Beach Reads

by Adriana Locke

  I stiffen, but don’t turn to face her. I look up instead at the starless sky. I smell her before she joins me at the rail. The jasmine oil she put on this morning has melted into her skin. I love the way it smells at the end of the day, the floral notes softened and rounded by the hours. I make myself ignore how good it feels to be this close to her again.

  “Fi, I don’t want to talk right now. Not about Barkley. Not about anything.” I force the words out, hoping she’ll leave. Hoping she’ll stay. Not knowing what to hope for. “Go back inside.”

  She steps into the space beside me, turning to look at me, even though I refuse to face her.

  “If another girl had hurt you the way I did, I would have tracked her down and pounded her into next week.”

  I glance down at her and know she means it.

  “But I’m the one who hurt you.” She looks like she’s at the bottom of a well with no idea how to crawl her way out. “And I can’t beat myself up anymore. I just…I need you too much.”

  I trap my self-control between my fingers on the rail, afraid it will skitter away from me. If I say what is seething inside of me, I’ll hurt her more. If I don’t, I might explode.

  “I can’t take this artificial version of you, Justice,” she says. “Of us. I need something real.”

  “We had something real.” I study her for as long as I can before looking back to the sky. “You didn’t believe in it, so you trashed it with Barkley.”

  “I thought it was for the best, Justice, we were—”

  “You thought?” I face her, hardening every part of me that wants to go soft at the tears standing in her eyes. “Everything has to be on your terms. It’s always about you.”

  “Is it, Just? Because from where I stand, it’s always about you. It’s always been about you.”

  Her lips move for a second without any sound. Like the words won’t come out, and then they rush out like a landslide.

  “You think you were the only one whose heart was ripped out? Only for me it was self-inflicted.” She beats a fist against her chest. “I turned a gun on myself, but I did it because I didn’t want to lose you. You were the only family I had, and I didn’t understand what I was feeling. Didn’t think I could trust it to last, and where would that have left me? Where you left every other girl once you got tired of her. So I did something stupid. I was seventeen, and I made a mistake. I lost you anyway. And I’ve missed you every day, and I want you back. You’re all I have left. Please, don’t shut me out.”

  I could have sworn I was tough enough to hold out against her. That the sight of her with Barkley again tonight and the memory of her in that bed five years ago had nailed my anger to the floor, completely immoveable. But she moves me. Her words, her tears, rip my anger up from the root and leave me nothing to hold onto. But her.

  So I do. I pull her close and let her cry on my shoulder, for how long I don’t know. Long enough for the sky to start weeping, too, shedding the first few drops of rain.

  I force myself to pull back and peer down into her face, watching the rain mix in with the tears still streaking her cheeks. She stands there looking so much like the girl who came to our house when she was twelve years old. Face wet with tears from a nightmare her first night in this house. We came out to this very balcony and star gazed until Fiona fell asleep. She stands in front of me now looking just as lost and alone as she did that night.

  “Let’s get inside before it starts pouring.” I tug her through the door and back into my bedroom.

  The papers she strewed on the floor remind me of our confrontation. My anger from earlier has faded, but the walls held onto every word we screeched at each other, and her broken confession still rings in my ears. She said a dozen things in that weepy tirade on the balcony, but there was one thought my torn up heart clings to like an oak tree in a tornado.

  Fiona wants me.

  Don’t get ahead of yourself, Kenner. She may not know what she’s saying. That may not mean what you think it means. Take this slow.

  I push the hair back over her shoulder like I’ve done a million times before. She catches my wrist, flipping it over to inspect the cursive writing etched into the skin.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you about this tattoo. It’s new.” Voice still wet and husky with tears, she traces the tattoo with her fingernail.

  A cluster of goose bumps awaken on my skin under her touch.

  “I got it at the end of the semester,” I say carefully. “Right before I came home for the summer.”

  “It’s Latin, right? What’s it mean?”

  Should I tell her the truth?

  “It’s ad astra per aspera,” I finally answer. “To the stars through difficulties.”

  We’ve never been able to hide much from each other. The truth is probably written, not only on my skin, but my eyes probably blurt it like a kid who can’t keep a secret. Fiona is my star. My solar system. My galaxy. The heavenly body that holds me in thrall. I’ve always known that somehow, someday, I would find my way back to her. I hadn’t even acknowledged to myself until this moment the truth of what I’ve written on my body.

  I see the understanding of it settle in her eyes. The tension falls away from her shoulders. The wide bow of her mouth relaxes. She traps my eyes with her stare, raising my wrist to her mouth, laying a soft kiss on the ink there. I grit my teeth against urges I’ve been fighting since I was seventeen years old and started seeing Fiona as more than a little sister. I tug my wrist, but she doesn’t let go, opening her mouth wide and hot against the air-cooled flesh, tracing the script with her tongue.

  All-too-familiar desire spikes my blood. There’s a lot we need to talk about before this happens. Should this happen?

  Fiona continues, her kisses making an odyssey up my arm and to my face. She licks at the stubble on my jaw and chin, pulling my bottom lip between hers. My mouth falls open and I pull her top lip between mine greedily for a few seconds before stepping away, fucking knees weak from the taste of her.

  “Fi, you can’t just cry on my shoulder and everything is forgiven and forgotten,” I say, closing my eyes and running a hand across the back of my neck. “Now I’m the one who can’t trust this. What if it’s just an emotional response to your mom’s death?”

  Pain twists her features when I mention Lillith. She lowers her head, a sheaf of hair falling forward on each side, hiding her expression.

  “I’ve been dealing with my grief, Justice. This isn’t that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  I’ve misinterpreted things before. Once I thought she was coming around; accepting that what we could be was worth risking what we had always been. Next thing I knew she was in bed with Barkley.

  “I was scared we wouldn’t work,” she says, head still lowered. “So I pushed you away.”

  “And how do I know you won’t push me away again?”

  “I won’t.” She studies her flip flops for a moment, pleating her brows. “Is it that…is it that you don’t want me anymore?”

  A dry, weary sound impersonating a laugh rattles in my chest.

  “A day hasn’t gone by in five years I haven’t wanted you, Fi.”

  Her lips curve in the tiniest smile before she looks at me, the question in her eyes before it makes it to her lips.

  “Then what’s stopping you?”

  I sit down on the bed and drop my head into my hands, elbows on my knees.

  “I want all our cards on the table before we go any farther.” I look up at her, just a few feet away. “You have to be sure, and I don’t think you know what this would mean.”

  “Then tell me what it would mean.”

  The words boil in my belly like a hot spring. A geyser I’ve been tamping down since the moment I rushed off to Stanford.

  “It would mean no going back. It would mean you are absolutely, unequivocally mine. No one else’s. No more games. Not my sister. Not my friend. Mine.”

  She veils her eyes with her long lashes, and I want, mor
e than I want the breath trapped in my lungs, to know what she’s thinking. My heart takes a break from beating while I wait for her response. I’ve put myself out there before and she sliced me open. What kind of fool am I to do it again?

  Nine

  Fiona

  There he is.

  My beautiful boy, hidden behind the rock wall Justice erected between us all these weeks.

  There he is.

  Vulnerable and still loving me so much I can see his hurt like a wound left bleeding out.

  There he is.

  Watching and waiting for me to reject him like I did before. But I was a girl then. A little girl confused by the strength of my emotions.

  That little girl is gone.

  I don’t bother responding to what Justice said. I reach up to the tiny buttons holding my blouse together, teasing them loose one by one. My belly is a bowl of gelatin inside, all wobbly, but you’d never know it by the steady fingers pushing my blouse open and down my arms. I shimmy my way out of my skirt and panties, emboldened by the heat fogging up Justice’s eyes sliding over my bare legs. His breath is heavy by the time I toss my bra to the floor.

  “What are you—” Justice pulls his tongue over his bottom lip and bites it for a second before continuing. “What are you doing?”

  A laugh rolls up my throat, confident and seductive, verging on wanton. A sound I’ve been holding back all my life.

  “Now, Justice. I think you know how this works. I’m not the first girl you’ve seen naked.”

  I take the few steps separating us until I stand right in front of the bed. He runs his eyes from my shell pink toenails, over my long, tanned legs, and all the way up to the dark hair hanging around my shoulders, covering my breasts.

  “No, not the first.” Justice say softly. “But the most beautiful.”

  Barkley told me I was beautiful in more ways than one tonight, but it didn’t feel like this. Like I was made for his eyes alone. For his pleasure alone. And it isn’t the lust in Justice’s eyes that has me blinking back tears. It’s the awe. The reverence in the not-quite-steady-fingers brushing along my cheekbone. Acres of naked flesh on display for him to play with, my breasts at eye level, and Justice starts by touching my face. He looks into my eyes and makes sure he has my attention.

  “We don’t have to do this, Fi.” He wraps that look around me until everything on edge inside of me steadies.

  I sit beside Justice on the bed, naked as the day I was born, and brush my lips over his mouth. I leave the kiss chaste for only a moment before opening my mouth over his, pulling his bottom lip between my teeth. Sucking his tongue hard, I make a wet, sloppy mess of the kiss I can’t get enough of. I cup his face between my hands that tremble with the promise of his skin. I slide my fingers into the cool, rain-damp hair at the back of his neck and tug until we are staring into each other’s eyes again.

  “Shit.” His breath huffs into the tiny space between our lips. “Fi, it’s not too late to stop.”

  I tug the Stanford t-shirt over his head. Fine, fair hair arrows between the stacks of muscle cording his stomach. His skin, summer gold, is smooth and heated beneath my palms. I brush my fingers across his nipples, relishing how they harden at my touch.

  I hear him swallow. See his fists clench on the bed behind him. His eyes, when they lock with mine, are violent ocean blue.

  “Are you sure about this, Fi?”

  I barely nod before he pounces, pressing me back until I’m stretched out on the bed, completely open to him. He has shaken off the passion-induced stupor that allowed me to take the lead. Now all aggressive male, he pushes his tongue into my mouth, his hunger, voracious. His hands slide down my arms until he laces our fingers together. He pushes my hands over my head and into the pillow behind me, dusting kisses down my neck and between my breasts, before taking one nipple between his teeth. A moan slips out before I can stop it. He slides one hand back down my arm to toy with the other nipple, twisting and pinching until it is hard and puckered.

  He takes his time with me, exploring my body like I’m a sugary treat he can’t help but savor. He garnishes my skin with kisses and strokes me until my body bucks with the pleasure of his touch.

  He licks into my belly button, circling it with kisses before trailing down to the sensitive skin inside my thighs. His eyes carry an unspoken request. I know what he wants, but can’t even nod my agreement. The thought of him kissing me there hollows my stomach and shoots adrenaline straight into my heart.

  The first brush of his lips between my legs is so faint I barely feel it.

  “Did you know you have a beauty mark right here?” His tongue brushes the tiny cove between my thigh and the mound of flesh he looks ready to eat whole.

  I manage to shake my head. The space is so tiny and hidden, I never knew. What else will he teach me tonight about my own body?

  “It’s mine now.”

  He whispers the words against my sensitive flesh, using his mouth and tongue as gentle weapons against me. Stretching my legs open wider, he groans and nibbles and sucks at me with such focused hunger I feel like the only meal he’s ever eaten. And then like the storm outside, thunder rolls through my body. Pleasure bursts and flashes like lightning behind my eyelids. Every inhibition crumbles under the force of that storm. I grip his shoulders. I pull his hair, raking my nails across his scalp, grasping at the straws of my sanity. Driven a little mad with the sensations tremoring through every inch of my body.

  He doesn’t give me time to recover before he’s beside me, kissing me. Hovering over me, spreading me. Settling between my legs. Through a fog, I hear him ask a question.

  “Are you still on the pill?”

  “Huh?”

  I open my eyes, noticing the strain on his face. The full lips disciplined into a firm line. He’s barely holding on, and I feel a surge of power that I’ve left him grappling for control, too.

  “I’m clean, but are you on the pill?” He says the words slowly, but his hands gripping my hips are urgent. “Do I need a condom?”

  “Oh.” I ghost my fingers over his mouth, smiling at all the intimate things he learned about me sharing a bathroom for years. “I’m clean, too, and still on the pill.”

  “Can we…I mean, do you mind if we…I want to feel you.” He presses his forehead to mine, his breath warming my lips. “I understand if you have reservations. I don’t have the best track record, but I’ve been tested and I—”

  “Justice.” I place a finger over his rambling mouth. I entwine my calves with his, running my hand over the plane of muscles in his back. “I want to feel you, too.”

  He runs his nose up and down the curve of my neck, clenching his eyes shut.

  “Thank you.” He whispers the words so softly I feel more than hear them.

  He eases himself inch by inch inside of me. Pain arrows out from the place our bodies join. After such mindless pleasure, I’d forgotten about this part. I bite my lip to stifle a cry, but I can’t stop the tear that runs down my cheek. God, this hurts. I turn my head into the pillow, discreetly wiping my face against the soft linen.

  “Baby, you’re so tight.” Justice’s sleek, muscled strength trembles against me. “God, it’s never felt this good.”

  I force a smile, though it hurts every time he scrapes in and out of me.

  “Are you crying?” Justice freezes above me, still buried deep.

  “I’m fine.” I sniff back the stupid tears, and my body actually is starting to adjust to the size of him.

  “I don’t-what’s wrong? Am I hurting you?” He looks so distressed at the possibility that he’s causing me pain that I have to confess.

  “It’s okay. I’ve heard it only hurts the first time.”

  I whisper against the smooth skin of his shoulder, but the words drop into the quiet like boulders in a bathtub.

  “First time?” He pulls back, still joined with me, but leans up on his hands so he can see my face. “But it’s not-what-what do you mean?”

&n
bsp; “I was a virgin, Just.”

  He shakes his head, eyes never leaving mine.

  “No, Fi. I thought-but Barkley…I saw with my own eyes. I saw you with him.”

  “You saw me chickening out at the last minute.”

  “You lied to me?” Anger snaps in his eyes, crackling between us like an electric storm.

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “You let me think that you…that he…for five fucking years, Fi?”

  He starts pulling out, leaving me empty and cold. I grip his thigh, pulling him back, thrusting up to force him deeper. He groans, closing his eyes and burying his head in the pillow.

  “Shit.” His voice is a tortured rasp into the hair fanned out behind me. “We need to talk, but, baby, if you do that, I won’t be able to stop.”

  “I don’t want you to stop.”

  “We have to talk about this.” He leans up to look at me, need and concern warring across the strong lines of his face.

  “We’ll talk. I promise, but please…”

  I don’t know how to finish that sentence. I only know that I need to do this. Need to please him. Want him to have me as no one else ever has. I raise my legs, bracketing his hips with my knees. I rock into him, really having no idea what the heck I’m doing, but it’s starting to feel good again. After that first sting of pain, the delicious friction of him pulling out and pushing in has set a small fire inside of me. Pain is a speck on some distant horizon, and I only see this building, consuming, wrenching passion like the fist of clouds that starts a tornado.

  If the first orgasm was thunder, this is an avalanche. Thoughts, words, emotions – everything makes a torrential, inevitable slide downhill, collapsing into a slushy pile of nonsensical moans and monosyllables. And Justice slides with me. Muffling his groans into the pillow by my head. His body shakes with the force of what we share; He jets into my body, hot and wet. I tighten my arms around his shoulders, afraid if he moves, this perfect moment will shatter all around us.

  For seconds we lie there, and I believe, even with his vast sexual experience, that Justice is stunned. As clichéd as it sounds, our souls touched. I harbored him in the deepest parts of myself, and he left particles of his soul for me to hold onto forever. I love the traces of him wetting my thighs, marking me as his.