by JD Hawkins
He stops, and at the sudden lack of momentum I almost collapse to the ground, but he maintains a grip on my hand and deftly twirls me so I fall into his chest instead—my body fitting against his easily. I smile up at him.
“Who cares…” he says, as his arms wrap around me and pull my center into his so that he can press his open lips against mine.
It’s the most thrilling kiss I’ve ever had. I don’t know if it’s because of the sudden stop after our rampage making me aware of how hard my heart is beating, how much blood is rushing through my veins, out-of-breath but holding it against his mouth. Or because minutes ago I was seated placidly and protected behind a dinner table, and never expected that I would suddenly be out there in a part of the city I don’t know with a loud rush of speeding cars beneath my heels. I don’t know if it’s because something in Nate that I thought I was tricking myself into seeing, an urge for spontaneous playfulness beneath that self-disciplined, almost self-punishing veneer, has come alive now.
All I do know is that I want more.
I go limp in his arms, all my strength taken by his lips, but it doesn’t matter because his arms hold me tight, lift me into him, pressing my back and pulling my shoulders as if every inch of our bodily contact matters.
When he pulls his lips away, it seems only because now his eyes are hungry for me, our foreheads touching, mixing the panting breaths of our exhilarating run through the city together. His hands pushing into my hair, my face pushing back into his palm.
In a low, breathy tone, he says, “I want to go somewhere I can be alone with you.”
“Me too…” I answer, “but we’ll have to go all the way back to the restaurant for the car, and I don’t even know where we are right now.”
His eyes twinkle, their hardness no longer still and fixed, but wild and driven. Already stepping back, taking my hand again, he says, “We’ll take a cab.”
Seconds after descending the bridge, Nate manages to find and hail a taxi before I can even suggest using my phone for a ride. Something about the taxi being there at exactly the right moment—and in the middle of Los Angeles, no less—makes sense, like the universe doesn’t want us to stop either, like it’s rewarding us for stumbling on whatever this frenzied mood is.
Still breathless, we clamber into the back of the cab.
“Where you heading?” the driver asks.
Nate looks at me for a few seconds, but while I’m still deciding whether to suggest his place or mine, he gets that purposeful eagerness in his face and replies.
“To the beach—take us to a nice spot, where there’s nobody else.”
The engine revs, the car jolting into the moving traffic, and then Nate is all over me again, ravaging me in the back seat with more than his lips now. Hands up my skirt, caressing my thighs, my ass, the back of my knee. His shoulders bearing down on me, his lust pressing against me. I push my fingers against his chest, feeling his tensing muscles through the fabric.
A whole week of waiting for him, trying not to think of if this would happen—let alone how it would. A day of him being here, of us being together. All that holding back, all that anticipation allowed to manifest fully now. I want to savor it, but it’s too much to hold back, and instead we’re trapped in this beautifully frustrating wrestling match against our mixed desire.
My leg over his, his lips on my neck, my collarbone, the space between my breasts. The rolling and swaying of the car pushing and pulling us together like our lusts and frustrations have become manifested physically, so intense that they’ve become forces of their own.
“Here we are,” the taxi driver says in a loud enough voice that we can hear him over our panting as the car slows. “This whole strip is pretty quiet. Not a lot of beach, but I guess that’s fine for…whatever you guys are planning.”
I pull away from Nate first, and it takes him a second to lose the wild look in his eyes and realize that the car has stopped.
“Thanks,” Nate says, grabbing his wallet and pulling a hundred-dollar bill from it. “Here. Keep the change.”
Nate takes my hand and opens the door, but before he can step out the driver manages to check the note and stop him.
“Hey,” he says, and when Nate looks at his reflection in the rearview he points a little way up the road. “If you go down a few feet behind that sign it looks steeper than it is. You can descend there and find a nice sort of little bay. That’s my fishing spot.”
I laugh and it draws the taxi driver’s eye to me in the mirror. He winks and then Nate thanks him again before helping me out of the car.
“Hold up,” I say, pulling my hand from Nate’s.
He turns back to watch me take off my heels, and once I’m dangling them from a finger I take Nate’s hand and decide to lead him a little.
The way down to the coast is dark and long, but the ground is soft enough to grip and the moonlit waves below form a nice guide. Soon we’re so far from the road we can barely hear the cars, the streetlights completely obscured now.
At the bottom, there’s about ten feet of unspoiled sand between the lapping waves and the rocks which form the bottom of the cliff. I slide a little down the soil and lose my nerve, stepping onto the rocks with bare feet. About to turn to Nate, who’s not far behind, I feel his arm around my back at the same moment, then something around the back of my knees.
I shriek loudly as my feet sweep upwards and my head falls back, and surprise explodes into laughter when I see Nate smiling mischievously as he carries me across the rocks. He puts my feet down gently on the pale sand, so softly and easily it’s like he’s worried about breaking me. But there’s no such worry with the ferociously hungry, irresistible tongue-kiss he puts on me afterwards.
It’s a brief one though, Nate pulling away to look out at the waves, rolling over each other as they grasp at but never quite catch the smooth sand. I peel out of his arms to place my shoes and purse carefully on one of the rocks, and when I turn back Nate’s pulling his own shoes off and tossing them with much less care.
“What are you doing?” I laugh, already knowing, and already excited.
“I want to feel the water,” he says, turning to me as he steps out first into the lapping waves, unbuttoning his cuffs as if it’ll matter, then the shallows, then to his waist. His clothes wetting, sticking to his legs, spray getting all over his shirt. He gasps a little and smiles.
“I could have told you it would be cold!” I call to him.
As if that was a challenge, he turns to face the horizon and dives face-first into the water. I watch in awe as he doesn’t appear for a few seconds, then pops his head up almost five yards further out. Flicking wet hair aside, his expression one of pure joy.
“Come on out here!” he yells as he wades back toward me.
“Just a little,” I say, stepping out just far enough for the waves to lap my ankles.
“Come on! Get in the water with me!” Nate calls again, splashing water at me and causing me to yelp.
“No!” I say, shaking my head vigorously. Laughing at the fact that he’s being so crazy and I’m suddenly the responsible one. “I can’t ruin the dress!”
“Forget the dress,” he says, close enough to lower his voice now, to sound serious. “You never needed it anyway.”
He holds out his hand, and if I wasn’t already a little out of breath from the climb down, everything about him would have taken it away. The strong lines of his face outlined by glistening, moonlit water. His shirt—which I half unbuttoned in the taxi—clinging to his body, revealing the outline of his impenetrable physique. The look on his face so pure and strong and wild.
No matter how much I like this dress, not a single part of me can resist.
I step toward him, deeper into the water, taking his hand and eventually wrapping my arms around his neck, his hands around my waist. The dress clings to me wetly, seeming to squeeze my body and make me aware of how aroused he gets me. The water’s cold but it can barely penetrate the heat of my racin
g blood, the exciting rush of feeling his body against mine.
He spins me in the water, our eyes fixed on each other. As we turn, his eyes angle toward the moon, catching the light, until he turns away and the shadows carve out the hard lines of his brow, cheeks, and jaw. I feel weightless, and soon realize the water’s deeper than I am tall, but I don’t fret for a second, feeling safer than ever in his arms.
We trace fingers through each other’s wet hair, down salty cheeks, bringing our faces so close we can feel the other’s warm breath against our water-chilled skin. The waves lapping against us, cold strokes, and then the chill of air. Like some strange private ritual, as if we’re too far gone for rules anymore, we let ourselves be patiently self-indulgent.
I peel his shirt aside so I can gaze at his muscles. He puts his finger in my mouth and I suck the seawater taste from it. The hardness of his cock against my stomach excites me. I let him peel a strap from my shoulder and feel the cold water against the edge of my bare nipple.
“I couldn’t do this with anyone else,” he groans with hard breath over my wet cheek.
“So do it now…” I whisper into his ear.
His hands press their way down my lower back, over my ass, scooping my thighs up around him in the water and he moves into me, pushing me back. The waves lap against my chest, then my sides, then I feel the cool air on my thighs, water stroking my legs as it falls. He carries me back to the beach where the water rolls gently, smoothing the layers of sand, and I feel the muscles of his back tense under my hands as he lays me down there gently on my back, still close enough to the ocean for the waves to lap at my body.
The water reaches over my ankles, splashing up to my knees, and it feels like the ocean is pulling me, yearning for me. Nate moves over me, and it feels like he’s one with the waves, a co-conspirator with the sea as he moves his hand in similarly gentle, grasping movements up my skirt, over my breasts, across my face to brush my hair back.
I extend my hands above me, digging them into the wet sand, as if trying to make myself bigger than I am, as big as possible so that I can take in more of these exciting, stimulating sensations. I let my mind go, carried by the sound of the waves somewhere far, and let my body react as it wants to his touch, to the water. Arching against him as he dives in to suck on my neck, toes digging into the sand as he grinds salt-water rough hands against my thigh.
When he pulls his hands away I spend seconds yearning for his touch to return, until I’m compelled to open my eyes and see why he’s stopped. He’s got his wet wallet in his hand, fishing for something there in the dark. He finds it, and then tosses the wallet over my head toward my purse, the glistening condom packet in his fingers.
“And here’s me thinking you were being spontaneous,” I say with a soft smile as he peels it open with his teeth and rolls it on.
“I was,” he says, bringing his face down to mine again for a snatched, twisting, wet kiss. “I had no idea how we’d get here…” he murmurs against my throat, tongue moving up over my chin. “I only knew we would.”
His fingers pull my panties aside and even this slight touch sends a spasm through my body, my mind still lost as if in a dream, but my body reacting to him instinctively. My thighs moving apart, every part of me opening up to him, begging him to invade it, to fill it, to close it so that none of this joy can escape.
He strokes a finger gently inside me and suddenly the lapping water sounds a million times louder, like thunderous, violent storms. Like thudding, vicious winds. Or maybe that’s just my own breath, my own thumping heart.
“Nate,” I sigh.
Again his finger explores me, and my whole body tightens with desire. Sand clinging to my legs as I dig my heels in, to my cheek as I twist my head to the side, catching a glimpse of the shining rocks above me. The waves panting harshly along with me, filling me with an ocean’s worth of passion. His hard cock ready and still against my thigh, so close and yet nowhere near.
When he touches me again it’s too much too bear, not enough to gratify my infinite thirst. I lift my head, pull his neck to roll him over onto his back. His body slaps against the sand and water with a splash, and I bring my knee across to straddle him and gaze down, taking in his beauty while I lean my sand-covered arms onto his pulsating chest.
My expression loose in this maniacal frenzy, panting and staring into his hard eyes, I reach down and guide his cock into me—exhaling all my breath, all the tension inside as he slowly parts me.
I look down at him, his shirt ripped open now, exposing muscles as hard and glistening as the rocks beyond, my hands pressing against him to hold myself up, to guide myself over him. His own expression piercing and intense now at this shared thrill. His hands clench my waist but I’m the one in control now, guiding and rolling and pressing myself over him, taking my time and drawing out every honeyed sensation as I ride him.
“You’re fucking incredible…” he says in hard, flinty tones as water splashes across his naked chest, his eyes fixed on me.
His hand slides off the side of my dress that’s dangling, exposing my nipple, and he pinches it with his fingers. There’s sand on his palms, making his touch even rougher, gritting into my skin like he’s imprinting himself onto me. The pinch makes me jerk over him suddenly, his cock further inside of me, and I freeze for a moment with the shock of this new level of ecstasy.
“Yeah?” I hiss at him, the word coming out like a challenge as I work my hips over him, deeper and deeper until I’m sitting on him fully. Every small movement in me now another exploding color. Each inhale I make feeling like a cold shock, each exhale like the bliss overspilling.
“Yeah…” he groans.
I curl and twist over him, feeling like the flame from the burning fire he’s put inside of me. Bending forward and flicking wet hair over his face and chest—a move that makes him growl like a night animal, then raise his head to mine for a kiss. I torture him by pulling away. Watching him grit his teeth in frustration, through the wet strands of my hair, feels like spices in my veins.
Again I lean toward him, openmouthed, his own face leaning to mine like he’s mesmerized, and I turn away before he can steal the kiss from me.
“You’re teasing me…” he growls as he tightens his fingers into my ass.
“I want you to beg for it,” I hiss back, the words interrupted by my moans, half laugh and half the sound of my body filling with euphoria.
I catch a glimpse of his smile through my hair again, then he sweeps me to the side, rolling with me onto my back and pinning my arms down above my head. I let out that half laugh half moan again, my body convulsing between his hard chest and the soft sand.
“I don’t like to beg,” he murmurs, running his tongue up my neck again. “I take what I want.”
His mouth steals the sigh from mine, stilling the breath in my body as he fucks me into the sand. I cross my ankles behind his back and let him and the waves pump shocks of alternating cold and heat through my shaking body. Pinned between his cock, his kiss, and his hands holding mine above my head, it feels like he’s stretching me out, turning me taut and tense as a bowstring, unworried about when I’ll snap. I hum and moan and squeal into his ravenous kiss.
Somewhere in the center of all this salt and sweat and flesh and waves, I feel the essence of this nirvana begin to gather, coming together deep inside of me where we connect so perfectly. Nate stirring the sweetness, the heat, until they threaten to spill over like the waves around us.
He pulls his kiss away and I open my eyes to see his gaze locked onto mine amidst the chaos. I stare back up at him purposefully, as if clasping for life against these rolling emotions. But the sight of his perfection is too much to bear on top of everything else, and I can’t hold back anymore.
The orgasm doesn’t feel like a release, like the final, immense rush—instead it feels like something opening up, and the pouring of even more bliss into me. The sea, the waves, the stars—it feels like they’re all rushing inside me, filling m
y body with magnificence, with something profound and divine.
“Nate, yes, yes…”
I gasp and cry out, feeling like I might slip into the ocean, might float if Nate lets go of me, of this. My body so full of this incredible feeling that there’s no room for strength, for breath, or even the simplest thought.
Nate’s final hardness ends deep inside of me, and when he lets my hands free I instinctively grasp him, clinging to him as the whirlwinds inside of me subside.
My panting slows into deep, satisfied breaths. Once again the lapping waves begin to feel cold, tickling my still-sensitive flesh. Nate strokes my hair and I delay opening my eyes, wanting to sip every last drop before I get to enjoy looking at him again.
“I could only do this with you,” he says.
I open my eyes and let the image of his face so close send more tingles down my wet spine. “You already said that,” I tell him with a smile.
He smiles back. “That’s because it’s true.”
16
Nate
The weirdest thing about having to play the “show pony” for the wedding is that it doesn’t feel all that weird at all.
Having to dress, act, and talk in a way that impresses your wealth and status on others becomes second nature when you’ve spent time moving in the circles I have. Acting like you’ve got something the other person doesn’t, that they want—it’s a fundamental part of business. You can’t become wealthy and important without making people envious, and sometimes making people envious can make you very wealthy and important. Heck, Nicole was the best at it. I learned from the master.
A rare vintage watch even Rolex owners would envy. A tailored suit made from material you need to qualify for. Shoes made by an artisan with a three-year waiting list. But more than any of those, it’s in the eyes. A look. A profound kind of boredom—existential, almost. The crisis of knowing the whole world is your playground, that almost everything in it can be yours.