by Daisy Allen
"Come here," I hold my hand out to her and she skips over to me, and I hold her face in my hands. "This is perfect," I reassure her. "I love it. I really do. But even if it was just a corrugated roof over a cardboard box, if you were there, it would be just as perfect."
She sighs happily and I kiss her sweet upturned mouth.
"But THIS one has champagne!" and she runs into the bungalow, ooohing and ahhhing at all the amenities.
I laugh and carry our bags into the room and lay down on the bed, stretching out, feeling my muscles groan and my bones crack. I haven't slept in days, laying awake the last week trying to figure out what to do about Cadence. This morning when I called the accountant and told him to organize the bank check, I could not have possibly imagined that it would turn out this way. Me in her arms and her ingrained in my heart.
"Sebastian! There's a waterfall shower! I love those!" She twitters happily from the adjoining bathroom.
I smile, my face sore for doing so for the last few hours we’ve been together. But her infectious love of life is unavoidable and she’s warmed me from inside out like the morning sun on a scorching hot summer day.
“Ooooh! Toothpaste!” She squeals and I can’t help but chuckle.
“What?” She asks, her voice muffled probably from rubbing her face against something.
“Nothing, darling, you brush your teeth as much as you like, if we run out I’ll call the front desk for some more.” I tease her, but I think she’s too excited to care.
“Ohh,” she sighs as she comes back into the bedroom and sinks onto the bed at my feet. She reaches for my shoes and pulls them off, peeling the socks off after that. “Thank god you’re rich! Or else we’d have had to go to buy our own toothpaste.”
I laugh, sometimes I forget that I am, which is strange because I certainly wasn’t always well off. But sometimes, I’m glad I am, just for moment like this, to bring a smile to the faces of people I care about.
She kicks off her own shoes and falls down onto the bed, curling up around me and resting her head on my chest. She reaches over my body for my hand and interweaves her fingers with mine.
It is quiet.
Not a whisper of a breath of wind quiet.
No wild animals foraging or calling for their mates quiet.
No white hum from the moonlight quiet.
It’s some time before I realize I’ve been holding my breath too.
“Babe?” I nudge her gently.
“Mmm?” She mumbles sleepily and curls up in a tighter ball around me, her hand growing limp and sliding from mine to tuck under her head.
I tilt my head to press a kiss to her forehead and whisper a gentle “good night”. The quiet engulfs me and soon I am breathing deeply too, and dreaming of round brown eyes and floating on clouds.
***
Something delicious is happening. That’s the absolute first thought I have when I wake up.
Something that is making my eyes water and my mouth dry at the same time.
Something that is weighing on my breath and causing my fingers to clench.
Something that is warm and wet, making the pit of my stomach start to burn, to churn.
Something that feels sweet like just whipped chocolate mousse but hot like chili oil searing the top of your mouth.
Something that makes me moan without me knowing I’m doing it.
And then, for a moment it stops.
“It’s about time you woke up,” I hear Cadence taunt me, and then I feel the deliciousness again.
Her mouth is sliding down my cock, my already achingly hard, engorged to a straining thickness cock.
Oh my god, I process, as my head falls back onto the pillow, my fucking cock is in Cadence’s fucking mouth.
And fuck me if she doesn’t know what she’s doing.
Undoing me, that’s what she’s doing.
My fingers curl and grip the bed sheet as the tip of my cock grazes the back of her throat.
Oh. My. God.
She drags her lips up the length of my hardness and I struggle to take a breath. She giggles and runs her fingertip around the rim of my dick.
“Stop.” I don’t know why I say it. Which is good because she doesn’t listen.
Instead, I feel her hand wrap itself at the base of my shaft and then her lips, those soft, moist, plump, fucking lips from heaven, drop around the head of my cock and then slide back down, completely engulfing me in her mouth.
I arch my back and try to thrust deeper.
She gags gently, and the sound sends me into a downward spiral.
I tilt my head to watch her. She’s kneeling between my legs, her ass bobbing in the air as she attends to my iron hard cock. I need to come.
“Climb on me, baby,” I rasp, reaching for her.
She pulls off my cock and I almost regret interrupting her. But there’s plenty of time for that. Right now, I want to be inside her again.
Straddling over me, she pulls her t-shirt off, and her tits fall, fleshy and pump on my face as she leans over, angling her nipples to rest on my lips. I suckle at them hungrily. They instantly harden and I flick the tips with my tongue. Her groan is my reward and I do it again so I can burn that delicious sound into my brain.
I feel her lean and brace her hands on either side of my face and her hips move into position. I reach around her and run the tip of my cock along the opening of her sex. It’s burning hot. The little minx woke me up so I could do this for her.
Lifting my hips, she moans softly at the pressure of my cock and she pushes herself off her hands and rocks back onto her heels, sinking all the way down on my shaft.
I’m going to last about five more seconds.
If I’m lucky.
No man was ever meant to hold back from this kind of pleasure.
“Fuck me, baby,” I growl and I grab her ass in my hands, lifting her off my cock. She rocks back and forth and I think my cock is about to explode. Her tits bounce and I’m mesmerized watching them.
“Sebastian...fuck, Sebastian.” Did my name always sound like that? I don’t have time to think about it.
“Fuck, Fuck, FUCK!” I yell just as I feel the pressure in my balls release and I’m thrusting up into her, deeper and deeper. Maybe if I go so deep I never have to leave. My orgasm bursts through my body and I stop breathing as I feel myself empty inside her. Inside her delicious, sweet, velvet cave.
I let go of her ass and reach between us to pinch her sweet little bud with my fingers. It’s all she needs.
Throwing her head back, she screams my name and I watch her body shake and shake and shake as she climaxes. Until she collapses on top of me, her face like an iron against my skin, her breath hot and heavy.
The soft orange hue of sunrise is filtering through the windows and she looks just like an angel.
“Good morning,” I whisper.
“Morning,” she mumbles, her face still buried in my chest.
She takes a deep breath and shuffles up a little higher on my body, and we sigh, feeling me slip out of her.
She smiles and kisses me, making a little “hmmm” noise that I’m becoming addicted to.
“So, what do you want to do today?” I ask her.
“That.” She grins.
I laugh. Not that I mind. “We just did ‘that’.”
“So? Let’s do it again.” She grins even wider and reaches down to fondle me.
“Exactly ‘that’ might take a few minutes, but there are other versions of ‘that’ that I might be able to interest you in?”
“Oh? I’m open to suggestions.”
I flip her over and slide down her body, kissing her as I go.
Gently pressing her legs wide apart, I lay between them, lowering my mouth to her soft, glistening lips, “Oh, open is just how I want you to be,” and I graze my tongue along her slit.
I can’t quite make out her response, but I think she likes it.
Chapter Nineteen
CADENCE
If you
cut me open, you’ll see me bleed red earth.
Not gush out in thick rivulets, but in dust whirls, small tornados carrying my body and spirit into the wind, scattering me over this beautiful, burnt, vast, dry, copper red land.
I may be first generation Australian, a child of immigrants, but the day I was born, the first breath of air I inhaled carried with it tens of thousands of years of Australian history and tied me forever in with the people and the land, so that my story would start and end here.
And it’s why I brought Sebastian here, of all the places in the world, it’s here I wanted us to come, to be the place where we would get to know each other.
Amongst the harsh heat of the desert sun, and the crisp cold breeze of night.
With the echoes of the spirits of the Aboriginal people around to witness the promises our bodies and hearts made to each other, and bind us together with their blessings.
***
“Cadence! LOOK!” Sebastian parks the Jeep on the side of an abandoned paddock and quickly jumps out, pointing his phone camera out into the horizon.
“What?” I call after him.
“It’s a kangaroo!! With a little joey!” He squeals, and I can’t help but laugh at his childlike excitement.
“Er, yeah, we have a few of those around,” I tease him, secretly committing the squeal to memory.
I lean on the hood of the car, watching him run a few steps and then stop, trying to get close to the mama kangaroo and her baby. After posing for a few photos, she gets sick of him and bounces off lazily, in no rush to get away from the human.
He jogs back to me, his face split open into a giant grin, waving his camera. “Got her! Oh, that was so cool.”
“Yeah, I guess you don’t see too many roos jumping down the Champs-Élysée.”
“Pfft, even if they did, Parisians would just scoff and say they’d seen it all before.”
“Maybe on their dinner plates!”
“Quoi? You don’t EAT kangaroos here, do you?” He looks like I’ve just suggested we eat a human baby.
I shrug, “Sure, not a lot but yeah, you can get kangaroo meat at any grocery store.”
He turns to me, absolutely horrified. “You are savages! Cute little kangaroos hopping around, you catch them and then EAT them?”
“What are you so horrified about, you eat foie gras!”
“That’s goose, geese aren’t cute! They don’t carry their adorable baby geese in a front bag.”
“Front bag?” I’m confused. Sometimes I forget that English isn’t his first language until he comes up with something golden like this.
“You know, the hole in their furry tummy.”
“You mean ‘pouch’?” I spit out.
“Whatever, savage.”
“Which reminds me, you owe me breakfast...and dinner! You didn’t feed me last night after all that show and dance about Cadence’s wish is your command.”
“You fell asleep, honey.” He shrugs and doesn’t look at all apologetic.
“But then I woke up.”
“Did you ever!” He grins and winks at me, and my legs instantly feel a little wobbly.
“Come on, I know of a great place you can make it up to me,” I tell him, to distract me from thoughts that would have me forgetting about breakfast and dinner altogether.
“Oh no, I’m going to need some sustenance,” he groans.
“Not that, you perv! Food!” I squawk at him and he laughs until a camera bag thwacks him on the head.
***
“It’s definitely alien.” Sebastian says after a few minutes of rare quiet.
“It’s not alien.”
“Then where did it come from?”
“The sky.”
“Yeah, an alien dropped it.” He insists.
“An alien. Picked up Uluru...and then accidentally dropped it.” I have to repeat it just to make sure I’ve heard him correctly.
“Sure, a giant alien. With slippery hands.”
I have to put my glass down, to keep from spilling it as I hold my stomach with my other hand as I bend over in laughter.
“What? Do YOU have a better explanation?” He asks, looking hurt.
“There are thousands of years of better explanations than that.”
“Well, I guess we’ll never know.”
“I think we know it’s not a giant alien with crappy finger grip that created Uluru.”
“It’s not my fault you have so little faith.” He sniffs, and turns back to observing the stunning horizon.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
We’re sitting on our balcony looking out as the sun sets over the giant red rock, that under the angle of light looks like it’s sprouted a halo, illuminating it against the darkening sky.
We can hear the sound of our neighbors enjoying their own meal and experiencing the unique experience of the sun setting over Uluru.
I shove an olive-oil-soaked piece of break into my mouth; part of the array of food we’d picked up at the store, our makeshift gourmet dinner picnic.
“Hmmm, so good.” I say and dip another piece and hold it out to Sebastian.
He opens his mouth and as I push the bread into his mouth, he clamps his lips down, trapping my fingers and then slowly licks the oil dripping off them.
“Hmm, you’re right, delicious,” he winks at me. My nipples harden instantly and I wonder if there’ll ever be a time my body’s not going to react to him from the smallest things.
He watches me eat for a moment, and I let him, somehow feeling so comfortable in his presence that I don’t really care that he sees me spitting out olive pits and sucking on lamb chop bones.
“When’s the first time you came here?” He asks, picking up his fork and stabbing a cherry tomato dancing around his plate.
“It’s a long story.”
“I don’t have anywhere to be and you’ve sexed me out for a while, so, spill.” He presses, already used to my evasive tactics.
I take a sip of wine and sit back, looking out at the scenery. “When I was ten, my grandmother died after a pretty long illness. After the funeral, we were in the car, and suddenly, my Dad spins the car around and he says, ‘where do you want to go? Anywhere in the world’.”
I take a bite of some bread and chew it for a few seconds.
“Just like me?” Sebastian asks.
“Just like you, except that, I don’t think he quite meant it. We didn’t have luggage or passports or anything. Anyway, as we’re driving into the airport there are those signs advertising places, and I saw a picture of Uluru. So we walk up to the sales desk and they ask, how can I help you, and I say ‘Uluru!’ And five hours later, here we were. Well, not here here, we weren’t millionaires... but yes, here near Uluru.”
“That’s amazing.”
“Yeah, it was an amazing trip.” I nod and smile, even now remembering stepping off the plane and feeling so glamorous and world travelled. Having that power to just pick a place in the world, it made me feel a like a princess. And Sebastian had recreated that for me. A moment he didn’t even know was one of the best of my life.
“Sounds like it.”
“He was an amazing dad.”
“Was?”
I take another sip of wine, savoring it in my mouth for a moment before I speak again. “Yeah, he, er, he died when I was fourteen years old.”
“Oh, Cadence.” Sebastian sighs, sensing the loss it was for me at such a young age.
“He was the one who taught me to play piano. It took me a long, long time to find another teacher after he died.”
“He’s be so fucking proud if he could see you now.”
“What about yours?” I turn the questioning back to me.
“He’d be proud of you too if he knew you.” Sebastian winks and grins, and I almost let him get away with it, the way his mouth curls into that irresistible cheekiness. But I don’t.
“Hey, I shared...”
“I don’t have any romantic lovey stories to tell you
about my dad. He’s a rough, tough guy.”
“He’s not proud of what you’ve achieved with the band?”
He pops a chip into his mouth and crunches for a moment, thinking the question over. “I guess not. You know, I think it might have to do with his pride. Growing up, we didn’t have fuck all, sometimes not even a roof over our heads, and he could not stand me not just leaving school and going off making money as a laborer or something. When I got the scholarship to Guildhall Music in London, he couldn’t use the tuition as an excuse to make me leave, and we pretty much stopped talking for years.”
The thought of having such a relationship with your father is so foreign to me, and I wonder how that must affect him now.
“Do you talk now?”
“Not really, some, I guess. I go home to visit my mom. And he always brings out these fucking scrapbooks with clipping of the band and making comments about how we dress and the songs we pick for our performance, and how we could always do better. Like he knows. Nitpicking over interviews and everything!”
I smile at him, listening to him rant. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“What?”
I lean over the table between us and he meets me halfway, pressing a gentle kiss to my lips.
“Sometimes you have to read between the lines.”
A blank look spreads across Sebastian’s face and I can’t help but feel a thrill as I get to embed a whole new series of expressions of his into my Sebastian Face Bank.
“You say he has scrapbooks of clippings of your shows and interviews...” I say, nudging him towards his own revelation.
“Yeah, tens of them, we’re in the paper? You name it, he’s found it and cut it out. To point out everything that’s fucking wrong I’ve done.”
“Sebastian, sometimes people express love...and pride in different ways. But I don’t see a father who couldn’t give a fuck about his kid cutting out hundreds of clippings, do you?”
He goes quiet and I pour us each another glass of wine.
The expression on his face changes again, and I wish I could peer inside his mind and hear his thought. The sky mimics his face and changes from burnt orange and almost neon pink to the various shades of dark before slipping into night.