by Parker Swift
“I’m sure we’ll be safe here,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I mean, the only way in is by helicopter—it would be hard for some nefarious paparazzi to catch up with you here.”
“With us.”
With us, I thought, and I could feel the smile spreading across my face.
As we walked down the dirt drive, I caught glimpses of yellow above me and realized there were lemon trees lining the way to the little house at the end. All of a sudden the idea of fresh lemonade and salads with lemon dressings made my cheeks tingle, anticipating the tartness. When we reached the front doors, which were beautiful in their own right—a deep faded blue that Dylan clearly hadn’t touched—he pulled me around to the side of the house facing the water and to a set of steps. It was then that I realized we were entering from the top of the house. This place was not tiny.
I followed him down the outside of the house, trying to take everything in—the crystal-blue water in the distance, the breeze on my skin. I was so distracted that it wasn’t until we landed at the lowest level, a few flights down, that I saw the pool. It glistened a brilliant blue in the sun, and its edge was the edge of the cliff, as though it disappeared into the horizon beyond it. The place was minimalist, but somehow everything felt perfect, natural, as though the earth itself had decided on that pool, the sun had painted the shutters that brilliant blue and then faded them accordingly. This place was a Mediterranean dream—a quiet, private Mediterranean dream—and I could only imagine how much time and thought he’d put into it.
“You like hiding away, don’t you?” I asked, smiling at Dylan, gripping his hand in my own. He pulled me against him, so I had to look up to see his eyes.
“I like getting away.”
“I love this place. You can really breathe here.”
He leaned down and kissed me softly on the lips, and it felt so new. The sun beating down on us, the sound of the ocean, and the feel of the stones under our shoes—they all made a kiss we’d had a hundred times before feel new. And that was just a kiss. This place was gonna be good.
He gave me the full tour, and we finally landed in the master bedroom on the top of floor. I almost lost my breath. The room was floor-to-ceiling glass doors on three sides. The panels were on rails, so they could slide to the side, almost making the room an outdoor space. The vast low bed spread across the back wall. Low bookshelves were on either side. Perhaps most surprising was a large oval bathtub on a pedestal, sitting diagonally in the corner between two of the enormous open windows. My eyes bulged as I imagined sitting in that bathtub with him later.
He opened our luggage, grabbed our swimsuits, and said “Let’s go for a swim” with a twinkle in his eye. I hastily put on the tiny teal bikini, and I could feel Dylan’s eyes on me as I slipped a white eyelet cover-up on over my head.
My face was still concealed by the sheer white fabric when I said, “Doing okay over there, Hale?” I finished pulling the garment over my head to reveal a cheeky smile.
He slapped my nearly bare butt, and I screeched. I went to tackle him, but he was already darting out of the room. When I caught up to him at the top of the stairs, he grabbed my hand, turned around, and kissed me. “I love you, baby.”
Whoa. Where had that come from? It seemed that Greece Dylan was full of surprises.
We walked to the edge of the pool, but Dylan kept going, pulling me along. “Where are we—”
“Trust me. Come on,” he said as he grabbed two towels from a chest by the pool.
I sighed in resignation and followed him to a wooden set of stairs built into the side of the cliff. They seemed to go on forever, the sound of the ocean getting louder as we descended. When we landed at the bottom, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Emerging from the trees, there were high cliffs in an arc surrounding what could only be described as paradise. The water was richer than Caribbean blue: bluer, deeper, but still crystal clear. The sand was white and soft, and the beach was tiny, tucked into these cliffs, protected from the wind that pushed the sailboats I could see in the distance.
“Shall we?” Dylan asked, smiling at me.
I nodded as he lifted the cover-up over my head. He let the garment fall to the sand, then pulled me close against him. My arms wrapped around him, and I ran my fingers up and down his warm back. Then I felt the strings of my bikini top falling away from my back.
“Dylan,” I said, slightly panicked, hugging my chest closer to him for coverage and looking around for photographers or people with cell phones. But he took my chin in one of his hands and brought me back to him.
“No one’s here but us, damsel.” He untied the strings around my neck and let the top fall into the space between us. “I want to look at you out here.” And he brought my arms to my sides. His hand was at my shoulder, and he slowly dragged it down my body, between my breasts, his fingers lingering there for a moment. “Christ, you have gorgeous tits.”
I laughed. Loudly. Looking down at my chest, I replied, “Not bad, right? Hmm, let’s see what you’ve got,” I said, suddenly forgetting I was topless and diving for his trunks, just as he turned and ran. I jumped on his back, and he wrapped my legs around his waist, holding them tightly against him, and ran towards the water.
We spent the next hour swimming. Playing. Touching. Talking. We took each other in in a way we never had before.
“You’re different here,” he said at one point, as we stood in the water.
“I know. So are you. Do you think it’s just because we’re away from everything?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “But don’t stop.”
The sun was setting when we finally made our way back up to the house. We luxuriated in the open shower in the master bathroom, lazed around in the lounge that looked out over the water, and eventually meandered into the kitchen. Dylan opened a bottle of wine, and I rummaged through the cupboards.
“We can go out,” he said.
“Nah. I wanna stay here. I can drum something up. Trust me?” I asked, throwing his own words back at him. Dylan chuckled and sat back down at the kitchen island.
“Implicitly.”
“Good.” I lazily worked my way through the kitchen. I made pasta with lemons and herbs from the garden, which we ate sitting on lounge chairs by the pool, soaking up the last of the sunset.
At one point after a long moment of silence, Dylan nudged my toe with his, and I looked over at him. “Yes?” I said, my eyes gazing at the sky full of stars above us.
“Move in with me,” he said. Only instead of jokey and pleading, this time he sounded serious, sincere, hopeful.
“I want to,” I said, smiling, feeling how easy it was to say that. I did want to.
“Good. I want you to too,” he replied.
I turned to look at him and was about to launch into all my reservations, but Dylan read my mind.
“I know,” he started. “I know you don’t feel ready. But baby. I want this with you. You know that, right?” He looked at me and then out at the ocean, as though he was saying he wanted the world with me.
A warm calm was settling over me, and I smiled. I moved over in my lounger, making space for him, and he crawled over, wrapping me in his arms so my head rested on his shoulder.
“I want that with you too,” I said. “I just want to know what ‘this’ is for you.”
“You mean, is it forever?” I didn’t say anything, not quite sure that I even wanted it to be, or maybe just not quite ready to say it. “I haven’t thought about forever with anything, anyone—not architecture and certainly not another person. I’ve trained myself very carefully to stick to today—the future isn’t something that’s held much interest for me,” he said, and I could imagine the thoughts of his future as a duke running through his head. “But, Lydia, I never want to be without you. Whether here, in London, anywhere. I just want you with me. Is that the same thing?”
“I think so,” I said. “I feel the same way. I love you,” I whispered into his neck.
“I
love you too. So even if not tomorrow, you’ll move in with me?”
“Yes. Not tomorrow. But yes.” Because that was true. It felt inevitable. And I wanted it. I wanted it more than anything. And so did he.
Chapter 23
We lay like that, curled into each other, our dirty dishes off to the side, for several more minutes, before the chill settled over our skin and we moved inside. After his declaration, after mine, I never didn’t want to be touching him. I felt like we’d just crested some hill, and we were absorbing each other in the delicious aftershock.
I leaned against the kitchen island and drank my wine as Dylan dealt with the dishes—I had that post-beach loose feeling in my limbs. My jeans felt good on my sunned legs, and my new blousy cotton camisole felt like air on my shoulders, which had gotten a little burnt. The edge of the butcher block dug into my hips, and I suddenly felt Dylan’s hands slide down my arms and land on top of my own hands, one wrapped around my wineglass, the other resting on the warm wood. My breathing deepened, and as it had since the first time I’d laid eyes on Dylan, the world got fuzzy. The only things in focus were him and me.
He lifted my wineglass and brought it to my lips, feeding it to me. I drank obediently, and he ran his lips along my neck and shoulder. We were in some kind of dance—I relaxed my body into his and took another swallow.
“Good girl,” he said as he put my wineglass down.
Then his hands were around my waist, under my top, the backs of his knuckles caressing, exploring, eventually grazing the undersides of my breasts. “No bra. Very good girl.”
“Mmm,” I said partially as a question—what had he said?—and partially as a moan, a plea to just keep touching me.
“Your skin is so warm from the sun.”
“Mmm.”
“Are you incoherent?”
“Mmm.”
Dylan chuckled and kissed my other shoulder. “I love you like this,” he added, settling his hands on my hips, the very tips of his fingers inside the waistband of my jeans. “Agreeing to move in with me has made you so pliant, soft, ready.”
“I said soon.”
“You said yes,” he whispered as he held out his hand, and I took it.
I followed him up the stairs and into the master bedroom, already feeling submissive to his desires, trusting him to know mine. I stood in the doorway, leaning, as Dylan shut the large windows, protecting us from the cool breeze. I walked to him, to the center of the room, and put my arms around him, going in for the kiss. But Dylan pulled my arms down and shook his head. He gave me a quick conciliatory peck on the nose before stepping back to sit on the bench at the end of the bed.
I stood there just a few feet from him, the windows at my back, the moonlight reflecting off the ocean below and illuminating his face in the dark room.
“Take off your shirt, Lydia.” My pulse quickened at his commanding tone, and my skin became tight, ready, sensitive even to the particles in the air.
I slid the shirt over my head and smiled at Dylan’s approving gaze.
“Your jeans.”
I shimmied out of the pants and kicked them aside. I hadn’t been wearing shoes or panties, so that was it. There I was, backlit, goose bumps rising to the surface, breaths getting shallower. I reached back and twisted my hair, letting it fall over one shoulder. It was just getting long enough to do that.
Dylan crooked his finger, summoning me towards him. I stepped up to him, loving the feel of the soft rug between my toes. When I got to him, he remained seated and placed his hands on my hips, wrapping them around me, drumming his thumb on my hip bone.
“Lie down, baby,” he said. I looked at him, curious. Where? He patted his lap, and I understood.
I climbed onto the bench on my knees and slowly lowered myself over his lap, he shifted me so my ass was front and center, and I lay my cheek on the soft linen of the bench. He stroked my back, running his right hand over my ass while his left rested between my shoulder blades.
He leaned over and kissed me sweetly on the lips then reached between my legs with his fingers, first finding my pussy and then dragging the wetness back up between my cheeks. “You’re ready for this?” he asked.
I shuddered a little but managed a nervous smile. “I trust you.” Because I did.
Dylan reached behind him and I heard the pop of a bottle top. Then he dragged well-lubricated fingers down, settling on the tender opening. He eased his finger in and out, fucking me tenderly. Then there were two fingers, working me open and massaging me. My chest was working itself up and off the bench with each deep breath. His fingers were so different from a plug, softer, moving. More than anything, they were him. I squirmed and tensed, suddenly nervous.
“Shh,” he soothed, clearly sensing my heart rate rising, my breaths accelerating. He rubbed my back. “Let me in.” I took a deeper breath and tried to open up to his fingers. He worked me for a few more minutes. “Okay, come here, baby.”
He lifted me and moved me onto the bed behind him—I lay stretched out on my belly, ripe with anticipation. He quickly shed his jeans and came up behind me. I stared in disbelief as he stroked his long hardness with a lubricated hand. “Baby, we’re going to go slow. I don’t want to hurt you.”
He gripped my hips and pulled back. I was resting on my elbows, my forehead on the duvet. Dylan was stroking my back, positioning himself, and I was shivering with anticipation.
“Lean back into it, baby. Take me at your own pace. I want you to do this,” he instructed. Nervously, I did as I was told, anticipating the intrusion, and he guided his tip along the opening and began to feed himself into me. It was so tight and so intense. “You have to relax, baby. Breathe.” I closed my eyes and exhaled, opening myself to him. “Perfect.”
I pushed back against him, slowly meeting his own pressure and taking him in shallow thrusts.
“Oh god, Dylan. It’s so full.” I stilled and acclimated before leaning back into him, resuming.
“That’s right, baby, take your time.” His hands held my hips, supporting me effortlessly.
“You feel so deep.” The pressure was so concentrated and intense but also delicious. I slowly eased back against his enormous hardness until I felt his balls against me.
“Fuck, this is tight,” he said. “God, look at you. This is so fucking hot.” And it was, he was right. I’d never felt so possessed, so coveted. He reached between my legs and began toying with my clit and then pushed his fingers inside me. I could feel my own tightness, and I began to quiver. I could feel so much, every movement; every twitch inside me was a thousand times more intense. I could feel every clench, every movement in both places, and both were funneling me towards an orgasm at an alarming rate.
“Oh god, Lydia,” Dylan moaned. “I can feel you getting close.”
I involuntarily clenched around his fingers and his cock, and he groaned again—I couldn’t believe how much this was turning us both on. I never would have imagined the intensity of this feeling, the completeness of it, the submersion. He slowly coaxed me in a way that only he could, evoking the riotous feelings, the intense craving for the coming orgasm. The pleasure undulated through my body, intensified by having no outlet, nowhere to go. I felt both like I was trying to claw my way out of the maelstrom of sensation, to escape, and like I wanted to sink into it, praying that it would last forever. And it did. The orgasm raised me and dropped me, made colors change and my skin flash with electricity. I could actually hear how our bodies were responding to one another, dancing with one another in a way that was summoned from somewhere beyond intention, and I could barely breath.
Finally, I could feel him start to come as he arched slightly deeper into me and then retreated subtly, engaging in a gentle, shallow thrusting. Each movement was an accent of my own orgasm. After a moment, he withdrew, and I collapsed onto the mattress below me, not believing we’d just done that.
“My god, I love the way you look right now, Lydia, with my cum coming out of you.” His dirty words r
egistered and fueled my dying orgasm, making me clench again to savor the remaining threads. Then he silently raised me up into his arms and carried me into the bathroom. I stood on weak legs as he dampened a washcloth with warm water. He returned, kneeling on the cool hard tile floor before me, and carefully cleaned me, planting sweet kisses and caresses on my flesh.
“Are you okay?” He looked up into my sated face.
“Am I okay?” I asked, raising a sleepy, skeptical eye at him. “Did you somehow miss that orgasm I had?”
“It was kind of hard to miss.” He smiled. “That one might have influenced the tides.” I braced my hands on his shoulders as he lifted my knee, exposing me further, running the warm cloth up my inner thigh. “But you liked it?” He looked up at me, a little apprehensive.
“The tides, remember?” I leaned over and gave him a reassuring kiss, and within seconds I was back in his arms and being deposited on the bed.
* * *
The days that followed were just like that, the tides. We ebbed in and out. From the bedroom to the little private beach. From the kitchen to the pool. From the balconies to the hot tub. And when we came up for air, we’d walk down the long lemony driveway and the mile into town. We’d have olive oil and bread, fresh grilled fish, and yogurt. We’d stop and admire the crumbling white buildings with their bright blue doors, the ornate Greek Orthodox church with its gilded icons, and all of the accompanying smells and sounds and foreign faces. We took it all in, especially each other.
Not once did we discuss how Dylan’s new approach of essentially ignoring his father’s pressures was going to play out over the long term. Not once did we think about the paparazzi or worry about unwanted media attention. Not once did we analyze the hows or whys of the emails, happy to tuck that into the past. Instead, he dreamed up new buildings and took me on tours of them in our imagination. He showed me where his mind went when he was designing, the far-flung landscape where he made things beautiful. And I told him about the shop and my vision for it. I told him about my father. About the memories of my childhood with him, listening to him play music, having adventures along the New England coastline, being taken care of by him before he became ill. And I told him about taking care of him when the cancer came, about the stories we told each other, about how we kept our small, painful world beautiful for each other.
