“How many times have you snuck off to the beach to screw Bono, Danni?”
He took a hold of me again, all big palms and thick biceps, and my skin fizzed beneath his.
“You brought me here for that?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Come on. Looky.” He gestured to the clump of rocks he’d crawled from. Stepping forward, I saw how he’d pitched a windbreaker inside the edge of them and then draped a blanket over the top. Like a little tent. Towels lined the floor inside, and the whole thing had the lure that dark places always do.
“Oh, Gabe.” I fell to my knees and pulled myself inside, him close behind me. There was just enough room for us to lie beside each other, though we couldn’t sit up without hunching. “It’s lovely.”
“It’s private.” He curled around me, smelling of smoky aftershave and sharp sea. “Private enough.”
“I was worried you wouldn’t be here, after Esmé—”
“Shh. I’ve got two months of being a complete twat to make up for.” He smiled, his cheek coarse against my collarbone. “Do you hate me?” He sucked a light welt. “Now, do you hate me…?”
“I don’t hate you. I just hate that we’re wrong.”
At that, he groaned. The sound warmed my flesh, fierce in its desire and desperate in his vulnerability. He might have run from me before, but not now. Too much. Resolve melted in the heat of our bodies, and I loved that he gave in to me, to us, this thing we created without even trying. This thing we owned.
Gabe climbed on top of me, dragging my dress up in the process. He ran a wide palm up my inner thigh and when it hit my bare flesh, his kiss turned feral.
“Danni. Jesus. Fucking hell.”
I giggled. “We’re not meant to be talking.”
“Are you even wearing a bra?”
Laid back against the towel, hair splayed beneath me, I peeled my bodice down. My skin goose-pimpled in the ocean air. “I wanted it to be like our last time on the beach,” I breathed.
“It can’t be that, but that doesn’t matter. It can be different.” He laved my nipple with the widest part of his tongue, warm and wet. “And better.”
Before, when we were satisfied, Gabe had spent our slower sessions sucking and licking my breasts. His fingers came into play before long, stroking and stretching and massaging, like I was made of dough good enough to eat raw. Now, he worshipped me the same way, only our urgency translated to rough little bites that drew yelps from my lips, and firm squeezes that made me shiver.
“I missed these,” he murmured.
“I…I gathered…”
He shoved my dress farther up to bunch at my waist, and his fingers walked down. I swear my muscles yanked in, jolted, as if they might suck a finger or two in as they moved. I’d waited for this, longed for it, lost hope…
“Ready, huh?” His kiss was warm and hard.
“Please.”
“Well…” He kissed all the way down my belly, pausing to nuzzle the ruched band of dress. “Somebody needs to learn not to goad this poor boy by showing off with her girlfriend.”
“I’m sorry.” I panted. “I didn’t know how to get out of it, I swear I—”
“No matter, Danni. Just don’t fucking do it again.” He ran the tip of his tongue around the very edge of where my underwear should have been. “But if I’m going to kiss here, it’d damn well better be mine.”
I didn’t voice it, but he knew my answer anyway, even if he couldn’t translate it from my ragged spill of sighs. I took his blond hair in fistfuls and swelled right into his mouth.
There were a hundred things I wanted to tell him, like how I’d missed his brash manner and forceful tongue. A thick belter of an orgasm tugged at me, and I sank back to spread my legs farther, to let it get a hold of me and writhe its way out. He could have filled me already, could have me wrapped around his waist as he fucked just for him—but he put this first. God, I—
“What the hell was that?” I hissed.
We both froze at the sound of footsteps, not too far from our makeshift cover. A soft, boyish hum carried on the wind: a Foo Fighters song.
“No,” I whispered. “No way.”
Gabe hurried to pull the dress back down my thighs, then twisted to peer out on to the beach. When he turned to me, he’d gone pale. “Yes, way.”
“Oh fuck.” I tucked my bodice over my breasts, wriggled down to the entrance, and darted out to check for myself. The smell hit me before the sight did, but there he was: my goody two-shoes cousin Taylor, hunched over a rock…smoking a joint. “How is this happening?”
Gabe wrapped an arm around my shoulders and tugged me back in. “Danni. He might see you.”
We inched back to our original spot, lying deep in the cover of our sort-of tent.
“I can’t believe Taylor’s a stoner.”
“I can’t believe we were nearly fucking caught,” he said, his voice low. “I mean, Jesus. Imagine if we weren’t in here.” He went to tug my skirt back up, but I caught his wrist.
“Gabe…no. I can’t do it with him out there.”
He pouted. “Whah?”
“I mean, I want to—seriously—but I can’t relax when he’s, like, a few feet away from us. What if we get too loud, and he hears?”
Gabe buried his face in my cleavage. “We’ll be quiet. Promise.”
I stifled a giggle. “I guess your balls are blue enough already, eh?”
“Too right, they are.” He gave me a slow, tongue-laced kiss. “Now lie back and come in my mouth. Pretty please?”
“I can’t.” I sighed. “I’m sorry.”
More footsteps outside, scraping and sinking about in the sand.
“This is freaking me out,” I hissed.
“Come here.” Gabe rolled me on to my side, and folded himself behind. His arms wrapped tightly around me, and he stroked the hair from my ear so he barely had to whisper. Warm, damp breath drenched my cheeks and shoulders, and I trembled against the firm shape of his body. “We’ll wait it out. He won’t be long.”
“I hope so.”
Gabe’s hands found my breasts, and they massaged in sweet, feathery caresses.
“That feels nice,” I said.
“Good.” He shifted about, evidently uncomfortable. “Pixie.”
“Don’t.”
“It’s not half as catchy as perfect robot boyfriend.”
“Is that what you are?”
“Your boyfriend? Yes.” He nuzzled into my neck.
“Really?”
“Yes. Somehow.” He bit a line of sucking kisses along my throat. “Hey, if I can’t curl up on the sofa with you and talk crap…at least we have this.”
I pushed back against him, luxuriating in the feel of his hands. My boyfriend’s hands. I felt drunk again, on adrenaline and shivers and hope, and I had to pretend otherwise because that was what little girls felt, wasn’t it?
“So.” I raised an eyebrow. “Turnip Jesus.”
He stiffened. “I’m going to kill Jess very slowly.”
I had to try so hard to hold my laughter in. “How did you even come up with it?”
“My mate’s Mum cut a turnip one Sunday and found what looked like a picture of Jesus. We were all a bit drunk and thought it was a sign.”
I grinned. “Right.”
“Please stop asking about it.”
“But I love how embarrassed you are!”
“Promise me you’ll never Google us, Danni.” He pressed his face into my shoulder and I rocked him like a baby.
What followed was a macabre little parody of my sedation of Esmé: Gabe stroked and rubbed every inch of my exposed skin, and as we waited for Taylor to skedaddle, I drifted off to sleep.
“Hey.” He shook me gently. “Don’t you dare flake out on me. Danni!”
“Mmph.”
At four a.m., he carried me home in the grapefruit glow of sunrise, and I mumbled apologies as only a sleep-slaughtered lover could.
Chapter Ten
“Rise and shine,
pixie!”
Morning. Sunshine. Esmé. Drool. Bleugh.
I pushed my face into the pillow and attempted to speak. Then I spat out the mouthful of pillow. “What time is it?”
“Gone eight.” Esmé already sat at the dressing table, styling her blond bob. She wore a sequinned, embroidered kaftan that cut off mid-thigh, and her little string bikini showed underneath. The sunshine kept catching on her shiny berry lip gloss and throwing flashes off the mirror.
“That it?”
“You were up before me yesterday. I’m just trying to catch up.” She plugged her hair straighteners in. “What time did you come to bed in the end, anyway?”
“What? I came in not long after you. Massage, remember?” I stretched and yawned.
“Oh…yeah.” She frowned in the mirror. “Just I woke up at one point, and you weren’t in bed.”
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. “Must’ve been in the bathroom,” I muttered.
“Serves you right for staying up drinking.” She said it as a joke, but sarcasm underscored her tone. “Is Taylor passed out on our sofa after all that?”
“Um…I’m pretty sure he went home.” Or to the beach, where he nearly caught two members of his family doing something distinctly illicit (ironic that he was the one breaking the law).
“Well, at least that’s something.” She finished doing her hair, and stood up to pull on a pair of tiny white shorts. “Are we still going shopping this morning?”
“If you want.”
“Cool. I need new moisturiser.” She glanced back at me. “Just the two of us, right?”
I pushed myself to smile. “Just the two of us.”
She bent forward to check her makeup in the mirror, and in the shorts, her arse was a perfect peach shape. Gah, I was so ungrateful. “And maybe we can get lunch somewhere cute?”
“We’ll find cake,” I promised.
“Do we really have to do that barbecue thing later? I feel kind of smothered with everyone around all the time.”
The annual family beach barbecue. It was all part of our holiday ritual. My granddad and great uncle manned the grill and cooked my grandma’s special recipes: fish in spices, cheese and veggie skewers, burgers made with lots of black pepper and slabs of tomato and bacon. I’d been looking forward to it since we got to the lodge.
“My Mum will be really disappointed if we don’t,” I lied. Well, not exactly lied. Just cast the blame elsewhere. “You might even like it, Es.”
“I suppose so.” She stepped over and climbed on to the bed, stroking the mess of bed hair from my bare shoulder. “We need to remember your sun block.”
“You big OAP.”
“Am not. Just worried about my girl.” She dropped a kiss on the swell of my cleavage. “Now come on, make a move. I want to get into town early and eat jelly beans for breakfast.”
***
My relationship with Esmé was built on jelly bean breakfasts. We met while playing on our sixth form college’s hockey team, and I would regularly turn up for Saturday morning matches with a huge bag of Jelly Belly’s finest. Every week, she came earlier and earlier to share them; I’d never been with a girl before so my gaydar didn’t make a peep (if I even had a gaydar, then). Our first kiss had tasted of cola flavour beans, and in our sweeter moments, we liked to recreate the memory.
The only thing I wanted that morning, frankly, was an orgasm. I’d been denied it the previous night with Gabe, and I had the girly equivalent of blue balls. But instead of that, I hauled myself out of bed after just a few hours’ sleep and trawled the shops of Bangor with Esmé. While she tried out perfumes, I dosed myself up on nostalgia-inducing aftershaves like an addict sniffing poppers; as she mused over a new shade of eye shadow, I raided the samples for mascara and foundation to make me look less like a zombie and more like a hot, awake lesbian. (Definitely not a traitorous uncle fucker. But should you come across some poor, harassed teen girl trailing after another, with dark circles like craters and reeking of Chanel Homme, you know what she’s been doing).
When we got back to the lodge after lunch, I’d barely dropped our bags before Mum cornered me in the kitchen.
“Danni. Have you got a moment?” She wore a sucky-stomach one-piece with a cut-off denim skirt; Mum was on the prowl after losing Malcolm the Moron.
“What’s up?”
“Well. I wanted to ask you.” She scrunched back her long dark hair, and secured it in a bun. “You get on well with your Uncle Gabe, don’t you?”
“Um…yeah.” So he was Uncle Gabe now, was he? Wow. Mum really had cut him some slack after he “punished” me.
“It’s just that he’s been spending a lot of time alone on this holiday. It’s not easy for him—he gets left out when me and Lizzie are around. I think he’s feeling a bit lost.”
She had no idea. “I’m sure he’s fine, Mum.”
“I just wondered if maybe you could make a point of keeping him company. I know you’re here to be with Esmé before you go off to university, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
“I could ask her.” I tried so hard to sound vague, unbothered. I just sounded knackered instead.
“Have a drink with him at the barbecue,” she suggested. “I know Taylor tries with him, but they don’t have a lot in common.”
“Okay. I’ll try.” I glanced up at the clock. “Do I have time to get changed before we head down to the beach?”
“I think so. See you in twenty.”
So Mum wanted me to spend more time with Gabe.
Would she still be saying that if she knew the truth…?
***
There is no better smell than grilling meat, charcoal, and the fresh salt of the sea. The barbecue had been going for an hour now, and Granddad tossed on the first burgers. They hit the grate with a satisfying hiss and sizzle. When I was little, I’d watch with huge, hungry eyes and pounce on the first cooked burger only to slather it in ketchup. Now that I preferred real tomato, the whole thing felt mature and sophisticated (or as sophisticated as burgers get).
Beside me, Taylor made caveman grunts. “Meat. Ooh, sir.”
“Hungry?”
“I could tear the flesh off a cow. Literally, I’d like, chase after it and just lunge with my mouth open.” He put his beer down on a rock to mime catching a cow like a Frisbee, and I dissolved into giggles while Esmé rolled her eyes.
“You’ll change your mind when you try the Warren burger,” I told her.
Taylor, evidently still a bit stoned from last night, gave a dirty laugh. “Pretty sure she gets regular Warren burger.”
Esmé glared, and I swatted him around the head so hard that his glasses fell down his nose.
“Taylor. Are these two bullies giving you a hard time?” Gabe appeared next to him, a look of amusement pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Because I can sort them out if you need me to.”
“I’m okay.” He adjusted his glasses. “Just…phrased something badly.”
“He made a terrible lesbian sex joke,” I announced, trying not to eat Gabe with my eyes. I couldn’t wait to corner him, and I was terrified everyone would take one look at me and understand why.
“Never a good idea, mate,” Gabe said. “How’s that foot taste?”
“Is it a cow’s foot? Nom.” Taylor gave us all a drunk grin and then sloped off toward his Mum.
“You girls want a drink?” Gabe lifted a cool box that rang with the clink of glass.
“All you do is ply us with alcohol,” Esmé said. There was her sweet-but-sarcastic tone again. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect she actually knew something.
“I don’t ply. I offer,” he said, looking wounded. Then he pulled a bottle of chilled pear cider from the box, and tossed it in a little somersault. “Danni? You want?”
“Yes please.” Just for a second, I allowed myself to catch his big, gray eyes. Danni, you want? For the love of God, please let us be alone for more than ten minutes!
Let him not run off to Canada and leave me
like…this. I was such a mess. It wasn’t what boyfriends did, surely?
Gabe popped the lid off the cider and pressed the cold glass into my hand. “I’m going to find a thinking spot. Catch you two later.” With that, he strode over to the cluster of rocks he’d made the tent in last night and sat back on his elbows to soak up the sun.
“You okay?” Esmé put her hand on my bare thigh.
I took a big gulp of cider and squeezed my eyes shut. Being alone with Gabe in his little cabin that weekend, so isolated—we’d been spoiled. Now the people around us made a cage of barbed wire. “Just a bit hot. It’s baking out here.”
“That’s what you come to a beach for, Danni.” She smiled, teasing her finger along the sensitive skin of my inner thigh.
“I don’t tan like you,” I grumbled. “It’s not the same for pale girls.”
“I like your pale skin, pixie.”
“That’s because it’s awesome.”
“I’m gonna go find some more juice, okay? Back in a sec.”
“I’ll be here.” More cider. I closed my eyes again. The sun ebbed away, the sand melted beneath my bare feet, and the world was just fizz, sugar, pear juice and the drunken twist of the alcohol that tickled my throat. When I blinked, Mum stood in front of me, clutching two fat burgers in napkins.
“Why don’t you take one of these over to Gabe?” she said.
“Um…okay.” I tucked the cider under my arm and took the burgers from her, trying very hard not to look elated. I forced the smile from my lips and crushed that spring right out of my step. As he saw me, Gabe raised his sunglasses, grinned, and eased up the rock to make space. Like he knew I’d be staying.
“Mum thinks I should be keeping you company,” I said.
He took the burger in both hands, checking beneath the bun for fillings. “If you’re going to bring me meat, I’m not complaining.”
“She reckons you’re all lonely and need sympathy food.” I tried not to giggle but it rippled out of me anyway.
“Well. I have been missing somebody this week.” He patted the space beside him and I climbed up onto the rock, a measured few inches from the heat of his body. “How very sweet of her.”
Twisted Summer Page 12
