I could see her shoulders tremble as she looked down at it. She tore out of the house.
I turned to go after her.
“Seth, no,” Greg said, barely holding it together himself. “Let her go. She’ll want to be alone when she opens it.” He rubbed his face and tried casually to wipe away the tears in his eyes. “I had no idea. I had no idea what came in the mail that day. I just shoved the box away not wanting to think of it.”
“Greg, dude, you can’t beat yourself up about it.”
He nodded weakly, but I knew this was going to haunt him for awhile. I glanced through the front window. The beach was several blocks away, but I could see Noelle’s long, dark hair flying behind her as she ran toward it. And that suffocating feeling I’d gotten earlier when Gage had mentioned something about the girl getting bored of me, that solid thump of my heart breaking against my rib cage, returned. I’d found a place in Noelle’s life, and I hoped that I could stay there, with her, for awhile. But so much of her heart was still taken up with the memory of her husband that it seemed there was still not much room for me. This letter was surely going to crowd me out more.
Greg walked to the kitchen. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a beer.”
“A beer sounds good.”
Chapter 19
Noelle
I dropped down to my knees in the warm sand. The beach was still crowded with people and scavenging birds and lifeguards, but they were just a blur. I couldn’t see anything clearly past the writing on the front of the envelope. The familiar, tight, precise print. Hayden’s incredibly neat handwriting. I used to kid him about his perfect script. You should be a damn honor student with that perfect handwriting, I’d say to him. And he’d laugh and say that honor students were the kids who didn’t appreciate living by the beach because when the surf was good, books were useless.
I pressed the envelope to my face, just as Seth had confessed he’d done with my sweatshirt. But there was no scent, no trace of Hayden on the envelope, just two years of dusty smell from Greg’s closet and miles of travel for an envelope that had made its way halfway around the world. The postmark was stamped three weeks before the day of his death. It was his last letter, and it would contain a message from a man who had no idea that these would be his last words to his wife.
It took all my courage to slide my finger under the flap, the flap where Hayden’s mouth had once been. The envelope was slightly brittle from time, and it ripped open easily. I pulled out the letter and unfolded it. That same perfect, neat writing as on the envelope, shined back at me.
My chest felt heavy as I pulled in a deep breath. The ocean air was briny and warm. I was sitting on the beach, a place Hayden loved more than any place in the world. I blinked back the tears in my eyes and read.
Hey No-No,
I know it’s been a few months since I’ve written and I’m sorry. Things have been kind of crazy here. But it doesn’t mean that I haven’t been thinking of you every day. Believe me I have. God, No-No, I miss you. Sometimes, at night, when things have grown deadly quiet and I’m lying in my crappy cot, I close my eyes and imagine myself holding you, breathing in your fragrance, feeling your soft skin under my fingertips. Then the homesickness creeps in and my body aches from missing you.
A drop fell on the paper and then another. I lowered the letter and pressed my palm against each eye to staunch the flow of tears. But they were unstoppable. My entire body shook now, like my hands had earlier when I’d opened the envelope.
How’s the old man? Tell him I’ll be seeing you both soon. It’s not solid yet but I might be coming home in three months. Then I can paint the house, and surf. Shit, I miss the beach. Not the sand, of course. Plenty of fucking sand over here. But the water. Being over here makes it seem as if there is no ocean. As if this planet is just one mass of dry, powdery, hot land.
Noelle, I don’t regret this. I’m here with my buddies and we look out for each other. I’m glad I’m here to watch their backs and they’re around to watch mine. My only real regret is not being with you. Seems like we’ve been inseparable since I first saw you helping out in the school office. You were there to answer phone calls and I was there to see the principal, of course. But you were so fucking cute with your pink headband and your black Nirvana t-shirt. God, I couldn’t stop thinking about you after that. The principal was lecturing me and all I could think about was figuring out how to get your phone number. Best day of my life that day that I got caught smoking in the bathroom.
Love you so much, Baby.
I’ve got to turn out the light because my bunkmates are trying to sleep and they’re getting bitchy. See you soon. Love, Hayden.
It was short, sweet and completely Hayden. The words read so much like him, I could almost hear his voice behind them. I rubbed my finger over the handwriting, imagining his hands touching the paper. His capable, strong hands that I missed so badly. He’d brought up the day we met. It was our first year in high school, a high school that was a mix of several middle schools. We hadn’t seen each other before that day when the principal had walked in scowling, with Hayden, who’d completely caught my attention, walking behind him holding back a grin and not the least bit worried that he was being hauled into the principal’s office. He’d walked out with a detention time sheet and that same smile. Before he left the office, he stopped at the counter, grabbed one of the call slips off the pad and slid it across the counter to me. ‘If you don’t write your number down I will die of a broken heart,’ he’d said. I remember thinking his long blond hair and blue eyes would make him the perfect lead character in a surf movie. I wrote the number down. He was so confident, and I was so shy and nervous I could barely speak. I told him my name and soon after that, he’d shortened it to No-No. I closed my eyes and blotted out the sounds around me to try and remember the sound of his voice saying my nickname. He was the only person who called me that, and I would have been upset to hear anyone else use it.
I reached up and clutched the dog tags in my fingers, the necklace I had so casually been r
emoving these past few weeks when I’d been with Seth. Guilt ground a hole through my stomach. I’d been enjoying myself with another man and as much as I liked Seth, I couldn’t bear the thought of being with him right now. I wasn’t ready for this, after all. Or maybe fate had put this letter in front of me as a reminder that Hayden had been the one for me.
I folded the letter up and put it back in the envelope. Hayden had had a chance to say his last words to me, but I had never gotten that chance. I never got to tell him how much I missed him and how fucking crazy I was about him. My last letter had been more a care box than words. I’d sent him his favorite sour candy and his favorite cookies and several surf magazines. On a pink sticky note, I’d told him that I took no blame for any cavities he got from the goodies and that I was thinking about him every day. But that was it. I hadn’t taken the time to say more than that, mostly because writing words like that, when I missed him so terribly, always brought me to tears. So, I’d kept it simple, figuring my care box said it all. Of course, I’d had no idea that those would be my last words to him.
I stood up and wavered momentarily on legs that were numb from me sitting on them. I leaned down and brushed off the sand. I turned around to head back to the house. Seth was there, standing at the edge of the sand with a look of complete despair on his face.
I walked toward him. The lump in my throat had grown bigger and speaking took all my effort. I peered up at him. “Seth, could you take me home?”
Without a word, he turned and we walked back to his car.
Chapter 20
Seth
I’d dropped Noelle off at her house. Not one word had been spoken between us, but there was plenty of emotion. And I knew then, I knew that the letter had pushed us back to square one, the square where I had no place to stand, the square that was filled only with memories of her husband.