Slipping out of the sheets, I pull clothes on quickly, sneering at Jessie when I catch him watching me. He’s only half a beat behind me and follows me out the door while still buttoning his jeans.
“Holly, wait,” he’s calling after me. But I’m not stopping. My first instinct is to head back over to my surfer’s shack, but there isn’t enough room to pace in there, and what I need now is room to walk around. The manic energy eating me up needs an outlet, which means I’m soon back on the beach, walking in what has every right to be the most romantic moonlight in the world.
Except I can’t enjoy a single speck of it. Not the cool wind blowing off the ocean. Not the moon shining a stripe of light across the waters. Not even the sand that squishes between my toes, reminding me with each step exactly where I’m lucky to be.
“Holly!” Jessie calls after me.
Once he’s at my side, I stop dead in the sand. “Go back.” Before he can argue, I hold up a finger. “Not a single word. I don’t want to hear anything right now. You go back and think about what you want. I’m going to do the same. Then we’ll meet out here at sunrise. You tell me exactly what you’re expecting to happen. And I’ll tell you my hopes. If they line up, great. Maybe, just maybe, we can try this out again. Otherwise, we enjoy the sunrise and then go our separate ways.”
He doesn’t reply.
“Got it?”
He nods silently. I forgot I told him not to say another word, but he’s at least following that order. Which means maybe he’ll actually go home and think instead of just drinking himself to sleep.
Still, I feel like I’ve just scolded an ever-joyful golden retriever and sent him off moping to his house. So before I send him on his way, I kiss Jessie on the cheek.
“Now go. Think. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I stay on the beach for ten more minutes. My mind switches over to a channel filled with nothing but static as the waves mesmerize me. Then I slump back to my pitiful shack. Fall on the bed. And fall asleep thirty seconds after I set my alarm.
Chapter 10
Jessie
The morning comes slowly, and with it, a groggy mind and eyes that squint against the first rays of sunshine over the horizon. I haven’t slept all night, because I’ve spent the night researching. My eyes are so sore that they may just fall out of my head, but I’ve finally got a solid plan.
I know exactly what I want. Now it’s just a matter of seeing what Holly thinks.
When I tread out across the sands cooled by the night, I don’t actually expect to see her. She always was bad about sleeping past her alarm, and I can only imagine that this bad habit is only made worse on vacation. But she’s out there, her sexy figure obscured only slightly by the gauzy blouse she wears over her bikini.
“Hey,” I say and hand her a smoothie I just blended up using the fruit basket the owner of my rental had waiting for me in the kitchen the first day I arrived.
“Hey,” she says back. “What is it?” she asks motioning to the glass I’ve just handed her.
I honestly don’t remember. I just threw stuff absentmindedly in a blender. I was too busy thinking of what was going to come after this meeting. So, I simply answer, “Fruit.”
She takes a sip and doesn’t gag. She doesn’t say anything either, which allows this silent crevasse to open up between us like an earthquake spitting the sand, carrying us farther and farther apart the longer I allow it to go on unbroken. I don’t know exactly how I want to say what I want to say, so I just come out with it.
“I stayed up all night thinking about what you said last night.”
She watches me but reveals nothing.
“You said I needed to figure out where I wanted to go. And while I’m not 100% sure where that is, I’ve got a pretty good idea of what it might look like.”
Holly’s demeanor exudes calm. It’s like she read some ancient Buddhist text about finding tranquility within herself, and she learned the techniques of the ancient monks overnight. When I leave my vague declaration hanging in the air, she turns towards the ocean.
“Don’t you just love the water here? It kills me how clear it is. You can see straight down to the bottom. Nothing’s hidden.” She says all this as if to herself. But I get the message.
“I’m not trying to hide anything.” But even as I say this, I don’t go into more detail because I thought about it last night and figured that showing her my idea would probably yield a better result than telling her. Words are just sounds, but actions can move anything, including Holly’s heart back to mine.
“Would you take a walk with me?”
“You still haven’t told me your plan,” she says.
“My plan right now is to take a walk.” I start moving without her. Once I’m ten steps ahead, I look back. “Just a little walk.”
After a deep breath she relinquishes, and I slow to match her pace. She walks to my left, the ocean on her other side. But with her half empty smoothie glass in her right hand, I take the hint that she isn’t in the mood for a hand-in-hand stroll down the beach. Her calm may be like that which comes before a storm. Or it could be resignation. I can’t know yet.
The sun rises and with it the temperature. The beaches fill, shifting from morning joggers to the few tourists in this area staking out their little bits of the beach that they deem to be the best. We pass an area where at least a dozen surfers congregate, taking turns that seem to follow no rhyme or reason to me.
“I wouldn’t mind learning to surf,” I blurt out. More to myself than to start conversation.
“If we were here longer, I might give you a free lesson,” Holly comes back with.
“Wait a minute.” I point out at the athletic bodies riding waves. “You’re telling me you can surf. Like that?”
“We met when I was just out of university. I was too busy getting a job to surf. Besides, I was never one of those kids who checked the wave forecast each night. It was more of a once a month sort of thing for me back when I was a teenager. And when I got busy with my job and met you, it just sort of faded into my past.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t know you could surf.”
She shrugs like this isn’t the biggest revelation. But it is. To me, Holly has always been sort of uptight, but it turns out she was a surfer chick in a past life.
“I guess it just never came up,” she says.
By this time we’ve walked about a mile down the beach. And when I look to my right, even though I’ve never been here, I recognize exactly where we are.
“Maybe you can teach me.”
“Like I said, I’m only here for a few days. And I’m not going to waste that time watching you flail about like a drunk seal.”
“You said if we had more time—”
“But we don’t,” she snaps. “I don’t think you get it. You still obviously don’t have a plan. Which means that as soon as this walk is over, we’re done. I wish to god that we could figure out a way for us to be together, but I just don’t see it. And the longer that we drag this on, the worse it’s going to be.”
She’s breathing hard at the exertion it took to get this all out. She must have been bottling it up all morning.
“But I do have one,” I say.
“One what?”
“A plan.”
“Really? And what is it?” she asks, her whole body exuding disbelief.
I point inland. “That.”
We turn towards an A-frame house with a huge open dining area facing the ocean. Its breezy architecture and surplus of windows makes it look like a wave frozen in time.
“What am I looking at?” Holly asks.
I start walking up the beach towards the house, but she’s frozen where the waves still lap at her ankles.
“That is my future plan.”
Chapter 11
Holly
The realtor finishes the tour with a final sales pitch.
“The owners live on the mainland. They’re looking to get rid of this place to fu
nd a new European lifestyle in their retirement. They’d prefer to move it fast.”
If seeing Jessie on what was supposed to be my solo Hawaiian holiday was shocking, this turn of events is enough to render me speechless. Which is exactly what I’ve been the past fifteen minutes as the realtor walked us through the three thousand square feet.
My lack of words might also have to do with the house itself, which is perfect in every single way, down to the backsplash in the kitchen and the reading nook on the second floor. I would change nothing if we moved in, which is a real possibility according to the way Jessie is talking.
“Hypothetically speaking,” he says, “if I didn’t need to worry about a bank putting up a mortgage, how fast is fast?”
The realtor leans forward at this. “You mean paying in cash?”
“Hypothetically speaking.”
“Of course,” the realtor says. “Well, in that case, you could have the house as soon as the paperwork is drawn up and signed, and the cash is in my client’s account. So, I would say 48 hours.”
He looks to me. “It’s her call at this point.”
“Mine?”
“She’s makes all the big decisions from hereon out.”
I make all the decisions? That’s easy to say if you’re talking about where you’re going to go out to eat, but this is a house. In Hawaii. This isn’t as easy as choosing between Italian food or Chinese take-out.
It’s easier.
“Start drawing up the paperwork,” I hear myself say. Because at the moment, I’m having an out-of-body experience. There’s no way this is all happening. Getting back with Jessie. Buying a house in Hawaii. Moving in together. It’s all too much, and yet exactly what I’ve wanted for so long. Here I can stretch my legs every time I step outside. The beach. The mountains. The city if we start feeling in need of entertainment. But I’m sure we won’t have any trouble entertaining ourselves in a house like this.
In our house like this.
“I’ll get in touch with my clients right away,” the realtor says and shakes Jessie’s hand. “If you have time, we may be able to sign the paperwork as early as this afternoon. Let me see what I can do.”
He motions towards the front door, the keys already jangling in his hands.
“Can I just stop by the bathroom really fast?” I ask.
Although this sort of request may not be appropriate in normal circumstances, Jessie’s offering to buy this house without any negotiations. The realtor is sure to make a killing on the fastest commission he’s ever earned.
“You know remember where it is?”
I nod and hurry back in the house. While I do need to stop for a quick pee, my real reason for running back inside is more devious. And when I reveal what I’ve done after the realtor is in his car and headed down the street, Jessie can’t believe my daring feat.
“You did what?” he asks looking back at the side of the house.
“It’s going to be yours soon enough anyway,” I say as I slide the window open that I unlocked earlier. “I just thought it would be good to look around without that guy breathing down our necks.”
“It’s going to be ours, you mean,” Jessie corrects me. Then he’s shaking his head. “First I find out you're a surfer. Now a criminal. It’s like you’re this whole new person.”
All I do is smile as I throw my leg up and inside the window, and the rest of my body folds down to squeeze inside. Once I’m inside, I flick one eyebrow up at Jessie. It’s both a challenge and an invitation.
Being a bit taller than me, Jessie has a harder time climbing inside, but soon we're touring the house that could be ours in a matter of days.
“Is this for real?” I ask looking up at the vaulted ceiling of the living room. “I mean, isn't this too fast?”
Jessie grabs me from behind, wrapping his arms around my stomach. “Is it though? It’s not like it’s the first time we’d be living together.”
He’s got a point. He’s also got a hard on. I can feel his cock pressing up against my ass as he pulls me closer. And while I haven’t slept enough after what’s been an absolute rollercoaster of a twenty-four hours, the excitement of living in Hawaii with my first love who I was sure was lost has my hormones hijacking my brain.
I turn around in Jessie’s arms and take his mouth in mine. He’s quick to return my kiss, and his hands are only a second behind in reaching for my ass. He pauses though and looks around. We’re on the ground floor, all the blinds open. Anyone passing by could see us without even trying.
“Maybe we should—” he says, beginning to pull me towards the stairs, but I hold resolute. I pull him back in for a kiss, sinking down to the floor at the same time. There’s a plush carpet just in front of the sofa. It’s sea foam green with long strands. It’s a modern descendent of the shag carpet of yore, and the moment I saw it, I wondered what it would be like to have sex on it.
Last night was great, with the oil massage a great build up, but this time goes above and beyond. In fact, it’s definitely in the top three times we’ve ever slept together, and that means it even beats out that time in the ski resort when we’d been drinking too much mulled wine.
Our clothes are off in a flurry of limbs and nipping at each other’s sweet spots: the nape of the neck, under my breasts, over his hipbones where he always laughs and moans at the same time.
When he enters me, he’s on top, but I don’t allow that to stay the same for long. I pull myself up so that I’m sitting in his lap, my legs wrapped around his waist. Rocking back and forth, I grind against him while digging my nails in his shoulder blades. Then I push him down, plant my knees in the lush carpet, and ride my man with a reckless abandon that has my breasts bouncing and Jessie gripping at my ass with fingers tight from pleasure.
He frees one hand up to reach under me, caressing my clit until he just holds his finger steady as I grind against him.
When I open my eyes, he’s under me, looking back with the love I’ve been missing the whole time we were apart. And when I throw my head back to get the hair out of my face, our future home, flooded in Hawaiian sunshine, is all around me.
It’s in the splendor of this moment—the emotional reconnection, the amazement at how my life has turned around, and the hope for our future in this paradise—that my ecstasy reaches a crescendo. I quiver against him and fall on his chest, but he’s not finished. He continues pounding into me and before he cums, he sends me along the surf of yet another orgasm.
I’m lying against him, catching my breath when the lock at the front door clanks and in steps the realtor.
We try to cover up, but there’s nothing except our clothes strewn all about. Upon seeing us, the realtor throws a clipboard up in front of his eyes.
“What the—I guess it doesn’t matter. I was just coming back to get some paperwork the owners left in a drawer here. They took your offer by the way. So you can stop by my office this afternoon and get everything signed up.”
He says this all the while walking around us, keeping his gaze averted. He opens a drawer, pulls some documents out, and retraces his steps. He’s just stepping out the door, his back to us, when he pauses. “Congratulations.”
Then he’s gone, leaving us to our nervous laughter.
Chapter 12
Two Months Later
“I’m going to leave you behind,” Holly calls from way up the trail. I’d been intentionally walking behind her, watching that cute ass of hers sway back and forth as we climbed the mountains near our new house.
After picking up my pace, I race up the volcanic rock and lift Holly from behind. We've been doing a lot of nature walks lately, and Holly’s right: it’s super relaxing.
This whole life is. Although there are times I miss the conveniences of the city, I don’t miss the crowds. And we can hike all afternoon here and not meet another soul. None of the tourists venture up here, and the locals are busy with real jobs during the day. Which means that it’s just Holly and me up on the peak of this m
ountain.
“What do you think?” Holly asks as we look out over the scenery. From this lookout point, it feels like we can see the whole ocean. Our house is just a little speck down below.
“It’s gorgeous,” I say, but I’m not talking about the scenery. I’m still holding Holly from behind, and I slip one hand down the front of her jean shorts.
“Here?” is all that Holly gets out. Any pre-packaged protests die away when I place two fingers over her clit and rub around softly, careful not to overdue it too fast. I lean forward so that our cheeks are touching. It’s in this way that I see her lick her lips at the same time that she widens her stance to give me more access.
As she grows wetter, I speed up. Her breaths match my pace, and soon she’s panting and moaning and pressing against my hand. I shift so that I can insert a finger inside her and this has her turn her head and envelope my lips with hers. She moans as I bring her to a shaking orgasm that leaves me having to hold her up.
When she finishes, she collapses on a large rock off to the side of the trail. She leans back, supporting her weight on her arms, and throws her head back. Basking in the sunshine like this, in the afterglow of a quickie, Holly has never looked so amazing. So carefree and natural.
I want to capture this moment and seal it up in a bottle for a rainy day. But that’s the great thing about Hawaii: we can have this every day, and we almost never have to worry about rain stopping us. And even if bad weather rolls in, we can hole up in our comfy house and watch the ocean roil while we watch movies, eat food, and find ways to entertain ourselves.
We still have jobs, but since I’m a financial consultant and Holly’s writing up articles completely online nowadays, our flexibility is basically infinite. So taking a hike like this right after lunch isn’t even something we have to consult our schedules over.
“It’s been a while since we’ve been to the city,” she says, he voice still a bit breathless.
Stormy Paradise: A Second-Chance Romance Beach Read (Sweet, Sexy Shorts Book 14) Page 4