All the Pretty Lies

by M. Leighton

  “You did bring sunscreen, didn’t you?” he asks, looking over his shoulder at me.

  “Of course. I’m obedient like that,” I tease, reaching into my bag for a tube of lotion. Hemi gave me meticulous care instructions for my tattoo, one of which was to protect it from the sun.

  “Obedient? Mmm, I like obedient.” Something about the way he says it, something about the rough quality of his voice draws my eyes back to him. He’s still looking back at me, watching me. And my mouth is still dry as he does.

  “I’m a good girl, remember?”

  “How can I forget?”

  I’m not sure what that means, so I’m thankful when my fingers meet the familiar shape of the sunblock. I drag it out and hold it out to Hemi. “Want some?”

  “Please,” he says, taking it from my fingers and squeezing some out into his palm. He hands me the tube and I take it. But that’s as far as I get. I’m suddenly mesmerized as I watch him rub lotion onto his arms then his chest and belly, the skin glistening in the sun as he works in the cream. “Can you do my back?” he asks quietly.

  My eyes fly to his and I silently curse the black disks that hide them from me. All I see there is a reflection of my face, of my interest and desire. I know nothing of what he’s feeling, if anything at all.

  “Sure,” I say, getting ready to stand to my feet.

  “Stay put. I’ll come to you,” he says, sitting between my feet.

  Feeling a little breathless in the heat, I squirt a blob of sunscreen into my palm and spread my legs to lean up and massage the lotion into Hemi’s smooth, bronze skin. He must be naturally dark complected. I see no evidence of tan lines. Anywhere.

  I rub my hands over his shoulders, down the backs of his arms, over his broad back and down his sides, making sure to adequately cover the tattoo on his ribs, all the while trying to ignore the way his muscles twitch and flex under my palms.

  “All done,” I breathe, feeling discombobulated.

  “Now you,” he says, turning to get up onto his knees and taking the tube from beside my hip. “Roll over.”

  Slowly, I straighten my legs, guiding them between his spread knees and then I roll carefully onto my stomach, more aware than ever of my tiny bathing suit bottoms.

  The first thing I feel is a cool dot between my shoulder blades. It snakes from side to side over my back, stopping at the base of my spine. There’s a pause and then I feel Hemi’s warm hands. They start with wide swipes between my shoulder blades then he spreads his hands and digs his fingers into the muscles of my neck.

  I gasp.

  “Why so tense?” he asks.

  “The drive, I guess,” I mutter, burying my face in my crossed arms.

  Hemi works his way down my back, his fingers gliding under the tie to my suit, skating dangerously to the curve of my breasts. He moves on to my ribs, carefully coating my new butterflies.

  His strokes slow and I feel him shift closer. “These turned out really well. Maybe we can finish them up this week.”

  I feel his warm breath on my skin and chills spread. Again.

  “You’re surely not cold.”

  “No, I’m not cold.”

  “Then why the chills?” he whispers, his voice near my ear.

  “I’m ticklish,” I murmur, the statement not entirely fabricated.

  “You are? Where are you most ticklish? Here?” he asks, dancing his fingertips along my side. I flinch, but not because he’s tickling me. “Here?” he asks, nearing my arm pits. “Or is it lower?”

  Oh God, oh God, oh God!

  I catch my breath and hold it as he drags his hands down my spine and spreads them over my hips, dipping them down toward the sand, his fingertips barely teasing the edges of my stomach. Reflexively, I arch, raising my hips a little.

  I hear him breathe an obscenity before his hands are gone. I look behind me and he’s already on his feet, his jaw clenched tight, rubbing excess sunscreen onto his chest.

  “Come on, let’s go people watch.”

  “Wait! I need to do my front.”

  “I’ll meet you down at the water,” he says stiffly and then he turns and walks away.

  CHAPTER TWELVE- Hemi

  Here I am. At the beach. Surrounded by scantily-clad women, sparkling water and white-sugar sand, and none of it is holding my attention. I’m simply looking at it all to keep from turning and watching Sloane slather sunblock on her long legs, her tight stomach and between those lush tits.

  God, rubbing that lotion on her was sweet torture. The kinds of women I usually spend time with have no delusions about where something like that would lead. And they’d be okay with it. Begging for it, even. But it’s different with Sloane. She’s naïve to a point. And besides that, I don’t think she has a clue how damnably hot and sexy she is. In fact, I think that adds to it. Maybe that’s what I’m finding so irresistible about her. Because that’s what it’s feeling like. The more I’m around her, the more I want her, the more I feel like I have to have her. And now that I know about her brother, that could be bad news for both of us. And no female is worth that risk. Not. One.

  “Okay, what now?” Sloane asks from behind me. I turn to find her standing at my left shoulder, looking up at me, her eyes hidden by sunglasses. But I don’t need to see them to know that interest is there. Attraction. Fascination. I don’t know whether she doesn’t try to hide it or if she thinks she is hiding it. Either way, it’s there for me to see. Plain as the cute little nose on her face. And it’s driving me crazy.

  “Let’s walk,” I say, turning to head up the beach. I set a lazy pace as we kick through the surf. She keeps up easily. When the wind blows, I get a hint of her perfume mixed with sunscreen—the scent of innocence. It’s mouthwatering.

  “What are we looking for?”

  “Just look around. Look at all the exposed skin. Look at the way it moves when people walk. Look at the way it stretches tight when they bend over or run. Look at the way it hangs when they’re relaxed. When you’re drawing a picture on skin, when you’re making art that will live and breathe with the person wearing it, you need to consider everything. Wrinkles, fat, bone, muscle, age. It can all affect your work. And they’ll have to live with it. For a long, long time.”

  As we walk along, I point out tattoos on different people, explaining why I would or wouldn’t have done it that way. I ask Sloane questions, trying to get a feel for her innate abilities. I ask her things like how she would work around a skin fold or what she’d tell someone who wanted a tattoo in a place that wouldn’t turn out the way they envision.

  I suspected her to be fairly intuitive about art. After seeing her sketch, I had no doubt she has talent. But now I’m beginning to think she might really have an aptitude for tattoo work. And that just makes her even more appealing to me. It’s not something that’s common—doing tattoos—therefore it’s not something easily shared with others. I can feel it forming a bond between us, one I didn’t foresee and probably should’ve avoided like the plague.

  But right now, it serves my purpose. I don’t like the thought of anyone getting hurt, but I can’t be responsible for everyone else. I have my own shit in life to worry about. And some of it is more important to me than anything else. It has to be. Until I see it through, it has to take precedence. End of story.

  After nearly two hours of strolling along the beach, looking at bodies with the eye of a tattoo artist, I finally notice the heat.

  “Do you swim?”

  Sloane smiles broadly. “Yeah, I love to swim.”

  “Then you have two choices. Run or I’ll pick you up and throw you in.”

  Her smile dies as she processes my words. It only takes two, maybe three seconds for her to turn away from me and run, squealing toward the water. I give her a very small lead and then I swoop in, scooping her up into my arms and running into the salt water waves. I hit thigh level just as a swell comes in. I wait until it’s ready to break and I throw Sloane right in the highest part. I hear her squeal again
, but it’s quickly drowned by the crash of water over her head.

  I see her sunglasses fly out and hit the water a couple feet away. I reach for them as I watch her, making sure she finds her feet. Her head pops up in an instant. I smile when I hear her sputtering. She straightens, pushing long, inky strands of hair out of her eyes.

  “You…you…” she stammers. I might feel bad if she was really mad, but she’s not. I can see her curved lips, and I know it’s just bluster.

  “Me…me…what? Me fast and you slow?”

  Sloane comes stomping out of the deeper water toward me. “You’re going down, mister.”

  “Ooo, promises promises.” I start backing away, laughing at her bravado. She speeds up, I speed up. She lunges, I evade. “Don’t hurt yourself, little girl,” I mock as she leaps to try and get a hold on my arm.

  “I’m not a little girl,” she demands, hurling herself at me. I sidestep her and she splashes into the water.

  “Prove it,” I tease playfully.

  Sloane stops. Just stops. She stops and watches me. Through her spiky eyelashes, I can see flecks of gold in the chocolate of her eyes. I can see that her suckable lips are parted slightly and I can see that her chest is heaving as a result of our play.

  She raises her hands to smooth her hair away from her face. It stretches her bathing suit top tight across her tits, plainly displaying her hard little nipples. For a second, it feels like I’m watching a Sports Illustrated shoot.

  I let my eyes roam her curves. Droplets ease their way down her throat and into the valley between her breasts. Her stomach contracts with each breath. Her thighs move rhythmically through the swirling water as she walks toward me.

  When I raise my gaze back to her face, I see that her eyes are fixed on mine. She holds me there until she reaches me and stops again.

  She tilts her face up toward mine. Other than that, she doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. She’s close enough that I can feel her body heat despite the cool water bathing my skin.

  I see her reach out. I feel her warm hands when she grips my sides. I watch her pull herself up onto her tiptoes. I hold my breath as her lips get closer and closer.

  And then they’re touching mine.

  The kiss is soft and innocent and fleeting. And when she leans back, I see that there is, in fact, a woman behind the guileless eyes that I see every time I close mine. There’s a woman in there, and she knows what she wants. Maybe I’ve not given her enough credit. Maybe I missed seeing it at first, when I got lost in her sweet smile and blushing cheeks. Maybe she’s more like the women I’ve known than what I suspected.

  Yes, this girl knows what she wants. And, while she may not be as deliberate in getting it as the others I’ve bedded, she still knows how to use what she’s got.

  And she’s using it.

  Right now.

  On me.

  When she leans into me again, I go into the kiss with the intention of leading Sloane out into the deeper water and showing her just what she’s asking of me. And showing her a little taste of just what she’ll get.

  But before any of that can happen, she flinches, pulling away from me with a gasp.

  “Ouch!” At first it seems like she stepped on something. But then I hear the air hiss between her teeth again and she cries out. “Oh shit! Something just bit me.”

  She darts away from me, swishing the water around her like she’s trying to scare something away. She screeches and grabs her right leg.

  “Ohmigod, Hemi, something bit me!”

  I can see that she’s not kidding. And that she’s getting more upset by the second. I kick into action.

  Moving as quickly as I can through the churning water, I sweep Sloane up into my arms and I run her to the shore. I drop to my knees in the wet sand, laying her gently in front of me. I see the cringe marring her beautiful features, her expression one of pain. She’s paler than usual, too.

  “Show me where,” I command.

  Sloane indicates the outside of her right thigh. That’s when I see the angry red slashes filled with angry red dots.

  A jellyfish sting.

  “You’ve been stung by a jellyfish,” I say by way of explanation. “Hold still.”

  I check her skin to make sure there are no tentacles attached. When I confirm that there aren’t, I stand.

  “You’re not gonna pee on me, are you?” she asks, her eyes slightly horrified despite the pain she’s in.

  I can’t help but grin. “No, I just need to go get something. Stay put. I’ll be right back.”

  I run up the beach to where our stuff is. Luckily we’d almost made our way back to where we started. I grab the tube of sunscreen from Sloane’s bag and retrace my steps. It only takes me a few seconds to get back to her.

  Holding the tube by the fat part, I scrape the sharply folded end over Sloane’s skin.

  She yelps in pain. “Don’t do that!”

  She flinches away from me.

  “Hold still. I have to get the stingers out.” Once more, I carefully scrape the site with the flat edge of the lotion tube until I’m fairly confident there are no remaining stingers. I can tell she’s in pain, but Sloane doesn’t make another sound. Finally, I scoop her back up again and take her into the surf.

  “What are you doing?” she asks, clinging to my neck and curling her body tighter against mine so that I don’t put her into the water.

  I set her down in the shallows, in just enough depth that I can bathe her leg. “Here, this will help. Just trust me. I need to wash it out with salt water. It’ll help it to not burn as bad.”

  I cup my hands and ladle water onto her thigh, gently rubbing the area. Over and over, I force water onto the sting, hopefully rinsing away any residual stingers and neutralizing the toxins.

  “Is it feeling any better?” I ask, checking her color again. She still looks pale, but she doesn’t look like her distress is as acute.

  “A little.”

  “You’re not feeling short of breath or anything, are you?”

  She pauses to assess herself then she shakes her head and answers, “No. I feel fine otherwise.”

  “Come on. Let’s find an emergency room or an urgent care to get you to.”

  I bend to pick her up again, but she struggles a little. “No! That’s not necessary, is it? Just for a jellyfish sting?”

  I glance down at her face. She looks alarmed.

  “Well, it’s not mandatory, but I’d feel better if you got some medical attention.” I see her worrying her lip. “Why? Do you have an aversion to hospitals or something?”

  “It’s not that. It’s just that…that…”

  “What? Spit it out.”

  She leans her head against my chest for a second, as if her instinct is to hide her face.

  “It’s just that I’d hate for my family to find out about this.”

  “Why? It’s not like you did it on purpose.”

  “I know that. They’re just…it’s just…it’s complicated.”

  “Complicated,” I repeat.

  “Yeah. Complicated.” I slow my walk as we approach Sloane’s towel. I set her down on it and crouch at her side.

  “Do they not know you’re here?”

  “Uhhh,” she hedges, “not so much.”

  “Is it because of last night? Because I’m not afraid of your brother, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “No, no, it’s not that. It’s just that…”

  “You can tell me. Whatever it is. I don’t judge. And I won’t get mad, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  She makes a growling sound. “Grrr, it’s not that. It’s just…it’s embarrassing.”

  I sit over onto my hip beside her. “All right, tell me what’s going on.”

  “Look, my family is just very…protective. It’s been a big struggle for me to make them see that I’m all grown up, that they need to let me live my life. Turning twenty-one was huge for me. They’ll go into orbit if they find out I took off t
o the beach with some random guy, got stung by a jellyfish and then ended up in the hospital. They’ll give me shit every time I want to leave the house for months if they find out.”

  “No offense, but why don’t you just move out?”

  Sloane sighs. “It’s not that easy. There are things…well, it’s just not that easy. Trust me.”

  Everyone has a right to their secrets and their privacy. I, of all people, believe that wholeheartedly, so I don’t press her.

  “Okay, well how about this. Let’s find a hotel and at least get you someplace where you can rest and I can get some vinegar on this thing. That way you won’t have a miserable car ride and an unsavory family run-in today. You can tell your family that you’re with a friend, and that you’ll be home tomorrow. Sound plausible?”

  I see as much as feel her exhale. Her smile is relieved. “That sounds great.”

  I exhale, too. “Okay, first things first. Let’s get off the beach and go across to Savannah and find a place to hole up for the night. Then we’ll go from there. Cool?”

  “Cool,” she repeats.

  I throw all our stuff in her bag—clothes, shoes, sunscreen, my sunglasses.

  “Shit! I must’ve dropped your glasses. I don’t have ‘em.”

  “That’s fine. They were cheap. And I guess I can let you off the hook since you were trying to rescue me and all.”

  “How kind of you,” I reply drolly. “I’ll buy you another pair before we leave.”

  “That’s really not necessary.”

  “Maybe not, but I will anyway.”

  I throw her bag over my shoulder and start to reach for her.

  “I can walk,” she says, rolling to her feet and dusting sand off her butt. She turns around and grabs her towel to shake it out, but I notice the frown she’s wearing.

  “What? Something else is wrong. What is it?”

  She shrugs and shakes her head, a clear indication that I’m right.

  “It’s just that…I don’t really have…”

  “Just tell me,” I prompt when she keeps stammering.