by Jane Lark
She bit her lip looking up at me, then she said in a quiet voice. “Okay.”
She looked scared, though. I wasn’t sure. I got out of the bed, another test, and stripped off my boxers. My interest was plain. This hard-on was absolutely down to her and it bounced a little as I peeled my boxers off my feet.
She shimmied off her bottoms, still buried under the covers.
I got back in the bed, turning to her as she dropped her bottoms on the floor on the other side. My palm settled on her naked hip, touching flesh that felt smoother than the fabric she’d taken off.
She wasn’t overweight at all. I could feel her hip bone through her flesh. She had broad hips, that was all.
I leaned to kiss her and pressed my tongue into her mouth. She answered it, her tongue moving around mine and her arms coming about my neck.
My erection brushed against her hip as she lay on her back, while my hand slipped up under the cotton of her sleeveless t-shirt. I didn’t know why she hadn’t just taken her top off too, but I wasn’t going to stop again.
Kneading her small breast, I brushed my fingertips over her nipple. It peaked proudly for me. A sharp breath left her throat, leaking into my mouth, but her body didn’t move. She was still lying flat, her arms about my neck and legs together. I kissed her harder, seeking more response, seeking something that would tell me this was about me, and nothing else… But her body didn’t move much, just a little.
I slid my hand from her breast down her body to sweep through her pubic hair, but there was none there. Her body jolted and she gasped.
Was that good or bad? She was so like stone I couldn’t read her.
She was just doing this. Not following instinct, and definitely not burning up with need for me.
I ran my fingers down the seam between her closed thighs.
She didn’t part them.
She didn’t want this!
I rolled to my back, sighing, one arm still beneath her, as my other lifted from under the covers, and my hand ran over my hair.
Fuck.
“Billy?” She rolled onto her side, leaning up on her elbow.
I looked into her blue eyes, such a pure color. “Look, Lind, I’m not stupid. If you want sex, you have to open your legs. You don’t want sex.”
I got out the bed, trying to get a grip on my frustration and grabbed my boxers up off the floor, sliding them back on, before sitting on the edge of the bed. My elbows on my knees, I rubbed my hair with both my hands. Feeling her shifting in the bed, I turned to see her slipping back into her bottoms.
“I let you do it before,” she said.
“Let…” That was the key word here. “Lind, ‘let’ is very different to ‘want’. I don’t want you to let me do anything. I’d rather not do it.”
I stood up. “I’m going back to my room. I’m gonna go down to the gym for a bit. What do you want to do today?”
She looked like I’d punched her in the gut. Pale, afraid, and doubtful too.
I carried on. “You said you prefer the pool. Let’s hang out by the pool today, then.”
She nodded.
“Shall I knock for you in a couple of hours?”
“Yeah.” She breathed, like she was gonna say more.
I didn’t wait to hear it. I didn’t want to hear anymore. I grabbed my clothes and walked out into the hall, semi-naked.
There was a couple out there with a kid. They stared at me, no doubt judging this as a walk of shame. It was, but not for the reason they were thinking.
Ignoring them, I headed straight in to my room.
In there, I dropped my clothes onto the bed, and hit the side of my fist against the wall.
When was I gonna learn?
Lindy
When Billy knocked for me, he’d obviously just got out the shower, his wet hair was waxed up, he’d shaven, and he smelled nice. He had a white tee on with the shorts he’d worn yesterday, and a towel hung over his shoulder. He looked strong and domineering, and… like Billy––except his blue eyes flashed and his jaw was taut. I didn’t know if I preferred him in a white t-shirt or a dark one. I’d thought dark, but the white against his sun-tanned skin looked good, and it seemed to define his muscular build more. I wanted to touch.
Wanted. See it was more than let. But that was my brain talking. My body had a mind of its own.
“I’ll just get my towel.” I couldn’t keep looking at him. I felt too awkward. This was a mess and I’d made it. Everything I touched turned to a pile of crap.
He leaned a massive shoulder against the door, holding it open as I grabbed my towel. I didn’t take my backpack, so we could go in the water easily.
“You okay?” he said as I walked past him out into the hall.
“Yeah.” He seemed deflated not really angry. Just frustrated. “You?”
“Oh, okay. I might need to sort myself out later, after our little game this morning, but hey, that’s not going to be anything new…”
What was he on about? I didn’t ask him; this was a minefield I was tip-toeing through. If I asked, the whole thing would explode in my face again. I wanted the Billy of yesterday back. “Cheer me up.”
He glanced at me.
“I know I’m an idiot, I’m sorry, forget it, and just cheer me up.”
“How do you want cheering up?” His shoulder’s relaxed a little, and a smile twisted the edge of his lips, accepting that I’d chosen to walk away from the minefield.
“Tell me jokes.” He’d always been good at remembering and telling jokes, and when we’d shared a place at college I always used to say that to him when I was feeling down. Hours of my time had been spent sitting on the sofa with my legs tucked up under me, with him leaning on the back of it, throwing joke after joke at me.
He threw me a sharp smile, accepting the olive branch I’d tossed at him. “Okay…”
When we got down to the pool, I was laughing and breathless, and he was laughing at me, not his jokes.
“I can’t believe you really find that shit funny.”
“I like your shit. You should’ve gone into stand-up, you have the timing.”
“And the stupidity.”
I brushed my fingers along his cheek as I dropped my towel on a lounger, “and the courage…”
He made a scoffing sound. “The courage to make a fool of myself. That would be about right.”
“You’re no fool, Billy.”
“Yeah, well…” His words ran dry as he threw his towel down and looked away from me, then stripped off his tee.
A hot tingle gripped tight in my belly at the sight of his chest. The tingle slid down between my legs.
It was want. I longed to reach out and touch him.
He looked at me as he slid his shorts off, leaving only his swim trunks on. “You stripping, or you gonna swim fully clothed?”
I’d put the dress I’d worn last night on over my bikini, and now I held my breath as I stripped it off. I knew I had to. If I was gonna get more confident in bed, I had to get more confident about my body.
I’d talked to my counselor over the cell while he’d been in the gym. I’d told her everything Billy had said. I couldn’t talk to Mom about anything, so it was good to have a new person who was there to listen, and I’d got on well with her from the first moment I’d met her. She’d been really understanding. Not judging, or commenting, just listening.
After I’d finished, she’d asked what I thought about it. I’d told her he was right. She told me I had to deal with my issues, but she’d said it was probably just because of everything that had been going on, and not to worry about it. To just relax and do what felt right.
The conversation had made me feel a lot better, and now I was just trying to relax and not pressure myself into going too fast. She’d said I had to take things a step at a time. Look at my own body more and learn to like myself… Then the rest would follow.
But stripping off was hard.
Billy watched me, or rather my body. His gaze lifted
when I threw my dress on the lounger. “Do you want to lie down or get straight in the pool.”
“Can we get in the pool?” I hated being on show and there were a lot of people lying around the pool. I just wanted to be in the water and out of sight. My head was having a hard time dealing with the exposure. I felt like a beacon crying “ugly” with flashing lights, even though no one around us looked at me.
I turned quickly and walked to the pool, to sit on the edge and slip in. But Billy grabbed me and swung me up into his massive arms.
“Billy!” he was gonna throw me in the water. “My makeup!” I squealed at him.
“That’s boring, Lind.” He dropped my legs back to the ground. “Why even wear makeup down to a pool?”
With that he turned away and dived into the deep end, slipping beneath the water like an arrow, all smooth, elongated muscle and sinew. He was big, but his muscle was loose. His shoulders mostly looked relaxed and not stiff at all.
I sat down on the edge as he reappeared on the far side, then used a fast crawl stroke, his face slipping in and out of the water. Some women around the pool watched him. He had a good body, the definition in his abs and pecs was gorgeous. Their observation didn’t annoy me. I was proud to be here with him. I’d watch him if I was a stranger.
I lowered myself in carefully, and with my head up so my face didn’t get wet, I swam breaststroke toward where he was swimming into the shallow end. Trying to keep my hair out of the water as best I could, though I could feel the end of my damp ponytail trailing on my shoulders.
There was a bar serving drinks in the water on the far side of the pool and a couple of people sat on stools in the water, leaning on it, talking to the bartender.
There was a kids’ pool the other side of the complex, with slides and stuff. it meant there were no kids around here to splash me.
Billy got to the end of the pool and stood up in the shallows, facing me with his elbows on the side, looking casual and handsome, smiling at me as his leopard tattoo shifted like it really clawed his chest.
That leopard looked angry. It bothered me. There was something weird about it. It looked cool and colorful. It was a work of art… But it screamed anger and I knew how that felt.
Beyond Billy’s shoulder, a girl on a lounger watched him.
“Hey tortoise,” he said as I swam up.
“Hey.” I put my feet down on the bottom and my fingers slipped to pull the hem of my bikini bottoms more snugly over my ass. It had slipped up while I was swimming.
“There’s a girl behind you thinking you look mighty fine.”
He laughed. “Well, nice to know that someone thinks it, Lind.” The implication was I didn’t.
I leaned back into the water and then started swimming backwards doing an invented stroke, still trying to keep my head up. “I think so too.”
He came after me, catching hold of my ankle as it lifted, and pulled me back, but then he let go and started swimming on his belly next to me, doing the breaststroke. I turned and swam next to him.
“Well I think you look pretty good in that bikini. I like stars. I might be making some wishes.”
My bikini was dark blue with little stars all over the material, and there wasn’t much of it. It tied either side of my hips. But I’d liked the little halter-neck top. It had a gold star between my breasts. I’d bought it to wear under clothes, though. I felt self-conscious now.
We didn’t talk as we finished the length and then swam back, both of us using breaststroke. Words span around in my head. I wanted to pick the right ones.
He stopped, standing up in the pool and leaning against the side again. I caught the same girl watching him.
“Come here.” He reached out and gripped my arm, pulling me closer, and then his arm stayed around me and I put mine up around his neck, holding his gaze and letting him capture all of my attention.
“Sorry about earlier.” His fingers lifted a lock of my hair that had come loose from my ponytail and tucked it behind my ear. “But you do understand.”
“Yeah.” I swallowed back my fear. Just relax and get the words out. “But my head does want you, Billy, it isn’t just let. My body just doesn’t know how…”
He sighed, his gaze getting more intense. “What about Jason?”
“What about Jason?” I didn’t understand.
“Your body doesn’t know how… What about Jason?” His hand slipped to the small of my back, like he thought I was going to move away and tried to stop me.
“You heard what Rachel said. I told you––“
“I mean did you want? Or did you let?”
God, the honest truth. I whispered it, “Let.”
His eyebrows went up. “Lindy, for years…”
“I told you, my body doesn’t know how.”
His hands came up and gripped my head and then he spun me against the side, kissing me, his tongue pressing into my mouth. When he broke the kiss, he said over my lips. “I can teach your body how. That’s no hard deal.”
He kissed me again, his hands slipping under the water and gripping my hips, his thumbs pressing down on my pelvic bones. I’d hated Jason touching my hips, it had just reminded me how uncomfortable I felt about my size, but Billy’s touch was different, it said… I like.
The next thing I knew his pelvis was pressing against mine and it wasn’t just his fingers saying “I like”; a hard erection pressed against my belly, and his hands slid around to slip into the back of my bikini bottoms and gripped my buttocks.
When he broke the kiss he didn’t let go and he didn’t move away.
My fingers swept his wet hair off his brow.
“So then, I guess I am up for seeing where this goes.” He looked down at me with bright eyes. “If you are, and the offer’s still open.”
I took a breath, feeling like the ground shifted underneath the pool. “The offer’s still open and I’m up for seeing where this goes too.”
My arms were up on his shoulders as he lowered his head and kissed me again, and this time his tongue kept teasing mine. Gently knocking against it, until I realized he was trying to get me to move my tongue in the same way he was. I tried. But then he broke the kiss and lifted his head. “Kissing is like a game of tag. By the way, you’re it.”
Shit. He kissed me with an open mouth, but didn’t use his tongue. It was a challenge. I felt hot and stupid as I slipped my tongue past his lips. I had never done that with Jason. Stupid. But––I had always let––never done.
Billy’s tongue stroked over mine, receptive and encouraging. I tried to relax and think about what would feel good. After a minute he pulled back, breaking the kiss again, and pressed his forehead against mine. “Overthinking babe. Just do what feels right?”
“Okay.” I tipped my chin up and pressed my lips to his, then ran my tongue over his lower lip, ‘cause Jason had always used to do that to me, and I wanted to know what it felt like to do it. Then I pressed my mouth hard against his, feeling bold and determined, and fought against my head trying not to overthink but just do.
His palm settled at the back of my head and his mouth and his tongue answered me, pressing just as hard back, as his pelvis pushed against me. A warm, sharp delicious pain pierced my belly, thrusting down between my legs.
A game of tag. I’d tagged him and he’d taken over. I let him lead for a while, but then fought for command of the kiss. My palms pressed against his cheekbones as my fingers clung in his hair.
I was breathless when we stopped kissing and I’d lost any awareness of all the people around the pool.
“Do you want a drink?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Better wait until my erection goes down, though, hey?”
I laughed. Shit. I felt like I had never kissed anyone before. But then the only other person I’d kissed was Jason. How did we get things so wrong? He was fine with Rachel.
I sighed at myself. Angry with myself. With my lack of confidence and fear. It had held me back. I wasn�
�t going to let it anymore, I was going to face my demons and beat them down. I had to just deal with everything, whatever, I couldn’t keep running from things…
And if I could find a sanctuary in Billy… then cool… I did want it. Desperately.
Lindy
We’d spent all day around the pool, messing around in the water, and when we’d had a drink at the bar Billy had told me to open my legs as I sat on the stool in the water, and then he’d stood between my thighs.
His hands had been touching me all day, resting on my thighs as we’d been drinking at the pool bar or at my waist when we’d just been standing in the pool. When we lay on the loungers in the sun, he’d pulled his up next to mine and rested his hand on my lower back, until I’d said move it so I didn’t get a tan mark. Then instead he’d rested his hand by my side, and his little finger had kept nudging the first curve of my breast.
He was so different to Jason.
Jason had never touched me like that.
But then if Jason had continually touched me in a way that constantly implied he was thinking about sex, I’d have told him to leave me alone.
I’d pushed him away.
This time I was trying not to. But then I didn’t want to tell Billy to leave me alone. His touch was different––reverent. Like he loved touching me. It made my nerves tingle with expectation, and I’d got damp, like I’d got damp touching myself, and hot. I felt really hot, even though the day was not that hot. It was an internal heat, flaring and simmering under my skin. Like he’d switched something on.
The last time we got in the pool, when the area had started to empty and only a few people were left around, he became more daring. When I sat on the stool at the bar in the water, his palm slid up my thigh and his thumb brushed over my bikini bottoms, rubbing just for an instant, then his hand slid away.
He did it a dozen times, running his hand up my leg as we talked, then brushing over the part of me that was already sensitized and throbbing for him to do more, then he slid his hand back down my leg.
