by Teagan Kade
We had friends back home, people we’ll never see again, but that’s the price that had to be paid for our freedom. I can’t imagine any way it would ever be safe enough to go back.
I take a deep breath, turning and lining up a wave, paddling away. “They will find us,” I reply, “but when they do, I’m ready”.
A wave rises up and I paddle hard, Lux disappearing. I take off, drop fast and deep into the pocket. My hand pushed through the face of the wave, all thought lost to the ocean.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LUX
You can do it. You can do it.
Through the water I see a distorted Deacon watching over the pool, hands on his hips.
I thought ass-to-grass squats were bad, but this… I blow out a stream of bubbles and continue to carry the boulder across the bottom the pool, the end looming.
Come on. Come on.
My lungs are about to blow, my thighs burn with hellfire, and the rock finally taps the end of the pool. I spread my legs, letting it drop and releasing the dive belt.
I break through the surface gasping.
Deacon’s nodding down at a stopwatch. “Almost three minutes.”
I grip the edge of the pool scared if I don’t I’m going to join the boulder on the bottom.
This is probably the tenth time I’ve been in the pool training. We’ve been out here for hours some days, running drills and wrestling, lifting that damn rock and carrying it like the world’s heaviest baby, and all for what? To surf the unsurfable, to make my dad proud.
Yep. Big tick for insanity right there, Lux.
Deacon reaches down with a hand, I take it. He pulls me from the water and my legs are so weak I almost collapse onto him before steadying myself, hands against his chest.
He looks down but doesn’t try to remove them.
Slowly, I peel them away, still panting from the training. “Sorry.”
He’s smiling, more and more at ease with me every day. “No problem. I’ve got something else hard and heavy you can wrap your hands around later.”
I slap him in the chest. “Quiet. Your brothers will hear.”
“Like they didn’t hear you last night? You’re small, but when you come, damn. It’s like Thomas the Orgasm Engine passing by.”
I slap him with both hands. “I made it to the end by the way.”
He nods. “I saw.”
“So?”
“I guess you’re ready.”
I clap my hands together. “About time.”
“Not so fast, Hollywood. We’re going to wait for some moderate conditions at the Bluff, check it out before you pop your cherry when it’s really pumping.”
I press up against him, let my wet body soak through his shirt, my nipples pulling tight to attention. “Speaking of pumping…”
He holds me away. “Meet me in the shower.”
“You do know you can see into the bathroom from my bedroom, right? There’s this gap in the wall that’s—”
He winks. “I know. Thought you’d enjoy the peepshow.”
He leaves me with my mouth hanging.
“Don’t start without me!” I call.
*
Shipstern Bluff’s not working, so we head to Little Stern in the afternoon to work on my form.
We float on our boards between sets.
“It’s so peaceful out here.”
Deacon continues to stare into the distance, hands on his hips just like at the pool. “Compared to Cali, you mean?”
I’ve never noticed, but I swear his wetsuit is about two sizes too small. I splash water onto the surface of my board, watch if peel off. “You know what the popular waves over there are like. You’ve got to fight off fifty people to even get one. Don’t even get me started on Hawaii.”
Deacon nods. “It is nice having it to ourselves. Beats me how no-one’s noticed this place given the internet. I mean, there are guys surfing Antarctica for crying out loud.”
“You sound up for it?”
He laughs and points into to the ocean. “Swim about fifteen-hundred miles that way and you will be in Antarctica, but no, it’s not for me. I prefer my balls plum-sized, not fucking peas.”
I eye him. “I don’t know. If they were smaller maybe it’d be easier to get them in my mouth.”
He splashes water at me. “Whoa there, Debbie Does Dallas. I’m saving the kinky shit for later.”
“Who said I was vanilla?”
He scoffs. “Come on. You’re telling me you’re into, what, bondage? You want me to show you my Red Room and say ‘Laters, baby’ whenever we part?”
“Okay. So I’m pretty vanilla, but maybe I want to become a little more sexually adventurous.”
“Good.” He gestures to the incoming set. “How about we get wet first?”
*
So far the pub’s barely seen more than ten people at a time, but tonight it’s jammed packed with box-shaped guys wearing sports jerseys taking up almost every table.
Behind the bar, I find a frantic Sarah doing fifty things at once.
When she turns to face me I see she’s ghost white, sweating like a pig in a bacon factory. “Busy tonight, huh?”
She hands over a beer. “Bloody football bus broke down up the road. Some idiot told the lads about this here watering hole and, surprise, here we are. Welcome to Hell.”
She leans against the bar panting.
“You okay?” I query.
She holds her stomach. “To be honest, I feel fucking terrible. Word to the wise, never buy oysters from Bob Williams.”
“Go home. I’ve got this.”
She looks around. “Are you a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic? There must be fifty of them here horny and half-starving. Are you going to service them all by yourself?”
I take a glass and begin to pull a beer. “We’re not going to hold a gang bang if that’s what you’re asking.”
She waves. “Fine, fine, but any trouble and you call me. I’ll come down here even if it’s in a hospital bed, and any major trouble, call Sergeant Wilson.”
“Will do.”
I watch Sarah disappear out the back door and turn to face hordes at the bar. “Who’s next?”
A redhead jumps onto the bar and drops his pants, holding his cock. “Me!” he shouts, much to the amusement of his friends. Thankfully, his football buddies drag him back down, but it doesn’t stop them coming.
An hour in and I realize I’m way out of my depth.
A lumberjack-looking individual with unruly beard is eye-sexing me from the corner of the bar. “Bet you’ve got a tight little set of titties under that top. Am I right?
I roll my eyes and keep pouring.
What were you thinking?
The phone goes. I pick it up with one hand and tuck it against the crook of my neck and shoulder.
It’s Deacon. “Hey.”
“To what do I owe this?”
A glass smashes, someone calling ‘more beer!’
Deacon sounds concerned. “Everything alright over there?”
I continue to pull beers. I pass one over, my cherry-faced customer looking far from pleased at the lack of head on it. “Actually, it’s kind of insane right now. A bus-load of football players managed to get lost out there and decided to storm the place. Sarah’s gone home sick, so it’s just me.”
“Where’s my fucking beer?!” a guy shouts down the bar. “How about you get off the fucking phone and put that cute little ass to work, huh?”
Deacon flares up. “I’m coming over right now.”
“I don’t want a fight, Deacon. I’ve got enough on my hands without handing the bar back to Sarah in pieces.”
“I’ll help you serve.”
Now it’s me laughing. “You? Behind the bar. That would be a change.”
“Do your best. I’ll be there in five.”
He hangs up.
Here we go.
True to his word, Deacon arrives in exactly five minutes, pulling next to me behind th
e bar and throwing a towel over his shoulder. He looks my way, winks and takes a glass. He pulls a beer like a pro, sliding it up to the customer, who pushes it away. “I wanted hot tits here to serve me, boy-o.”
Oh fuck. Wrong thing to say, but surprisingly, Deacon keeps his cool. He leans across to the guy, gets right in his face. “You want a beer or not?”
Begrudgingly, Mr. Angry takes his beer and heads down the back to join his friends, all of whom have burst into an impromptu performance of Five Hundred Miles by The Pretenders.
I look across, shouting “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”
He shrugs but can’t help the smirk. “I help Sarah out on occasion, did a little bar-tending back in my day.”
“‘Back in your day.’ It’s not like you’re looking to retire, is it?”
He winks. “Don’t let this handsome face deceive you.”
I poke my tongue out, stashing a wad of bills into the till. “Just shut up and pour.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Half an hour later and we’ve managed to get on top of things. These footballers might be oversized, sweaty jerks, but they’re not short of a dollar. I can barely close the register it’s so full.
Come eleven PM and they’re standing in a circle singing the Australian anthem, hands to their chests.
Deacon comes up beside me cleaning a glass. “And I thought Americans were the patriotic ones.” He flicks his head towards them. “What do you think? Would you go one of these guys?”
I laugh. “‘Go’ one of them? I’m not into the whole more-muscle-than-brains thing.”
He flexes his biceps, taps his forehead. “What about a guy with the best of both worlds?”
I jump behind him and whip him in the ass with my towel. It makes a solid crack.
He looks at me shocked. “That was a dirty play.”
I mock-pout. “I’m all about the dirty play, baby.”
“I bet you are. Here.”
Deacon takes a bottle of Jack and adds a finger or two to a tumbler, adding coke on top. He slides it across the bar to me. “On the house, dirty girl.”
“I don’t think Sarah would be too pleased about that.”
Deacon smiles, reaching into his pocket and slipping a hundred dollar bill into the cash register. “That should cover it. Now drink up. Everything’s a little better when you’re drunk.”
“Not sex.”
His eyes burn. “I beg to differ.”
I roll my own and pick up the tumbler. I haven’t had a Jack and Coke since I was back in college, haven’t had drunk sex since those halcyon days either. Something tells me sex with Deacon is always great regardless of his state of inebriation—dirty, rough, primal pounding. My core tightens with the thought. Careful now, Lux. You’ll wet more than your panties thinking like that.
The funny thing is, the Deacon I’ve come to know is so far removed from the asshole surfer I first encountered at Shipstern Bluff when I arrived. He thinks, he feels. He fucks.
God, I shouldn’t be thinking this way at all, and guys like Deacon? You can dress them up and comb their hair all you want, but that’s never going to stop them being bad. Trouble’s in their DNA.
The bus driver enters and cups his hands around his mouth, announcing the bus is back in order. There’s a boisterous cheer from the football players. They head out in a pack cheering and singing, no doubt the entire town of Finke awake by now.
I look down at my watch. Midnight on the dot.
Another glass smashes. I flinch.
I look around. The place is trashed.
Deacon grabs a broom from under the counter. “Come on.”
It’s certainly easier with two people. Before long the place is looking good as new save for the sweat-and-beer odor that seems to permeate every surface.
Deacon locks the front door and sits up on the bar, patting the spot next to himself.
I jump up, legs kicking in the open air, hands gripping the edge of the bar. “Quite a night.”
He swings himself backwards and runs his finger along the kaleidoscope of bottles at the rear of the bar. “What’s your poison? Sex on the beach? Fuzzy fuck shot? Blow job? Pink Wink? Kiss On The Lips?”
I choke, coughing. “Excuse me?”
“Cocktails. What’s your fancy, or do you prefer something a little more bespoke for that refined palate of yours?”
“It’s midnight, I’m exhausted and you want to make me a cocktail?”
“Hell, yes.”
I’m too tired to argue. Thanks to training my arms feel like they’re lead, my legs just wrecking balls swinging back and forth. “Fine. Surprise me.”
I bring a leg underneath myself on the top of the bar and watch him work. I think he was downplaying the fact he used to bartend. The guy’s Tom Cruise in Cocktail, flaring bottles, tossing them behind his back and up in the air.
He turns, holding a shot glass out.
I take it, holding it up to the light. “And what, do tell, is this called?”
He leans against the back of the bar with arms crossed, biceps thick, his shirt struggling to contain their girth. “Dick in the dirt.”
“Charming.”
“Bacardi, Schnapps, Jager, Turkey and grenadine. It’ll put hair on your chest, that’s for sure.”
“Can’t say you’re making it any more appealing.”
“Just take the damn shot, will you.”
I kick the shot back and slam the glass down, coughing and spluttering. “Whoa. Quite a kick.”
He finishes pouring another, handing it over. “A wet pussy, to wash it down.”
I’m shaking my head as I take it off his hand. “You’re not going to join me?”
He picks up a similarly colored shot of his own, clinking it against my glass. “To first times.”
I laugh. “To first times.”
The ‘wet pussy’ is a little more manageable, but by the time we’ve worked our way through a G-spot and Junk in Da Trunk, I’m well on my way to full drunk, tipsy in the extreme.
We both stand facing each other behind the bar, the lighting dim and Deacon somehow looking better and better by the second.
Any filter I had is lost. “Sarah is going to kick your ass when she finds all her shit gone,” I slur.
Deacon leans close. I don’t think the shots are having any effect on him. He takes out another hundred and opens the till, tucking it in.”
I pick up another shot, bright yellow, and down it. “You never told me where all this mystery money is coming from, big boy?”
“Big boy?” he laughs, “and here thinking girls didn’t care about size”.
“Shut up and answer the question, cowboy.”
He smiles, close to cracking up. “Okay. We inherited it.”
I throw my hands around, the shot glass that was in my hand collecting the wall somewhere to the right. “From who? Scrooge McDuck-a-Luck?”
Good one, Luxy.
I really laugh at this. It’s hilarious.
“Our parents,” Deacon continues. “Remember how I said they were super rich? When they passed, everything fell to me, including the responsibility of looking after Dumb and Dumber.”
I roll my eyes, the lights above swinging back and forth, the two Deacons staring back at me too serious for this time of night. “Way to kill the mood.”
“The mood?”
“You’re giving me all sexy eyes and big arms. Don’t you deny it, baby.”
He takes my flailing arms and places them by my sides, his fingers hot around my wrists and his body so close I can scent his masculinity, the soap and sandalwood, salt and Sex Wax. “How about we ease up on the cocktails.”
I swing my head forward and manage to head butt him somehow. “Ow.”
He rubs his forehead laughing before his eyes lock with mine.
I freeze. Oh oh. He’s giving you the sexy Jesus eyes again. Powers of resistance slipping.
We’ve slept together, countless times now, so why does this
feel so strange, like a first kiss all over again?
I spread my legs a little if only to ease up on the sudden tension and heat building between them.
He releases my wrists and places one hand on the swell of my hip, using the other to push an escaped strand of hair over the back of my ear, his face closer and closer, so so close. “You’re fucking beautiful, you know.”
“You’re not yourself bad.” Did that even come out right?
He smiles again, the bad boy James Dean show broken for a second. “You really think so?”
I look around. The whole place is lurching and rolling. “Can we get off this ship soon?” I ask.
He raises an eyebrow. “You want to get off, do you? I suppose I can help with that.”
I stumble forward, hands fanning out on his marble chest. I flick my eyes up to his, my lips parted and open, my breathing coming in short pants and my pussy turned into the Pacific below. One of my hands slides down his chest, keeps going until it tucks into his trousers, my fingers fishing for his cock and finding it hard and ready. He watches me carefully.
I run my hand down until I’m cupping his balls. “So soft.”
“That’s not how I’d describe it.”
His hands run down the back of my jeans, cupping my ass. He lifts me onto the bar, our eyes level and wanton.
Holy fuck. I’ve never been so horny. I lightly pump his cock in his pants, love the silky way it twitches hot in my grip.
I lean forward, eyes closed, the kiss imminent, but just when I expect to feel his lips in mine, gravity begins to disappear. I’ve tried to kiss his face, but it seems I’ve ended up about six inches to the right, nothing but air.
He catches me before I fall off the bar completely, hoisting me over his shoulder. Dimly, I hear him speak. “Let’s find a bed before you wind up with facial injuries.”
I’m too busy checking out his ass. I bring my hand up and swat it, the spanking sound it makes highly satisfying. I really want to do it again, but the ship’s turning and sleep’s beckoning.
I look down at the way his ass cheeks roll together under his jeans, his boots scuffing in the gravel outside.
Sleep, my concrete head commands, so I submit. The last thing I see as I lift my head is the pub growing smaller and smaller, a black smudge in the night.