by Claire Adams
“Not so fast,” I teased, smirking.
“Please, Abby,” he whispered harshly. I slid down onto him slowly. His head fell back, and he cursed, fisting the covers. I felt myself stretching to accommodate his size. He fit so tight. I leaned forward against him and ground my hips. My hands went to his chest, leaning into him so I could ride him.
I wanted to take my time, but that wasn’t going to happen. He pinched my nipples, making me scream. He thrust upwards powerfully to meet my every move. I could feel my orgasm building, burning like a fire at my core.
I leaned back, balancing my weight on his thighs so I could bounce up and down on his cock. I moaned, feeling him fill me even deeper. I was so close, but I didn’t want to come before he did. I sped up my movements, hearing his breathing become erratic and quick. His hands dug into my thighs.
“Fuck, Abby. I’m going to come,” he said. I rode him wildly, fucking myself on his cock. He groaned, shuddering below me as he came.
The sounds of his pleasure made me hotter than I had known I could get. I felt his thumb roughly rub my engorged clit, and I was finished. I exploded around him, collapsing forward with a scream. My body spasmed with erotic aftershocks as the wave passed over me.
I panted, trying to catch my breath as I lay on his chest. He was still inside me. His hand lazily rubbed my back. This felt right, laying in his embrace after giving ourselves to each other. Everything was here and now and powerful, and we could be present without thinking about anything else. When we were like this, I could pretend this could last. I kissed his chest gently before shifting my weight off of him.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"I'll be right back. I just want to clean up," I told him. He let me go. I walked quickly to the bathroom and rinsed off under the shower, careful not to get my hair wet. I wrapped myself up in a towel, then took it off. I didn't want to hide from him. After that? I couldn't.
I had only had a handful of sexual experiences, absolutely due to the fact that I had never really acted on any interest in the past before. I didn't feel like an inexperienced half-virgin when I was with Nate. I felt alive and powerful enough to ride him and take my pleasure from him as much as I gave to him.
I liked feeling wanted and sexy. That was how he made me feel. I walked back outside and quickly grabbed a long t-shirt from my closet before climbing back onto the bed where Nate had waited.
He was back in his underwear, lying on his back. He smiled at me as I settled next to him.
"Was that your plan this whole night?" he asked.
"What if it was?"
"Then I didn't know you as well as I thought, Abby," he said with a smirk. "I thought you were innocent."
"Oh, no. Far from it," I laughed, rolling my eyes.
"Maybe I should leave more often if that's how you welcome me back," he joked. "Again. What I said that night... I would give anything to take it back," he said seriously.
I sat up, crossing my legs and looking down at him. "Why did you tell me to leave that night?" I asked.
He sat up against my bed's headboard and pulled me into him so I was leaning on his chest. His big, warm hand rested on my hip, playing with the fabric of the t-shirt.
"I didn't want to. I had been planning this amazing night for the two of us. When we were at dinner, I kept getting those phone calls."
"I remember," I said.
"When I went outside to talk, I told you it was someone from LA. That wasn't the whole truth. It was Kirsten…my ex-wife.” He paused like he wanted to give me time to digest that. I gently stroked his chest, feeling his fine chest hair under my fingers.
“We were married for three years before getting divorced earlier this year." He paused again, taking a deep breath. I felt his chest rise and fall under my face.
I knew that he had had a wife. The relationship hadn't been that public; no wedding special on E! or anything like that, but it wasn't a secret that Nate Stone had been married. My focus had been more on his music than his personal life, but some details I had been aware of. I kept quiet, though, so he would keep talking.
"She and I... We have a pretty bad relationship. There's no nice way to put it. She was one of the people I was running from when I came here. She hadn't contacted me in a while, but the last time that she had, she had been laying into me, telling me I wasn't worth shit and that the band was better off without me.
“This time on the phone, she was all nice, saying she wanted us to get back together when I went back to LA." I stiffened, lifting my head to look up at him.
"Are you still seeing each other?" I asked.
"No. We haven't lived under the same roof for months," he said. "I don't want to get back together with her. I told her to fuck off, that I was on a date. She wasn't happy about that," he said, scoffing darkly.
"What did she say?"
"She called me a bastard for leading you on because I'm leaving the island at the end of the summer," he said. I lay my head back on his chest so I wasn't looking at him anymore.
There it was. The truth that was somehow a little worse than him simply not wanting me anymore because he was done with me.
"You aren't leading me on. I know you have to leave," I said.
"That doesn't make it better. I really care about you, Abby. I know I've hurt you already, but I didn't want you to believe I could give you something that I couldn't. I still don't," he said. I sighed, touching his chest.
"But you came back," I said.
"I couldn't stay away knowing I still had you close enough to touch," he said quietly.
"Then that's all that matters," I whispered. I closed my eyes concentrating on the feel of him under my hands and warming my body. He was here. Here and now, this moment was what mattered.
I didn't want to keep having this conversation because I already knew he wasn't mine to keep. I didn't need to spend the precious moments that we did have basically planning to lose him. I wasn't going to do that. I was going to be present in these moments because they were what I'd have to hang onto even when he had left. They were mine. I had them even if I wouldn’t always have him.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nate
Abby was really beautiful when she slept. Since getting off the dope, I had gotten a lot better at waking up early. Today, I had woken up in Abby's bed, at her place, which I realized I liked a hell of a lot more than waking up in my suite.
Though, it was more that she was with me and less the place we were, really. I just wanted to be near her. It had been a long ass time. What the fuck had taken me so long to come back to her?
I watched her face. Peaceful and smooth. Really pretty. She didn’t have freckles anywhere else besides her nose and cheeks.
This was so creepy. I knew that, but I couldn't stop. I hadn't had her this close in so long. My eyes ate her up. The slope of her nose, chin and jaw. I touched her there softly; the soft skin where her throat met her neck.
There was that scar. I touched it lightly, feeling the tougher, raised skin. She didn't seem to have any others, at least none as noticeable as that one. It wasn't ugly or anything; it was just in a place that was hard to ignore.
She moved, exhaling deeply. I watched her face scrunch before she stretched her back and her eyes opened. She squinted, looking up at me before cracking a small smile.
"Hey," she said sleepily.
"Hi. Did I wake you?"
"Mm-hmm. But that's okay. I need to be up right now, anyway. I could feel you touching me."
"Sorry," I said. "I was looking at this," I said touching her scar again. "Must have been some accident." She shrugged from her position down on the bed.
"Could have been worse. Could have gotten attacked by a shark," she joked.
"It looks like it really hurt," I said. She sat up.
"It happened a long time ago. Do you have any plans today?" she asked.
"I was hoping for a repeat performance of last night," I said, smirking.
"That sou
nds great, but I have to go to work," she said, getting up. She went to the bathroom then came back out, walking to her closet. I didn’t take my eyes off her. Watching her get into her clothes was just as good as watching her get out of them. She glanced over and noticed me looking, blushing bright pink before turning her head away.
"Can't believe I lasted a whole month," I said to myself, looking at her.
"You found other ways to keep yourself busy, though, didn't you?" she asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you're a hot guy in his twenties. You have the pick of the litter." I frowned. Did she think I had been seeing someone else?
"Abby, I haven't seen anyone but you since I got here."
"It doesn't matter if you have. I just want you to tell me. Full disclosure. No judgment. You're on vacation."
"Have you been seeing anybody else?" I asked. She turned to look at me.
"No. You're the first man I've been with in over a year. I don't expect you to treat me any differently because of that. I just want you to be honest with me."
"I am being honest, Abby. I haven't slept with anyone else since I got to the island."
"Why?" she asked.
"Huh?"
"Why not? Why haven't you slept with anyone else since you came to the island?"
"Because half the time I was too strung out to care, and the rest of the time I couldn't get it up for anyone but you," I said. She leaned her back against her open closet, looking at me on the bed.
"Why did you come back to me, Nate?" she asked. Her eyes looked scared and unsure. What did she think I did when we weren't together?
"I really like you, Abby. I care about you."
"But we barely even know each other. There are so many things you don't know about me and I about you." I stood and walked over to her.
"I know you helped me through one of the hardest nights of my life and dealt with me when I was a mean, angry asshole strung out on dope. I know you're kind and good. You love people, and you do things for them because you actually give a fuck.
“I know I don't know when your birthday is or your parents' names, but I want to know. I'd like to get to know you better, Abby. A lot better." She smiled a small smile that was a little sad. She leaned up, cupping my face, kissing me lightly on the lips.
She closed her closet and walked over to the back door, shooting me one more smile before leaving for work. Was that a yes? It definitely wasn't a no. Maybe it had been a little long and she was just scared or something.
Whatever it was, she had nothing to worry about. I had already made the mistake of pushing her away once, and I was not a big enough idiot to do it again. I grabbed a glass of juice from her fridge and got dressed, wondering what to do that day. It wasn't like when I could just steal her away from her job and spend the day exploring the island with her.
We had to do that again. I'd probably have a hell of a better time now that I was sober doing it. Her, too, since she wouldn't have to worry about whether I was feeling sick.
I wasn't dumb enough to think that I was on top of the world now that I was clean. The actual using was gone, but the desire to do it wasn’t. It was still there, but I was stronger than it, finally. Something had finally become a bigger priority for me than using, and that meant I wasn't a slave to my addiction anymore.
Maybe my optimism would taper off eventually, but I was still feeling really good about things. Even better now that Abby and I had made up. I got dressed and left her house, heading up to the resort and back to my suite. I took a shower and had breakfast before calling a private car company Keno told me about.
I barely even had to think about where to go now. I found myself drawn to the Garden of the Gods more and more. It was just a place I felt like my problems couldn't touch me. The first time I went there with Abby was the first time I remember feeling truly unburdened, and I felt it every time I went after.
The trip there could be a little easier, but it was always worth it. It was the middle of summer, and it had gotten a little hotter than it had been when I had gotten to the island. I hadn't gotten any new clothes, but I cared a lot less about people seeing my scars now. I didn't really care what anyone thought. It didn't matter.
There weren't a lot of people around when I got there, which was a good thing. I liked walking the perimeter so I could see that weird contrast between the beach, plants, and trees and the bare red soil of the rock garden. It didn't make sense, how it was so bare, just there in the middle of a regular landscape, but there it was.
I never did shit like this when I was back in LA, even though the option was totally there — hiking and taking walks. Going out in nature to be alone. Nope, that was something I'd picked up when I'd come to Lanai. Huh. That was odd.
It was like here in Lanai, I got out a lot more, I was less stressed, and I was taking better care of myself. Weird. It was like I was miserable in LA and hadn't realized it till I had gotten here. If there was a competition between the two, LA was losing, big time.
I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. Great. Who was I going to ignore now? I pulled it out waiting to see Kirsten's name since she was on a roll calling me at exactly the right time to ruin everything. It wasn't though. It was my father. I put the phone to my ear, happy that he had called.
"Dad?"
"Hi, Nate, you're up," he said, a little surprised. "I thought I'd have to try again later." I laughed. My days had started after noon for a long time.
"Yeah. I figured I was losing too much daylight getting up at noon all the time."
"That's great. You sound like you're having a good time."
"Great time actually. You actually caught me thinking about how much I don't want to come back to LA."
"Gotta come back to work some time," he said.
"Yeah," I said shrugging, wondering what work even really was anymore. "How are you?"
"Busy."
"Maybe you should take a break," I told him. He laughed.
"Maybe I should come there. Sounds like it’s doing you good."
"It is. I actually stopped using about a month ago. I feel great."
"That's great news, son," he said.
"Yeah. Maybe before I have to come back, I'll have all the band shit figured out."
"Just take it easy the rest of the time you're there," he said. "You'll figure it out."
"Thanks, Dad," I said. We talked a little longer before I let him go to get back to his work.
He was the one person on the mainland I actually wanted to see again once I had to leave Lanai. Poor guy. He should have gotten a son who liked wearing suits and working in offices. He was a champ, though. I would have probably self-destructed a long time ago if I didn't have him.
That brought the number to two: my dad and Abby. Everyone else could die in a fire; I didn't give a fuck. They probably knew the most about me after myself. Abby had nursed me through my withdrawal for fuck's sake; she'd seen everything.
I thought about her at work. Was she busy tonight? I didn't know. I didn't know a lot of things. I had just been to her house for the first time yesterday.
I knew she had a scar on her neck, was a kind and beautiful person, and what her kisses tasted like, but....that was about it. I didn't even know her middle name. Where was she born? Did she like peanut butter crunchy or smooth? I wanted to know. How had we known each other this long, and I had never thought to ask her any of that shit? That definitely had to change.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Abby
You're kind and good, Abby. I don't know when your birthday is or your parents' names, but I want to know. He wanted to know. He cared enough to want to get to know me.
I couldn't believe I was doing this again, but how could I not? I knew this wasn't permanent, but what in life was? This was what I wanted, and now I knew that it was what he wanted, too. I wanted to spend time and get to know him, as well. We still had some time and we wanted the same thing so...why not? Just this once, why not?
"Hey," I said. She turned and smiled at me.
"Hey. Did you get the notice from Joseph this morning?" she asked me.
"What notice?" I asked. I hadn't been paying the best attention, I realized.
"No desk duty today. We're taking a group out hiking," she said.
"Really? Cool," I said, shrugging. I walked over to my locker and started changing.
"You're in a good mood today," she quipped.
"I'm always in a good mood."
"I'd say a little better than usual. It couldn't be because of a certain guy who I left you with last night, could it?" she asked, grinning at me.
"I could ask you the same thing," I shot back. "Did you make it home last night?"
"His place was closer," she said shrugging. I laughed.
"Okay, I want details," I said.
"Well, when we got there, we talked a lot. We really managed to clear the air and talk about what we both still wanted from each other," she said coyly.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, skip to the good part," I said. She laughed.
"It was amazing," she gushed. "I swear, I didn't even realize how long it had been until we were back in his bed."
"Has he picked up any new skills since you were last together?" I asked cheekily.
"It was new since it had been a while, but it all felt so familiar. Our bodies just fit, you know? That part of the relationship had never been a problem. It felt like that was what I'd been missing."
"Sex?"
"Well, yeah, but not just that. Keno. Him as a person. His jokes, his weird stories, his company. The sex was incredible, but I feel like something bigger happened. I think we reconnected. I think we might be ready to give it another shot."