by N. Alleman
I’ve never been much for the sound of children’s laughter, but hers is beautiful. I hug her tight and when I see Olive watching us I wave to her. She walks over to join us, beaming.
My phone keeps vibrating.
“Who’s that?” Olive smiles. She nuzzles her head against my chest, and I press my chin down against the top of her head. My arms go under hers and I hold her close. I drop one hand to grab Lark’s though, and she coos—I could never forget her.
She wasn’t in my life for three years. Olive wasn’t, either, but I was searching for her. I never knew about Lark. Now that I’ve got them, I’m not going to let either of them go. Ever.
“No one.” I kiss her forehead, and slide my hand down so I can hold her hand too.
“Now.” I pull away from them both and flash a grin, making my daughter giggle again. Olive just rolls her eyes, bumping against my shoulder with her shoulder with pretend agitation.
“Hey.” I bump her back and make eye contact with Lark. “I thought we were going swimming.”
Lark squeals, and the phone call is forgotten.
My toes dig deeper into the sand, and I consider throwing my phone into the water. For fuck’s sake, Coach keeps calling me.
I tell myself it doesn’t matter, but it does.
Olive grabs my hand, initiating contact before I can.
“Hey.” I grab her hand, tighter, pulling her entire body to me. We’re sitting on a bench, just having left the beach. All three of us are wet. We just threw our clothing on over our swimsuits, and the people who sit on the bench after us probably aren’t going to be too happy, but I don’t worry about that.
“That’s my job,” I say, squeezing her hand and reminding her that I’m always the one to go after her first, even when she pushes me away.
“Whatever,” she says, but her voice is quiet and her lips turn up into that small smile that tells me she’ll do as I ask. Lark runs over and dives across both of our laps.
“Ouch.” I feign pain, and they both laugh. Maybe if I keep up the humor, neither of them will notice anything is wrong. But Lark turns her head to me and starts tugging at my sleeve, and all the comments I’ve heard about how smart children are run through my head.
“Let’s get some ice cream,” I suggest.
“Is there ice cream this far out in Santorini?” Olive’s eyebrows crinkle and she looks at me, wondering where I’m going with this. I just shrug as Lark squeals, knowing that there’s a few things people love, and ice cream is universally one of them. Usually. I wonder if Lark’s favorite is strawberry, like Olive’s was when we were kids. I wonder if Olive’s favorite is still strawberry and if she still hates chocolate with a passion.
“Probably.” I grab Lark off of my lap and carry her, looking at Olive for a second before I grab her too and throw her over my other shoulder. It’s only a minute walk into town, and based on the way Olive throws her hands against my back, I can tell she loves it.
If only this could last forever …
When we get back to the villa, it’s late. We pass off Lark to Selena, and then walk up the stairs to our room. Olive is tired, too, her arms reaching out to me for cuddles.
“Today was wonderful.” She closes her eyes as she stretches out on the bed. She’s gorgeous, and I want nothing more than to climb on top of her and feel her body mold with mine. I lean over the side of the bed toward her body so that my chest lightly brushes against hers.
“It was.” I kiss her forehead, but suddenly her eyebrows crinkle together.
“You were distant all day, Axel.” Her hands bunch together in my shirt and she reaches for me, trying to pull me close to her. I can’t let her. I take my hands and place them on her shoulders, keeping her away from me, no challenge considering how much stronger I am than she is.
“I know, baby, I’ll make it up to you.” I rub her shoulder lightly. “It’s all going to be okay. I promise.”
Out lips meet in a deep, sweet kiss full of promises. I want her to know I’ll stay with her forever. From the way she was looking at me, I can tell she thought I was going to leave.
That will never happen. Ever.
“What’s going on?” She opens her eyes again, this time putting both of her hands in my hair as her fingers rake over my scalp. I feel a shiver through my spine and my cock hardens, and all I can think about is taking her now.
But I can’t.
It twitches, and she notices. She’s stripped down from her swimsuit and lying in her bra and underwear under the sheets beneath me. I’m still in my shorts, long-since-dry but clinging to my body from how wet they were after being in the ocean for hours.
“Axel …” she whispers so softly I have to strain to hear. Then she bites her lip wantonly, and I know she wants my cock. Just like I want her pussy desperately. “What’s bothering you?”
I growl, grabbing both of her arms and turning her body so that I hold them behind her back. I take another hand and push her head gently to the pillow, almost like she’s sleeping.
“Nothing. I’ll tell you in the morning.” I nip at her neck, kissing her lightly and nibbling against her skin. Comforting her, but letting her know what I want …
“I’m wet. Not like you,” I tease her, pulling myself away from her body as she trembles beneath me. “I need to go change.”
“Okay,” she says, not moving from where I placed her, and I like that.
God, I love her.
I get up, acting like I’m turning the corner of our room to go to the walk-in closet just down the hall. I don’t feel great about sneaking around behind her back like this, but it’s not like I’m cheating.
I walk down the stairs as quietly as I can and sneak out the door, pulling out my phone to finally listen to the voicemails—nine of them now—from Coach Parker.
17
Olive
Axel isn’t the same boy he used to be, though in some ways he is. He’s been gone for about five minutes, and I close my eyes. I’m about to drift off to sleep thinking of him when the door opens.
My eyelids flutter open, knowing exactly what I’ll see. There’s something about the athletic, graceful way that Axel moves that turns me on.
I’m a mess.
But I’m his mess.
He’s changed from his swim shorts to a loose pair of sweats. They’re navy, more loose-fitting than I expected them to be when I saw them at the bottom of his suitcase, but they look great on him.
“Axel,” I whisper. He looks over at me, and I realize I’m still lying on the bed, almost naked.
My whole body flushes.
“Olive,” he says tenderly. He was distracted today. Something was going on, but he’s okay. He has to be. Like he said, we can talk about it in the morning. But I don’t want to think about that right now.
His hand brushes over my cheek and through my hair, and I shiver in anticipation.
The place between my thighs tingles, and I know I won’t be able to control myself with him touching me. But I don’t want to control myself, and I don’t want him to stop. His hands caress my body over the sheets, and I just wish he would pull the thin piece of fabric away from me and make love to me.
Finally, after all this time, we’re together. But we’ve been so busy bonding and exploring, that we’ve only been intimate once.
My desire for him drives me insane. I crave his body more than anything. My mouth drops to his shoulder, kissing him and moving so he can slip his knee between my thighs and push them open, to get to me like he wants. But he doesn’t.
Instead, he brings his hands under my shoulders and slips them over to my back, pulling the sheet away from me like I was just wishing he would a few seconds ago.
With a sigh I wonder if he’s reading my mind.
He kisses me on the lips again, short and sweet. Not as deep as I was expecting, and I open my mouth to protest. He takes advantage of that, using my open mouth to claim me with his tongue, and I can’t get enough of the taste of him.
He pulls me out from under the blankets and turns me so I’m beneath him. He throws himself down on top of me—fully, instead of just a light touch—and I wonder if he’ll crush me, even though I know he would never hurt me.
I feel him unclasp my bra, and my face grows warm, and I wonder if it’s because of embarrassment or because of his proximity.
“Stop squirming.” He bites down on my shoulder, harder than usual but not cruelly.
I’m not sorry. I’m just desperate to get as close to him as I possibly can.
When he removes my bra, I raise a hand to help pull it away from my body.
He growls at me, taking my hand from me and bending it behind me again as he moves his mouth down to my chest. He showers the skin there in kisses, moving down to my nipple as he sucks it between his lips. I feel it harden into a little point and I groan again, my hips rising to meet his as I raise myself up from the bed.
Finally.
I’m going to have him inside me again.
But he pulls away from me, and I cry out with a begging mewl that sounds desperate even to me. But I need him. I need him to fill me, and I don’t care how embarrassing it is for him to know that, as long as he knows and takes me as his. He grabs my hair at the base of my scalp, pulling my hair so I look up at him.
“Olive,” he grins. “You don’t need to be upset. Please, baby.”
His eyes narrow with lust. He’s not sorry for me.
“I’m horny as fuck and I’m going to make you mine, don’t worry,” he says, grabbing my thighs and pulling them open so my panties draw tight over my sex making my wetness even more noticeable.
I whimper and try to close them so he can’t see just how much I want him, but he doesn’t let me. He looks up at me, his jaw tightening as he takes a hand and smacks me right there between my legs.
It’s light but my hips buck from the shock of it.
Then he grabs the undersides of both my thighs, throwing my body up and over his shoulder like he carried me down to the ice cream shop in Santorini earlier. But it’s not the same. It’s more possessive, as if he’s carrying me so people would know I’m his. But there’s no one around, except us.
I gasp in horror as we walk down the stairs, and I hope he’s not intending for us to do this on the couch. I want him more than anything and I wouldn’t say no if he did, but if Selena and Lark saw us, that would be the end for me.
But he doesn’t. He walks right past the sofa and out the door, and as soon as we’re out of sight of the house, he lays me down gently onto the sand.
I’m breathless with lust as his hand trails up to my upper thigh, spreading my legs apart again. He rubs my sex over my panties until I’m panting hard and I soak them. Then he rips them off me, and suddenly I’m naked, the cool night wind tickling every part of me.
My nipples grow harder in the cold and he smiles, kissing from one to the other one, sucking them both into his mouth as desperately as he can.
He’s on top of me again, my back against the sand as another hand moves between my thighs. He clutches my sex completely, stroking the cleft there in circles as I moan for him. I run my hands down his arms, then reach for his cock.
When I find it and wrap my fingers around it, his eyes close and it’s his turn to groan. Stroking his shaft I ask, “Can I taste you?”
His eyes widen at my boldness, but I can see he likes the idea because he positions his cock in front of my mouth. The mushroom head staring at me, I say, “Teach me.”
“Gladly.” He swallows. Then offers his dick to me. “Lick it first. Get it all wet.”
Eagerly, I use my tongue to bathe his cock, lapping up and down the underside. When I come to the place just under the head he exhales loudly and says, “There. That’s the most sensitive spot. That’s a good place to use your tongue.”
I nod my head and get back to work running the tip of my tongue over that spot.
“Mmm. Now put it in your mouth.”
Slowly I began to work his cock into my mouth. I knew enough to know I should move it in and out, so in my mind I pretend like my mouth is my pussy and I just take him in the way I would want.
His breathing slows, and I love the feeling of power that comes over me as I discover what my mouth can do to him. It makes me see why he loves to get me so worked up. It’s exhilarating getting your partner so excited.
After a few minutes, he removes his dick from my mouth.
I’m about to complain, when he says, “Don’t worry. I’m going to fuck your brains out now.”
And he slides his super hard dick, well lubed with my saliva, straight into my dripping wet pussy. His entry is swift and steals my breath away. Suddenly I’m filled with him, and my heart is just as full.
I throw my arms around his neck, kiss him, and cling to him for dear life as he pounds into me, hard and fast at first. Like he couldn’t hold back any longer.
Then, just when I thought I was going to have to let go, he slows the pace so much I want to scream with the ecstasy of it.
He works my body like he’s known me all my life. Somehow, he just knows how to wring the most exquisite orgasms from me.
I come over and over again. It’s cold out, and we’re each other’s only source of heat, so we don’t mind. We kiss and make love over and over, savoring each other’s bodies, hoping the night will never end. We stay there, entwined, together as one. It’s beautiful, perfect, and right.
So right, that we stay there until morning.
18
Axel
We’re both covered in sand. Olive is so sleepy and beautiful, her eyelashes flutter as she wakes. She cuddles closer to me once she finds we’ve drifted apart in our sleep.
I let go of her and stretch my arms over my head, causing her to moan in protest.
It’s not that I want to be away from her. I’ve got something mischievous in mind. I clutch a handful of sand and try not to let too many grains escape. Then I raise my hand above her head and drop the sand into her hair before I tap her on the forehead, grinning.
“You’re a mess,” I tease her, my eyes scan her body, and I can still see all the kisses I left there last night. She blushes, like I’d hoped she would, and I run a hand down her neck. It isn’t even sexual. I just want to touch her, and I let her know it.
“I can’t believe you did that to me!” She bats my hand away with a smile, her voice rising. Then she picks up sand and throws it at me, and we’re play fighting, careful not to get sand in each other’s eyes.
“Whatever.” I flick her forehead. Fuck. I’m way too soft. But only with her. “More importantly,” I cough, changing the subject from my supposed inability to defend myself, as she says, “we need to figure out a way to get back to the house without being seen.”
It’s early morning now. The sun is up and people will be here, and there is no way I’m sticking my dick back in those sand-filled boxers now. I don’t expect Olive will want to put her clothes back on, either, not that she was wearing much in the first place. I reach out and grab one of her nipples, hard, and watch as sand falls from her skin.
“See,” I growl, feeling my cock getting hard again. “You’re a mess.”
She reacts to my touch immediately, squeezing her thighs together and reaching for me.
In my head I debate the wisdom of taking her again right here on the beach. On one hand it’s daylight and someone could come along and see us. On the other hand, I don’t give a fuck. Hell, it might be hot having someone watch while I claim Olive as mine. I do want to fuck her right now, but it’d probably embarrass Olive for strangers to see her impaled on my cock the way I’m imagining.
So I deny her, keeping distance enough as I tease her pussy with my thumb. She narrows her eyes, lusty and annoyed.
This woman is mine, and she knows it.
I cough again, pretending that I only care about getting back to the house. Truth is, I want to drive her wild, tease her until she’s begging me to fuck her harder than I ever have befor
e. I want to rile her up and then deny her, drive her to the edge.
Definitely. Just not now.
The villa is a way’s up a hill from here, and I can see that we wound up a little farther away than I expected.
We head back, and almost right away, I lift Olive into my arms. I like feeling her there, and her feet are bare. Mine are, too, but Olive is smaller, softer, and I don’t want her to hit a rock and hurt herself. We decide to try to enter the house from a side door, and sneak back to our bedroom through the kitchen.
As soon as we turn the doorknob and step inside, I realize it’s a mistake.
“What the fu—”
“Axel!” Olive silences me with a hiss to keep me from swearing in front of Lark. But I can’t help it. The rest of the word slips out and gets caught in the palm of her hand as I stare at Barry.
My business manager.
“What are you doing here?” Shit.
I finish my sentence, realizing Lark is here, which is why Olive didn’t want me swearing. Olive and I skirt behind a table as Selena grabs Lark and whisks her out of the room, mumbling something about somebody giving her a warning next time.
I watch Lark as she leaves, hoping she hasn’t noticed her mother and I are less than completely dressed. It doesn’t seem like she has, and that’s good, but I don’t get why this guy is here bothering my family.
Except I know exactly why he’s here. I’ve run off from my job to be with them.
Gave no notice, no warning.
No fucks, basically, but I’m working on cleaning up my language since having Lark around.
Barry’s eyes linger too long on Olive, and I snarl at him. He looks away.
I gotta give Barry credit. He’s been there for me and helped me out with a lot of things. I’m pretty sure I have to thank him for most of my career. But he’s not helping now.
He raises his eyebrows, clearly amused and a little pissed off as well. “I’ll give you two a second to get dressed.” He turns his back, but doesn’t leave.