“But why didn’t you just say that I’m your niece?”
He swallowed again, eyeing me in the mirror. “Because you’re not just my niece, are you?”
“I thought we were keeping it secret.” My palms began to sweat; he was staking claim on me in public. This was crazy talk. “Whatever I am…it’s only until tomorrow.”
That filthy grin twitched at his lips. “I thought you wanted us to be normal?”
“I…” Argh! He was incorrigible. “I hate you,” I muttered.
We drove home in silence. He didn’t even put the radio back on. I loitered in the car as he took the bags in, and when I refused to come out, he left the keys on top of the Range Rover with a shrug and an unintentionally sexy pout.
I folded my arms against the dash and banged my head on them.
One, you’re a perverted bitch, Danni Warren.
Two, you’re a cheating cretin.
Three, you have no self-control. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Four, five, six…what the fuck are you going to do?
Well. There was one thing.
I snuck back into the cabin with slumped shoulders. Gabe was in either the bathroom or the bedroom; either way, it was enough time to take a pear cider from the fridge and crack off the top. It was still lukewarm as it hit my throat, but the sugar and the fizz were delicious and it didn’t take long to neck the whole thing. I got a bit lost in the act of swallowing without dribbling and when a pair of strong hands touched my hips from behind, I nearly dropped the bottle.
Gabe rubbed up along my ribcage until he was cupping my breast. His fingers teased gently. “Do you hate me now?” he said.
I didn’t answer.
He lifted my ponytail and blew along the path of my neck, warming the air-cooled trail with his tongue. “Now? Now, do you hate me?”
I put the empty bottle on the counter but I still couldn’t speak. I never wanted him to stop touching me.
Gabe turned me and stroked the hair from my face. His kiss was soft at first—he had a pale bruise where I’d bitten him—but I soon let him deepen it, whimpering into his mouth.
“What about now?” he whispered.
“I don’t hate you. I just…I…” Another kiss. He licked the cider from the lithe little tendon under my tongue. “I hate that we’re wrong.”
“I know. I know.”
“My Mum would butcher you. She’d—”
“I don’t care, Danni.”
“You should.” I snorted. “She’s vicious.”
“She’s also not here.”
“Huh.” I cocked my head. “This is true.”
He nuzzled into my neck. “She’s not at the beach, either.”
“We’re taking a little walk…?”
He patted my bottom. “We’re taking a walk.”
I’d barely reached for my shoes when he came up behind me and pawed beneath my dress. He found my knicker hem and pulled on it, stroking me as he eased them down.
“I want you without these,” he said mischievously.
I blushed as I buckled my sandals; half from the alcohol and then, well…I’d never gone commando before. I wasn’t wearing a bra either, but I always guessed from all the vitriolic comments from middle-aged comediennes that I should make the most of getting away with it.
“I won’t ask why.”
“I’ll bet you can guess, though.” He spanked me lightly as I got to my feet. “After you, gorgeous.”
We walked down to the beach with knotted fingers, enjoying the cloying heat of the afternoon. Gabe held my skirt down when the breeze threatened to expose me and he brought my knuckles up for kisses every few moments, as if he couldn’t get his fill of them.
I felt naughty enough the first time I held hands in public with Esmé; this was something else.
We left our shoes by the rotten old beach gate and Gabe led me to a rocky corner set into the shade of the cliff. The rocks there were large with flat, smooth surfaces; perfect for sitting on. I kissed him passionately when he scooped me into his lap.
“Somebody will see us,” I said, glancing about at the little stretch of sand. “If they’re walking on the ledge over there—”
“Baby.” He tucked my skirt down. “They won’t know. And do you care…?”
I shifted against the bulge that nudged between my thighs so enthusiastically. God, no…I really didn’t. Not anymore.
“I feel like I’m in one of those daytime soaps,” I confessed.
“Illicit trysts by the ocean,” he mumbled into my collarbone. “Oh no, we shouldn’t! We mustn’t!”
“We can’t!” I giggled.
“This forbidden lo—lust shit is TV crack, isn’t it?”
I tried so hard not to pause at his slip. Failed miserably. So I sat back and stroked the wind-ruffled hair from his face. “Yeah. I’m starting to get that now.”
His hand crept up along the inside of my thigh, higher and higher until he plucked waves of pleasure in my pelvis like notes on a harp. Shameless, I closed my eyes, took deep lungfuls of sea air and basked in the sunshine that spilled across my shoulders, all the while rocking myself harder into his palm. I liked this position, this in-the-lap-of-a-gorgeous-man thing. If I wasn’t about to come apart on his fingers, I’d have swished my arm in the air like a cowgirl and said something smug and embarrassing. Like a boss!
“You,” he said over the breeze, “are so wonderfully inappropriate.”
Oh, Jesus H. Christ. Tell me I didn’t say that out loud.
“Don’t look so terrified.” He grinned.
Then I felt the stretch of his second finger, all damp and warm from my sticky skin, and forgot about everything. Everything. All I wanted was the feel of him inside me properly, to have him take me like he did the previous night.
“Don’t rush.” His voice was muffled by the crash of the tide. “Don’t want you to be sore.”
“I…I won’t.” I wanted to savor every second; in a few hours, I’d never be able to have him again.
My muscles complained at his intrusion. It seemed I was still at least half a virgin (how the hell was that possible?) because while his entry was quicker than the first, it still stung in the same sharp way. I lowered myself slowly, wincing, and then— oh. There it was.
“Good girl.” He clutched my skirt to the cheeks of my ass. “That’s it.”
How was this gorgeous fullness so familiar already? I’d only had him once before, but that orgasm already echoed as if it lingered solely to be awakened by Gabe. Clever boy.
I sucked a welt at the base of his neck. “There’s nobody up there, is there?” I was facing the cliff; he had the view out.
“No. We’re all alone.” His teeth grazed my jaw. “Do that harder for me…ah.”
The sour salt of the sea filled my nostrils, and he was welcome sweetness in his proximity—his heat, his sweat, the static friction of my sundress against his T-shirt and the pain-pleasure chafe of my bare thighs on his cord shorts. He pressed the heel of his hand up now and I crushed my clit on it as I fell down faster. Harder. Faster.
“Gabe…Gabriel…I…” I whimpered into his kiss. “Make me come.”
His silver-gray eyes flashed at the challenge. The fist that held my skirt in the breeze stroked up to squeeze my hip, and he undulated into me, forcing his last inch. I bit his earlobe to keep from moaning too loud, but the moment would come soon when I’d break and he’d bruise. Again.
I should have cared that he had me half naked in public, but I was so close and he felt so good. The shop girl’s words kept echoed over and over—I didn’t know Gabe had a girlfriend—and the sweet throb of the alcohol had turned dull at my temples.
“Danni?”
I yelped against his neck. It was all I could manage.
“Danni, I need to—don’t—ah.”
It may be that he said things after that; I just didn’t hear him. I rode into spasm after spasm, never tiring of pleasing myself; judging by the loud curses, he
was peaking too. He finished with his face pushed into my breasts and my fingers drawing patterns in his hair.
“I like nasty hell,” he mumbled, exhausted. “It’s…bouncy.”
“My thighs are killing me.”
“Serves you right for being so greedy.” He grinned through our kiss. “Want me to carry you home? I’ll throw you over my shoulder.”
“Mmm…I wouldn’t say no.”
He did try. We got half way up the beach path before he got tired of my shrieking laugher and plonked me back on the floor, muttering about excitable teenagers. I loved that he was strong enough to haul me about like that, though; I felt safe in this visceral, primal way.
We showered off the sand together in his tiny bathroom. There was barely space to move in the cubicle but we worked up a lather in the squash of limbs. I stroked coconut shower gel over his pecs and watched the bubbles drop down to coat each streak of muscle.
The barbecue was set up for dinner and we chargrilled a steak big enough for about four people. Gabe showed me how to cook it by demonstrating how it should feel on the different parts of my hand, and it ended with him biting at my fingers, kissing his way up my arm. There in the garden, turning the coals beneath the grill and wrapped in my gorgeous man, I was starting to see what he meant about the sun. About being connected.
About getting everything you needed from one warm, shining source.
The sky put on a show of feathered clouds that evening and we lingered beneath it, laid out on the blanket and sipping from glasses of pear cider and ice. I felt teeny under the great expanse of blue.
“Don’t you get lonely here?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Occasionally, yeah. But I have a lot of friends visiting, especially when it’s hot, and I go to the Mermaid for a few drinks most evenings.”
“So there’s no girlfriend…?”
I watched his face for any flicker of a lie. “No girlfriend, Danni.”
I breathed a sigh of relief I wasn’t entitled to. “A boyfriend?” I teased.
“No, no boyfriend.” He cleared his throat. “I like my own space, as you can probably tell.”
“Didn’t really get that impression on the beach just now.” I rolled over and brushed the hair from his big eyes. “You fuck me like you’re starved, you know.”
“I am starved. Of you.”
“Oh.” The blush seared my cheeks. “I…I don’t want to go home tomorrow.”
“I wish you could stay longer too, baby, but I…it’s probably for the best.” He offered me his arm and I nestled into the crook of it. “It feels safe to play like this here, but it isn’t. Not really.”
“Not safe, or we’re not really playing?”
He sighed. “Both.”
The admission dragged through the air, rushed into my skin. Marched up to my brain and pounded the door in a temper: IDIOTS.
“There’s this song I like,” I said, “by Dexter’s Noose. It’s about how the most beautiful things sometimes only last a day…but they die just as painfully as something with a much longer lifespan.”
“Woah.” He frowned. “That’s pretty deep.”
“Seems fitting.”
“Maybe.” He was quiet for a moment. “This is out of our hands. We just—we can’t last longer than a few days.”
“Our little secret, then,” I murmured.
“Can’t be anything else.” He toyed with my ponytail. “I’d love to have you again sometime this summer, though, if you like.”
“Really?”
He bent to kiss me, his tongue cool from the ice of his cider. “Really.”
“I’d like that.” I licked the bruise on his bottom lip. “What am I going to do about Esmé?”
He tipped my chin up and studied my eyes. “Don’t do something stupid on my account, okay? We can’t be together like that.” Another sigh, from somewhere heavy in his chest. “Not even if we want to.”
“The want part, though,” I said forlornly. “That’s the problem.”
“We should set some rules. Make it easy on ourselves.”
“Like what?”
“Well…I’m pretty hard to get a hold of down here, anyway. Maybe we shouldn’t talk unless it’s serious. I’ll give you my number in case you have any more issues with your Mum…you’ll have to promise not to use it otherwise.” He outlined a nipple through my dress. “Does that sound fair?”
“Sucky, but fair.” I wanted to cry, actually, but I couldn’t bear for him to see it. Felt stupid for it, too. “Do you want mine?”
“Yeah, ‘course.” He squeezed me. “Come on. Let’s get in before it goes too chilly. You’re off tomorrow. I want an early night.”
“Oh?” I smiled up at him.
“To bed with you, Miss Warren. I have plans. Intricate, filthy plans involving root vegetables and a cattle prod. Possibly a goat.”
We made love twice before sleep held us rigid against each other, and when the citrus sunrise poured through the curtains, he was already kissing my neck.
Chapter Five
Monday mornings were always crap, but this one excelled itself in shittery.
Still sore from Gabe’s midnight…erm…feast, I packed away my clothes and toiletries, my suitcase closing with a squeak of the zip. He’d made pancakes but I was too jittery to stomach them, and I paced about the cabin instead, checking the time on my phone every few minutes.
“Anyone would think you were wishing away our last hour,” he complained.
“What if she just looks at us, and she sees?” I shuddered with panic. “Mums are good at that sort of thing.”
“Danni.” He took me in his arms and pressed his forehead to mine. “I’m like your uncle. She thinks you’re gay. It doesn’t get much safer than that, theoretically speaking. She’s not going to take one look at you and ask you how much cock you’ve had this weekend.”
“Good job too.” I smirked into his kiss. “I guess you really sorted me out, huh?”
“You do seem to have lost the attitude.”
“I hope so.”
“I hope not, and then she’ll send you back for longer.”
“Thought you—ahem—liked your own space?” I asked, playfully.
“You make my space a whole lot prettier.” He nuzzled at me. “And you stop me saying whiny things about the sun.”
We’d agreed to have our last kiss before we left the cabin. We had to wait for Mum at the bottom of the track, and if she arrived when we least expected it…didn’t bear thinking about. So for ten minutes, we laid wrapped up in each other on the sofa, our mouths and hands generous. No sex—God, not that I didn’t want it—but we couldn’t afford to get carried away. It lent our kisses and touches a new sensuality. I wanted to put my memories of him in easy-to-reach boxes: smell—like salt and shower gel. Taste—pancakes and lemon. Sight—muscled and tanned and lovely. Sound—pure verbal filth. And touch…like a roving orgasm beneath my fingers. I didn’t want this to end.
But it was time for the walk down to meet Mum.
The weather had cooled enough for me to slip on a jacket, and the wind tickled my loose hair. We only waited by the road for about five minutes but having to stand away from him, it felt like hours.
“I’ll miss you,” I said softly. I wanted to touch him with words, if nothing else.
“I’ll miss you too, baby. You know that.” He had those wrap-around sunglasses on and I could see my drawn face in them.
“You’ll call Mum to arrange another weekend?”
“Give me a few weeks, and I promise you’ll have your date.” He elbowed me gently. “Tonight’s going to be pretty dull in comparison.”
“Not every day you get to screw on the beach, huh.” I smiled despite myself.
“I’ll have to make do with the pub quiz. It’s not quite as sexy, but our team does get shafted fairly often.”
“Ha bloody ha.”
He shoved hands into his pockets, shook his head. “What are you up to tonight then, eh?”
“Oh. I see.” He paused as a car swerved past. “She’s a very lucky girl.”
Was she…?
“Thank you.”
Mum’s Nissan pulled around the corner and as Gabe waved to her, a huge lump stuck in my throat. I was really leaving, and I wouldn’t even hear from him for weeks. I was going back to Esmé, back to Mum’s house and her stupid boyfriend. Everything in my life now would be second best because I was falli—
Mum swung her legs out of the car and pushed her sunglasses up her nose. She approached slowly, her arms folded against her crochet top.
“So…good weekend, Danielle?”
I nodded. “All right, I suppose.”
“We’ve had a good chat, haven’t we?” said Gabe.
“Yeah.” I ducked before Mum could catch my eye; I knew what Gabe said was logical, but that narrowed gaze of hers permeated in all kinds of creepy ways. “What about you, Mum?”
She seemed taken aback that I’d asked. “Well…yes, actually. Lovely weather.”
She’d been boning Malcolm the Moron. I knew it.
Not that I could talk.
Not that I would walk so well, actually, after the previous night.
“Shall we get your suitcase into the car then?” said Gabe.
I watched him haul it into the back; noticed the shoulder blades gliding under his T-shirt and remembered how firm they’d been beneath my palms. I might never get to feel them again.
Oh God.
“Thanks for this, Gabe,” said Mum. “I appreciate it.”
He shook her hand with a flat smile. “No trouble. She’s welcome back any time.”
Mum cocked an eyebrow and the panic flooded in; then Gabe nudged me with skyward eyes and I realized she wasn’t suspicious—she was jealous. I’d found the rapport she’d never had with her brother, the one she never expected either of us to build.
“I’ll be seeing you then, Danni,” he said.
“Yeah. Thanks…thanks for having me.”
Twisted Summer Page 6
