by Sophia Henry
“It’s not. It’s beautiful.” I reached out and gently placed her arms at her side. Then I took a step closer and put my hands on her waist. My thumbs skimmed the fabric at her stomach directly over the scar. Then I lifted my eyes to hers before I spoke. “Scars are battle wounds. They remind us that we are alive.”
“I don’t want people to ask about it.” She looked away. “I don’t want people to stare and point.”
“Let me tell you something.” I put my face directly in her line of sight and kept moving every time she bobbed and weaved, trying to avoid my stare. Finally she cocked her head and met my eyes.
“If you wear a bikini, people won’t be staring and pointing at you because of that scar,” I assured her. “It’ll be because you’re hot as fuck.”
She laughed.
“Why are you laughing? You know you’re hot.”
My compliments only made her laugh even harder, though I didn’t understand why. There was no question that she was attractive.
Her laughter quickly turned into coughing. She turned her head and covered her mouth with her arm. I placed my hand on her back.
“You okay?” I asked when the coughs had finally subsided. She nodded.
“I spend a lot of time at the hospital,” I said. “I talk to kids with all kinds of sicknesses and injuries. Burns all over their bodies. Tubes coming out of everywhere.” I motioned across my face. “And some of them have such a beautiful outlook on life. Like you, when you aren’t worried about what others will think.”
I grabbed Kristen’s waist and pulled her toward me. “I know you have sadness and darkness and insecurities, but you are a light for everyone who knows you. You make people happy. Your friends love you. They are jealous of you.”
She shook her head and lowered her eyes.
“You have too much life inside to give a fuck what people think of a scar. You are strong and beautiful. You should be showing it off as proof of how much ass you’ve kicked in your life.”
“I’m not a fighter.”
“Yes, you are. But you’re also a lover.” I lowered my hands, sliding them over her backside and squeezing. “A good one.”
“Stop!” She laughed and batted my hands away.
I turned around and grabbed the red bikini off the rack for the third time. Then I picked up a black one. “You will try these on for me,” I commanded, then added a “Yes?” to make it seem like a question.
“Fine!” She grabbed the hangers out of my hand and stomped toward the fitting room. “But I’m not buying them.”
“Fine!” I matched her haughty tone. “I will.”
Twenty minutes later, we left the store with the red bikini.
Chapter 17
DAY 5
ST. MARTIN
“Come on, ladies.” Blake held out his arms. Lena and Sia each dipped under one and they strolled down the dock, away from the ship. “Our poolside cabana awaits.”
Pasha and I stopped and looked at each other, dumbfounded, as Blake kept walking without inviting us.
As if he’d read our minds, Blake yelled, “Cabana fits four. Come along, Kristen. You can bring your pool boy to fetch us drinks.”
Pasha leaned over and removed a flip-flop from one of his feet. He cocked his arm back and aimed it at his friend’s head.
I jumped up and grabbed his arm. “Don’t you dare!”
Pasha laughed and put his flip-flop back on. He took my hand and we followed Blake to the beach cabana he’d rented.
—
“I can’t believe the cruise is almost over.” Blake stretched out in his lounge chair. “I could stay in paradise forever.”
“Being back home is gonna suck monkeys,” Lena said, reaching over to grab the frozen strawberry margarita from the table next to her.
Enjoying the poolside cabana Blake had rented ended up being the perfect way to spend our last day off the boat. I’d had enough crazy and death-defying excursions for one week. I just wanted to hang out, relax, and enjoy every minute I had left of Pasha’s company.
Pasha and I sat together on a beach lounger. I straddled his torso facing him while he lay sprawled out. My hair hung down, shielding our faces from the crowd. I leaned over and kissed him gently.
“We should fuck on this chair. Right now,” Pasha whispered. He squeezed the outside of my thighs. Then his fingers crawled toward my butt and he slid them under the fabric of my bikini bottoms.
I grinned and gazed into his eyes. “You are so bad.”
“It’s bad to make you feel good? I think I’m the nice guy here.”
“Can’t you two stop for one minute?” Sia asked.
“Why do you care?” Pasha asked her through the strands of my hair. He didn’t take his eyes off me. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He had me completely mesmerized.
“It’s annoying. You’ve been all over each other since you met. Can’t you just take a break? Or save it for your room?”
“Jealous,” I mouthed to Pasha behind our curtain.
His lips cracked into a huge smile. “Wanna swim?”
“Can we play in the water?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
I straightened up and patted his hard stomach like a bongo drum. “Let’s go!”
I’ve never had sex in water. Not in a shower or a hot tub, and certainly not in the ocean. How far would we have to walk out? What if the water was too clear? Can you even get a condom on in water? Would it be super-obvious?
I didn’t care. I wanted to find a semi-secluded space in the water and try.
Pasha held my hand as we waded into the aquatic paradise off St. Martin’s beach. I squeezed his fingers with every step we took until we settled on an area where the water hit our chests. My fear of the ocean melted away with my trust for Pasha. He wouldn’t let anything happen to me.
“This is absolutely perfect.” I scanned the beach, where bodies filled every available patch of almond-colored sand as far as the eye could see.
“Almost perfect.”
Pasha took a step closer to me and softly brushed his lips against mine. I slid my arms around his neck, he grabbed my hips, and we kissed again. The intensity stayed soft and sensual, not aggressive and needy. He pressed a little harder and I licked his lips with my tongue, beckoning him to open his mouth. When he obliged, I slid my tongue in. After letting me explore, I pulled back, but he gently caught my bottom lip in his teeth. The surprising sensation made me lose my footing, but Pasha squeezed my waist to keep me steady.
“I have a question,” I said when he released my lip. Though there wasn’t anyone even remotely close to where we were standing, I leaned close to his ear. “How do you put a condom on in the water?”
He threw his head back and laughed. “We’ll have to move back to the beach for that part.”
“On the chair next to Sia, I hope. She would frickin’ flip.”
“Your mind turns me on.”
“My mind?”
“Yes.” One of Pasha’s hands moved from my waist to between my legs. He pushed aside my bathing suit and slid one finger into me. I took a breath and dug my nails into his shoulder. “You are smart and kind. Always thinking of others. Helping others.”
We were far enough out that the water hit Pasha just below his shoulders, covering everything that was happening underwater. The exhilaration of standing in front of a beach full of people made every touch much more intense.
He slid a second finger into me and rubbed me with his thumb at the same time. My legs went slack. I held myself up by cupping his shoulder with one hand and placing the other on his chest. His thumb moved faster and faster until I thought I might collapse against him. I slid my hand down his chest and into the water. The elastic waistband to his swim trunks allowed easy access to his hard length pressing against my stomach. He sucked in a sharp breath when I took hold of him.
“You want this? Right here?” His words came out in puffs of breath.
I nodded, keeping my grip firm and m
oving faster and faster to match the rhythm of his thumb on me.
My hips kicked and my chest slammed against his. It was difficult to hold myself back while being consumed by the sensations his thumb and fingers created. I hoped that from the beach, people would see a couple tangled in a lovers’ embrace, not a girl bucking on a guy like a drunk on a mechanical bull.
But as the pace increased, so did our movements, which sent water splashing around us.
“Fuck, KK,” Pasha whispered. He sank his face into my neck and shoulder. His breath was hot against my sun-scorched skin.
Despite all the things that could have taken me out of the moment—the risk of getting caught, the sheer sense of embarrassment at trying to get Pasha off in the water, or the fact that I felt comfortable acting like this with a guy I met just a few days ago—none of them fazed me.
But hearing the nickname my best friends back home used for me—that took me out of the moment.
I pulled away from him and asked, “Why did you call me that?”
“Don’t stop. Can we…” His breath was rapid from what I’d been doing to him. He pulled his fingers out of me to grab my hand and return it to him. “Please,” he begged.
He pushed two fingers into me again, jolting me back to reality: here, getting Pasha off in the water. Exactly where I wanted to be.
Chapter 18
With Kristen’s arms wrapped around my neck and our bodies molded like yin and yang, I finally understood true, unfiltered bliss simply from being content with another person. Sure, maybe I could chalk it up to the post-orgasm high, but I’d never been so content to be with someone as I was with Kristen, so there had to be something more.
“I like spending time with you, KK,” I said, breaking the silence.
She opened her eyes and lifted her head from that comfy spot in the crook of my neck. “When did I tell you my last name?”
Fuck. Think, Pasha, think.
“You never told me,” I said quickly. “I heard your short friend say it. She gets mad at you a lot, yes?”
“You don’t even know.” Kristen glanced toward the shore, where our friends lay sprawled on lounge chairs. “She’s not a bad person. But she gets annoyed when people do things she wouldn’t do. And by people I mean me.”
“She needs to get laid.”
She bit back a grin and said, “I can’t even imagine that. She’s waiting for marriage to have sex, so it’ll have to be that one special guy for that to go down.”
In Russia, marrying young is still common. I have friends who were married by the time they were twenty. I have no problem with how other people choose to live their lives—hell, if I hadn’t grown up with the father I had, maybe I would have wanted to be married that early, too. Maybe I’d want to get married in general. Still, I couldn’t imagine waiting to have sex.
Some people might say it’s the man-whore talking, but I believe sex is important to a relationship and especially to a marriage.
How much would it suck to marry someone and then find out you’re completely incompatible in the bedroom? Or that she’s a total bore—or a total freak? I like a mix of both, a girl who’s open to being adventurous without taking it to the extreme.
Someone like Kristen.
I glanced at the woman who’d made me think of sex on a whole different level over the past few days. Our compatibility in that department was off the charts. That was all I needed for a weeklong fling, but our emotional compatibility matched, too—and that part scared me.
“I’m hungry,” I announced. “Let’s go eat.”
“You’re used to getting what you want, aren’t you?” Kristen asked, a smirk tilting her lips.
“This is my life. I do what I want, when I want,” I answered. “There is no other way to live.”
Though we’d spent a sufficient amount of time clutched in each other’s arms enjoying the post-orgasm bliss, when I let Kristen go, I wanted to grab her and hold her against me again. The buzz of being with her still vibrated through my body, and I wanted to lead her somewhere I could actually get a condom on, like the beach chair I’d suggested earlier.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked, squeezing her hand as we walked through the water toward the shore.
When she looked at me, her eyes were wide as if I’d caught her doing something inappropriate. “Nothing.”
“You look guilty,” I teased. Then I leaned my shoulder into hers. “Just tell me.”
“I was thinking about fucking you on that chair.” She pointed to the empty chair in the middle of her friends.
“Big talk.” I laughed. “Such a tease.”
Kristen stopped, which made me swallow hard as I planted my feet in the sand. We stood still as waves splashed against our shins. She grabbed my biceps to brace herself. Then she lifted onto her toes, leaned in close, and whispered, “I’m not teasing.”
Her breathy voice and flirty words made my stomach tighten. I locked eyes with hers, trying to figure out if I should believe her. She held my gaze unblinkingly as she made her intent clear.
This girl was going to completely dismantle me.
I bent down, grabbed her under her arms and behind her knees, and carried her through the water. When we reached the beach, I didn’t stop at the uncomfortable plastic lounge chairs our friends occupied. As we passed the chair we’d shared before going in the water, I reached out and grabbed her beach bag. She tightened her hold on my neck.
My heart thumped with every quick step I took through the sand. I swallowed back the surge of lust that made me want to drop to the ground and take her right on the beach in front of everyone.
Because as much as I wanted to be inside her, I needed to figure her out first.
—
“Are we getting drinks?” I asked, confused and slightly disappointed when Pasha set my feet on the sand next to the Lazy Lizard Beach Bar. Over the past few days, I’d figured out that Pasha was a man of his word—and a man of action.
Though my question had been a joke, my stomach growled, reminding me that I needed to eat.
He handed me my beach bag. “No. You don’t need drink today.”
“Excuse me?” I asked. The hair on the back of my neck bristled. He didn’t have the right to tell me when I could drink.
Pasha cupped my face with his hand and swept his thumb across my jawline. “You coughed too much yesterday. You do not need drink today. We’ll get water and eat huge plates of food. You brought your medicine, yes?”
The magnitude of Pasha’s genuine concern hit me full force, and I took a step back, raking my wet hair out of my face with my fingers. “I…yeah, I have my medicine.” I nodded.
He tightened his grip on my hips and pulled me back. “You need to take it easy today to be healthy. I want you to be healthy.”
“You haven’t seemed freaked by any of it. You didn’t even blink.”
“I told you before, mucus and stomach things do not scare me.” Pasha’s eyes lowered to the scar at my belly, visible in the bikini I’d worn today, the one he’d bought me in St. Lucia. “I have seen much worse than stomach scars and shaky vests.”
For some reason, his words had my mind grouping previous incidents together, clicking them into place like pieces of a puzzle. He hadn’t been fazed by my scar or my morning routine. He’d snapped at the old man in the bar in Barbados who’d made a comment about how there were better ways to die than cliff jumping. They’d affected him enough for a response, but they hadn’t swayed him. Granted, he hadn’t seen anything too horrible or embarrassing, since I hadn’t let him nurse my stomachache. My daily routine was fairly simple, if a little weird to an outsider.
He’d never seen the brutal reality. He’d never seen me lying in a hospital bed because something as simple as a cold for someone with a strong immune system turned into an infection my body couldn’t fight off. He’d never seen my parents crying and praying and fighting while they tried to decide if they were doing the right thing when they secured the
most cutting-edge treatments and medications for me despite not knowing the full list of side effects they might have. He’d never seen the stack of bills from hospital stays and doctor visits that forced my mom to get a job because insurance didn’t pay for everything.
I placed my hands on his chest. Suddenly all of this was too much.
My heart pounded and flight mode propelled me back. I continued walking backward until I’d hit the rough surface of Lazy Lizard’s wall. Pasha reached for my arm, but I batted his hand away.
“This was supposed to be fake and fun. Lots of sex. No emotion,” I told him, though the words rang in my ears, a reminder more for myself than for him.
He took a step toward me. “If that’s what you wanted, you should have sucked my dick and left my room.”
His crass comment made my skin prickle. “Excuse me?”
“This isn’t fake to me. You are not fake to me.” Another step and he closed the gap between us. “Am I fake for you?”
Pasha lifted his hands to my face and brushed my cheeks with his fingers. His lips were so close to mine, but he didn’t lean in. He stood in front of me with his head tilted as his warm breath hit my face.
“You’ve only known me for a few days,” I protested.
“I don’t know enough. I need more.”
“I don’t have more to give.” I looked away.
“You do,” he commanded.
His intense gaze made me unsteady. He must’ve felt my knees go slack, because he gripped my hips, pressed me against the wall, and claimed my mouth with his. Instead of pulling away when his fingers skimmed into my bikini bottoms, I swung a leg over his hip, opening myself to him without thinking about who might walk by or have a full view of us against a wall.
Screw the beach lounger. I wanted him to push into me right here against this wall. I couldn’t give him forever. But I could give him this. Right here. Right now.
In a few days, being with this man had sent all my previous thoughts on relationships flying. He’d expanded my thoughts on what living life to the fullest meant. And he’d uncovered a sexually adventurous side of me I hadn’t known existed—or hadn’t ever felt comfortable enough to reveal to anyone before.