Julia shook her head. “That’s the part of the story you find shocking?”
“Jesus, no.” Blake exhaled through his teeth. “That’s the only part of the story I can wrap my head around without exploding.” His arm was around her and his grip tightened protectively. “I don’t know how you three got through that.”
“I feel like I spent so much of my twenties under water. Sometimes I wonder what college would have been like if I wasn’t—” She stopped abruptly, biting her tongue. The last thing she wanted was to say anything bad about Liz. So why was she talking like this, so free with someone she’d known for a matter of days when these were things she’d been holding onto for over a decade, alone?
“If you weren’t what?” he asked, and she knew then why she was talking. Because he would listen and cared what the answer might be. He didn’t know it in advance or have his own version to tell. He wanted to know her story, because it was hers.
She thought about the things she could say. About the time she and Danny spent looking after Liz, who retreated so deeply into herself that sometimes Julia wondered if the girl who dressed up in sequins and bossed her dolls around at tea parties would ever come back. Or how vast and terrifying her world became, and she so small and alone, that long night listening to Liz cry herself to sleep only to wake up still crying, and keep crying for years before she was finally able to stop.
But instead she said simply, “It wasn’t a great introduction to sex.” And in that one wry line, her lips pursed and frowning, she felt like she’d summed up pretty much all there was to say.
“You were…?” Blake trailed off.
“A virgin,” Julia finished his question. “Danny, too.”
“And did you…?”
“It took us a long time to work up to it,” Julia admitted. “Longer than it probably otherwise would have, in normal circumstances.”
“You were afraid.” It wasn’t a question.
It wasn’t something she normally talked about with people. There were so few men besides Danny that she would have had a reason to share anything about her sexual history with, and she always felt it was something she would have been judged for. For taking her time, for thinking sex was something that wounded more than it salved, for needing to know from whomever she was with that it didn’t have to be violent.
“It took so long for us to finally do anything. We were around each other nonstop and yet for him to first kiss me was epic. But I knew it had to be him. It was like it could only ever be with him. Because I always felt like…like he was the only one I knew I could trust. What if everyone harbored a secret Mark inside, and I’d think I knew who I was with but then one day I’d turn around and see this whole other person come out?”
“But you already said you didn’t like Mark,” Blake pointed out. “I mean, not like you can tell that about someone. But you knew there was something about him that was bad news.”
“I know, and it’s not like I can go around assuming that everyone is a Mark until they prove they’re not, or assume that even if I think I trust them, there might still be this dark side lurking around. But it was hard not to feel that way for a long time. Danny was a good big brother. Yeah, he mostly ignored us when I was over, but I knew what he was like in the family. He was protective, the kind of guy who looked out for his kid sister. He was devastated by what happened, not just that it happened to Liz but also that people were capable of these things at all. Some people who knew or found out later tried to rationalize—oh, Mark was drunk. Oh, he thought Liz still wanted to go out with him. But Danny knew that was bullshit, and he couldn’t understand.”
She paused for a minute. “He’s a nice guy, Danny. He really is. But it was like we were afraid of each other. Afraid of what sex might do.”
Blake stroked his hand down her cheek and rested his forefinger lightly on her lips. She bit the pad of his finger lightly. It was nice to see him smile, after she’d made the evening so heavy instead.
“And now?” he asked quietly.
Julia swung one leg over him so she was lying on top of him, her hips straddling his, her dress cinching up toward her waist as she felt the front of his shorts press between her legs. “There are good thing about growing up.” She kissed him like she’d been wanting to all night, as though they were alone in the world, the only two souls on the beach.
“Is Liz okay?” Blake’s voice was pained.
Julia thought for a minute. “Liz is busy getting back the years she lost. She calls it her ‘second adolescence.’ Really it’s her new college years. I think she’s making up for the fun she didn’t have, the sex she never experimented with, the dates she didn’t go on when she was young.” Julia laughed. “She’s having more fun than anyone else I know, that’s for sure.”
Blake’s hands were sliding down her back now, getting progressively lower as she spoke. “When did you start making up for lost time?”
“I think I just started this week.”
“I hope you’re having fun.”
She inhaled the scent of him, the salt on his skin. “Maybe this is what you do all the time, but I guess it’s okay to admit to you that it’s a little new for me.”
“Mmm, which part?” he asked, teasing the fabric up her skirt to expose her thighs to the moonlight.
“Let’s see…fucking a stranger, fucking a stranger in Brazil, no wait—fucking an Australian stranger in Brazil. Fucking in a pool. Fucking under a waterfall. Hopping a bus to an incredible city and wandering around with no set itinerary and—oh yes—fucking some more.” She lowered her voice, loving how delicious it sounded to say everything they’d been doing. Loving even more how much Blake seemed to obviously delight in her saying it.
“Are we about to fuck some more?” he whispered, sliding his hand under her skirt to feel—yes, she’d put on thin lace panties, black this time, and it made her pulse quicken to feel his fingers pause at the fabric and then hook under the band, groaning and pulling her toward him.
“God, I hope so,” she whimpered, not sure how she could go from pouring her heart out to unspeakably horny in a matter of minutes. Was that, too, what intimacy was? Not just being without clothes but being without boundaries, moving fluidly from one state of openness to another, following the conversation wherever it turned?
“I’m not sure this counts as new anymore—I’m not a stranger, am I?”
“Not since I Googled you,” she teased, and he yanked on her panties in response.
“I still want to be a little new,” he breathed. “I still want to excite you.”
“Let’s admit that fucking is new, and so everything you do to me is exciting.”
In one swift motion he flipped her over so she was on her back in the sand and he was pressing his weight into her, making sure she could feel his cock through his shorts.
“You didn’t fuck Danny?” he said, his face in the shadows but his eyes alight.
“Danny didn’t fuck.” She looped her fingers through Blake’s empty belt loops and pulled his hips to her. “Poor Danny.”
“What did Poor Danny do?”
Julia bit her lip. “Poor Danny made love. He was always so sweet. He would never, ever fuck me.” She pressed her lips to his ear and whispered, “No matter how badly I begged him to.”
“You begged for it?” he asked, his voice catching, his cock rock hard against her hip.
She shook her head. “You’re the only one I beg to fuck me.”
That did it. His hand was up her skirt in a matter of seconds, his thumb pressing against the crotch of her panties to feel her wetness seeping through.
“Inside,” he said. “Now.”
When they were back in their hotel room, their clothes were off so fast Julia couldn’t believe nothing ripped. Blake paused for a moment to enjoy her in her panties, but even those were off before she knew it as she lay back to take him in, feeling his mouth hot and searching where his cock soon followed.
He fucked her like she’d
always wanted, hard and fast and slow and sweet and dangerous all at once. He fucked her until the sweat poured off their bodies. He fucked her until she was completely gone, her body a fire that knew nothing but how to consume.
When it was done, she slept as though she’d forgotten everything—who she was, where she’d been, even her own name.
She slept like she was ready to wake up new.
Chapter Fifteen
Friday
Blake felt Julia stirring and rolled over to see her sleepy eyes blinking at the sun streaming through the thin curtain covering the window.
“Sleep okay?” he asked.
“God yes.” Her smile was heaven, everything glowing. He could tell how much she’d enjoyed last night. He’d hardly been able to keep his hands off her in the elevator. As soon as they’d reached the hotel room he’d slammed the door behind her and thrown her up against the wall, lifting her up so her legs wrapped around him. Lifting her up so he could get at that tiny, lacy nothing under her skirt.
Her hair tousled and streaming, sand everywhere from where they had lain on the beach. Her neck arched back, her lips parted, her mouth whimpering as he fumbled with his belt. Her nipples so hard between his teeth.
Just the thought of how hot he’d been for her last night was getting him aroused again. Julia noted it appreciatively as she turned in the tangle of sheets to reach for him.
“What do you want to do today?” he asked. It was December thirty-first. They had a long night ahead of them ringing in the new year on the beach. But it was hard to stay sleeping when the whole city was beckoning them.
Hard to stay in bed but for the fact that Julia, instead of answering him, was wrapping those sweet, swollen lips around the head of his cock once again.
“Mmm,” she groaned as he slid farther in. Her pleasure and the eagerness with which she sucked him drove him insane. Last night when he’d carried her from the doorway and dropped her back on the bed, she’d taken over yanking off his shorts so fast he was powerless to stop her. She’d slid to her knees with her shirt half off, letting him pull her hair up to feel it cascading through his fingers while she took him deep down her throat.
He had understood at last what she was giving to him: all of herself. That was what existed beneath the mask she wore. That was what she’d withheld from other men. Her passion, her pleasure, her joy. What made him so special he couldn’t say, but she seemed to have decided she could trust him. Whether it was despite the fact that they wouldn’t see each other again or because of it, he didn’t know and didn’t ask. All he could tell was that her frenzy made him want her more and more. He turned her around on the bed so he could lick her wetness while she worked his cock.
She ground her pelvis over his mouth, working her clit against his tongue while his fingers found the places she wanted to be touched. At the same time, she swirled her tongue over his tip and then plunged her mouth over his shaft, up and down, up and down, as he felt the orgasm build.
“I can’t believe I still have anything left in me,” he groaned as she cupped his balls. He could feel her smiling with her mouth around his dick.
“What? You only came twice last night. I’m trying to even the score.”
Blake laughed as she locked her lips around him once again. It was true. He couldn’t believe how much she’d come. In his mouth, on his fingers, clenched around his dick, and then again as his tongue lapped her up. He had felt every single one and the force with which they shook her. When he finally lost control himself, he was sure it was the hardest he’d ever come, first in her mouth and then, when she’d worked him back up with her tongue, deep inside her, holding her legs up while she grasped the headboard with both hands, hips bucking up to meet him, everything begging him to give it to her deeper, harder, faster until he was gone.
She wasn’t working on him too hard right now but he could feel himself approaching the edge. The ground was hurtling toward him faster and faster, the moment of impact closer and closer. Gently he drew her off him. Her lips were swollen, eyes glassy with pleasure, skin radiating heat.
“Too close,” he panted, and she grinned with a look that he knew poor Danny had never seen. That pure, unadulterated desire that said there was no thinking, no judging, no rationalizing, no doubt. Just desire and need, and no chance for walking away.
“Come for me,” she urged, stroking his cock.
“I want you to feel it, too,” he said, not wanting to hog all the morning’s delight.
She shook her head. “You have to give me a rest.”
Again the memories of her shattering orgasms last night, one after another. Her teeth on his shoulder when he held himself up on top of her. Her hands digging into his hair.
“I can’t believe there isn’t some part of you still ready to go.”
He saw her blush and knew he was right. He lifted her up and flipped her so she was lying on her back in a sea of pillows, naked legs spread before him. She hooked her heels around his thighs and pulled him toward her, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as he smothered her with his weight. He was rock hard and the taste of her lips only made him feel further out to sea, rolling about in a tangle of sheets, completely unmoored.
He worked his lips down her body, over her neck and to each breast, tickling down her side, across her belly, into the divots of each hip. Between her thighs, over her knees, down to the tips of each toe. Had he ever adored a woman like this? Slowly, taking his time, knowing he had all day. All night. As long as he wanted—until four p.m. the next day, when a bus and then a plane would take her away.
He had to get in as much of her as he could. There could be no chance for regrets.
When he kissed his way back up her thighs, her legs parted, trembling in anticipation of his tongue. He ran his mouth over her and started sucking her delicate clit. A moan escaped from her lips.
“Tell me what you want,” he panted. The view when he looked up at her was stunning, especially when she raised her head to look down at him, locking his gaze over her breasts.
“I want to come,” she said breathlessly, her words and the sureness with which she said them making his cock strain against the mattress where his hips were pressed. She had been so shy before, as though it was wrong to take what she wanted. He hoped he had given her a gift she could always use.
But would she be this way with another man? The thought made him cringe, and then a ferociousness rose in him.
She might, but it would always have been the first with him.
She seemed to be awaiting his instructions, forward yet obedient all at once. And so he gave her what she wanted, which was to be his.
“Touch yourself,” he said, reaching for her hand to draw it between her legs. “Touch yourself for me.”
Her eyes widened, then narrowed playfully. “That’s what you want?”
“I want to see you make yourself come.”
He thought she’d protest, but a shy smile curled across her lips. She began circling her clit with two fingers, moving right where she liked it. She saw him looking and spread her legs wider so that he could see the pink of her lips where her fingers slipped in.
Two red spots blossomed in her cheeks, her breath quickening with every touch. Her hips shifted beneath him, rolling to the rhythm she had made. He grabbed his cock in his fist.
“I’m going to come when you come,” he whispered, pumping harder now, his hand keeping time with hers, the two of them trying to come and yet trying to hold off, too.
She let out a whimper, caught her breath, and then another moan escaped her lips. “I’m getting closer,” she said as though it pained her, a wincing sort of pleasure searing through her the more she touched.
He leaned forward on his left arm so his body was arched over her, his right arm pulling furiously as he brushed the tip of his cock to her stomach.
“Let go,” he whispered soothingly. “Let it go.”
She pinched her eyes shut as the first waves tore through her. He
knew she was coming by the way her breathing deepened, her panting turned to wails, her cheeks bloomed, and her hand jerked furiously across her clit drawing out the sensation. When he knew she was at the height of her pleasure, he released. Cum spurted across her stomach, over her nipples, between her breasts. He worked his shaft, drawing it out, shuddering over her body as she gasped with her own aftershocks and the warmth on her skin. The way it felt when he looked at her, really looked at her… He leaned down and kissed her forehead, her ear, her cheek.
“Shower?” he finally whispered.
“That was hot,” she whispered back.
“Now what do you want to do today?” He pretended to bite her nose.
“Something fun.”
“I’m sorry but there’s really no way I can go another round right now.”
She laughed. “I meant something else fun.”
“Such as?”
She grabbed his wrist and dragged him out of bed, heading straight to the bathroom.
“I want to do something I’ve never done before,” she called from behind the shower curtain, through the steam and spray of water as Blake hung the towels by the bathtub for when they got out.
When he stepped in, the water was blissfully hot and her hair thick and wet down her back.
“Something new?” he verified as he reached for the soap and lathered it over her body.
“Something I haven’t done before. Something I might never do again. You know, something that says last day in Rio!” She laughed and rested her cheek between his shoulder blades as she washed his back. “Something I’ll remember when I’m home.”
Home. That one little word. How could it hit him so hard?
She sounded like she’d be ready to go back. But despite all he had planned, the itinerary he’d pieced together to account for every minute, every mile, every piece of his once-shattered heart, he suddenly had no idea what he would do when he said good-bye and put her on that plane.
But she was looking up at him expectantly, holding her palm out for the shampoo, and he knew this wasn’t the time to ask about what “home” meant for the two of them.
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