by Ember Leigh
Negatives: I’ve failed at being someone’s intimacy partner. Basically farted in Weston’s mouth. Tripped and needed his help saving my life and my most precious camera equipment. Got caught masturbating and moaning his name.
Pluses: Are there any? Oh wait, yes, there’s one major one. Enormous one, actually. He called me hot and funny and weird.
My heart is thumping so fast that I feel dizzy. I’m balanced on a particular type of tight rope, the one that precedes making life-changing decisions. Which way I fall off the rope—because I’m going to—determines if I fall into the future or into the past.
And for once in my fucking life, I want to fall into the future.
If I’ve farted and failed and flailed, and somehow Weston still wants me?
Then by God, the man deserves this hot mess.
I fumble through finding my bikini, because I’m so jazzed and nervous that I can barely see straight. First I can only find the bottoms, then after I find the string bikini top, I’ve lost the bottoms all over again. I ram my knee into the bedpost, rediscover the bikini bottoms, and then put them on backward. Finally, I stand in the middle of my room, bikini ass backwards, and expel a fortifying breath of air.
Get your shit together. I can’t go meet Weston for my very first illicit island encounter and just unravel on the spot. At this rate, I’ll probably orgasm before he even touches me. He has the upper hand, and he probably knows it. I need to arrive cool and collected.
Yes. Nova, cool, calm, and collected, before hooking up with the world’s hottest playboy.
One hundred percent not happening.
I barely remember to grab my beach towel before I bolt out of the hut. Of course, doubts lurk in the back of my mind. Will he really be there? Is he actually serious about this? Is this the adult version of the cool kids playing a trick on me?
But something warm and inviting about Weston makes me willing to throw caution to the wind for this wild one-off. Call it my Aruban insanity. But however hard it is to accept that Weston actually wants this bodacious bod, it’s even harder for me to accept a reality in which I wake up tomorrow and didn’t at least try.
I don’t even take sandals with me; I just speed walk down the boardwalk, breathless and focused on whatever might come next. Palm trees blur past me. I trip twice on the wood planks. I might have a splinter, but I do not even care.
Then I arrive. Oh lord, I arrive to the kidney-bean pool, lit up in in varying neon colors, the cerulean water lapping gently at the edges. The pool nook is empty, except for what I assume to be Weston’s ridiculous hippie bag stashed on an abandoned lounge chair. A dark figure moves beneath the water, and my heart starts racing again. As if it ever stopped. Now I’m approaching bona fide I might need a doctor territory. I drop my towel next to his bag and climb down the ladder into the warm pool while he’s swimming underwater.
Weston surfaces after a moment, sputtering water. He’s facing away from me as I silently ease into the now-neon-pink water. My toes reach the bottom of the pool, but just barely. He’s breathing heavily, staring out at the boardwalk.
Excitement shivers through me. He has no idea I’m here. I feel so powerful, drunk on possibility and potential. Should I sexily swim up to him and lick his shoulder? Wait, that’s not sexy. Or just wait until he spots me and let him come to me? This is like every single adolescent fantasy come to life at once—being lusted after, being chased, being wrong about a man, being eyed by the hottest man on the planet. I’m so close to meltdown, and we haven’t even kissed.
Weston sighs and runs a hand through his damp hair. The broad muscles of his back are dripping with water, biceps bulging as he sinks down into the water again. And then he turns.
The air cinches tight between us, every millisecond of time stretching long and bloated and charged. I can feel his gaze shivering over me, the pinpricks of awareness and delight as he beholds me. And fuck, yeah, maybe I’m imagining all of this? But maybe I’m allowed to get swept up in the fantasy for one night. If he’s willing to go there, then I should be too.
The most deliciously evil smile curls at his lips, his blue eyes flashing. Water sloshes around him as he launches toward me, arms stretching out as he makes powerful strides through the water.
I’ve never felt so simultaneously ready and on edge. As he nears, my impulse is to back up, to float away from his overwhelming masculine energy. I’ve never been approached like this, even though I’ve been waiting my whole life to receive it. I barely breathe as I watch him swim toward me. And then suddenly his gorgeous face is in front of me, closer than it’s ever been. I’m getting lost in the infinite swirl of his ice-blue eyes, tripping over the tiny smile lines at his eyes and the fullness of his lips when the masculine warmth of him hits me.
“You came,” he says, his voice a guttural scrape as he floats inches away from me. He’s treading water in front of me, our heads level, lips so close that it hurts. My gaze ping-pongs back and forth across his intense face. His strong collarbone. The watery transition into the rest of him, which I’m dying to get to know for myself.
“No, I actually thought I’d stay in tonight,” I say, because I am unable to control my mouth. His mouth slants in an amused smirk.
“Real funny,” he says, swimming perilously closer, so close that I can feel his hot breath. My eyes flutter shut, reminding me of the seriousness of what is about to happen. “Open your eyes.”
I snap them open, forcing myself to meet his intense gaze. “Why?”
“Because we need to get on the level.” The currents of water from his moving arms send shivers up my spine. The spicy tang of him is mind-numbing. Beguiling. Something I might never want to live without.
“What level is that?” My gaze wanders along the strong lines of his collarbone, over his tanned shoulder. I might be drooling.
“Your boyfriend back home.”
My brows draw together, the brakes pumping on the lust train. “And who is that?”
“You tell me.” He comes to standing now, rising out of the water, reminding me of how much taller he is than me. Water drops run down his chest, partially erasing the protests on my tongue. Sorry, say what? This flat, broad, tanned chest has completely derailed me.
“I don’t—” The rest of my sentence dissolves. We are so close to touching, the planes of his chest making my fingers curl with the urge to dance across his perfect body.
“I don’t want to start trouble,” he says, wetting his bottom lip as his gaze washes over me. “But you need to tell me now because I’m about ten seconds away from starting trouble anyway.”
My eyes flutter shut again as the sexiness of his words wash over me. I made the right decision in coming here. That sentence alone makes everything worth it.
“I don’t have a boyfriend back home,” I manage to say, glancing down at where his belly meets the water. Wondering what else is happening down there. “Or anywhere. I am chronically single. I’m a born-again virgin, basically.”
The words barely escape my lips before Weston surges forward and cups my face and smashes his lips to mine. He is heat and crushed velvet against my lips. Every inch of my body screams with relief as he kisses me once, then again. Then his tongue presses past my lips and oh! Oh my heavens, my core is aching, and everything I thought I knew about good kisses prior to this moment dissolves in a puff.
He’s backing me up as our kisses grow deeper and longer. My chest touches his as he floats me backwards, one of his hands dropping to my leg. He urges it up to his hip, and in one fluid motion both of my legs are around him, ankles crossed behind his butt. He grunts through a kiss, his palms pushing up the wide expanse of my thighs until he’s got my ass cheeks overflowing in his hands. My kneejerk reaction is to apologize for my size, to remind him that I don’t look like half the girls on this island, to explain that I already understand that I’m big.
But I’m too distracted. By the kissing. The sensations. The body buzz that is so desperately close to an orgasm.
Finally, my back touches the cool tile side of the pool, and then his chest presses against mine. He has a solidity I never knew I needed. I melt against him, finally remembering through the haze of the mind-numbing kisses that I have hands and can use them.
I tentatively touch his chest. His skin is firm and warm beneath my fingertips. I palm the expanse of his chest, finally daring to drag my fingers lower until I find the ridges of those washboard abs. I whimper though another kiss.
Weston pulls back, chest heaving. He searches my eyes, and the look of kiss-bitten lips on him reaches an unknown level of sexiness. My kisses gave him this drugged-out look. Mine.
“Jesus Christ, Nova,” he breathes, pressing his forehead to mine. He squeezes my butt, sending lust racing through my veins. And then I feel it. The hard ridge of his cock trapped against my hip. If there was any proof out there that this wasn’t just a cruel trick by the cool kid, well, this is it. He wants me. He fucking wants me. I tighten my legs around him, wanting to abolish any inch of space that remains between us.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I whisper, nuzzling his cheek with my face. Part of me is terrified that I’ll wake up and find myself alone in my hut, hand buried in my underwear. Maybe this is a hallucination prompted by the beach air.
But when Weston presses his lips to mine in another kiss, truth sears through me. This is no hallucination. Hell, this isn’t even a trick. This is unabashed sexy time.
I squeeze my legs around him even tighter as our kisses pick up, more intense than the first round. I moan through a kiss, pushing my hand lower, lower, lower, until my fingers brush the soft, velvety tip of…his penis? I gasp, pulling away. Weston expels a low breath, his hips jerking.
“You know I have a dick, right?” he jokes.
“Yes, I just wasn’t expecting to touch it already.” My mind catches up with my words, and I hurry to clarify. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I want to touch it. Today. And put it other places like…my mouth.” As I talk, his smile slowly grows wider. “And, you know…other places. I just…” My fingers drift back down to caress his exposed cockhead. “I just didn’t realize it would be escaping from your pants already.”
His grin grows evil, and he dips down for another kiss. “It’s kind of big. Your fault, though.”
I tip my head back and smile as he kisses me again. This is heaven, right here. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this sexy, this turned on. My pussy is throbbing as he adjusts himself, allowing the ridge of his cock to press up against the crotch of my bikini.
“Ohhhhh,” I begin, my vowels bleeding into a moan. He thrusts ever so slightly, that steel heat nudging my clit in just the right way. My thighs go tighter around him, and heat zips through my veins. My breath wheezes out of me—just narrowly missed that orgasm.
“Be careful,” I say, though I’m not sure the words actually leave my mouth.
His lips find the curve of my neck, tracing a damp path down to the hollow. His teeth scrape against my collarbone, and I arch into him, squeezing my arms around his neck.
“Mmm. Fuck, Nova.” He jiggles my butt cheeks, reaffirming his healthy handful. His eyes are shrouded with lust. “Do you know how many times I’ve imagined this?”
His simple question leaves me sputtering. He’s actually imagined doing this with me? It seems impossible, like some sort of theoretically null math equation just designed to fuck with scientists’ heads. Of course Weston’s penis does not equal Nova’s vagina. It’s baked into the fabric of reality.
Unless my whole concept of life on Earth is wrong.
“You mean like, before right now?” I clarify.
His hoists me higher, nearly out of the water. His biceps bulge, but he doesn’t falter. His lips drift lower, perilously near to my cleavage. My breath catches as he takes a soft bite of the top part of my breast. How is it possible that ten minutes in, he’s already the best lover I’ve ever had?
“Mm hmm.” His tongue finds the ravine of my cleavage, and my hands go to the back of his head, tugging gently on his hair. I flex against him. I love having my tits played with, and the sight of his head buried there is nearly fatal to my composure.
“I…I can’t…” My head lolls to the side as he bites at my hard nipple through the bikini.
“Three times today alone,” he says, rocking his hips so that his cock rides up against my clit again. “Five times yesterday.”
“F…Five?”
His tongue flattens over my nipple, and even through the fabric of my bikini, it feels amazing. He straightens again, his cock finding the crease of my pussy. The molten heat of him slips up against my clit, just as he tweaks my aching nipple. I gasp, everything going taut and explosive inside me.
NO NO NO. I cannot orgasm yet. A sound like choking escapes me as I fight against the sensation. Orgasming with Weston is the goal, just not in the first ten minutes of chaste pool floating. Well, okay. This is far from chaste. But it’s far from penetration, too.
“Noooova,” he growls, tweaking my nipple once more in time with another thrust of his powerful hips. And then that’s it—I’m a goner. I squeak out a feeble protest as the pleasure washes through me in sticky, surprising waves. I bury my face in his shoulder as my body jerks once, twice. When I peer up at Weston, he has a satisfied grin waiting for me.
“That easy, huh?”
“Stop it. I’ve just been really horny lately.”
His gaze grows clouded. “Oh yeah?”
“Some super-hot guy wandering around the resort constantly,” I wheeze as he begins nuzzling my cleavage again. “Picking fights. Being shirtless. It’s a turn on.”
He grunts, gathering me closer to him. “Your hut or mine?”
My heart starts racing again. “Mine.”
“Let’s go.” He pauses to snag another kiss, this one sloppy yet somehow more intimate. “Except you need to go first.”
I frown. “You don’t want to be seen with me or something?”
A humorless laugh escapes him. “Trust me—it’s not that.” He rocks his hips in a slow circle again, leveling me with his gaze, as if to say, Do you get it now?
“Ah, yes. Well, I can lead the way, if you want.”
He takes a soft bite at my neck. “I’ll follow you wherever you go.”
His sexy, oddly romantic words sizzle through me, prompting one of those silly grins that it’s so easy to make fun of friends for. “Even if I go straight back to the bar?”
He snags my lips in another kiss. “Don’t do that. I don’t want to scare the families with what I plan to do to you.”
Excitement shivers up my spine, every inch of my body tingling and ready. “Okay. I’m ready to get this show on the road.” When I try to push off, he holds me tighter.
“Wait.” Grinning, he coaxes another kiss from my lips. And then another.
“Now?” I ask, once round three of kissing is completed.
He grunts, brushing his lips against mine. “You’re hard to let go of.”
The compliment sinks all the way to my bones, where I hope it lives forever. There’s no hiding it—Weston is a fantasy come true for me. I might geek out about this for the next three years.
We kiss sloppily, noisily, for another few minutes, until both our chests are heaving and his cock is absolutely throbbing against my aching pussy. I’m five seconds away from telling him to just stick it in now and end the torture.
But finally he steps away, resting his palms on the top of his head. He lets out a low exhale, gaze stuck on my cleavage.
“Okay. Hurry,” he says.
I do as he says, pulling myself out of the pool by the ladder. When I look back at him, he’s biting his lower lip, intently watching me walk back to where our things are stored. He pulls himself out of the pool then. A laugh bursts out of me when I catch the insane tenting going on between his legs.
“Oh my god,” I say, reaching for it. He stays a safe distance away though.
“Nova, if you touch me right now—”
He fists the front of his hair, looking down at his pants then at me. “We’re not making it back to the hut.”
I wrap my towel around my waist. “But what if I just touch it a little?”
His eyes narrow to slits. “Not helpful.” He snatches up his bag, slinging it over his chest, his gaze drifting back to me. “But once we get back to your hut, you can touch it all you want.”
I drift back toward him, but he pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “Nova, you have to leave. I can’t touch you or look at you or I’m never gonna make it back.”
This is the most gratifying compromise I’ve ever had to make. Leave the hottie alone so he can recuperate from being turned on by me. I make a big display of blowing him a kiss, and then I saunter away, as outrageously sexy as possible. I wink over my shoulder at him, and the sight I’m leaving behind is something I wish I could photograph and frame for all of eternity: Weston, dragging his thumb along his jawline, his heated gaze stuck on me.
In those blue eyes I see everything. Desire. Passion. Amusement.
But more than that, I see a deep appreciation. The type of glimmer in his eye that makes me think we’ve been poking and prodding and playing around for years instead of hours.
It’s the type of look I want to dive into.
And tonight, I plan to drown in it.
Chapter 14
WESTON
I pace the side of the pool for approximately thirty seconds before I say, Fuck it.
I will risk looking like a fool with a banana in his pants because each second spent without touching or kissing or inhaling that luscious woman is a second wasted.
I arrange my crossbody bag so that it sort of obscures my hardon, even though it doesn’t at all. At the boardwalk, I look up and down the path—coast is clear—before booking it toward the beach. I race toward the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow—Nova’s hut—and I’m knocking and anxious like I’m escaping a zombie attack.
