by L. L. Ash
I just sighed and dragged my hands through my hair.
She had strawberry chapstick. I could still taste her on my lips.
I didn't even care about the split in my lip or the bruise on my cheek that was probably turning purple already. I had one hell of a girl beside me, and she tasted like strawberry.
A slow grin spread across my face, hurting my cheeks with how wide it was.
Maybe my homelife was shit, but I had a good mom, and a best friend that I was totally, head over heels in love with. And I just kissed her.
Unlike Ivy, I walked home on cloud after cloud. Nine, to be exact.
- 15 -
Hunter
“I need a fucking drink,” I groaned as Mom and Richard’s door closed.
They were going to fuck again, and my weak stomach couldn’t handle it.
“I could use some air, too,” Ivy admitted, staring after our parents who decided to lock themselves away for the afternoon to take a ‘nap’ before their scheduled dinner appointment.
“If I hear them fucking again, I’m going to puke,” I warned. “I’ll be out a while.”
“There’s a bar downstairs,” she told me, hella serious about getting out of the suite.
They were old, so they couldn’t go at it all night, right? Wasn’t that just a young person thing?
I grabbed my keys, wallet, and a key card off the kitchen counter before slipping my flip flops on and heading to the door. Ivy was right behind me with her purse and her own sandals on her feet.
The hotel bar was rather crowded, to be honest. There wasn’t much space to sit, except at the bar. I saw two chairs right next to each other and plopped down, ignoring the people to our sides.
Ivy ordered a Pepsi, and I asked for whiskey, which prompted the guy to ask for a card. I showed mine off, nicely minted and legal now that I was twenty-one. Poor Ivy was stuck drinking soda like a kid.
“Jamie?” she asked all of a sudden, looking over my shoulder.
The dude next to me sat up, a beer half empty in his paw.
“Oh, hey,” the guy said back, like he had forgotten Ivy’s name.
Prick.
“I’m Ivory,” she said, giggling nervously. “You massaged me earlier, with my...mom?”
Her Mom? My mom was now her mom?
Wait. What?
“This is who gave you a massage earlier?” I demanded, looking the guy over.
He was in jeans and a t-shirt, with short, tidy hair and a clean cut look that spoke of ‘good ol’ boy’. I didn’t like it.
“I remember,” this Jamie guy said with a smile spreading across his face.
“Jamie has magical hands,” Ivy told me, even though she wasn’t really talking to me.
He gave an appreciative smile before subtly grazing his eyes over me.
Yeah, take that, fucker.
“This your boyfriend?” he asked, not losing that good boy expression.
Ivy choked.
“Oh, God no! He’s my brother!”
Brother?
Motherfucker…
Good boy looked relieved at that, and pretty much dismissed my presence for good.
“Sorry, it must be weird to see a client after hours,” Ivy said, her cheeks turning pink.
I loved it when she got all embarrassed. But I only liked it when those cheeks were pink for me.
“No, not weird,” good boy said to her, giving a charming smile. “It’s kinda nice, actually.”
Dude was hitting on her. Right in front of me.
Didn’t he know she was mine? Didn’t he know that I got her virginity and I would take everything from her?
But...she wasn’t mine.
Shit.
Interested, Ivy shoved me out of my chair and took it, making me sit on her right while Mr. Masseuse sat on her left.
Dude had his hands all over her naked body only hours ago.
Steam started boiling my blood and I almost started feeling lightheaded.
And I hadn’t even had anything to drink, yet.
Ivy giggled at whatever that asshole said, and I could see the way their bodies angled in the bar seats, turning further toward each other.
“I’ve been here for almost six years,” he told Ivy.
Oh, what? They were besties now?
“Wow, you must know all the best places around here, then.”
His grin was broad and sly as he looked down at her.
“I know a few nice places. I was planning on going to Kapena Falls on my next day off. It’s beautiful, but the hike isn’t too long.”
Her whole Goddamn face lit up with that.
“Really? I bet it’s beautiful.”
There it was. The whole setup was easy.
Magic fingers over there just nodded before asking, “I could show you around if you want. You can’t leave without seeing at least one of the waterfalls around here. Everyone goes crazy for the beaches, but it’s inland where the real beauty lies.”
That sly motherfucker had her practically swooning in her seat, and I wanted to punch his teeth out.
“I’d really like that,” Ivy said, falling for the dude hook, line, and sinker. “I’ve been wanting to see a waterfall, but my brother here wouldn’t take me. He’s too obsessed with the ocean.”
I ground my teeth as the dude looked over her shoulder to smirk at me.
“That happens. I’m heading out Friday morning at eight. I’ll meet you here in the lobby if you decide to go.”
No invitation was extended to me. Nope. The dickwad only wanted my sexy ex-bestie, not her new step-brother.
“I’ll be here,” she said.
“Cool,” Jamie the jerk cooed. “Be sure to wear a swimsuit. The water at the falls is cold, but it’s so nice to swim in.”
Finally my drink slid in front of me, along with Ivy’s soda. I slipped the bartender a twenty, then downed my whiskey in one long draw. It burned like a bitch, but I needed to get my ass out of there before I did some real damage to the guy sitting with my Ivy.
“I’m going up,” I mumbled to her, and she surprised the hell out of me by following, saying a quick goodbye to magic fingers and hopping off her chair, not even touching her drink.
“Where are you going?” she asked me.
“I was going to find someone to get fucked up with, but if you’re done sucking that asshole’s dick, we can go to the beach.”
“Why do you have to be so crude?” she demanded. “Jamie didn’t do anything wrong.”
“That guy is playing you so hard, Ivy. At least Kai is a decent guy. That one? He’s only out for some beaver. Alone, in a bikini, at the falls?” I scoffed.
“Careful,” she said, looking entirely too pleased at my torture. “You’re sounding jealous.”
“I’m not jealous. I’m trying to watch out for you, for fuck’s sake. I forgot what a fucking nightmare you are to care about.”
I regretted the words the moment they came out of my mouth.
Ivy paused and looked up at me.
“You care about me?” she asked, looking oddly shocked.
I had never stopped caring about her. I just didn’t want her to know that I did.
“Yeah, well, you’re my sister now, right?”
She gave me a long look, like she was deciding if I was telling the truth or not.
“Right. Sister.”
Sister that I still wanted to fuck and kiss and cuddle like a schoolkid.
When we got to the beach just outside the hotel, I went back to the board rental place and handed him some cash. The guy remembered me and went right to the board I usually got.
“Want to come out with me?” I asked her.
Ivy looked down at her clothes, then back up at me.
“I’m not in a bathing suit.”
“Who the fuck cares? They’re stretchy enough to work.”
She gave a little shrug, as if to say, ‘whatever’ so I asked the guy for the hot pink board sitting in the opposite corner.
It was just one small way to give Ivy a little ‘fuck you’ for flirting with the douche in front of me.
I carried both boards to the water, and watched as she waded out into the shallows with me.
“You remember how to do this?” I asked her.
We’d played on boogie boards together when we were kids, but we’d never surfed together before. I’d seen her, though, with Hillary and some other kids in high school. She hadn’t been too bad, back in the day.
“I remember,” she said with a good natured roll of her eyes.
Handing her the pink board, she eyed it, then me, but didn't say anything before wading further in and hopping belly-first onto her board.
I did the same, following just behind her as we paddled further out, riding the swells of the warm water like we’d been doing it forever.
There were a ton of people that we had to maneuver through, but once we got to the deep water, there were just a few other surfers out that far, and the sounds of families and kids were drowned out by the rumble of waves beneath us.
“Ready?” I asked, sitting down on the board, my abs flexing as I tried to balance and keep from falling over.
Ivy sat up too, but she wasn’t as seasoned on the water as me, and she swayed precariously with each swell.
“My arms already hurt,” she said, shaking out her thin little arms.
I grinned.
“Someone needs to start working out,” I teased, and she just sent me evil eyes across the fifteen feet of ocean between us.
“Suck it,” was her response.
I almost blurted out, ‘I’d love to’, but that didn’t exactly tell her that I was still hella mad at her.
Funny thing though, the longer I was with her, and the more time I spent breathing the same air, it all just flet so...stupid. Like, why was I mad at her again?
Oh, right. She broke my heart.
“C’mon noodle arms,” I called out, getting back onto my belly so I could paddle into the large swell coming. “I’ll go easy on you the first couple times.”
“Since when have you gone easy on me?” she called back, already lagging behind.
Not for the past eight years. Well, that she knew of, anyway.
Ivy wasn’t aware of every threat I made to the douchebags at school, or how I protected her against the cheer team and the ragey, rich bitches that were jealous of her and tried to pick on her. I slept around to forget her, yeah, but I also used my body to manipulate those chicks so Ivy’s life was a little easier. Once a girl got a taste of me, I knew how to make them beg for more, which I rarely gave. That meant they’d do just about anything for me.
I ruled that motherfucking school, and it didn’t much change once I got to UCLA. Most of our classmates were there now, and the rest fell in line for the most part. There were other douches that shared the title of top dog, but they didn’t own the same love of the people that I did.
“Since when have you needed anything easy?” I called back, not sure if she heard me since the wave coming at us was roaring pretty loud.
I gripped the sides of my board and angled my feet beneath me before standing and balancing. Sliding into the front of the wave, the tunnel formed behind me and pushed me onward.
Ivy? She totally missed the wave.
The wave pushed me into the shallows again, but by the time I got my ass back on my board, Ivy was hitting a wave...and falling promptly off her board.
She dropped into the water, her board bobbing in the water with the pull against her ankle chain.
But then she didn’t come back up.
I didn’t even think. I just started paddling out toward where I saw her go under. Though she probably wasn’t there anymore since the current could carry you pretty far in just seconds.
Time didn’t even fucking exist. In a flash I was there and ripping off my ankle chain before diving right into the water.
The salt water stung like hell on my eyes, but I didn’t care. Ivy still hadn’t broken the surface even though the board was floating on the water.
It was the flash of her neon hair that caught my attention, and at first I thought it was just a fish, but at that moment the sun broke through the water and shimmered on the strands. I dove right down, ignoring the strain that was hitting my lungs at having been under the water and looking for so long, and went down for her.
The current under the waves was pretty strong, and I had to push hard to get to her, but I made it. Ivy was still conscious, but pulling with all her might at the ankle chain that looked like it was caught between a couple of coral pieces.
She didn’t see me, and immediately started flailing when I got right up on her. My air was really starting to run out, and I knew hers must have been, too. Fat bubbles erupted from her mouth while she faught, then she jerked for a moment, and went still.
I was able to get the cuff off her ankle instead of worrying about the chain, then pushed off against the coral to bring us both up. By the time I got to the surface, I was starting to see dots of black across my vision. Air had never tasted so fucking good.
Ivy still wasn’t breathing, and I didn’t know where my board was, so I had to haul her back to shore with my fatigued muscles and nothing else. Funny how there were a thousand people at the beach, but nobody there to help me save a drowning girl.
When I hauled Ivy up onto the sand, I immediately started looking for a pulse in her neck. It was that move there that alerted people that something was wrong.
Her pulse was still there, but not as strong as I wanted it to be. She needed air, but I couldn’t give her mine, so I just flipped her onto her side and shoved my hand into her rib to try and encourage her to breathe.
The shove made her heave, and she lurched, vomiting salt water all over the sand. A lifeguard finally rolled up and asked what was happening, but Ivy was breathing again and I just scowled at the motherfucker while patting Ivy on the back.
“She was just drowning, but, you know, I got it handled.”
The bastard saw Ivy’s lungs heaving as she threw up more water, looked around, then went back to the tower he’d come from and put his nose back into his phone.
Idiot.
I slapped Ivy’s back a couple times while people surrounded us, asking if she was ok.
“How’d you get the chain out?” she asked, turning to me with red-ringed eyes and a pale face.
Her voice was hoarse and smokey from the stress, but other than that, she seemed fine.
“I didn’t. The fucking cuff was velcro.”
She closed her eyes, realizing that she’d almost drowned for nothing.
I got it, though. When you’re staring down the barrel of a gun, your brain doesn’t exactly think logically. She saw her ankle was stuck, and she tried to remove it. Critical and creative thinking wasn’t exactly in her brain while it was preoccupied with survival.
“That board was a piece of shit,” she managed finally.
I managed a laugh, but then felt nausea break across my belly.
She’d almost drowned.
I’d almost lost her.
“C’mon, let’s get you home,” I told her, helping her to her feet.
“Don’t you need to go to the hospital?” someone asked.
Ivy shook her head and settled herself into the curve of my arm. Her face nestled into my shoulder as I swept my hand under her knees and lifted her bridal style into my grasp. She didn’t even protest.
I could only imagine the kind of shit she must have been feeling like after gulping water like that, and her body had to have been feeling weak. Hell, I was weak and I wasn’t even the one who drowned.
“You’re one lucky bitch,” I told her while heading on unsteady legs back to the hotel.
“Yeah, well you’re one hell of a good bastard,” she replied, and the compliment settled warm in my chest.
It felt good to have her in my arms, even if she only let me carry her because she’d almost died.
I set her onto her feet
in the elevator, my arms shaking like fucking chuahuas now that the adrenaline was wearing off, but I wouldn’t let her walk to the room no matter how much she protested. It might have been Mom and Richard’s honeymoon, but I carried Ivy over that fucking threshhold like a proper bride and groom.
My strength was draining with each step, and my room happened to be a few feet closer, so I rammed through the door and dropped Ivy there on top of my sheets. The bed was a mess, but that happened to work out for us since I could just put the blanket on top of her.
“I’m soaked through,” she mumbled. “And I’m cold.”
“I’ll go see if I can find Mom to help you undress,” I told her, making my way back out of the room with what little energy I had left.
Yelling for mom produced no results, and there was no Richard, either. That meant they were out. Probably for that dinner they'd planned.
“Shit...” I mumbled, shoving my dripping hair out of my face.
She would need my help.
When I turned back into my bedroom, Ivy was sitting up and trying to yank off her yoga pants, but they were stuck on her ankles. Her hair was soaking wet, and her tank top sat heavy on her chest, dropping with the weight of the salt water that saturated it. There were the peaks of tits right in front of my damn face, but my little dicky was out for the count with how bone tired I was feeling.
Oxygen deprivation can do that to you.
Also, don’t ever tell anyone that I referred to my cock as my ‘little dicky’.
Fuck me.
I went around the bed and knelt on the floor to help her strip off the pants, then she was attempting to pull up the tank top. I dug my fingers into the hem and lifted, too. The Goddamn thing must have weighed fifty pounds with the water in it.
In just her panties, Ivy dropped back to the bed and covered back up with the blanket, but I still saw them.
Maybe little dicky wasn’t quite out for the count.
Her pebbled pink nipples called to me, but damn, I was too tired.
I wrestled my board shorts off and grabbed a towel that was hanging off the desk chair in my room, then went to Ivy and wrapped up her hair. She was already asleep, so I left her like that.
I probably should have gone to her room since she was practically naked in my bed, but I didn’t. I just crawled under the sheets and slid right in next to her. She accepted me readily, even passed out, and I pressed her skin against my skin, feeling hot tears burn my eyes with each rise and fall of her chest against me.
