I see when she remembers what is first on the list. Her eyes widen. “Ah…no, not in order, no.”
“Chicken.”
“Am not.”
“Are to.”
She frowns and purses her lips. “Fine, in order, then,” she huffs. “But, I’m bringing my own safety razor and shaving cream. Do you have any experience with shaving Mr. Harper? Miss Kitty is very sensitive and I would hate to have a mishap down there.”
“M-miss Kitty?” I grin when she crosses her arms and nods. “I shave my f-face every…day, babe.”
“Umm…what about STDs?”
“What about them?”
She scratches her head. “Well, I’ve never been with anyone except Carl, but there is the Allen factor. I think you should require a health certificate from me. I can go to the free clinic, tomorrow. They are pretty….”
I watch her, bemused as she goes on about the free clinic and what is involved. I’m not worried about her or me. Hell, my dick hasn’t been combat ready for over two years. Prior to that, the Army checked us regularly. I know I’m cleared for action.
“Holiday…stop. Holiday?” She pauses and looks at me.
“Yeah?”
“When was the last …time…you were with C-carl?”
“Last time as in intercourse?”
“Yeah. Fadoodling, h-horizontal refreshment, m-monkey love, fucking.”
A flush starts above her breasts and works its way up her neck to stain her cheeks the color of a ripe watermelon. “Umm. I can’t remember.”
“More than a month?”
“Yeah.”
“More than s-six months?”
She nods.
“More than a year?” I know my voice is becoming incredulous and it’s not helping her embarrassment so I try to remove all emotion and simply do a countdown. “More than eighteen months? More than two years?”
She sighs. “Yeah. I honestly can’t remember, Max. It’s been awhile. But I don’t know if, maybe, he was with, you know, Allen? I won’t feel right until I have a screening for STDs. The free clinic is very good about getting results back in a week.”
“I haven’t had s-sex with anyone…for…three years. Before t-that I … was clean.”
“Whoa.” The little cutie next to me simply blinks.
“Yeah. I was combat f-forward or … in some hospital stateside.”
“So, it’s been awhile for both of us.” The biggest grin spreads across Holiday’s face.
As per usual with this woman, I have to grin back. “How about t-that Holiday. We’re BAVs. Born again virgins.”
Chapter Five
This morning my backpack contains, among other things, two Frisbees, two bottles of water, two beach towels, sunscreen and a travel size Gillette Shave Gel for Sensitive Skin—it has a neutral scent—with a four-pack of Gillette razors. I’d originally selected Skintimate Signature Scents Flirty Mango, but had second thoughts. Do I really want Miss Kitty to smell like a flirty mango? What if Max hates mangoes, even the flirty kind?
A warm glow has buzzed below my navel since yesterday afternoon. I can’t think about what I hope will happen after lunch. Even with his halting speech and physical injuries, Max is sex incarnate. I can’t believe I kneed him in the balls and ruined what had all the promise of an out-of-this-world make-out session. Chalk it up to being in the moment, lost to reality, whatever.
Putting my feelings for his owner aside, I’m looking forward to seeing Snafu and I quicken my steps down the beach when I see two profiles in their usual place.
“Hey, Max!”
He waves back. When I reach them, I squat and give Snafu some head noogies.
“I thought we might spend some…time in the p-pool today,” Max says. “Throw the b-bumpers for Snafu.”
“Works for me, boss.”
He grins and I take his offered hand. We sit side-by-side on the edge of the pool and throw Snafu’s mallard bumpers, over and over and over. Snafu never tires. Our conversation is light and easy. Max tells me about teaching Snafu to retrieve. It seems his family has always had retrievers and he knows quite a bit about the process. The change in Max’s speech pattern as the morning wears on is amazing. As he forgets himself and relaxes, he stops stuttering and speaks in an almost normal rhythm, as though brain and mouth are finally communicating. I’m not about to draw his attention to his improved articulation. I’m simply happy that he’s at ease with me. Max leaves for a couple of minutes to answer the phone and Snafu drags his water-logged body to his dog bed and collapses, his head on his feet. What a cutie.
I swing my legs in the water and count my blessings. I cannot believe I’m being paid for this gig. If I were in a position to refuse the money, I would. It doesn’t seem right to take money for spending time with Snafu and Max. They are such a joy. Unfortunately, my savings account haunts me with the reminder I don’t have my first semester tuition and enrollment is two weeks away. I am determined to make something of myself. It’s frustrating. As hard as I try, as much as I scrimp and save, my goal always seems just out of reach. I’m beginning to think it won’t happen—ever. Horse-hockey! I refuse to acknowledge such a defeatist thought.
Max rejoins me and stands smiling down at me. “Come on, Hol. Let’s get some lunch.”
“Wow. Is it that time already?” I glance at the clock on the cabana wall. Sure enough. “Goodness, the morning has flown, and for once, I think we’ve worn Snafu out.”
He looks to where Snafu splays on his dog bed, a mallard bumper on the ground next to him. His toes twitch as if he’s retrieving in his sleep. Snafu sleeps the sleep of the innocent. Awake one minute, gone the next.
As we sit at the kitchen bar eating, I want to question Max about his military career. I am curious, but I don’t know how much I can ask without bringing back bad memories. I sit on my bar stool and try to figure out a good opening. I have no idea what Max is thinking. We both sit and eat in comfortable silence.
“Have some of the cantaloupe. It’s sweet.” Max motions to the fruit and I pop a chunk in my mouth.
“Mmm. Good.” I reach for another piece of melon.
“Did you bring your shaving cream and razor?” he asks around a mouthful of salami. When he turns to look at me, his eyes gleam with mischief.
Eeek! My second slice of cantaloupe hangs mid-air when my hand halts on its way to my mouth. I carefully swallow. I put the cantaloupe back on the plate and wipe my fingers on a napkin. “Mmmhmm.”
He laughs quietly. “We don’t have to do…anything. It’s your bucket list.”
I run my hands down the sides of my shorts to dry my palms. “I want to.”
It’s a sign of how easy I feel with Max that I confessed I had a sex bucket list—well that and the man is just smoking. Nevertheless, a bald Miss Kitty is a big step for me. I’ll be naked and spread out and…! Okaaay, that’s enough for the visuals. I take a big breath. “I just wasn’t prepared. One minute it’s cantaloupe and the next minute…” I shrug and grin.
“Why don’t you get…comfortable and I’ll deal with this.” Max indicated the wreckage on the bar.
“Okay,” I chirp and hop off the bar stool. If my heart beats any faster I’m going to faint. I’m practically hyper-ventilating by the time I reach my backpack by the front door. Ain’t no way ‘comfortable’ features in the next few minutes. This is such a bad idea! I’m brain to mouth with no filter. I must learn to filter. Not be so impulsive.
“Aggh!” I leap into the air, startled by Max’s hands on my bare waist. The shaving cream and razors I’m holding fly across the room. Max cracks up laughing. His strong, tan arms wrap around me. He turns me in his hold and pulls me into a gentle hug against his bare torso. He smells like sweat and sun. I want to lick him all over.
“Babe, relax. If you don’t want to, say so.” He puts a knuckle under my chin, tips my face up and meets my wide-eyed gaze. “I want you to have fun, not freak out.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Would…you feel better�
��if I blindfolded you?”
“Maybe? I don’t know.” I snuggle into Max and wrap my arms around him. “I want to be all brave and adventurous and daring, so please ignore my nerves. I’ve been looking forward to this.”
He considers me for a moment and frowns. “Hmm.” His arms release me. “Hop on the couch. Let’s watch a little TV and just talk.”
Disappointment replaces my nerves. I’m so let down. I’ve done it again…gone and spoiled the moment. I flop down on the couch while Max retrieves the razors and shaving cream and then comes to sit next to me. He pats his lap. “Right here, babe.”
I get in his lap and wrap my arms around him and we watch TV. Or, at least, the TV is on. The man is a foreplay ninja—skilled in stealthy, deadly attack. From the moment I’m relaxed in his lap, his hands are busy pushing my buttons, not the ones on the remote control. He feathers his fingertips over every part of me within reach. He doesn’t miss an inch of exposed skin. At the same time, he places mind-blanking kisses on the column of my neck and under my jaw and culminates by ravishing my mouth. We haven’t even gotten to the first commercial in “Unlikely Animal Friends” on NatGeoWild, when I forget all my previous awkwardness.
“Max, please. Touch me here.” I take his hand and place it between my legs.
“Trade places with me, Hol.” When he stands, I sit where he’s been sitting. “Take your shorts off.” I shimmy out of my cut-offs, twirl them around my finger and launch them across the room. He grins. “Hello Kitty panties? Cute, Hol. Take them off.”
I hook the sides of my panties and wriggle out of them. They, too, are sling-shotted across the room. My reward for bravery shines from Max’s eyes. His lust is my Medal of Honor.
“Now your top.”
I reach behind me and pull the strings that release my bikini top. The girls spring free in all their 36C bounteousness. Max groans. “You are so f-fucking beautiful, babe. Not having wild monkey sex with y-you for a week will be …next to impossible, but I’m a man of my word. Spread those thighs. I’m going to give Miss Kitty a s-shave.” He grins. “Among other things. You’re not leaving here until I make you come so hard you s-scream my name.”
What can I say to such dedication to duty? I can’t think of a darn thing.
He pulls up an ottoman, situates himself between my knees and breaks open the four-pack of razors. He lays them on the end table next to us, beside the travel-size can of shaving cream …and a mixing-bowl of water? How did I miss that? He must have brought it in before I freaked. He shakes up the aerosol can, squirts some in the palm of his hand and smells it. “Clean and neutral. Nice.”
“How do you feel about flirty mango?” His eyebrows rise in response to my question. “Nevermind…”
Max nods at me solemnly and then proceeds to drive me ape-shit. He smooths the creamy soap all over my groin, between my legs and up to my anus—everywhere I have hair—and only where I have hair. My clit is hairless and surrounded by sensitive hairless flesh. I’d forgotten that little detail. His conscientious, methodical application brings me to the brink of begging him to abandon the shaving and get me off!
After he covers Miss Kitty and her surrounding cast in white foam, he sits back and inspects the area he’s prepped. He rinses his hands in the water bowl, dries them on the sofa cushions and then selects a razor as if he were an open-heart surgeon selecting a scalpel.
I squirm as I whimper, “Max, pleeease, finger fuck me...please, please, finger fuck me.”
He shoots me a happy little smile, flourishes the razor and begins gently scraping my groin with the care of a jeweler faceting a diamond. My inner slut struts on stage and shouts cuss words. I have no excuses. She has a potty-mouth. By the time Miss Kitty is as bald as Vin Diesel, Max has teased me to the brink of orgasm.
The soft strokes that almost touch my clit are the worst. When Max finishes and drops the third razor in the water bowl and rinses his hands, I could come if he breathed on me. Max simply grins and parts my swollen lower lips with his thumbs, and exposes my aching clit. “God damn, Holiday. You’re so pretty.” He holds me with an intent stare and gravely announces, “Rangers lead the way,” before closing his lips and tongue over my clit and sucking gently.
I go off like the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima in those old newsreels from WWII. Yeah. That could have been me. When I regain conscious thought, Snafu is raising a ruckus at the door, barking and scratching to be let in, and Max slumps on the ottoman in front of me with a look of gloating male satisfaction.
“I woke the dog?”
“You were pretty loud, babe.”
“Did I scream your name?”
He gravely shakes his head. “No, babe. You didn’t scream my name and you know what that means.”
My eyes widen.
“We have to do it again.”
Max kept his promise.
Chapter Six
When I recover from The Rapture—it had to be The Rapture, I saw God—Max slips his arms under me and carries me into his bedroom. I wrap myself in his 1200 count sheets and snuggle next to him. He lies on his back, eyes closed. His mouth—God’s gift to women—smiles. I’m blissed out, and desperately want him to feel the same way. He can’t possibly be comfortable—not with that erection outlining his shorts. I prop up on my elbows and carefully wiggle up to peer into his gorgeous face. “Max?”
His eyes open and smile at me. “Mmm?”
“Wow, Max…just…wow. You’re really good at that.”
He grins. “I enjoyed the hell out of it.”
“Yeah, about that. Umm, I want to make you feel good too.”
His eyes sparkle and his grin widens. “What did you have in mind?”
“I’ve always been good with my hands.”
“Knock yourself out, babe.”
“I’ll be right back.” I wiggle off the bed, keeping the sheet wrapped around me. Why am I being so modest? Max has seen everything. I’ve been in his face, so to speak. I drop the sheet, toss it back onto the bed and pad to the kitchen dressed in nothing but my tan lines. I return with a bottle of sweet coconut oil I’d seen in the pantry. Max props up on the headboard with his arms behind his head. His eyes never leave me as I walk toward him. Between my legs, a happy buzz starts up again. Down girl. It’s his turn. “Do you mind smelling like coconut?” I hold up the oil as I get on the bed.
“I like coconut.”
“This might get a little messy. We’ll have to change the sheets.”
Max laughed. “It will be worth it.”
“Okay. I need you out of your shorts.” My fingers creep up to the buttons on his waistband. My curiosity runs amuck. I feel like I’m six years old and unwrapping a Christmas present. Max sucks in his already trim waist and I unbutton and unzip his shorts. He lifts his hips so I can slide them off. Surprise! Out springs Mr. Happy, reporting for duty. So…no boxers or briefs. I peel my eyes off the largest penis I’ve ever seen—not that I’ve seen all that many—okay…I’ve only seen one other, and glance at Max. “Wow. Umm, you certainly give a woman a lot to work with.”
His gentle, bemused expression warms me. “You going to be okay, Holiday?”
I smile and nod, and pet his cock from the broad, pink, flared head—the same pink as my nipples—to the base of his shaft. Hi there, Cock-a-saurus Rex. Let’s be friends. The monster bobs in agreement. Miss Kitty waves a hand in hello. “He’s beautiful, Max.” I think my awestruck comment takes him by surprise.
“That’s a first,” he says laughing. “My dick has never been called beautiful—other things, but not beautiful.”
I simply grin. I don’t mind that he’s laughing at me. He appears carefree and boyish. I kneel between his legs and pour a stream of coconut oil on his abdomen. With both hands, I thoroughly oil all the parts of him I intend to make very happy. I start by cradling his balls in one hand and working them gently. I grip his shaft with my other hand and glide from the base of his shaft to the head in a twisting motion then back. Repeat twenty tim
es.
“Oh fuck…that’s good, Hol.” Max props up on his elbows to watch my hands. He enjoys what I’m doing because occasionally his hips surge forward to increase the pace. I take his cue and speed up. His head falls back and he groans. “Harder, babe…fuck…don’t stop.”
I don’t. I keep a firm, steady rhythm that I know will get him off. His back arches. “Holiday! Fuck!” His cock pulses and white cum jets onto his chest. I gentle my grip but keep stroking until he shudders and relaxes to the bed. “Fuuuck,” he groans. “Damn, Holiday.”
I lay my head on his groin next to his shrinking but still impressive erection and snuggle into the vee of his legs. We both lie there for long moments. I didn’t think it possible, but I’m turned on again. What I just did with Max is some kinda sexy. I love seeing his face as climax overwhelms him. I gave him that pleasure. But, what makes the act poignantly beautiful is that it’s Max. I’ve known Max Harper for three days, and I am crazy in love with the man.
***
For once, my mind and body feel ecstatic, and it’s all due to the precious girl tucked between my legs—the one with her head resting inches from my born-again dick. I’m sure the “born-again” element factors into my euphoria, but there’s more to it than that. I’ve had a shit-ton of HJs—either by my hand or someone else’s—pretty much a daily occurrence before I got “blowed up”. None of them prepared me for what it feels like to have Holiday’s hand wrap me. Fuck. It’s a lightning strike of undiluted pleasure straight to the dick.
I’ve seen a bodacious number of naked women, and other than the last three years, I reacted like any normal male. But I have no precedent for the mind-blowing sight of Holiday spread out naked on my sofa. That sweet girl revs me higher than jumping out of a C-130 at five hundred feet. I’m more at ease with her than I’ve been with anyone else on the face of this earth and I’ve only just met her. Combine that with her rocking body and she simply destroys me. I’m content to wait until she gets the paperwork from the free clinic for full immersion. She seems to think we need it, and that’s enough reason for me.
Undertow: A compilation of short beach stories Page 28