by Coralie Moss
“You were my number one sometimes too. And my other number one was a year ahead of me, and I fell in love with her, hard.”
Anna looked away. She remembered the woman he was talking about. Faint recollections, hazy snapshots rose around her, mimicking the ebb and flow of the great body of water in front of them. “I was a little jealous of her, Danny. That much I remember.”
“We kept seeing each other after I graduated, and she got pregnant. She was in grad school, she had her career trajectory all figured out, and having a baby with me wasn’t in any version of her plans.”
“What happened?”
He withdrew his fingers from the sand and smoothed the surface, picking out bits of shell.
Anna rested her hand atop his and pulled it closer with no resistance. “Danny?”
“I don’t think I can do this right, Anna,” he said, absorbed with marking a precise pattern of lines and dots into the sand. “I make my living walking into people’s homes and telling them what to keep and what to get rid of, and I can’t seem to do that in my own house. Not right now.”
She squeezed his sand-coated hand, gently. “Let’s swim.”
The salt water flowing around Anna’s ankles was balm to her soul. She closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, and let it out. The water swept away from her feet as she exhaled, leaving her toes buried in wet sand. A tiny crab scuttled across the tip of one bright pink big toe before disappearing in the next wave.
Daniel walked up next to her. Others around them were swimming. She kept going until the warm water reached her mid-thigh. She dove. Stroke after stroke, she pulled against the power of the water, needing to rinse away the sadness infusing Daniel’s words. There was more to the story, and he needed to finish it. She needed him to finish it. She raised her head and turned toward the shore when she could no longer hold her breath. Daniel’s dark head bobbed nearby.
“This is fantastic!” she gushed.
Swimming close, he reached for her waist and pulled her in, treading water and smiling as though their conversation of five minutes ago never happened. “You’ve always had a thing for water. I remember.”
Arms wide, bodies bobbing in the waves, salt pungent on her tongue, she grinned. “Do you recall a certain hot tub adventure?”
Ah, youth. When having sex in a variety of locales was on everybody’s bucket lists. And that was before she knew what a bucket list was. Daniel slid his hands under her butt and drew her legs around his waist.
“I do,” he said. “We had to be so quiet. And not move around too much.”
Anna floated, letting sensation buoy her as much as his embrace. The fabric of his trunks floated against her inner thighs, caressing her skin like long strands of kelp against slippery aquatic bodies. Sunshine and memories of the better times with him warmed her heart. She closed her eyes, mouth stretched into a languid smile.
“There’s a very nice pool on my terrace,” she said, hinting where they might go next.
Daniel’s hands cupped her lower back, drawing her closer to his chest. He’d managed to steer both of them closer to shore. When he planted his feet, the muscles in his legs and torso firmed in response. Anna held on as he brought an arm around her upper back and his mouth to hers.
Kissing out in the open while floating in salt water was lovely. Anna had been primed by Liam, and now the surrounding sensory input was making for a grand wake-up call all through her body.
A wave tried to knock them apart. Daniel bit into her top lip as his thumb pressed against her chin. Eyes half-closed, with a grin teasing the edges of his mouth and a hand clenching one half of her ass, his fingers played along the edge of her bathing suit.
“Let’s take this to your room,” he suggested.
“Race you.” Anna sent a challenge to his brown-eyed gaze, swiveled her torso, and flipped, seal-like, into the warm water. She beat him to the beach, grabbed her things, wrapped the towel around her chest, and attempted to outrun him to the hotel. He wasn’t trying to hide his body under a bulky piece of terrycloth and made it well before she did.
Hands on hips, he stood on the terrace at the edge of the beach, sunglasses on, the saltiness of the ocean water drying his hair into wild waves.
“I would have won if we were swimming to our rooms.” She giggled, taking the hand he extended and holding tight while he led them to the open-air stairwell and up to the third-floor landing.
Anna dropped her things by the door when they entered her room. “Shower?”
Daniel followed her into the bathroom and turned the faucets built into the side walls of the shower area. He stepped into the streams of water and stripped, waving at Anna to join him. “It’s easier to get out of your suit in here.”
She stared, her legs gone to marble. Daniel Strauss was standing in her bathroom, in Mexico, naked, lathering soap against gym-ripened pecs and six-pack abs and letting his mildly tumescent manliness just…just hang there, like it was the boss of her shower. And she was standing on the other side of the glass wall, clutching a large towel to her lycra-armored breasts.
Anna dropped the towel and rounded the corner, chin up and her gaze locked on his, praying she didn’t slip on the tiles, pass out, or start giggling uncontrollably.
He kissed her forehead before rotating her back to his front and slipped soapy hands under the suit’s straps, pulling them over her pink-tinged shoulders and down her arms. He cupped her freed breasts from behind and brushed his lips over the exposed skin on the back of her neck. She froze under the stream of warm water and planted her hands on the tiled wall. Her rolled suit was stuck at her hips, and she was stuck between curiosity and caution when he slid his thumbs between her skin and the clingy fabric.
She wriggled her butt free, lifted one foot at a time, and the suit dropped to the tiled floor. Daniel crouched, circled one thigh with both hands, and sluiced the water and fine beach sand down her legs, one at a time. He soaped her feet, washing bits of seaweed from between her toes, and worked his way up her body while she washed the salt out of her hair.
Anna lifted her chest and lowered her defenses while they rinsed under multiple showerheads.
When he brought his hands to her waist and turned her to face him, she shushed the voice urging her to stop and reconsider this whole being bare-assed naked in the shower thing. Quieting that voice got easier as his arousal showed itself in the way his hands skimmed over her face and shoulders and down her arms, in the way he looked at her, and in the way his cock stiffened every time it grazed her body.
Daniel let go long enough to reach behind her and turn off the faucets. She picked up two of the generously-sized towels stacked on the built-in bench and handed him one. They mimicked each other’s movements, squeezing the water out of their hair before drying the bodies.
“Do you like this lotion?” He had tied a dry towel around his hips and stood in front of the mirror, reading the label on the bottle supplied by the hotel.
“Mm-hmm, it smells edible.” She held her towel in front of her, its bottom edge heavy from absorbing water in the basin of the shower stall.
He met her gaze in the mirror, and he tilted his head toward the bed. “Follow me.”
Daniel walked to the far side, peeled back the covers, and dropped his towel, nothing rushed about his movements. Anna glanced beyond his shoulder, to the open windows and the pulled-back curtains, and decided she would at least draw the sheer panels closed.
Diffused light was more complimentary to her skin. Putting off getting into bed with a very naked Daniel gave her time to count a few breaths, just like at the workshop.
Just like with Liam.
She dropped her protective terrycloth shield and brought one knee to the mattress, her breasts swaying. She was far more voluptuous than she had been the last time she and Daniel were naked together. She slipped both legs under the sheet and the light cotton blanket, covered her chest, and cozied herself by his side.
“Did you say something about applying
that,” she gestured to the bottle in his hand, “to this?” She swept her hand over her body’s curvy topography in a playful invitation to continue.
“Turn over.” He must have been watching her. There was an amused expression on his face and a darkening in his eyes. Maybe he’d caught on to her avoidance techniques. His voice going husky, he said, “I’ll start with your back and see where that takes us.”
Anna rolled onto her belly and stacked her hands, elbows wide, resting one cheek on the corner of a pillow, the gauzy curtains floating in and out of view on the warmed air coming in through the sliding glass doors. Daniel folded the bed coverings down to her hips and flipped the cover on the lotion.
“I’m going to warm this a bit first,” he murmured, bending forward on his knees to deliver his message like a silken ribbon caressing her exposed ear.
Slowing down allowed her to relax and expand toward his touch, rather than shy away. He coated her from one shoulder to the other, down the sides of her ribs and over the sides of her breasts, into the dip of her lower back and over the rise of her butt. She closed her eyes as he smoothed the terrain of her body, varying the pressure with each pass of his hands, building a connection through the years, back to when they were lovers, and friends.
She wanted to believe in the truth of this connection. Recent experience had introduced her to a level of communication around consent. Would Daniel be as responsible, even if things between them began to move more rapidly?
For now, it was enough to stay present to sensation and reaction.
He pulled the sheet away, exposing the backs of her thighs, and released more lotion into his palm. Anna’s skin soaked up the moisture and the attention, refilling a deep and thirsty well. She spread her thighs when he shifted position, giving him more space to sit. He pressed the heel of one hand into the base of her right buttock, opening the most private area of her anatomy to his gaze.
“Is this okay?”
Anna nodded, accepting the intimacy of his touch with fluid approval, watching herself relax like her mind was on the shore and her body was taking off for a swim. “Yes. Very okay.”
Would she be as okay if she hadn’t been with Liam first?
She stretched her arms toward the head of the bed, reaching blindly for a handhold. Daniel rose on his knees, stroking her arms until his palms rested on the tops of her hands. He braided the fingers of one hand between hers and settled the length and weight of his body onto hers.
He stroked down the side of her ribs and over her hip and took hold of his erection. She untwined her fingers and reached between her knees while he stroked himself against her exposed and uplifted labia.
Anna stiffened slightly, aware of how close he was to penetration, and how far she was from being ready for that degree of intimacy. “No.”
No, she wouldn’t be allowing this to be happening so soon, had she not met Liam. And no, her body wasn’t ready to meet Daniel’s as fully as he was asking. No, not without more words passing between them.
Her voice was silenced by the sheets. He pulled away. “Did you say no?”
She nodded her head into the mattress. “I’m not ready.”
A new voice had entered her internal fray, scolding her for being lured by the extravagance of Daniel’s gift into giving more of herself to him sooner than she wanted.
“Not ready for sex?” he asked.
“Not ready for sex.” She looked for him over her shoulder and nudged away the pillow he’d propped under her hips. Rolling to her back, she offered an alternative. “Tongue?”
Her thigh muscles tensed when she bent her knees and assessed him through half-opened eyes. He brought his hands to rest on her knees. With a slight outward pressure, he suggested she drop them open to better his view.
His lips and tongue had started the journey down the centerline of her torso, from her sternum to her navel to her pubic bones when she signaled he should stop.
“Daniel,” she whispered, wishing she’d thought to ask before she had to stop him again.
“Yes?” He paused, still murmuring into the skin of her inner thigh.
“I just wanted to let you know I’ve been tested, and I’m clean. That’s all.”
“You taste clean.” He lifted his head. “Clean and a little salty.”
“And you?” she asked, tapping his head with her fingertips.
“I’ve been diligent,” he stated, holding her gaze.
“By diligent, do you mean you’re clear to engage with me sexually without fear of transmitting any diseases?”
His face registered a bit of surprise and the hint of a wicked grin. “That’s exactly what I meant by using the word ‘diligent’,” he said. “Any more questions, or may I get back to what I was doing?”
She stretched and spread her legs. “Be my guest.”
Any whisperings of discomfort were weaker than the murmurings of desire as she reacted to the probing curiosity of his fingers and the gliding action of his tongue. She lifted her hips to moderate the intensity of sensation and sank her buttocks into the bed when she swelled with arousal.
“How’re you doing?” he asked.
Anna arched her spine and let her head roll to face him, opening her eyes half way. “Very well, thank you. And you?”
He rose above her, licked the closest nipple, and entered her easily with two fingers. As he sucked and licked and teased at her breast, she listened for the rhythm that would bring her to orgasm. He moved his fingers faster, and her breathing changed, tangled itself up near her collarbones. She grabbed his wrist, slowing and guiding his pace until she poured over the edge into climax.
Daniel moved the hand he’d rested on her belly. His erection pressed into the side of her leg, vying for attention. She acknowledged its presence—and his need—when she reached to stroke her fingertips over his length from base to tip.
“What would you like?” she asked, eyes closed, body humming.
He reached to cup her nearest buttock. Her muscles stayed languid underneath. She loved orgasming. How had she ever gone so long without regular infusions of sexual contact?
He spiraled her onto her belly. She undulated, belly down, inviting him to sink into her flesh, wanting to feel encompassed and possessed by the man positioning himself between her thighs.
Daniel added a swath of lotion to her lower back and began to ride and slide, up and down, keeping the lubricated skin to skin contact. The pressure of his long, hard legs meeting the backs of her thighs increased as he slid into the dip of her back. Anna squeezed and released her butt in languid waves. She couldn’t invite him inside her, not yet, and this was an extremely pleasurable alternative. For her and, she hoped, for him.
He sank his teeth into the muscle that connected her neck to her shoulder, and hung on, animal-like, until she growled. He followed up by dragging his teeth over her skin and biting, until he found the spot that provided her the perfect balance between pleasure and pain and him the last few strokes to release.
Anna melted into the middle of the bed, her skin coated with a fine sweat and other slippery substances, Daniel’s heartbeat resonating against her upper spine. He slid away from her and the bed and returned with a hand towel from the bathroom, wiping her back and buttocks before cleaning himself. She lingered in the post-coital lull until he covered them with the top sheet and settled next to her, face up, a proprietary hand cupping her butt.
“We still do that pretty well.”
Eyes closed, she reveled in the sensations that continued to spark and flow through her body. Daniel’s hand tightened its grip then relaxed.
“Yes, we do,” she agreed.
He took a few breaths. “Is there anything you desire before I pass out?”
“Right now, I desire to not move a muscle.”
“Then we’re in complete agreement about a very important topic.”
Daniel’s breathing slowed. His hand twitched. Anna turned her head to face him and opened her eyes. His profile greete
d her gaze, the long nose with the slight hook at the bridge, the thick eyebrows, dark brown hairs shot with silver. Fine wrinkles lined his forehead and the corners of his eyes and mouth, but this was very much the Daniel she’d been crazy in unrequited love with for almost two years.
His face softened as he slipped into sleep, his hand still on her backside. He stirred when she lifted her head to admire what she could see of his body under the sheet, the dip of his belly, the rise of his softening cock. He’d kept himself lean and muscular. Refined. Daniel Strauss had always pursued the refined.
And Anna had always left room in her life, in her body, and in her heart for the wild and unfettered.
And that was where the two lovers had finally parted ways when she was on the cusp of twenty. What was that quote about roads diverging, its author preferring the unmarked trail? That was her, at least until the responsibility of kids and parenting took hold and planted her wandering feet firmly on an island in western Canada.
She nestled the side of her head against the pillow. The why of their reunion almost didn’t matter now. It was clear Daniel had at least one great, unresolved question in his life, and the only answer she could provide—if that question was, indeed, about having progeny—was a resounding, “No, not with me.” Regular periods were a thing of the past, and she couldn’t love Daniel enough to even imagine what it would take to bear him a child.
If Elaine was here and they were reviewing the reunion thus far, she was sure her friend would have uncorked the bottle of limited-batch mescal provided by the hotel and poured two hefty shots. They would drink to their long-gone fertile years and toast the freedoms their bodies now enjoyed. Elaine would want a blow-by-blow report on the sexual chemistry. Anna would need another shot before providing her ringside assessment.
If Liam were here…
Anna stopped, turned her head to face away from Daniel. This was neither the place nor the time to imagine what she and Liam might have gotten up to in similar surroundings. But whether to have kids was a current topic for him too, and she’d watched his face closely when he talked about his ex-girlfriend. Intuition led her to believe he was more upset by her comments about his sexual performance than he was about the loss of the relationship. He didn’t seem to be in any kind of mourning for her. He never even mentioned her name.