Accessory

by C. L. Stone

  ONSEN ROMANCE

  Marc stayed by the wall, still hanging his hands into the women’s side. “Hey,” he said after Mr. Cline and Blake left and I had to assume they weren’t coming back. “You okay?”

  I pressed my palms to my cheeks, shaking my head. I relaxed a bit more now that Blake and Mr. Cline was gone. My breasts floated in the water but I was still covered by the wall and the colored water. “Was this really necessary?”

  “You wanted to start a rumor about you. We’re just doing what you said you wanted.”

  “We’re nowhere closer to finding out the truth about Nightingale than we were this morning,” I said. “We’ve only got five days onboard.”

  “And we’re just getting started.” He reached for me, for my wrist, pulling me until he and I were face to face. Our chests were pressed against the wall as he held onto my shoulders. I held on to him. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You look...angry.”

  I wondered if Marc had heard what happened with Axel and me. Maybe he’d been involved with Blake and hadn’t had a chance to check in with what had been going on. “A lot of things are just happening all at once,” I said, shaking my head and looking down at the smooth black wall between us. It was odd having that separation, but still felt really intimate. Probably because we were naked and outside, which was strange in the first place.

  If he didn’t know yet about what had happened, either they didn’t feel the need to tell him, or he just hadn’t spoken to them yet.

  “Aw, Bambi,” he said. He tugged at my shoulders, trying to draw me in for a hug, but the wall cut into my breasts.

  I pulled from him, holding an arm over my chest. “Ugh,” I said. “Squished.”

  He grinned. “Whoops. Hang on.” He pushed me back a little and then put his palms on the top of the wall. He pulled himself up.

  Oh no. “Don’t...”

  Too late. I caught only a glimpse of his naked body before he splashed down into the women’s side of the pool. I turned my head and covered my eyes at the splash.

  “Marc!” I sputtered, wiping at my face. My glasses had more droplets on them. I was going to be blind wearing these things at this rate. “You’re on the wrong side.”

  “I’m supposed to stick next to you anyway,” he said. He wadded up to me, standing uncomfortably close, considering we were both naked.

  I groaned and pushed at his arm, covering my chest with my other arm. I couldn’t help but look down, seeing how much I could actually see. Just shoulders and part of his chest through the color.

  He reached for my elbows, drawing me into him. “Come on,” he said. “This place is really cool. We should find one of these around Charleston.”

  “I don’t think they have stuff like this,” I said, and kept myself at a distance. My body, though, floating in the water, kept wanting to collide into him. Stupid water. Made it feel like I was flirting with him by bumping into him. His toe nudged mine, and since the bottom was slick and felt weird with the soft sand, and I was creeped out, I edged forward, stepping on his feet.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, looking down and reaching for my waist to hold on to me. It made it easier to stand on the tops of his feet, but that much more difficult to keep myself at a distance.

  I ended up just letting go of my boobs, sinking lower into the water so that it was up to my neck, holding onto his shoulders. “I don’t like the floor of this thing,” I said. “It’s slimy. And this place looks too much like a pond. I keep thinking there’s going to be a fish swimming by, and then I think there is one and that sand at the bottom...ugh.” I tiptoed higher onto the top of his feet, grossed out.

  He laughed, hanging onto my waist and drawing me into him. My boobs and stomach met with his body, chest to chest. “It’s okay. Just hang onto me.” He started to turn, floating with the water, taking me with him. “That slick feeling at the bottom is probably just the color settling down. Once it gets kicked back up again by more people coming in, it’ll be fine. Just relax.”

  I couldn’t. Once I was stuck against him, I clung to him. I’d been okay before, but now that I had the opportunity to step on his feet and let him touch the ground, I didn’t want to touch it again. I hung onto his shoulders, putting my cheek next to his. “Do we have to be here? Can we just go?”

  “Just a little while longer,” he said. “I don’t want to go in there with Blake and Mr. Cline. I need to give Blake time to talk. I wasn’t doing much good; I don’t know what I’m talking about with investments. He knows the details. He wants to be Mr. Cline’s pal and maybe see if he’s willing to invest in one of Blake’s properties later.”

  “Good because I don’t know what I’m doing, either,” I said, folding my arms around his neck, covering myself, even if I was pressing into his body. He held onto my waist, feet moving a little, mine on top, almost like we were slow-dancing. “I know I shouldn’t be in a hurry. I just...I’m not very good at this.”

  “You’re doing fine,” he said. “No rush, right? We’re just gathering information.”

  “I’ve screwed up already. Made myself a target.”

  “Well, it’s not the end of the world,” he said. He pulled back. I still clung to him, my chest up against his. He looked at my face, his mismatched eyes sparkling with amusement, and something sweeter. “I think this right here made it worth it.”

  I shook my head, looking away, but couldn’t help but smile. Then I blinked and looked back at him. I felt like a dork in the glasses, though. They were too big for my face and I kept noticing them.

  And then I remembered the ear piece and thought it might be better to not let people listen in on this. “Do you still have your ear thing?” I whispered.

  He nodded, seeming to catch on that I wanted to say something between us. “Doyle,” he said.

  Doyle might not have bothered to let him know what was going on. Still, I didn’t need Doyle in the middle of everything. “Can you get rid of it?”

  He grinned and then dug the ear bud out of his ear. He moved us along until he could stick it on a rock out of the water.

  “Whoops,” he said. “How did that happen?”

  I slipped when he let go of me, stepping on the slick bottom again. I shivered and then gripped tighter to him, picking my feet up. I was practically on his ankles now, sliding down to his feet, missing his feet and touching the bottom again. I squealed. I was a five year old, now. My maturity level gone. The floor was lava. I was trying not to touch it. I picked my feet up higher, legs going around his thighs, just trying to keep my feet up.

  It wasn’t totally the slick floor, either. Part of it was Marc. He was light-hearted about things right now. It changed my mood. I was feeling playful. Marc’s handsome face was beaming, happy, and I craved that feeling for myself.

  Marc laughed, catching me around the waist and then his hands smoothed down to my butt, lifting me. “Just wrap your legs around. You’re fine.”

  I started to, and then considered what I was doing. Was that too close? It’d been a while since we’d done anything more than held a hand or hugged. This was pretty far, although I remembered being in the back of a car with him, and he had kissed me, and we had hinted around sex, but never got that far. I slowly, put one leg around his waist, testing my feelings and him to see if he got uncomfortable. “I feel like an idiot.”

  “Your hair looks weird being up like that,” he said. His strong body pressed to mine, and he kept his hold on my butt, letting me cling to him like a monkey to a branch. He carried me as he walked, slowly, back toward the woman’s side and the stairs. “And I don’t know if I like the glasses. You don’t look like you anymore.”

  “Not usually my thing,” I said.

  “Not that I’d care if you needed glasses,” he said. His hands massaged my butt as he held me. It encouraged me to pick up my legs more to wrap fully around him and let him carry me. He stopped walking, still a good distance from the steps. He pulled back enough to look at my face. “You’d just look
better with a different pair. Or maybe contacts if you needed them. I like your face as it is.”

  I grimaced, embarrassed at my weirdness. I sort of wanted to talk to him about Axel, and then I didn’t, because I didn’t want him to know and be mad like everyone else. I didn’t even know where to start, or how to bring it up.

  He smiled at me. “Hi, Bambi,” he said.

  I grinned. “Hi?” Maybe it was good to let this continue. Everyone else might be mad at me right now. Maybe once Marc learned about it, he would be, too. Was it wrong to enjoy this while it lasted?

  “I just feel like I haven’t seen you in a while. You know, outside of sleeping and fighting.”

  “You saw me...last night?”

  “Not the same,” he said. “We haven’t been alone for a while.”

  That was true. Not outside of sleeping, which I had been doing a lot lately.

  “I missed you,” he said. “I didn’t know you were such a big baby, either.”

  I snorted, and then tried to pull away. “Jerk.”

  He laughed and then pulled me back, which was good, because I really didn’t want him to let go. This felt good to me. “Not that I mind right now. I wasn’t really expecting you to be naked. I figured you’d wear a bikini or something.”

  “I don’t have a bikini.”

  “There was one in the locker room,” he said.

  My eyes widened, and my mouth opened. The lady had basically said everyone went in naked so I was going along with it. “No one told me that!”

  “Really?” he said. “Fancy said she’d leave one for you. She thought you didn’t want to go into the water naked.”

  Ugh. “Well I didn’t go look. I didn’t know.”

  Marc started to chuckle. “Maybe she forgot...or didn’t want to tell you.”

  I smacked his shoulder. “It’s not funny!”

  He caught my wrist and then grinned, his face really close to mine. “Hang on, Bambi. It’s actually better you were naked.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”

  “It’s the full experience,” he said. “You’re technically supposed to be naked.”

  “And on your own side of the pond,” I said. I pushed at his arm, as if to direct him back to his side. “Can we get out of this?”

  “Well, at least we know now that you don’t like hot baths. It’s a shame, really. This is nice.”

  It was nice. He was nice. I couldn’t stop the feelings inside me, warmer than the water around us. The mismatched eyes were enchanting. I hadn’t looked that long directly at his eyes but once I started now, I couldn’t turn away. “The water isn’t too bad,” I said, but I clung more, raising my body up against his. “It’s warm and...” And then I felt it, the hardness poking up between us. It might have been there longer, but I’d been excited and distracted. I bit my lip, cutting myself off, and realizing too late I’d made it obvious I noticed.

  Marc continued to grin. He gripped my hips, pulling me closer to his body. “I’ve got the hottest girl on this boat clinging to me naked. If you bat those pretty green eyes any more at me, I’m going to pop right here.”

  I sucked in a breath, thrown off by his compliments and his bold statement. I clung to him tighter. “Well, I’m glad you’re not still mad at me for staying.” I meant it way more than he really knew.

  “Mad at you? Hell, I was the one dragging you out of the apartment on a wild goose chase.” He walked closer to the stairs and then stopped, turned, and brought me to the wall, leaning his back to it. He tilted his head down, until his nose touched mine. “And my lead on your brother turned out to be wrong. When Fancy called, I was hoping a night out would make you forget. You looked so disappointed.”

  Aw. “I was disappointed,” I said. “But that wasn’t your fault. You were doing what you could.”

  “I didn’t want to get you down when you already seemed depressed.”

  “I was just sick and tired and trying to get over it.”

  “And depressed,” he said, his mismatched eyes tracing over my face. His nose brushed mine and I felt a swelling in my heart. He had a rock star face, rugged. There was some shadow to his unshaven face, making him look that much sexier. When he pouted his lip, looking down, all I could think about what him. “Kayli, I haven’t seen you so animated in weeks. I’m glad Raven managed to talk us into this with you. Yeah, it’s dangerous...but maybe you needed this. To get out of your comfort zone for a little while.”

  I wanted to look down, because the intensity in his stare was making my insides spark up. Wriggly sparks.

  He wouldn’t allow me to look away. He touched his nose to mine, and then brought a hand up out of the water, cupping my jaw in his hands. I had to put my legs down, stepping on the tops of his feet again. He brought his other hand up, holding my head in his hands. I clung to his shoulders.

  “This is the Kayli I miss,” he said softly. He kissed my lips briefly, too quick for me to respond, but the action caused my eyes to close. “This is worth it. You’re worth it. All the trouble we might get into with the Academy...”

  My eyes fluttered open. “Don’t they know?”

  His eyes half opened and he shook his head. “Not...fully. Not yet.”

  I pulled my head away from his hands so I could look at him. He moved his hands down, holding onto my neck and shoulder. “Axel didn’t tell them?”

  “We only said you were in trouble and we were going to follow you around to babysit you. I have a feeling they know now what we’re doing, but it’s a little too late to stop us.”

  My lips parted. “How much trouble are you going to get into?”

  “Maybe a lot,” he said. He shook his head and smiled. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I did worry. If they got kicked out of this Academy because they had decided to follow me...how did I feel about that? And would they resent me after?

  Marc’s gaze fell from my eyes to my lips and then lifted back to my eyes. “Don’t think on that too hard. Not right now.”

  I shook my head, looking back at the stairs. I was wondering what I might have to do next. Should I make myself available to Mr. Smith? To Tara? Maybe...maybe if we solved at least one of these problems, the Academy would go easy on them. If they saw we really were doing some good...

  Marc took my chin between his fingers and redirected my attention back to him. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. Don’t leave yet.”

  I smirked. “Someone else might come in here.”

  He tilted his head closer to mine, his lips hovering over my mouth. “I’ll take my chances.”

  He kissed me and another wave of sparks zipped through my stomach. I clung to him tighter, my hip finding and pressing against that hardness between us.

  He deepened the kiss. His hand reached up, taking the band in my hair and pulling it out, until my hair fell around my shoulders. He threw the band into the pool and then twined his fingers in my hair, holding to the back of my head with both hands.

  He turned me until my back was against the bath wall. He pressed into me. His tongue darted into my mouth.

  I responded, and the more he kissed me, the harder I kissed back. I opened my mouth more, taking on his tongue, touching it with my own. My hands held to the back of his neck, pulling him into me.

  His hands went back down again, down to my hips, to my butt, until he gripped it, pulling me back into him tighter, and pushing me up against the wall.

  Something desperate happened to me. All the worry, all the tension I’d built up coiled inside me; I needed him. I needed a wild, let-go moment with Marc. He was risking his career with the Academy to be here with me. He still wanted me, maybe the only one left. I’d disappointed Axel, even though I still cared about him. Raven and Brandon...I didn’t know how they felt. I don’t know if I’d ruined things with them or if they completely blamed Axel for what had happened.

  Something Axel had said was true: I was getting tired of holding back. I was tired of being on the cusp
of an almost relationship. It was the problem between us all. I was always on the edge, never truly inside, and never able to simply walk away. No wonder I didn’t feel comfortable. There wasn’t anything stable around me. Choosing had been my problem and it left me in limbo, like finding my brother, like finding a home.

  Marc ground his body into mine, and pushed his hardness at my belly. Slowly, I moved my hips a little, until he was close to home. I couldn’t help it. I wanted it as much as he did. It was like I would finally feel that stability and connection with him if I took this step. Maybe Marc would be the one who would stick by me if I did.

  His hand slid down from my head. He held onto my butt, and then cupped my breast. He played with it, squeezing it and felt how the water made my breasts float.

  Since he let go, I readjusted my hold. I slipped, falling between the wall and him. Since I was shorter, my hips fell, and the wave sent my body sideways in the water.

  He broke the kiss, gasping, trying to grab me. “Whoops,” he said, laughing. “Hang on. Don’t go anywhere.”

  I laughed, and it felt strange. It was the first time I’d done so in a while. I held on to his shoulders and then stepped onto his feet again.

  He groaned, pressing his body up against mine, his erection pressing into my lower abdomen. He did a growl-moaning thing and bent his head, kissing my lips again quickly. “I’m going too fast, aren’t I?”

  I groaned. I wanted to do things with him. Dirty things. My body was craving it. I clung to his shoulders, digging my nails into his skin a little. “I’m supposed to say yes...”

  He smirked and then leaned his head down, opening his mouth and kissing me, hard. He grunted and then pulled back. “I’m about to go off. Like, right now.”

  I grinned and then rubbed my lower abs against his hardness, grinding him. In the moment, I was wild to make him like me, and this could be a moment that would connect us. I needed it. I needed someone on my side. I needed Marc.

  I kept remembering how he brought me into the group, and his promises to keep me safe. There was the time he made me breakfast, and we ate on the roof of the apartment building. Even then, he risked his job just to help me when I wanted to go after Blake.