by Lulu Pratt
Finn interrupted my anxiety. “You’re a marvel. I’m not sure I’ve ever admired a living, breathing human as much as I do you.”
He leaned back, putting his elbows on the lip of the tub and tilting his head back to look at the stars, which were out in full force.
I sat there in silence, secretly wishing that this moment would never end. I felt beautiful on the inside and the outside and that the man I was with felt the same way about me.
“We don’t get this many stars in New York,” he commented. “Too much light. We had more in the Irish countryside. We moved to America when I was maybe nine. My mum had to outrun some bad people. Debt collectors.”
I couldn’t believe he was revealing all of this to me, but I was listening to every word.
He continued, “We came to the US illegally, as it later turned out. I didn’t know any better. She later married this shit guy to get a visa. I suspect he was her drug dealer.”
Finn broke off, shaking his head. I resisted the urge to reach out and touch his arm, fearing that he’d construe it as patronizing.
“I was taken into foster care at the age of ten and due to the hard work of a lovely lady, I was able to stay in the country and become legal. I owe a lot to Stacy. When I was eighteen, they finally told me that my mother had been in and out of drug programs, always relapsing. Guess I’d figured as much, to be honest. Then last year… last year, she finally died of an overdose.”
I gasped and words fell from my mouth. “Finn, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe – you are so strong.”
He smiled gently at me. “Only because I’ve had to be.” He looked up, then back to me. “Anyways, that’s why I don’t do drugs. That’s why I get so fucking riled up when Chrissy offers me coke. Because I know that if I take one hit of anything, I could end up like my mother – addicted or in a grave.”
I felt an errant tear slide down my cheek and quickly wiped it away. This wasn’t my story to cry at.
But instead of feeling humiliated by my emotions, Finn scooted next to me.
“There, there,” he murmured in his brogue, which now felt like it contained so much history. “It’s sweet of you to cry, but there’s no need. I’m all right. And now you’re one of only a few people on earth who know why I’m so straight-laced, even given the community I work in.”
“Really?” I asked. “Why tell me? We barely know each other.”
“Is that what you think?” he replied, his eyebrow raised.
I paused, and then after a long silence, whispered, “No.”
Chapter 16
POPPY
SOMETHING CHANGED after I admitted how well we seemed to know each other. The water in the tub became thinner, almost, the barrier between us dissolving by the second.
“D’you wanna go upstairs?” I asked. Gosh, that sounded stupid. Argh, why was I being so stupid! And right when I wanted to be cool!
But Finn didn’t seem to mind. “Yes,” he replied. “Absolutely.” And I wondered what we both thought would happen upstairs.
We hopped out of the tub, grabbed our clothing off the grass, and walked in through the sliding glass doors, up the stairs and to our room, our wet bathing suits leaking trails of water the whole way. The others were either in their rooms or in the television room.
As we entered the bedroom, Finn threw his clothes in a corner and picked up my scarf, which he’d left draped over his chaise lounge, fiddling with it in his fingers.
“You can take the bathroom,” he offered. “I’m just going to change into some dry PJs out here.”
“Thanks,” I replied, though laughed a little to myself at his use of the word ‘PJs,’ when what he meant was underwear.
“And I’ll put on the scarf.”
I hesitated, but said, “All right.”
My pulse was racing, and as before I went to the bathroom, I stopped next to my suitcase and picked out a little something special. Then I went into the room, closed the door behind me, and took a deep breath.
What am I doing? I asked myself, incredulous. Twenty-three years of chastity and now…
Now what?
I was no longer sure if that kind of indignant purity felt right for me. It’d been all well and good before, when I’d only had friendly feelings concerning the guys I’d dated, viewing them all more as buddies than partners. But with Finn… he set me on fire, a fire that could only be quenched by his touch. Intimacy had been easy to resist when I didn’t want it. That was no longer the case.
And besides, April had told me so many, many times that sex before marriage wasn’t a crime. Wouldn’t she know best? She was, after all, a spiritual leader. Admittedly, I hadn’t known Finn for long – I wasn’t ready to say the word ‘love’ – but we had a connection, and I was certain that he was a good man, one who would never intentionally hurt me. Though I disagreed with his occupation, or rather the branch of his occupation, the way he’d stood up for me earlier against Chrissy made me believe him when he said it was just a job.
Without realizing it, I’d made up my mind. I was a strong, independent woman, and I knew myself. I trusted my heart. And he was what my heart – and body – wanted.
I slipped into the items I’d pulled from my suitcase – a special lingerie set from Mimi, a black, lacy number that looked like a much finer version of the cheap stuff Regency made. There was a demi-cup bra with scalloped edges, and matching underwear with satin ties that crisscrossed around my stomach.
I moved over to the full-length mirror and surveyed myself, scrunching my hands in my curls. Much to my surprise, I realized I looked like a grown woman, the underwear hugging my every curve, my breasts tinted pink with anticipation, my nether regions sticky from desire. This was my path, and I was making the right choice. I took a deep breath, and opened the door a crack.
“Finn?”
“Yes?” he replied. “Don’t worry, I’ve got the scarf on.”
Good. I opened the door wider and strode out in nothing more than the lingerie. Finn was sitting up on the chaise lounge, his legs draped over one another. I could barely hear my next words over the sound of my heart.
“Take the scarf off,” I instructed him.
He hesitated, his body frozen in place. “What?”
“Take it off,” I repeated.
Slowly, very slowly, he turned his body to face me, following the sound of my voice, his legs swinging over the edge of the couch. Then, he reached up to the scarf, and pulled out the tail of the bow he’d knotted. It slipped off, unfurling in his fingers.
Finn sucked in his breath.
“My God,” he said, his voice low and strangled. For once, I didn’t scold him for taking the Lord’s name in vain – mainly because, between his lips, ‘God’ sounded so right.
He stood up from the couch, moving to me.
“Poppy Reeve, you’re something special.”
Finn stopped about half a foot away from me, as if coming up against an invisible threshold.
I ran my hands over my hips, swallowed and began to speak. “Finn, you know my beliefs, I think. You know that I’m modest, that I don’t – do things like this, I guess.”
He nodded. “Yes, I know.”
“But… since meeting you, since being on this island with you… Well, I’ve started to feel differently. To feel like, to not seize this time together would be to refuse a blessing from the universe.”
His lips parted and his eyes blazed, but he said nothing.
I went on, “Which is to say… I want to be with you. Intimately. It would be my first time, and I guess you’re probably not used to being with women who are – who haven’t done that. But this just feels right, the two of us. If you feel the same way, that is.”
Finn bit his lower lip before at last replying, “I-I–”
Suddenly, I felt mortified. He’d waited a moment too long. “If you don’t want to, it’s fine,” I said. “We can just forget about it. Please.”
“It’s not that,” he said. “Could yo
u give me until tomorrow?”
“Of course,” I returned, my voice thick with tears. “No worries.”
“I’m going to bed,” I announced, hoping that the hurt wasn’t too obvious. “Could you put the scarf back on?”
Finn nodded at me, but I could see pain in his eyes. “Yes, Poppy.”
“Thanks.”
I clambered into the bed and quickly ducked beneath the covers so that I could cry into my pillow, undetected.
He’d rejected me. I mean, there’s no way around it, that’s what happened. He’d taken one look at me in my lingerie, bearing my heart, and rejected me. Men like that, I thought bitterly, don’t want to sleep with virgins.
They wanted to sleep with supermodels like Chrissy. Hadn’t he said they’d been involved? Why would he go for an inexperienced prude like me? Sure, our kiss had been incredible, but he was probably terrified that doing anything more would permanently scar me, like I was some kind of breakable thing. Why couldn’t virginity be less complicated? Why, when I finally asked a man to touch me like that, did he think not that I was pure, but that I was tainted by my own purity?
I wanted to scream, but instead, I pulled my pillow around my face and cried quietly into the linen. My heart felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it, and put a hole through the left ventricle. All there was left to do was to go to sleep and hope that when I woke up, we’d never speak of this again, that we could get through the rest of the trip politely. Perhaps it’d be best if I went to sleep on the couch downstairs. Then there’d be no temptation.
But that was a thought for tomorrow night. Tonight, I was exhausted, and fell asleep within minutes, tears staining my cheeks.
The following morning, I woke up to the sound of Finn’s voice.
“Poppy?”
I blinked, my eyes stiff from salt.
“Poppy,” he repeated. “Wake up, lass.”
I managed to fully pry my eyes open, though my vision was still blurry. The room was mostly dark, though there seemed to be some light filtering through.
“Is it time for work?” I asked, my voice caked in sleep.
“No. Just… sit up.”
What was this about? Whatever, I was too sleepy to ask. I scooted up in bed, simultaneously rubbing my eyes free of slumber dust. When I removed my hands and looked at the room, I gasped.
Finn had decorated the entire room in flower petals, candles and seashells. Our blinds were closed, and though a few beams of sun trickled in, the room was mostly lit by candles.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered. “What’s happening?”
He moved to sit down at the foot of the bed, right near my toes. “Poppy,” he said slowly. “When you asked me last night to… to do that, I hadn’t meant to refuse you. I just wanted the chance to make your first time special. So once you were asleep, I snuck out, gathered all this and made a little breakfast this morning.”
Finn gestured to my bedside table, where a hearty breakfast of avocado toast and eggs and OJ sat waiting for me.
“I thought,” he continued, “I’d make this whole day romantic. And then, if you are still interested tonight, we could fool about.”
I shook my head ‘no’ and Finn’s face fell with disappointment, which he tried to mask quickly.
“Oh,” he said abruptly. “I’m sorry, I just thought–”
I leaned forward and grabbed his hand. “No, Finn, what I’m trying to say is… I don’t want to wait all day. This is plenty, it’s more than enough.”
He looked at me, trying to decode my meaning. I was going to have to be blunt, to conquer my fears.
“I want to make love to you,” I said at last. “Now.”
He didn’t need any more clarification. Finn leaned forward, pulled me up from my pillow and planted a deep kiss on my lips.
Chapter 17
FINN
I’D BEEN waiting for this moment, if I’m being honest, from the first time I laid eyes on Poppy. Even then, even given the weird circumstances, our total unawareness of one another, and her chirping anger at me for barging into her dressing room – even then, I’d known we were going to do wonderful things together, and to one another.
I slept with women, many of them, and always casually. But I knew that, in agreeing to be Poppy’s first, I had signed on to something different. Not necessarily to being an important man in her life – though I suspected I wanted that, too – but to showing her that sex wasn’t a thing to be feared, or reviled, but rather, a thing to be deeply savored. I wanted to make sure Poppy experienced her first time as something respectful, excruciatingly erotic, and more than anything, fun.
As I pulled away from our kiss, I told her, “I’m going to touch you, and the moment you don’t like anything, tell me to stop.”
“How?” she asked, breathless.
I thought for a moment, then replied, “Just say… coconut.”
She giggled. “Okay, coconut it is.”
With that I gave her a soft peck on the cheek, then threw the covers back, exposing her underwear-clad body to my gaze. God, she was a masterpiece. I wanted to devour her with an artist’s eye, appreciating every curve and roll. She deserved to know that she was a treasure.
But where to begin? The options were endless, so I settled on working my way from the top to the bottom, setting her alight so that by the time I reached the area between her legs, Poppy was good and ready for me.
I kissed her again, this time on the mouth, moving my tongue between her lips and coaxing out a response from her. She kissed like a woman born to do it. Her lips were pliable pillows, her tongue dexterous and inquisitive. I would’ve been satiated had we just kissed for the next hour. It was with reluctance that I at last pulled away, moving my lips to her ears, where I nipped at the lobes.
She sighed, and I could feel her muscles relax beneath me. Good – we were on the right path.
From there, I shifted to her neck, where I laid slow, sensuous kisses all over her tanned skin. I sucked the skin gently between my teeth, applying more and more pressure. She’d have marks from me for the next day, maybe more, which is exactly what I wanted – Poppy could have a physical reminder of this pleasure, tangible proof that it had happened, that it was real.
She pressed my face closer to her neck and let out a little moan. I tongued harder at the thin flesh, turning it red and swollen with my touch. Relatedly, other parts of my body were also becoming red and swollen. Yet, despite my desperation, I knew I couldn’t rush to my own satisfaction. I needed to put Poppy first.
After kissing her neck into polka dots, I nosed my way down to the cleft in her chest, my hands coming up to cup her large breasts.
“Can I take off your bra?” I asked, my voice low.
She nodded, and arched her back so I could reach beneath her and unclasp the garment. I took it off slowly, wanting to drink in the exposure. After several seconds of pulling the bra over her arms, I took it completely off, revealing her plump tits, nipples pink and hard.
I laid a thumb on one of the nipples, which was pert and hungry, and rubbed it. Poppy let out another groan, and I sensed that she’d never been touched like this before, not by herself and certainly not by another.
“Do you like this?”
“Yes,” she gasped.
My forefinger gripped opposite my thumb, and I pinched her nipple gently. “How about this?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice more strangled.
I pinched both of her nipples simultaneously and she rose beneath me, her hips raising up in an involuntary, primal gesture. Keeping a hand on one, I lowered my mouth to take in the other, suckling on it as I’d suckled on her neck.
“I’ll worship you, Poppy Reeve,” I swore to her, her body still between my teeth.
She closed her eyes, her face morphing with pleasure, those pink lips spreading and brows furrowing. She was in ecstasy.
“Finn?”
“Yes?” I asked, lifting my head up from her breasts.
&
nbsp; “Please touch me,” she begged.
“Where?” I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it in her melodic voice.
“Down there.”
“It’d be my pleasure.”
I gave her breasts a final kiss and squeeze, my hands overflowing with their bounty, then traced a finger down her stomach, grazing her belly button, until it found the edge of her underwear. Of course I wanted to take them off, to rip them from her body with my bare teeth, but I was going to have my other delights first.
Moving from the top of the panties, my finger trailed down, inch by inch, until it was right above her mound. She whimpered, but I held firm. She needed to be soaking wet by the time I touched her bare pussy.
My finger moved further down, and suddenly, I was touching her folds, moving my finger back and forth across the crease between them, up and down, up and down. With a sudden, wild movement, Poppy grabbed my hand, forcing it to press down on her privates, and ground her hips against it, trying to relieve herself.
Yes, she was ready.
“Can I take off your underwear?” I asked.
“You already know you can,” came her immediate response.
Fair enough.
I hooked my fingers at the edges of the panties, and slowly dragged them down, pulling them past her juicy thighs until I could slip them off her feet, throwing them across the room.
Her pussy lay resplendent before me, its surface thick with dark blonde hair. I inhaled deeply, then placed my fingers back where they’d been previously – running along her lips.
“More,” she pleaded. “More.”
I moved my fingers further down, nearing her opening, and felt that she was indeed sopping wet, just as I’d planned. I felt with a sudden clarity that my only purpose in life, in that moment and possibly beyond, was to make her scream with delight.
My digits spread her wide open, and rimmed around her slit.
“I’m going to put my finger inside you now. What do you say if you want me to stop?”
“Coconut,” she said shakily.
“Good.”
With that, I put a single finger inside her, and Poppy quivered.
