by Lexi Whitlow
Thinking about Maddox and my stalker, my mother and her plans for me, I want to run toward those smashing waves and pour myself into them, maybe swim west until I can’t see the shore. But that would be a waste of a few perfectly blissful days alone with Maddox, pretending my real life doesn’t exist.
Maybe for just a few days I can pretend.
I hear the sliding door open behind me. Maddox steps up and without speaking, slips his arms around me, pulling me back into his broad chest. I let myself relax in his embrace. I’m so tired, so sick of fighting with myself and the world. It’s easy to just give in to this moment and let him hold me. It feels right, even though there are so many reasons I know it can’t really be.
“I tried to take you to Mexico once upon a time.” He half-whispers in my ear, nuzzling my neck. “Mexico is just a mile down that beach. We can probably walk there before dark. I promised you I’d get you there. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to keep that promise.”
I rest my hand on his forearm, stroking it, feeling the tight sinew of muscle under his warm skin.
“It’s okay,” I say. “This is close enough. This is perfect.”
It feels perfect, but I know there’s no such thing.
Chapter 16
Maddox
I think I’ve always been a morning person, but the Marines stamped that character trait firmly into my DNA. Avery is not a morning person. Not by a long shot. Which is fine, because while she sleeps in, I get in a run and a work out, and am still done in plenty of time to put on coffee and start breakfast. It’s nice waking her up, all grumbling and pissy, her hair all messed up; then I hand her a cup of steaming hot coffee before she can tell me to ‘fuck off’.
The last several days feel nothing like bodyguard duty and everything like boyfriend duty, and I like it. I probably like it way too much. I don’t know what Avery thinks about it. I’m afraid to ask. But so far she hasn’t complained about much, which is an improvement over how things were between us in San Francisco. The distance between her and her mother has – I think – been good for her. I know it’s been good for me. It’s allowed me to see things a little more clearly.
“Let’s go for a walk.”
I’m finishing my last cup of coffee and checking my email and text messages when Avery walks down the stairs toward me. She wearing her little bikini and one of my shirts over it. The damn thing swallows her whole. She’s got on the big floppy hat I bought for her to protect that milky white skin, with a couple towels tucked under her arm. She’s gotten a pretty good tan over the last couple of days, but it’s taken copious amounts of sunscreen to keep her from frying. That’s okay too. I like smearing it all over her, rubbing it in. Any excuse to lay hands on her.
“Got your sunscreen?” I ask, putting my phone down.
She lifts the t-shirt, revealing the bottle tucked in the waistband of her tiny little thread of a bikini. Now she’s just teasing me.
“Alright,” I say. “Let’s take a walk.”
As much as she wants to act like it sometimes, Avery isn’t really beach-bunny material. She’ll go in to the breakers knee-deep, but beyond that she freaks out. She’s a Northern Californian—cold water and cold mornings, even in the summertime. Rocks. No sand. Nothing like here. I was a kid up there, but I grew up – really grew up – right here. Guys from the Midwest and east coast said the water was cold, but it was warm to me. I loved freezing my ass off hauling telephone poles around in the surf while the drill instructors barked orders at us. It was a game and I played it like I was having a blast.
I try to pull Avery out into the surf but she’s screaming and having none of it, splashing me and trying to run against the sucking tide of outgoing waves. She’d drown in about thirty seconds out here on her own. It’s a good thing she has me around.
I let her go to the shore while I back-stroke out past the low breakers, into the rising and falling roll of incoming waves. Out here in the deep water, everything is quiet. You feel insignificant and absolutely weightless. The feel of the water lifting you up and then dropping you low so you can’t see the shore anymore – only the blue sky above – reminds you just how precarious everything is; that your sense of security is all about perspective. At the crest of the roll you can hear the surf roar and the shoreline is close, but at the bottom of the trough, you’re inside a wall of water with no way out, and no sense of direction.
I’ve been at the bottom of the trough since I left the Marines, but I think the water is starting to pick me up so I can see my way forward again.
I swim back to shore and catch up with Avery, who’s given up on me and walked ahead. I throw a wet arm around her, drenching her with water, making her laugh like a kid.
“You’re a show-off,” she says, but she’s smiling. “And I’m just glad there’s no one else here to see you.”
We walk a long way down the beach, far from the houses and the very few people sunning themselves up shore. The island curves a bit toward the end where the Tijuana river spills into the Pacific, creating a shallow, brackish inlet. Once around the little bend we lose sight of the houses to the north. It’s here, against the low dunes, that Avery decides to lay down her beach towel, shed her bikini top, and expose the incredibly pale, fair skin of her lovely breasts to the mid-morning sun.
“That is not a good idea.” I warn her.
“Lotion me.” She instructs, handing me the bottle, stretching out, face up on the over-sized beach towel.
“Yes ma’am.”
Two can play this game. I peel off my swim trunks, then straddle her, grease up my palms with lotion, and begin rubbing the coconut smelling stuff into her supple skin with my palms. I tweak her nipples just to get a rise out of her – which works. I finish slathering her with sunscreen, then I lather myself up, smearing it onto my bare ass cheeks first, then my cock – stroking it on until I’m rock hard. Avery watches me do this; her nipples stiffen and perk up right before my eyes.
“You like that?” I ask.
She nods. She’s got that amused, distracted expression again. I’ve gotten used to it, and I know exactly what it means.
I climb over her, blocking the sun. I take off her sunglasses and shove back the floppy hat, and then I kiss her, parting her lips with my tongue, sucking her into me, nibbling her lip – while dragging my cock along her belly – letting her feel the potential of me inside her, taking her right here, out in the wide open, in broad daylight.
“You’re brave.” She giggles between kisses. “And very bad.”
I grin at her and pull back just a little so she can see my eyes clearly. “You want to?” I ask her. “Or do you just want to sun bathe?”
She bites her lip and reaches down, taking me into her hand, stroking me enough to make my eyes close and my jaw clench from the intense pleasure of her attention.
“I think I’d like to be very bad,” she whispers.
“Yes ma’am,” I say, and sit up just long enough to get a grip on the hip of her bikini bottom, stripping it off with one quick yank.
I glide a finger into her slit and find her already wet. I think she must have planned this. She’s anticipating me.
I use my knees to spread her legs and let my cock contact her clit, riding it along the surface of her slick folds while I kiss and bite her sunscreen lubricated breasts. My body slides on hers without friction, but with plenty of heat. Avery finds my mouth and kisses me hard, then says, “Inside me… please…”
I push up off her and she reaches down, guiding me in with precision. I plunge into her smoldering, liquid heat, with her hips arching up aggressively to meet me. It’s like being lost in the trough all over again, my head swimming, no clue which end is up, just rolling with the motion. It’s perfection, and I’ll never get used to it.
Avery wraps her legs around my hips, hooking her ankles so she can rock in, meeting my thrusts. The way our bodies meet, the way we mold together and fit, the way we seem to anticipate one another – it’s exquisite. She
feels made for me.
And as I feel the muscles between her legs that grip me so firmly start to tighten and twitch, I have to believe that she must feel something close to the same way I do.
“Oh, fuck me, Maddox.” She whines, her fingers clutching hard into my shoulders, her hips rocking into my punching rhythm. She’s tight, so incredibly tight. I have to hold back, focus my mind elsewhere to keep from coming. I try to maintain that balance, bringing her closer and closer to the edge.
I do what she asks, holding a steady rhythm, going deep, then pulling back slowly, until she comes shuddering around my cock like a landslide, crying out with each wave that trembles her body. As her tremors subside and she starts to laugh with pleasure, I drive in harder, picking up speed. I don’t want to make this last. I want to feel the intensity of a quick, un-postponed orgasm, achieved on a beach in the bright light of day, given to me by the women I’ve worshiped since I was a kid.
It comes fast and hard, and it renders me defenseless. I buck into Avery with everything I have, growling into her ear, gripping her shoulders tight as I go, letting it just own me. When I’m done, I just slump, slack over Avery, my semi-hard dick still inside her, her muscles still quaking a little.
“That was intense.” She whispers in my ear, her fingers dancing in my hair gently. She sounds breathless, and I can’t breath hard enough to get air to my brain.
I push myself up and pull out of her slowly, then roll to her side on the towel. We’re both covered in sand that’s stuck to the sunscreen and the moist bits and sweaty spots we’ve worked up.
Avery turns over, tits down, and folds her arms under her head.
“Lotion me,” she instructs me again.
I smear the stuff from her elbows, across her beautiful, square shoulders, down her back, rubbing it into her sweet bare ass, all the way down her firm thighs and calves to the bottoms of her feet and toes – enjoying every second of the labor.
By the time I’m done she’s snoozing in the sun as sweetly as a newborn. I settle down beside her, propped on my elbow, and just watch her breath. When she’s sleeping like this, her face loses all the tension that sometimes darkens the natural beauty of her features. She looks so young, just like she did when we were kids planning our great adventure. In a few more moments her eyelids flutter and I think she must be dreaming. I hope it’s about me.
I hope she’s dreaming about me.
I really am in love with her and there’s no denying it. I can dance around it, leave it unspoken, but it’s real. If I don’t try to make it work this time, I’ll never get another chance. When all is said and done, I have nothing at all to lose. The job is only about money, and I can earn money. I can’t find another Avery Thomas.
* * *
I hold the phone out, my finger on the mute button. “Your mother wants to speak to you. Do not tell her where we are.”
Avery looks at me like I’ve just sold her to pirates.
“I don’t want to talk to her.” She insists.
“You have to. Get it over with.” I push the phone toward her and lift the mute.
She rolls her eyes at me but takes the phone.
“Hello, Mother,” she says.
I can’t hear Evelyn Thomas on the other end, but I can see Avery’s expression, her body language shift, and her jaw start to flex. Evelyn speaks a long time before Avery can even get a word in.
“Mother...” She tries.
Another long wait.
“Moth...”
And again. “Evelyn. Dammit, stop talking. Please! No. I am not coming home until the police find this guy and lock him up. He tried to...”
Avery sighs and looks at me, shaking her head.
“We’re down south. I’m not about to tell you where...”
“...because you’d probably have someone come kidnap me and...”
“No. I never asked to be part of your entourage. You conscripted me into that shit and now I have stalkers because you put me out there...”
“Evelyn…”
“Mom…” Her voice cracks on that one, and it almost breaks my heart. Deep down, there’s something inside of Avery that wants Evelyn’s approval, and more than that, her love.
“Dammit,” she shouts into the phone. “Maddox is trying to keep me safe. That’s what you hired him to do. You can accuse me of—”
Avery takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, listening to the ranting insults being hurled at her. When she opens her eyes again, she begins to speak calmly – almost menacingly. She says, “You know what Mother, I’m done with your bullshit too. You can cut me off. You don’t own me and you can’t make me do this. Go fuck yourself. And I hope you lose. I’m voting for your opponent – whoever it is. Hell, I may consult for his campaign.”
She ends the call and almost slams my phone down on the stone counter top.
Avery Thomas stands up to her mother. That was epic.
She’s trembling like a leaf and looks angry enough to kill something. Before the call even ended I was already at the bar, pouring her a drink. I hand it to her. She takes it and downs half the thing in one gulp.
“What the fuck was all that about?” I ask her. “All she said to me was ‘bring Avery home’.”
Avery huffs and meets my eyes. “She wants me to do a last-minute fundraiser day after tomorrow. She said she’d send the plane.” She rolls her eyes up to the ceiling. “And she said she ‘just knew’ we were sleeping together because I can’t keep my legs together and you’re just the kind of trash that would take advantage of a slut like me.”
Now that pisses me off. I’ve never ‘taken advantage’ of any girl. I never would.
I do not understand how a parent – at least a sober one – can be so cruel. I don’t understand how Evelyn can think she owns her daughter’s body, mind, and soul. None of it makes sense to me. I wrap my arms around Avery and pull her close, holding her tight, palming her head in my hand. She just melts into my chest, then I feel the tears falling cool on my shoulder. Her chest heaves. She cries silently in my arms as I hold her.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “I promise. It’s gonna be okay.”
This promise is one I have to figure out how to keep. I have some ideas. I had a Plan A before Mom suggested I give the Thomas’ offer a try. Maybe its time to reconsider everything.
* * *
An hour later, sitting on the deck, watching the most radiant sun set we’ve been blessed with so far, I thread my fingers into Avery’s and pull her hand to my lips. I kiss her fingers one-by-one, gently.
“I want to come clean to your parents,” I say to her. “I want us out in the open, so they know we’re for real and not just some temporary whim. And then I want to start working on a way to get you free from all this bullshit you want no part of. I had some stuff brewing before I took this job. I’m going to look into what I can do...”
“Maddox, you can’t...” She protests
“Oh yeah. I can,” I say. “I can. And I will. As long as you’re in it with me.”
Chapter 17
Avery
Usually Maddox wakes up first. I think he goes downstairs to the gym and works out. I hear the barbells clinking and the sound of him singing along with the tunes on his headphones. Sometimes he goes for a run on the beach. He comes back and gets a quick shower before he heads into the kitchen to start coffee. He thinks I sleep through all of this, but I’m aware of him. I’ve become increasingly aware of everything he does.
He’s ready to make a bold move that could rock his world and impact the fortunes of more than just us. His mom needs him to be steady right now. He’s not seeing that. And he’s not seeing the fact that I really don’t have the means to stand up to my mother. I talk a good game when I’m pissed off – when I’m dreaming – but I have no clue how to support myself. I’m twenty-five years old and I’ve never had a real job. I live in a swanky apartment in a nice neighborhood near school, and I have no idea what the rent is. I drive a Range Rover SUV.
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Someone at school told me the thing cost $90,000. I asked if that was a lot.
Maddox thinks he loves me, but he loves the fantasy of a girl he knew a decade ago. He’s better off taking care of his future.
He’s sleeping now. Sleeping. Dreaming. The gray morning light is just starting to stream into our bedroom. I could watch him sleep forever. We have today. That’s it. I’m going home to do Mother’s fund raiser, and I’m going to get with the program in order to save Maddox’s job.
I make the coffee this morning, and I bring a cup to Maddox, waking him gently.
“Hey sleepyhead,” I say. “Got a cup for you.”
He rolls awake, surprised by the turn about. He’s got that early morning, sleepy voice going on. “What’s this?” He asks, bleary. It’s early, even for him.
“Coffee.” I say. “My turn.”
He takes a sip and props himself up in bed.
“You should be snoozing,” he says. “You’re never up this early.”
I nod. “I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been thinking—”
He scowls. “It’s too damn early in the morning for thinking.”
“Just the same, I think I need to go home and deal with Mother. Do what she wants.”
He shakes his head. “No babe… You hate that shit...”
“I do. But I also hate the idea of you blowing your whole world wide open for me. That can’t happen. I’m not that… reliable.”
I see his expression fall.
“You need to keep your job. We’ve known one another a long time, and you know me. I always do what my mother wants. She installed the buttons and she knows how to push them. I need to be at that fundraiser tomorrow. We have today, let’s chill out. I’ll call mother and have her send the plane for me tonight.”
“You don’t have to...”
“I do,” I say.
Maddox expression descends into a bleakness I’ve not seen before. I want him to know I’m doing this for him. He should be happy, but he looks defeated. Nothing I do is right.
