by Marci Fawn
But it does.
Faith grabs my hand, smiling at me and initiating contact before I can.
“Hey,” I grab her hand, tighter, pulling her entire body to me. We’re sitting on a bench, no longer on the beach together. All three of us have wet skin – we just threw our clothing on over our swimsuits, and the people who sit on the bench after us probably aren’t going to be too happy. I don’t care. It’s too beautiful anyway, there shouldn’t be a bench here.
“That’s my job,” I say, squeezing her hand and reminding her that I’m always the one to go after her first, even when she pushes me away.
“Beg to differ,” she says, but her voice is quiet and her lips turn up into that small smile that tell me she’ll obey me, even if she tries to pretend otherwise, for a little while. Dawn scoots herself over from the left of Faith, pulling herself up and then crashing like a whale so she lands sprawled across both of our laps.
“Ouch,” I feign pain, and they both laugh. Maybe if I keep up the humor, neither of them will notice anything is wrong. But Dawn turns her head to me and starts tugging at my sleeve, and all the comments I’ve heard about children knowing flash through my head…
“Let’s get some ice cream,” I change the subject.
“Is there ice cream this far out in Santorini?” Faith’s eyebrows crinkle and she looks at me, wondering where I’m going with this. I just shrug as Dawn squeals, knowing that there’s a few things people love and ice cream is universally one of them. Usually. I wonder if Dawn’s favorite is strawberry, like Faith’s was when we were kids. I wonder if Faith’s favorite is still strawberry and if she still hates chocolate with a passion.
“Probably,” I grab Dawn off of my lap and carry her, looking at Faith for a second before I grab her too and throw her over my shoulder. It’s only a minute walk into town, anyway, we’ll be able to make it. And based on the way Faith throws her hands against my back, I know she loves it.
If only this could last forever…
When we get back to the villa, it’s late. We pass off Dawn to Sabrina – she’s sleepy falling into her arms, making Sabrina dip down, but at least Sabrina’s leg is getting better – and then walk up the stairs to our bed. Faith is tired, too, her arms reaching out to me in her desperation for cuddles.
“Today was beautiful,” she smiles at me, her eyes closing as she stretches her body across the bed. She’s gorgeous and I want nothing more than to collapse on top of her and feel her body mold with mine. I lean over the side of the bed towards her body, moving myself so that my chest just lightly brushes against hers but I’m still away from her – not on top of her.
Unfortunately.
“It was.” It’s true. I kiss her forehead, smiling at her, but her eyebrows crinkle again like they had earlier.
“You were distant all day, River.” Her hands bunch together in my shirt and she reaches for me, trying to pull me close to her. I can’t let her. I take my hands and place them on her shoulders, keeping her away from me. I’m stronger than her – it’s no challenge.
“I know, baby, I’ll make it up to you,” I rub her shoulder lightly and wink at her, telling her that it’ll all be okay. “I promise.”
I can’t leave her right now, though. I fall towards her so that my chest is on top of hers and I meet her lips with mine, giving her a deep, sweet kiss that’s full of promises of things to come and that tells her I’ll stay with her. From the way she’s looking at me, I can tell she thought I was going to leave.
That will never happen.
Ever.
“What’s going on?” She opens her eyes again, this time putting both of her hands in my hair as her fingers rake over my scalp. I feel a shiver through my spine and my cock hardens, and all I can think about is taking her now…
But I can’t.
It twitches, and she notices. She’s stripped down from her swimsuit and changed quickly, lying in her bra and underwear under the sheets beneath me. I’m still in my shorts, long-since-dry but clinging to my body from how wet they were after being in the ocean for hours.
“River…” She bites her lip, her voice lower and dropping so quiet that I have to strain to hear it. She wants to know what’s wrong with me, but she wants my cock. Desperately. I know she does, just like I want her pussy.
I growl, grabbing both of her arms and turning her body so that I hold them behind her back. I take another hand and push her head gently to the pillow, not smothering her face like I would be if I was fucking my anger out on her – not that I’m angry right now, but, goddamnit, coach needs to just stop bothering me – but leaving it so that it’s almost like she’s sleeping. Peaceful.
“I’ll tell you in the morning,” I nip at her neck, kissing her lightly and biting against her skin. Comforting her, but letting her know what I want…
“I’m wet. Not like you,” I tease her, pulling myself away from her body as she trembles beneath me. “I need to go change.”
“Okay,” she says, and I think she would nod if her head weren’t pressed against the pillow as I’d left it. She doesn’t move it from where I placed her, and I like that.
But not as much as I love her.
I get up, acting like I’m turning the corner of our room to go to the walk-in closet just down the hall. There’s a closet in that room, too, but I let Faith stick all of her stuff in there so she wouldn’t have to get up and move like I do, and I don’t mind. In fact, it’s working in my favor right now. I don’t feel the best about sneaking behind her back like this, but it’s not like I’m cheating.
I walk down the stairs as quietly as I can and sneak out the door, pulling out my phone to finally listen to the voicemails – nine of them now – from Coach Daniels.
51
Faith
River isn’t the same boy he used to be, but somehow he is. I know he is. He’s been gone for about five minutes, and I’m closing my eyes about to drift off to sleep thinking of him… Or try to sleep thinking of him, at least… When the door opens.
I open them immediately, knowing exactly what I’ll find there. I’ve never really been much for eye contact, but there’s something River’s gate that make me drop my eyes and blush when I see him.
I’m a mess.
But I’m his mess.
He’s changed from his swim shorts to a loose pair of sweats I dimly remember him owning, although I haven’t seen them on him before. They’re dark, navy, more loose-fitting than I’d expected them to be when I saw them at the bottom of the pile in his luggage. But they’re flattering.
“River,” I open my mouth, whispering to him, the words barely coming out in my excitement. He looks at me, and I realize I’m still lying on the bed, almost naked.
My whole body flushes.
“Faith,” he says, and he walks over to the bed. He wasn’t there for me today, at least not as much as I was expecting. But when he moves to me and throws his arm around my body, I realize I was wrong.
He is there for me. Something was going on, but… He’s okay. He has to be. Like he said, I can ask him about it in the morning. But I don’t want to think about that right now.
I look over at him and feel his hand brush over my cheek through my hair, and I close my eyes.
The in-between of my thighs tingle, and I know I won’t be able to control myself with him touching me. But I don’t want to control myself, and I don’t want him to stop. His hands roam my body through the sheets, and I just wish he would pull the thin piece of fabric away from me and make love to me.
We’re finally together. But we’ve been so busy bonding and exploring… We’ve still only really been together once.
This desperate want is horrible and I crave his body more than anything. My mouth drops to his shoulder, kissing him and moving so he can slip his knee between my thighs and push them open, to get to me like he wants. But he doesn’t.
Instead, he brings his hands under my shoulders and slips them over to my back, pulling the sheet away from me like
I wish he would have just a few seconds ago.
He kisses me on the lips again, short and sweet. Not as deep as I was expecting and I open my mouth to protest. He takes advantage of that, using the way my mouth opens to kiss me so deeply I feel like I’m going to suffocate in the taste of him.
He pulls me out from under the blankets, gripping me and turning me so that I fall below him. He throws himself down on top of me – fully, instead of just a light touch – and I wonder if he’ll crush me beneath him, even though I know he would never hurt me. He never will. He had before, but that wasn’t his fault…
The hand at my back unclasps my bra strap, and I thank myself for choosing the bra that’s easy to get undone – not that River would have struggled with any of them. Probably. My face gets hot, and I wonder if it’s because of embarrassment or because of his proximity.
“Stop squirming,” he bites down on my shoulder, harsher than usual but not cruelly, and I realize I’ve been wriggling around as he touches me.
I’m not sorry. I’m just desperate to get as close to him as I possibly can.
He starts pulling my bra from my body and I raise a hand to help him, pulling it away from my body. He just growls at me, taking my hand from me and bending it behind me again as he moves his mouth down to my chest.
He showers the skin there in kisses, moving down to my nipple as he sucks it into his mouth. I groan again, my hips rising to meet his as I raise myself up from the bed.
Finally.
We’re finally going to sleep together again.
But he pulls himself away from me, and I cry out with a begging mewl that sounds desperate even to me. But I need him. I need him inside me and I don’t care how embarrassing it is for him to know that, as long as he knows and takes me as his. He grabs my hair at the base of my scalp, pulling my hair so I look up at him.
“Faith,” he grins. “You don’t need to be upset. Please, baby.”
Has my face really fallen as totally as I think it has? It must’ve, by the way he’s talking… But his voice drips down lower and I see his eyes narrow with lust. He’s not sorry for me. He’s…
“I’m horny as fuck and I’m going to make you mine completely,” he says, grabbing my thighs and pulling them open so my panties draw tight over my sex and the wetness is even more noticeable.
I whimper and try to close them so he can’t see just how much I want him, but he doesn’t let me. He looks up at me, his jaw tightening as he takes a hand and slaps me… There.
It’s light but my hips buck up at the sheer surprise of it.
Then he grabs the undersides of both my thighs, throwing my body up and over his shoulder like he carried me down to the ice cream shop in the more modern of Santorini earlier. But it’s not the same. It’s more possessive, as if he’s carrying me so people would know I’m his. But there’s no one around, except us.
I gasp in horror as we walk down the stairs, and I hope he’s not intending for us to do this on the couch… I want him more than anything and I wouldn’t say no if he did, but if Sabrina and Dawn saw us, that would be the end for me.
He doesn’t.
He walks right past the sofa and out the door, and as soon as we’re out of sight of the house, he lays me down gently onto the sand.
It’s light and I start rolling to catch myself, but he grabs my leg. His hand trails up to my upper thigh, pulling them apart again as his other hand reaches up to my hip. His hand at my thigh finally meets it there, and he’s pulling my panties down past my thighs, and suddenly I’m naked, the cool night wind tickling against every part of me.
My nipples get harder in the cold and he smiles, kissing from one to the other one, sucking them both into his mouth as desperately as he can.
He’s on top of me again, my back against the sand as another hand moves between my thighs. He clutches my sex completely, stroking the cleft there in circles as I moan for him. I run my hands down his arms, shaking beneath him, desperate for him to take me…
I move my mouth to his neck and give him kisses there, looking at him and arching my own neck for him when he looks back. He smiles, pleased, knowing I knew what he wants.
And he kisses me.
I pull his shorts from him, pulling him farther down so I’m completely flat on the sand below him with his weight crushing me beneath him. I couldn’t get up if I wanted to. I don’t want to. I run a hand over his jaw, bringing his face to mine and his kiss is hungrier now.
One of his hands falls away from my body to his cock, and he frees it completely, kicking his shorts away to the beach as the waves crash gently around us. I don’t want him to have to do this… Especially when I so need to. I can feel my body shake as I think about it, and I’m desperate to have inside me.
I take his cock in my hand, running my fingers along it gently as I bring it to my slit, closing my eyes as I imagine it pushing inside me. But that doesn’t happen. My eyes open to River shaking his head at me, and I groan.
He runs the head of his cock along my slit, teasing me as he rubs, and I know that he’s loving my moans and, for now, I will get nothing more.
Until I do, and he’s pushing himself inside me, us both holding each other in our arms as the beach continues its daily life. It’s so cold, and we’re each other’s only source of heat…
We kiss and bite each other, tasting each other, moving slowly so we can savor the other’s body like the night will never end.
We stay there, me beneath him and us together as one. It’s beautiful, perfect, and right… So right, that we stay there until morning.
52
River
We’re both covered in sand. Faith is so sleepy and beautiful, her eyes fluttering open as she smiles, cuddling closer to me when she finds we’ve drifted apart in our sleep – no longer one on top of the other, but still so close that her cuteness is silly.
I stretch away from her, making her moan in protest.
It’s not that I want to be away from her, but I know what I’m doing. I lift a pile of sand into the palm of my hand, trying not to let too many grains of it escape. When she turns to get more attention from me, I raise my hand above her head, dropping the sand into her hair before I tap her on the forehead, grinning.
“You’re a mess,” I tease her, my eyes running down her body to where I can still see all the kisses I left there last night. She blushes, like I’d hoped she would, and I run a hand down her neck. It isn’t even sexual. I just want to touch her, and I let her know it.
“You did it to me!” She bats my hand away with a smile, her voice rising. Then she picks up sand and throws it at me, and we’re play fighting, careful not to get the grains of sand in each other’s eyes.
“Whatever,” I flick her forehead. Fuck. I’m way too soft. But… I’m soft with her. Only her. “More importantly,” I cough, changing the subject from my supposed inability to defend myself, as she says, “we need to figure out a way to get back to the house without being seen.”
It’s early morning now. It’s light and people will be here, and there is no way in hell I’m sticking my dick back in those sand-filled boxers now. I don’t expect Faith to want to put her clothes back on, either, not that she was wearing much in the first place. I reach out and grab one of her nipples, hard, pinching it and watching as sand falls from her skin.
“See,” I growl, feeling my cock getting hard again. “You’re a mess.”
I see her react to my touch, her hands immediately going to me as her thighs squeeze together.
But it’s early morning… I don’t care if we’re seen – fuck, I would probably enjoy having someone watch and see me claim Faith as mine. I just want to fuck her right now – but it’d probably embarrass Faith for strangers to see her impaled on my cock the way I’m imagining.
So I deny her, keeping distance enough as I tease her pussy with my thumb. She narrows her eyes, lusty and annoyed.
This woman is mine, and she knows it.
I cough again, pretending th
at I only care about getting back to the house. Truth is, I want to drive her wild, tease her until she’s begging me to fuck her, like I still haven’t… I want to rile her up and then deny her wants until she’s almost over the edge.
Oh, yeah. Just not now.
The villa is a way’s up a hill from here, and I can see that we wound up a little farther away from it then either of us was expecting.
We start our walk. Almost immediately, I lift Faith into my arms. I like feeling her there, and her feet are bare. Mine are, too, but Faith is smaller, softer, and I don’t want her to hit a rock and hurt herself. We decide to try to enter the house from a side door, and get to our bedroom and to a shower after walking through the kitchen.
As soon as we get there, I realize it’s a mistake.
“What the fu—“
“River!” Faith silences me, her voice almost a hiss as she stands on her toes to keep me from swearing in front of Dawn. But I can’t help it. The rest of the word slips out and gets caught in the palm of her hand as I stare at him – Thomas.
My PR manager.
“…are you doing here?” Shit.
I finish my sentence, realizing that Dawn is here, that’s why Faith didn’t want me swearing. We both jump, hiding behind a table as Sabrina grabs her, moving away and mumbling something about not knowing where we were to give warning.
I glance to Dawn as she leaves, making sure she hasn’t noticed. She hasn’t. Good. But I don’t get why this guy is here bothering my family.
Except I know exactly why he’s here. I’ve run off from my job to be with them.
Gave no notice, no warning.
No fucks, basically, but I can’t exactly say that with a toddler around.
Thomas looks at both of us, his eyes lingering too long on Faith and I growl at him, not the way I’d growl at Faith, but in the way that tells him to knock his shit off or get his shit knocked out.
