by Jess Winters
“Did he hurt you, Nicola? Did I get here in time or did he already hurt you?” I lift my head and show him my cheek. He gasps and touches the swollen red skin, but it stings, and I pull away.
“Just that,” I utter. “I was just scared.”
“I’m here now,” says Calvin. “I’ll keep you safe,” he repeats, rocking me in his arms.
Chapter Eleven
The wind rushes past me, and Calvin’s motorbike twists and turns through the windy roads. I would ask where we’re going, but I feel safe, and that’s all that matters.
Calvin lifts me down when we finally stop, taking my hand in his, only touching me when I silently give him permission.
It’s still hard to believe he would do anything to hurt me, but the more I think about it, the more I realise that he left because he became the person he never thought he would.
We plonk down into the sand and let the water almost touch our feet. We sit for a while, just listening to the waves crashing in the distance. Calvin turns to me.
“I had to wait until I could forgive you, you know?”
I almost stand up and walk away, but my sheer confusion keeps my hands dug into the sand.
“I, I…” It’s impossible to muster up the words, I’m so baffled, but he continues.
“I forgave you for sleeping with Dylan,” the pain resonates in his voice. He pauses between every word, finding the courage to accept what I did without ever hearing me say “I’m sorry.”
I shake my head. “No.” There’s no other word. I can’t believe what he’s saying to me after what he just saw.
“No, not Dylan. It never was, it never will be.”
Calvin gulps and closes his eyes.
“I told Zara that I wanted to marry you. I had a ring and everything.”
I slip off my shoes, letting my feet sink into the icy water. For a moment, the cold takes away the shock. I can barely listen to Calvin, yet I grasp on to every word he says.
“I knew from her face that something was wrong, she didn’t say a lot, but her reaction spoke volumes.”
“Zara knew?” I utter under my breath.
“That night, Dylan showed up at the bar. He pulled me away from the group and told me that you two had been together, just once, but that was enough.”
I grab Calvin’s shoulders and force him to look at me. “That’s not true, Calvin.”
He turns away. “That’s what I said. We had a fight; I broke Dylan’s nose pretty bad and his face was covered in bruises. I didn’t mean to lose control like that, but he wouldn’t stop grinning like a fucking Cheshire cat.
He tried to say he came to tell me the truth, but I knew he was enjoying every second of my pain.”
“And you just believed him?” I stutter, still coming to terms with the betrayal from Dylan. After everything I’ve learned about him tonight, I feel disgusted to have ever let him into my life.
He’s the reason Calvin left, and he pretended like he was the one suffering while I tried to comprehend Calvin’s disappearance.
“I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t, Nicola. I was ready to marry you, to whisk you away on the back of my bike and run away from everything- you and me against the world. But then I asked Zara, and she told me it was true.”
“That lying bitch!” I scream. “Please Calvin, you know now, right? You know that’s not true!”
Calvin purses his lips. “I know, Nicola. But for so long I didn’t.”
“So you just left?”
“I wasn’t going to.” Calvin drags his fingers through the sand, watching it slip through his hand.
“But Dylan started saying shit about his dad, that he could get me arrested. Rocco threw a few punches as well, and I knew he’d be in trouble. I told Dylan that I would leave and never come back, as long as he left Rocco alone. He agreed.”
Our hands touch, communicating all the things we want to say, but just can’t.”
“I cried for you so many nights, Calvin.”
Calvin turns my head towards him. “Last night was the first time I slept peacefully in two years.”
He kisses me, but not passionately like yesterday; it’s like we need it, we can’t pull away from each other. We just want to be as close as possible. Calvin stops himself.
“I came back a few times. I drove past the diner, sometimes you seemed sad, but other times, you were happy. I knew you’d be able to move on. A couple of times, I spotted Dylan. He held your hand and stroked your hair, and I just wanted it to be me.”
“I wanted it to be you!”
“I couldn’t tell if you were together or not, and honestly, I couldn’t stomach thinking about it. But the longer I was without you, the easier it became to convince myself that you would be better off without me anyway. That maybe you needed someone like Dylan.”
“And Rocco knew everything?” I ask.
“Rocco never believed Dylan, but after we beat him up, he got scared. When I came back here, I told Rocco that I wanted you back, but he wasn’t sure. He thought you’d suffered enough and telling you the truth meant you finding out about Dylan and Zara. But then when I saw what he was doing to you in that diner, what he was going to do to you…” His words trail off, traumatized by what he had seen.
“You realized I would find out eventually.”
Calvin turns to me. “You’re my peace, Nicola.”
I hold his face in my hands.
“And when the pain didn’t go away, I started to question everything I did. When even after two years, I was still waking up sick, staring at the empty space in my bed where you should have been, when I was starting to forget what you looked like I asked myself, “Could she be feeling this too? I had to come back to you.”
I climb onto him, he lies back into the sand and lets me kiss him, from his lips to his neck. I tug gently on his shirt, and he looks up at me.
“Are you sure?” he whispers?
Chapter Twelve
I unbutton his shirt, caressing him gently with every inch of skin that I expose.
“If you promise me,” I whisper into his ear. I run my hands across his torso, circling my name when I reach his chest.
“If you promise me never to believe anyone else over me.” Calvin pulls my ear towards his lips and talks to me.
“I promise.”
I untie my pinny and lift my jumper over my head, revealing the black lingerie beneath, Calvin gushes with lust as he caresses my breasts.
“And you promise me that you’ll talk to me, that you’ll tell me what’s going on, you can’t keep me in the dark like that again.”
He reaches around my back and unhooks my bra, letting my breasts fall onto his face. Between kisses, he utters, “We’re a team, Nicola, from now on, we do everything together.”
I bring my hands down to his crotch and slip one finger below his jeans. “You have to promise me as well, Calvin, that you’ll never leave me again.”
Calvin sits up, wrapping my tighs around his waist. He pulls the hairband from my hair and holds my head between his hands. “I can’t imagine even one day without you. I never want to feel that pain again.”
He places his hands on my shoulders and pushes me down to the ground, climbing on top of me, pushing against me from beneath his clothing. I feel him get harder and harder. I sigh, and Calvin stops.
“You do want this, right? After what happened with Dylan?” I press my finger against his lips.
“Nothing that you are doing to me feels anything like what Dylan tried to do to me.” I unzip Calvin’s pants and rub my hand against him.
“Stand up,” I demand. Like a soldier, Calvin follows my requests. I pull his pants to the floor and get onto my knees. He looks around. It’s dark, and we’re hidden by the caves, but I can sense his nerves.
“No one can see us,” I mumble in between licks, taking time to feel and massage every sensitive part of him.
“It’s exciting,” he replies, rubbing my head, guiding me with his hands, groaning
with pleasure. I suck hard and take him in my mouth as deep as I can, but I can only take so much.
Calvin is gentle with me, and when his thighs begin to tense, he gets down on the ground with me. We roll over together, and my leg dips into the water.
“That’s fucking cold!” I scream.
Calvin dips his leg in too.
“Fuck! You’re right!” he laughs.
He submerges his hands into the water and turns me over onto all fours. I quiver as his frozen hands touch my warm body.
He crawls beneath me, sucking on my nipples and massaging my breasts with his hands. He shuffles along the sand and pulls my body towards him.
I sit on his face and let his tongue slip in and out of me, rubbing against my clitoris. He pulls himself up, still kissing me everywhere, sliding his tongue across every part of me.
He kneels behind me. With his hands he rubs from my feet, up to my legs and all the way along my back, pausing in any areas he can’t resist. His fingers and thumbs tempt me and tickle me. The sensitivity is hard to handle.
He surprises me with sensations I never knew I’d like. I hear him lick a finger, and he slowly places it inside. Then comes another, then another.
“I want you now!” I exclaim, reaching around my body and holding him in my hands, rubbing him along the creases.
He puts his hands on my breasts and pulls me up, so we’re both kneeling. He puts himself inside and following the rhythm of the beating waves, he thrusts into me, getting deeper and harder every time.
I reach my arms around, running my hands through his hair as he bites my neck, releasing just before it hurts too much. I drop down to the floor, digging my arms into the sand, my buttocks pointed high, my chest touching the floor.
He fills me deeper like this, and I moan with pleasure, louder and louder as he rubs my g-spot over and over again.
He moves faster and his breathing heavies.
His own excitement fuels me, and I come, feeling the moisture drip down both our legs.
Calvin cries out my name, pushing himself inside repeatedly until I hear him moan.
He stops, holding me tightly with his manly hands.
He rocks, back and forth, releasing a few last groans before we both collapse onto the floor in a sweaty mess.
“It’s going to take forever to get this sand off,” I pant, stroking his chest. Calvin looks over his shoulder.
“I’ve got an idea!”
Before I can stop him, he stands up and dives into the seawater.
“You’re crazy!” I call out. His head bursts through the surface.
“You’re next,” he screams, running towards me. I try to stand up, but my feet slip through the sand, Calvin grabs me by the waist and pulls me into the water.
I shriek as my naked body submerges into the coldness. But Calvin goes under with me, and we kiss beneath the water. We embrace for as long as we can until we break through the water and inhale as much air as we can.
Calvin picks me up and wraps my legs around his waist.
“You’re a lot easier to carry in water!”
My mouth drops wide open; I splash him in the face with a handful of water.
“I’m only kidding,” he winks. “Actually, holding you like this is making me kind of horny again!” I giggle and wiggle my hips against him to tease him. But then I wrap my arms around his neck and look into those blue eyes. The ocean has nothing on them.
“I think we’ve got some things to sort out back home, don’t you?”
“I need to resolve this Dylan situation,” he sighs.
“The diner is filled with cameras. I don’t think he’s going to be threatening you after what happened tonight,” I reply.
“What are you going to say to Zara?” Calvin kisses each cheek and slowly spins around while I clutch onto him still.
“What she did was awful, and I won’t forgive her easily. But I think she never really knew you; she never knew how happy you made me. She fucked up bad, but she saw how much that hurt me, and I think that probably hurt her too.”
Calvin smiles at me, sincerely. In the blacks of his eyes, I can see the moon.
A chill runs across my body, reminding me that I’m naked and exposed, but I feel exposed to Calvin too. And for the first time, he’s baring himself to me.
And even here, in the middle of nowhere, holding each other in the open water of the nighttime sea, I feel protected. I know he’ll keep me safe.
Epilogue
“Calvin,” I pant through heavy breath.
“Promise me something.”
Calvin smirks and takes my hand.
“Anything, babe.”
“That you’ll never make me climb up a hill like this again!” I lean over and grab onto my knees. When I look up across the hillside, the sun is just setting, still peeping over the edge of the horizon, but painting the sky a hue of pink and purple. I turn around and look at Calvin; he’s tying his laces. I look back to the sky again. Calvin coughs.
“What?” I scoff.
“Could you turn around again?”
I roll my eyes, fold my arms, and face Calvin.
“Oh, Jesus. You’re not trying your laces!”
“I was hoping that you might marry me…”
I freeze. Is this really happening to me?
“Well?” asks Calvin.
“Calvin!” I run into his open arms, both of us tumble onto the floor. Calvin pulls me on top of him. “I guess that’s a yes then?”
THE END