Bad Business

by JC Harroway

  ‘Okay, but follow me.’ I know every inch of this place, so I guide her deeper into the garden, to the rear of a small pool house, tucked out of sight of the path and surrounded by banana trees and hibiscus.

  I want to reassure her that this island is privately owned. By me. That in a few weeks’ time, when the singles arrive ready to party, there’ll be plenty of sexual exploration going on here. That if she wants to experiment with voyeuristic sex, I can take her to one of my other, well-established resorts, where the exorbitant membership fee and NDAs everyone signs ensure the utmost discretion.

  But her seductive smile and my need for her obliterate my good intentions.

  Grace walks backwards dragging me with her until her back hits the wall of the pool house. ‘I want to touch you.’ She shoves my shirt up and I help her, tugging it overhead and casting it aside. Her touch roams my chest, shoulders and back, her hands on me a blissful form of torture. My mind grows foggy, my confession slipping away like a curl of smoke as Grace slides her hand inside my underwear and does eye-rolling things to my dick.

  Fuck, I’m not the man I think I am, and I want to touch her too. I want to forget.

  I slip the thin straps of her dress from her shoulders and trace the line of her collarbone with my lips until her breath catches.

  ‘Ryan...’ She abandons my dick to tug the loops of my waistband, shunting my hips closer to hers, impatient and uninhibited as she was on the beach this morning.

  She wants to go fast and furious, and I’m greedy for more Grace. But I’m also determined that she’ll never forget her first casual fling.

  ‘Let’s see these sensitive nipples.’ I peel the dress down to her waist, exposing her to the cool night air. I look up from her perfect breasts, which rise and fall with her excited breathing, to find her eyes on me, and for a second we’re locked in some sort of alternate universe, where only she and I and the sounds of paradise exist. My heart thuds against hers. My cock surges against the softness of her stomach.

  ‘You sure you want to do this here?’

  Her nod is all I need.

  My patience snaps. With a groan of pent-up longing, I kiss her, pressing my body to hers until her naked breasts are flattened to my bare chest. I suck in her gasp of pleasure and kiss and nibble my way over her chest to those exquisite nipples, tonguing and laving more sexy cries from her. But Grace wants to set the pace. She shoves my shorts over my hips and grips my aching cock, tugging and pumping and hitting all the right spots until I’m cursing and fighting for control. I’m so high on her, wound so tight, I have to brace one hand against the stone wall behind her back, my fingertips digging into the rough surface to wrestle back some discipline. Why do I feel like a teenager with this woman? Why do I want to go faster and slower in the same breath?

  She pushes my head away from her breast so she can cover me with the condom, and then she grips my shoulders as I hoist her around the waist and lift her from the ground. We’re so in sync, it’s as if we’ve rehearsed this a thousand times. She helps me get closer, tugging up the skirt of her dress and gripping my hips with her thighs, providing a haven of space I intend to occupy until, this time, we’re both spent and sated and can barely walk.

  I grip her waist with one arm and slide my other hand between her legs. She’s wet and hot, her underwear damp. I push the crotch aside and notch the tip of my cock at her slick entrance.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I have no idea why I’m hesitating. Perhaps because she told me about her single sexual partner. Perhaps because all we seem to share is outdoor encounters. Perhaps I need to be what she wants. To make it memorable.

  ‘Better than okay.’ She releases her grip on my shoulders and traces one finger along the side of my face, her eyes locked with mine, the perfect blend of tenderness and sexy, just like Grace.

  But I want to push her boundaries, to reward that daring erotic side.

  ‘You want this, don’t you? To be fucked against a wall where someone could hear or see?’ My voice cracks with the pressure of holding back from thrusting inside her in a single, satisfying stroke.

  Her lids droop and her head lolls back against the wall, a breathy ‘yes’ slipping past her swollen lips. She releases the hold of her thighs on my waist so that she slips down the wall an inch or two. Her tight heat swallows the head of my cock, forcing a groan from deep in my chest, razing my patience to the ground. I push home, gliding into her in a single thrust that leaves us both panting and staring, our hearts banging together like cymbals.

  ‘Hold tight,’ I say, loving the way her eyes are glazed with passion. She feels so good gripping me, the rush so profound, I almost can’t speak.

  She braces her arms on my shoulders. ‘Don’t stop.’

  Stop...? Hell, I’d be hard pushed. ‘No intention,’ I growl as I thrust into her, shunting her hips against the wall while I grind my teeth to stave off the volcano of pleasure.

  Every time I bottom out inside, she gasps, her warm breath mingling with mine, our lips only millimetres apart and our stares locked together as surely as our bodies. I use all my strength to hold her up against the wall with one arm and my hips, so I can tweak that sensitive exposed nipple with my free hand.

  ‘Ryan,’ she cries out, her eyes growing wide the way they did earlier when her orgasm seemed to shock the hell out of both of us. Man, she’s incredible. The most honest woman I’ve ever met.

  ‘Yes,’ I hiss, because I’m close too, and I want this to be the best fuck against a wall she’s ever had.

  Time for some more dirty talk...

  ‘You like taking risks, don’t you?’ I whisper over her lips, so I can watch the flare of shocked desire glow in her eyes. ‘You liked watching me yesterday, and perhaps you even like the idea that someone might see us now.’ I can’t help the filthy visions filling my head featuring my demanding Grace, and I want her to know how her stark honesty makes me feel. If I’m going to debase the good doctor, bring her down to my level, I want it to be something she’ll never forget.

  Then again, perhaps she’s debasing me...

  ‘Oh, my...’ She pants hard, nodding, and I flatten my tongue over one peaked, exposed nipple. ‘Yes...yes, I do.’ Her fingers curl, twisting my hair.

  Her confession roars in my head, my hips powering harder, faster to reward her for it. So there’s a part of her that enjoys the fear of discovery. I’m hoping that might actually aid and heighten her climax. That I can take her somewhere she’s never been makes me feel invincible.

  Then I hear giggling. Softly spoken French tells me company is close by. I hold my breath, my hips slowing a fraction but not stopping, because I don’t think I could stop even if the entire island’s population rocked up and started giving me points out of ten for technique.

  Grace must hear them too, because alarm flashes in her eyes, but hot on its heels embers of excitement.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That’s my girl.’

  I kiss away her reservations, the surge of my tongue against hers letting her know we’re unlikely to be discovered in this secret tropical corner, and even if we were, would that be so bad? Doesn’t our passion for each other, for this, justify the risk?

  I keep moving, watch the way she bites her lip as she tries to fight the cries she released with abandon only seconds ago.

  ‘Do you want me to stop?’ My voice is hushed, but not a whisper. Grace needs to know that I don’t give a damn about being discovered if she doesn’t, the fact that we’re on the same page evidence this woman could be made specifically for me.

  She shakes her head, her mouth falling open, head thrown back. I tilt my pelvis upwards and add a grind to her clit with each thrust that has her breath hitching once more. I roll her nipple, applying extra pressure to make up for the interruption to her orgasm. I know that feeling. I’ve been walking around with blue balls for the past twenty-four hours.

  �
��I’m not going to stop, Grace.’ I pick up the pace again, my mouth hovering over hers so I can talk and kiss and capture her pants all at once. ‘I’m going to keep fucking you right here until you come. Even if they hear us. Even if they watch.’

  Her returned passion, her wild kisses and the clench of her internal muscles gripping my cock tell me she’s fully on board with my plan. The knowledge that she’s happy to continue with strangers in earshot goads me back to the rhythm that had her close moments earlier. I bite down, my jaw clenched and my thighs and abs on fire as I give her everything I’ve got. It’s impossibly hotter now. More elicit. Risky and erotic. So perfect, I almost want to thank the French couple.

  I rear back so I can watch the glaze of arousal in her eyes and the excitement on her face. We’re silent apart from the soft gasps of air my thrusts force from Grace, the slaps of my hips against her thighs and the roar of my blood in my ears.

  Grace drops her head to the crook of my neck, hiding her face, even as she grips me tighter and urges me to thrust faster with her hands clenching my buttocks.

  A splash sounds, more giggling. The French couple are probably skinny dipping only metres away on the other side of the bushes. Gotta love tropical gardens. And these incredibly sensitive and talented nipples, which seem to have a direct link to the tightly gripping walls of her pussy.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ gasps Grace.

  ‘Nope,’ I grit out, the eroticism of the moment clawing at me so my own climax builds at the base of my spine. I rub my lips over hers as I whisper between kisses. ‘Part of me hopes they hear us, hopes they know exactly what we’re doing. That we’re doing this, that you couldn’t wait to get back to the room...’

  ‘Oh... Ryan.’

  ‘That’s it,’ I whisper into her hair, which has fallen over her face and surrounds me in a fog of her scent. ‘You’re going to come all over me with people only a few steps away. You’ll just have to come quietly. Or not, it’s up to you.’

  She must have been hovering close to the edge, because my words take her back to where she’d been prior to the French interruption. With a final cry, our eyes locked, she comes, milking my cock with hard, violent spasms until I too bury my grunt against the side of her neck and fill the condom with white-hot jets that leave me reeling and barely able to stand.

  A long, drawn-out groan sounds in my head as I pump the last shudders into her still-pulsing heat.

  Who is this woman? A woman of contradictions and extremes. A woman who takes relationships seriously but is embracing our holiday fling as if she’s done this a hundred times.

  When I raise my head from her shoulder, she’s staring at me with something close to wonder.

  ‘I can’t believe we did that,’ she whisper-giggles.

  The French couple are still in the pool, no doubt having their own late night fun. For a heartbeat I’m lost for words, lost in Grace, my mind blissfully blank, my cock still hard and jerking inside her tight warmth.

  ‘I can. You like the idea of being caught doing something you shouldn’t.’

  She turns serious. ‘Perhaps I do...’

  ‘Well, that was the hottest sex against a wall I’ve ever experienced.’ It should thrill me, excite me that she’s embracing what I’m guessing is a new daring side. Instead I drop my forehead to her shoulder and breathe through the almost violent urge to keep her—her pleasure and her honesty and her abandonment—all to myself, the possessive fire in my veins proof I don’t want the French couple, or anyone else, intruding.

  What the hell...? I’ve enjoyed being watched before with like-minded partners. Never have I felt such a bewildering ownership. My head pounds at the force of the alien feeling. Now would be the perfect time to tell her that when I make this a Dempsey singles’ resort, she’ll be able to explore and satisfy any kink she likes, that teaming sexually adventurous singletons in paradise is my speciality. But am I ready to lift the scales from her eyes, confess the fact I’ve pretended to be something I’m not to this woman, who seems to see inside me with a simple look? If only she knew what an oddity we make: the seller of sex and the saver of lives...

  No—it’s just a post-orgasmic thing. Good sex, the kind of chemistry we share are enough to leave anyone, even a cynic like me, seeing stars.

  I step back, gripping the base of the condom as I withdraw and lower her to the ground. I clean up, wrapping the condom in a tissue, while Grace pulls her dress into position. But already I want her again, my greedy cock pulsing and thickening as I stuff it back inside my shorts. I want her to myself. In private.

  How is that possible?

  It feels dangerous, almost. She’s dangerous...

  ‘Can I walk you home?’ I wince. I sound like some sort of old-fashioned suitor. Nothing could be further from the truth. The concrete block in my chest returns, only now it’s sprouting wicked barbs, reminding me that there’s nothing beyond the no-strings sex I peddle for a living. At least not for me. I don’t do more than that.

  She giggles again as she takes my outstretched hand. ‘For someone who’s just fucked my brains out, you’re rather gallant, you know.’

  I set off in the direction of the beach, focussed on the needs of my dick to combat whatever is going on inside my chest. ‘Nah...it’s just a vicious rumour. Besides, if I walk you home, you might invite me in for round two.’

  Grace smiles. Breathes out a soft exhale. ‘I might just do that.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Grace

  I OPEN MY EYES, seeking Ryan next to me in bed, to find only a single perfect frangipani flower on his pillow. Warmth spreads through me, the delicate bloom confirmation the last night really happened. I roll onto my back, my sappy smile directed at the ceiling. What an incredible night.

  Then I sober, the high plummeting.

  Ryan and I have nothing to do with romance, despite his parting gesture. This is just a fling.

  I sit up, the silence and the sinking feeling confirming I’m alone in the bungalow. But what did I expect? That the king of commitment-free shagging had come over all sentimental, staying to spoon?

  I swing my legs to the edge of the bed, doubts crawling over my skin like ants. Just because I’m on my dream holiday having amazing, life-changing sex is no cause for mushy romantic notions. Ryan made himself clear—he doesn’t do feels, or rings or romance.

  Just shattering orgasms and addictive sex giggles and flowers on the pillow. I sigh, my head a scrambled mess, but my body firmly stuck with the belly-fluttering memories. What happens now we’ve gone all the way? Will we revert to strangers sharing polite, awkward smiles when we meet on the beach or keep up the sex until it’s time for me to leave? The keen heat between my legs answers for me.

  But even if I can keep my head grounded in reality, what does Ryan want? I look back at the flower, wishing I could just ask him. Perhaps him leaving before dawn is his answer. Perhaps his no-strings rule means it’s over after one night.

  I worry at my lip as shivers pass over my exposed arms, then I plant my feet on the tiles with determination. I don’t want it to be over. Messing around with him makes me feel alive and carefree. I want more. More of the incandescent passion that I feel when he smiles at me with that hint of challenge, so I know whatever comes next, be it paddleboarding or some impossible sex position, will be amazing and worth the risk of stepping out of my comfort zone.

  I’ll simply find him, tell him what I want, and if we’re no longer on the same wavelength, it’s no big deal.

  Filled with fresh resolve, I head for the shower and step under the hot spray, embracing the new, improved me. The me that threw caution to the wind to explore something dangerous and uninhibited with a man who seems intent on being my dirty-talking guide. The me that woke up this morning and, for the first time since I called quits on my engagement, felt the rightness of that decision to my marrow.

  I’m not na
ive—there’s nothing on this island I didn’t bring here. All these new and thrilling parts of me were there before. I just never gave them airtime.

  But now I can.

  With Ryan as my own private passion coach.

  If he still wants the job...

  The warm water touches the sensitive spots on my body—my nipples, the stubble burn on my neck, between my legs. Have I ever had so much sex in a twenty-four-hour period?

  Even in the beginning, Greg and I found it easy to keep our hands off each other. I convinced myself the constant stress of exams, the pressure and competition of med school and then exhaustion of being junior doctors while pursuing our careers through a long-distance relationship were to blame. But I’m struggling to recall even the briefest of honeymoon periods. How could I have deluded myself for so long that the relationship, even from the start, gave me everything I needed? Just because growing up I’d put myself second in order to be a good sister and daughter, I should never have carried that attitude over into adulthood.

  I stare at nothing, my movements automatic as I wash my hair. Greg and I became engaged around the same time that Bryony took a turn for the worse after a valiant two-year struggle with heart failure. Her death was expected but no less devastating, so my distraction made sense. Did I love him, or just use him as a crutch, someone there for me at one of the worst times of my life, someone I latched onto for comfort without truly considering if our relationship had what it took to make it for the long haul? Just because we’d been together for years shouldn’t have been the only reason to get engaged.

  And after the grief, I wondered if I hadn’t somehow forced him to ask. Our three-year engagement and the fact that we’d already postponed the wedding twice for ‘work reasons’ were red flags, if I’d needed them, that all was not hearts and flowers.