by Sophie Kent
###
The trail had gotten steep and rocky, and then littered with fallen trees, and finally covered in vines until there was no trail left. And just when Susan was about to freak out, wishing hard for a big machete or an industrial strength weed-whacker, she unceremoniously tripped and fell. Her life flashed before her eyes, for she was sure she was about to fall right over The Virgin Drop, and to her death. But her life was short and whizzed by far too swiftly to comprehend. When she hit the nice solid ground and didn’t go tumbling head over heels, or simply pitch down into the seething ocean, she sent a hysterical Thank You up to heaven.
She looked up to see Kevin staring at her, hands crossed over his chest, and then he snorted. Kevin didn’t snort. So Susan was pretty sure she looked ridiculous. As she stood, and tangles of dead vines and bits of palm and grass fell out of her hair, she rescinded her Thank You, replacing it with Asshole!
She realized Kevin had turned away from her and hadn’t so much as lifted a finger to help her. “Thanks for the helping hand.”
He didn’t move a muscle, but Susan could tell he stiffened all over. “I wanted to be alone. Is that so hard to understand?”
Well, yes...Susan had to rein herself back. She couldn’t just start yelling at him
“A plane could’ve gotten you.”
Kevin’s head jerked. “A plane?”
Susan felt silly. She made it sound like an airplane was some sort of ghoulish monster out of a B movie.
“I’m a paranoid former jilted bride with abandonment issues,” Susan paraphrased Liz. “Give me a break.”
Kevin grunted and shook his head. “I wasn’t going to leave. I just needed...”
“Some space?” Susan said to utter silence. “Some time?”
“To think.”
“That’s never a good idea.” Susan tiptoed over, trying to get closer without scaring him off.
“You have room to talk,” Kevin said, still not looking at her. “When your thoughts don’t have you jumping your best friend, they’ve got you in a coma.”
Ouch . But Susan pushed that barb right out of her head. She had to fix what she’d done. She had to get him to forgive her.
“Funny,” she grumbled. “So, can I buy you a drink or a shiny new car to make up for it?”
She could tell Kevin was smiling, and it made her heart skip a beat. He was going to forgive her.
“Since you attacked me last night after a couple of margaritas, I think I’ll go for the car.”
Susan found herself standing right beside Kevin, looking out at the ocean, at the white capped waves, at the palm trees swaying back and forth. “Foreign or domestic?”
“Surprise me.”
“Mind if it’s shiny and used? Or not so shiny and like a decade old? Did I mention I spent a ton of money on my wedding that wasn’t?”
Kevin sighed and let his arms fall from where they’d been staunchly crossed over his broad chest. His shoulder was all of a sudden touching hers as they peered down at the best view on the island.
“So, how much that set you back?”
Susan smiled. The tension had melted out of Kevin’s voice, and he sounded like the old Kevin again. Her best friend. But there was the warmth of his shoulder pressed against her own, and how she could feel her heartbeat pick up the pace just being near him. She gulped, swallowing the thoughts that were about to make her mind and body go into meltdown stage.
“Well...” Susan shook her head, but still she kept flashing on the drunken memory of Kevin naked in that towel, and the way his body felt under her touch. And how those tentative kisses had tasted. “Not enough to repay my folks for college, but enough for a couple of shiny, new, moderately priced cars. A couple of Saturns.”
Kevin must have sensed Susan’s yearning boiling up in her, because he sidestepped away from her and ran both hands through his hair, looking tired and exasperated.
“What did I--”
“I think you should head back to the hotel,” Kevin interrupted.
“No!” The word came out of her like a shotgun blast, and Kevin turned to glare at her, clearly irritated. “I’m not going anywhere until we’ve talked about this. I can’t chance losing you!”
The irritation in Kevin’s eyes melted to a sad, worried expression. “I’m not leaving you, kiddo.” He lumbered back over to her and nudged her playfully with his elbow. “I think I should get another room until Liz can come and--”
And just like that Susan started to sob. Her eyes misting up, burning as big tears slid effortlessly down her face. Susan tried to choke her sobs back, but the terror that had just seized her, whether made worse by all the troubles she’d already had, or that she really felt like she was about to lose her best friend, overwhelmed her, and she fell to her knees in the tall grass.
###
Kevin’s first reaction was to go to her. His knees jerked, but he pulled himself back. She was just crying, not falling over the Virgin Drop ledge. She could handle that without him. But when she fell to her knees, her hands in the tall grass desperately trying to hold herself up. That made Kevin spring into action, swooping down and taking her in his arms, pulling her to him as she started frantically sobbing, saying things that were unintelligible and disjointed. What had he done?
“It’s all right. I promise, everything’s fine,” Kevin assured her, yet Susan kept bawling, clinging to his chest and breathing like an asthmatic. “You’ll see. It’ll be like nothing ever happened.”
Susan howled. And then she said something that Kevin could make out. “I’ve lost you.”
“You haven’t lost me.”
“All I wanted was for this pain to go away.” She cried into the cotton of his t-shirt. “It’s this pain! I can’t stand it. It won’t go away.”
It wasn’t supposed to. And Kevin knew it wasn’t. Even though he’d gone deep into the witness denial relocation program just to stave off his own pain, he knew she needed to work through her own. She couldn’t be like him, not daring to look inward, never truly happy, always wanting what she couldn’t have.
But it was Susan falling to pieces in his arms, not some stranger. And he couldn’t stand seeing her in pain.
“Give it more time, Suze. It will go away.” Kevin didn’t believe a word that had just come out of his mouth.
“But I want it gone now!” She clutched at him, and he could feel her body convulsing with her sobs. She was shaking apart. “And Liz said--”
Kevin’s body stiffened. “What did Liz say?” he asked, his voice hardening. Was this all some joke fucking Liz was playing on both of them? He’d kill her!
Susan coughed and took a few deep breaths before speaking again. “Liz said it would help the pain go away.”
He shook his head. “What would?”
“Sleeping with you.” Susan started crying again on “you.”
Kevin felt himself turn as cold and still as a statue. Liz wanted Suze to sleep with him? Impossible. Crazy. Unbelievable. And yet that’s what Susan had said. Or had she?
“What exactly did Liz say?”
Susan was still sobbing, and speaking so quickly, all Kevin heard was a blur of words. He used to call it speaking chipmunk. She’d done it a lot back in college, whenever she was excited. Finally she slowed down enough that he started to catch the words.
“She said she would help me hunt for one when she got here. But I couldn’t wait for her to come. I wanted the pain gone now.” She sniffled and choked, coughing again. “And then I saw you coming out of the shower and...and...” She stopped.
Kevin waited, holding his breath, afraid she’d start speaking again and he wouldn’t hear what she was saying. He counted to thirty before finally letting his breath out. He took in another breath and said with the utmost patience, “And?”
“And you were exactly what she said I needed.”
Kevin was so confused. “And what did Liz say you needed?”
Susan balled up her fists and pushed Kevin away hard. “Don
’t you listen to a word I say?”
Kevin rolled his eyes and pulled her back into his arms. “Humor me. You were speaking chipmunk there for a minute.”
Susan pushed away from him again. “I do not sound like a chipmunk! I never did.” She gave him the evil eye.
“So what did she say you needed?” Kevin gave her his most patient smile.
She punched him in the stomach. “Ouch!” she whined. “Punching you is like hitting a brick wall.” She held her fist, stroking it for a moment. “She said I needed a rebound fling.”
He knew it! Kevin cringed at the word rebound. He wasn’t going to be that guy. No way!
“She said that if I found some hot stud and...and...well, if I took him to bed, repeatedly, that I would get over M-M-Mark.” Susan’s jaw snapped shut when she said his name, her entire being going rigid and her gaze falling down to the grassy ground. “That it would make the pain go away. And I wanted it to go away. And there you were all handsome and gorgeous, and hot...and did I mention I was drunk, that my best friend got me plastered on frozen margaritas?”
“He sounds like a real bastard,” Kevin said, as he kissed the top of her head.
“No.” She was shaking her head, swiping at her eyes with the backs of her hands. Her cheeks were shiny and red with sun and emotion. “He’s great. He’s a catch, the real Prince Charming in this story. He flies across the country to be with me on my wedding day, and then he gets sucked into this horror movie, saddled with a comatose basket case.” She looked up to Kevin with her beautiful, bloodshot eyes. “And then I attack him like a horny sailor on shore leave.”
Kevin chuckled. She had a way with words. But the words that were sticking with him were hot, handsome, and Prince Charming. Did she really think he was those things?
“So why were you so pissed this morning? If your judgment was impaired by alcohol last night, what was with getting mad at me for saying no?” The instant he asked it, he wished he hadn’t. She was going to say that she couldn’t get over that not even he wanted her.
“Because it hurt.” She pushed herself up and off the ground, wobbling as she did so. Kevin stood up with her, and she held onto him until her balance kicked back in. “It hurt that you didn’t want me the way I wanted you.”
It was like someone had turned off the sound. The tide crashing on the beach below, the wind gusting through the palms, the birds. It all just stopped, and all there was were the beating of Kevin’s heart in his ears, and the words that had fallen so effortlessly from Susan’s lips. Those beautiful, full, pink lips.
The way he wanted her...
“I felt so stupid, and then I was so afraid I was going to lose you. I just couldn’t bear the thought of…”
The way he had always wanted her...
He knew it was wrong. It was such bad an idea it was terrifying. He knew they would never be the same, and that it wouldn’t last, that she wouldn’t want him like she did right then, not once they were away from paradise, not after she’d had time to heal and move on to the next Man of Her Dreams. But he didn’t care. Didn’t care that it was going to ruin him, destroy him. He didn’t care that he’d be haunted by it for the rest of his miserable days. They’d work it out later. Now, what he knew was that she wanted him.
He was going to take all her pain away.
He reached for her, feeling the cotton of her tank top beneath his fingertips, the slide of the flesh of her arm against his. And he pulled her into him, slowly wrapping his arms around her, loving the softness of her, how her body seemed to fit, molding against his own as he drew her against him. She looked up at him, her lips slightly parted, her green eyes surprised. He dipped his head until their faces were about to touch. The scent of her, how it blocked out the salty tide, even the tropical flowers…
She popped up on her toes and kissed him, completing the circuit, making the electricity of a thousand thunderstorms surge between them, through their lips, as they melded together, mouths opening, tongues touching. As she pressed herself harder against him, her breasts soft and round and warm touching his chest, she laced her arms up and around his neck, cinching him to her all the more. Her fingers grasped his hair, her breaths coming hot and sweet and ragged as they struggled, both trying to force their bodies to merge into one.
###
Susan was caught on an emotional roller coaster. One minute she’d been desperate for Kevin to forgive her, the next she was so pissed at him she could’ve screamed. He was so infuriating! So detached. Even when he was holding her, even as she cried into his chest, he still felt a million miles away.
She’d lost him, and he didn’t seem to really care. All he wanted was to ask her stupid questions! Who gave a damn why she had needed him? She had wanted him too, wasn’t that enough?
She felt stupid, blathering on like she was filling in some hapless half-wit about a particularly pathetic plot twist on a soap opera.
And then her world ended.
Not so much ended, as stopped.
When he took her in his arms and she felt his body, strong and warm and solid, against hers, and saw the look on his face, the serious expression, his hazel eyes turning dark, the sudden heat that was radiating off him--everything stopped. All those little sounds, and all the big ones, every frantic bleating thought in her head, it all stopped, and she was awash in silence. And him. He felt so good, and looked like heaven, and the way he smelled--like flesh and sweat and honey.
Kevin leaned down until his lips were close enough she could almost taste them. But he didn’t kiss her. He stood there looking deep into her eyes, breathing in her exhalations, holding her so close in his arms.
So she popped up on her tiptoes, closing the gap between them, and fastened her hungry lips to his. And that was when her life started again. Like the crescendo in a symphony. The very air was electrified, and the wind started swirling about them like a hurricane. His mouth opened as she opened her own, tasting the sweetness of him, the heat.
She lost it, melting as their kiss deepened. Her heart beat savagely in her chest as their tongues touched. Every inch of her flesh burned and tingled at the same time. Was she having a heart attack? But it didn’t hurt. No, it was the most wonderful, enjoyable feeling she’d ever had.
It was that kiss they always show in the movies, when the guy and the girl…
Susan’s hands moved from his hair, where she’d rumpled it to sticking straight up in the air, down his neck and slid over his cotton button-down shirt. Her lips left his and she kissed her way down to his neck, where she licked and nibbled at his flesh. Yummy.
Kevin shook as she pulled open his shirt and shoved it off his thick shoulders. Her mouth moved down his collarbone, and her hands spread over his chest. Her fingers kneaded the mounds of muscle, while her tongue traced down the inside of his pec and slipped over to take his nipple into her mouth, flicking her tongue and sucking.
Kevin groaned and his back arched, and he tried to pull her back up to kiss her. But she had already started burrowing her hands down the front of his shorts. She wanted him, she wanted to feel him get hard, she wanted to feel him inside her.
But Kevin jumped back and grabbed her hands before she had a hold of anything, fleshy or hard. He held her hands straight out at her sides as he breathed hard and deep, his eyes wild, his hair mussed beyond redemption, and his mouth bruised beautifully from kissing her. He looked like he was trying to think, like he was trying to make a decision.
Susan pulled her hands from his and stepped back. He didn’t get to start this and just stop. He didn’t get to retreat away in his head and wordlessly make decisions about what was happening between them.
He wasn’t going to cut her out of this.
She grasped the hem of her tank top and slowly started pulling it up her navel.
Kevin’s mouth went slack, and the thoughts that were clouding his eyes evaporated as the heat returned.
That got his attention.
She pulled the shirt up over her sho
ulders and tossed it onto the ground. She stood there in her too sexy bra, it finally being just sexy enough, and stared longingly into Kevin’s burning gaze. Deliberately she let her hands glide up the bare flesh of her belly and lingered at the clasp of her bra--thank God for front-fastening bras!
Kevin took a step closer, lust and longing blazing in his eyes. As Susan unhooked the clasp and let the lacy blue material slide from her shoulders, her breasts now naked, coming free of their confines, Kevin gulped and shook his head, yet his feet kept him moving straight to her.
“I give up,” he said, as he took her into his arms again, her bare skin sliding against his, their torsos rubbing and melting together, Susan’s breasts hot and soft and on fire as she pressed them hard against his chest. He kissed her again, deep and urgent and rough, devouring her as his hands found purchase all over her body, grasping and stroking and squeezing.
Susan snuck her fingers to the buckle of Kevin’s shorts and pulled it open as he feasted on her willing lips. She pushed her hand slowly down the front of his underwear until she felt him hard and hot in her hand, and he gasped against her mouth.
“I want you,” she said between kisses, her hand stroking his manhood.
“Here?” Kevin pulled his lips from hers long enough to look around them at the deserted clearing.
“Right here, right now,” she said, taking his chin in her fingers and pulling his face so he was peering into her eyes again. “Just like this.”
Kevin halted, looking like he was teetering between running away and eating her alive. And that one moment of indecision made Susan’s heart stop. That moment seemed to last forever. Like someone had put time on pause, just so she could feel how desperate she was for him.
He dragged her to him and kissed her deep and hard and wet, kissing her like he owned her, like she was his and only his. Susan felt herself getting dizzy as they clung to each other, grasping and pitching to and fro, and then she realized they were suddenly on the ground, her on top, him beneath her. She sat up, breaking free of his kiss, straddling his hips as she pushed up off his heaving, naked chest.
