The Red Bikini

by Lauren Christopher

  He kissed the corner of her mouth. “So we’re good with this, then?”

  The deepness of his voice, the smile against her mouth, the tease of his lips, were all conspiring to turn her knees to jelly already. He slid a row of kisses down her neck.

  “Yes,” she breathed out, giving him further access.

  “Because . . .” He drew a long teasing pull to that point below her ear that curled her toes. “You were looking a little terrified earlier, if you don’t mind my saying.” He leaned back to gauge her reaction to that.

  “Terrified?”

  He nodded.

  “I guess . . . you make me a little nervous. . . . I don’t think . . .” She stared at her fingertips across his sculpted chest and wondered how much to admit to. “I don’t think I’m very good at this.”

  Fin’s eyebrows shot up. “At sex?”

  She nodded.

  “What on earth makes you think that?”

  “Well . . . my ex’s two affairs, mostly.”

  Fin pressed his lips together and looked at a point over her shoulder. “Giselle. Did we say your ex is a complete idiot? Because if we didn’t agree on that yet, we should.”

  She let her fingertips rove across the carved canyon of his pectorals. Roy did make her feel dowdy: undesired, matronly, set out to pasture already. But here she was, in the arms of a Greek god who was staring down at her with a heat in his eyes. Maybe Roy was an idiot.

  “He was stupid for letting you go,” Fin said quietly, tucking her hair behind her ear.

  She let the words float around her, along with the light touch of his fingertips and the tenderness of his voice. They were the words she’d been longing to hear.

  She’d thought she’d wanted them from Roy—an admission of sorts—but now she realized how much more satisfying they were coming from a man who was looking at her like this, who was going to have her clothes in a heap on the floor and his gorgeous body wrapped around hers in another five minutes. . . .

  But there was another worry pressing on her chest.

  “And . . . well, I’m not perfect, Fin.”

  A crease formed in his forehead. “I don’t expect you to be perfect.”

  “But you’re probably used to . . . well, you know. Women like Veronica, bikini models . . .”

  The crease deepened. He shook his head. “No, I’m not used to that. And besides, only nature delivers perfect. And only sometimes. The most interesting parts of nature—the imperfect leaf, the imperfect rock—are the best parts. They make you feel real, and whole, like you belong and can fit in. Because we’re all imperfect.”

  She ran her finger down the center of his chest. This chest seemed pretty perfect to her. But she saw his point. It was exhausting trying to live up to an expectation that could never be met. Fin saw that clearly, and he didn’t want to try to live up to it, either.

  And he certainly wouldn’t expect her to.

  She smiled. “Are you calling me an imperfect rock?”

  “How about an imperfect leaf? The most beautiful of all.” He smiled, as if his point had been proven, and turned his attention to the finger running down his chest. “But if that finger goes any lower, this conversation is going to get harder and harder for me to continue.”

  She slowly dragged it down across his stomach.

  His breath caught and he held her gaze in a half challenge, half reprimand. “Giselle.”

  She smiled and ran it farther to his waistband.

  “That’s it,” he choked. He stepped into her and covered her mouth with his.

  She stumbled back as he pressed into her and slammed against something sharp, which she thought might be the television wall unit. She felt with her hands to move around it, but rammed instead against the glass of one of the sliders. She could feel the night chill, trying to reach in from the other side. But Fin’s mouth was warm—demanding—pulling on her lips. His biceps came up on either side of her and pinned her against the glass. She could smell coconut coming up as a tribal heat from his chest.

  “I’m glad you’re okay with this because I have to hear you make this sound,” he whispered.

  She was breathless, incapable of making sense of his words, as she tried to concentrate. “Sound?”

  He broke the kiss, but kept his lips near hers, as if he weren’t committed to leaving just yet. “Turn around,” he muttered.

  • • •

  Giselle faced the slider, bringing her palms up and leaning into the glass. Fin drew them higher with one of his. Fog misted around her fingertips.

  Fin tugged at the sweatshirt around her and pulled it over her head from behind. He flung it on the floor, and she shivered again—her back and shoulders exposed now from the halter top. He guided her hands back over her head and against the glass, the turquoise ring caught between them, and used his other hand to trace the valley of her back.

  She shivered, dropping her head and resting her forehead against the cool slider. He stepped closer and pushed her hair up off her neck, then leaned down and kissed her, right there, just below his palm at her nape. She gasped.

  “There we go,” he whispered.

  His mouth curved against her skin as his lips moved across her neck, delivering a row of electrical kisses that brought her to her toes. She continued to let out little gasps, rolling her shoulders against the chills he gave her. She pressed her cheek into the glass as he found every exquisite pulse point across the back of her neck and behind her ears. She couldn’t stop the sounds escaping from her throat.

  “Giselle,” he whispered, as if he were thrilled, or surprised; she couldn’t tell.

  She laughed, embarrassed.

  “I knew you would make that sound.” He kissed her again, and she gasped, and he chuckled. “But there are some other things I want to get to.”

  He leaned into her, his full body now pressing her harder into the glass. She could feel the length of him, aroused, and she marveled at the idea that she could elicit that reaction in this gorgeous man. He reached down for the hem of her dress, bunching it in his fist to start working it upward.

  “Did you put your panties back on? Because they’re coming off right now.”

  “I couldn’t find them.”

  Fin stilled. “You don’t have your underwear on?”

  “I couldn’t find them.”

  “You’ve had your underwear off all night? While we were sitting here with Fox and Tamara?”

  She meant to answer again, but he’d already run his hand up her bare thigh to find out for himself, and then up and over her behind. He moaned. “God, Giselle,” he breathed out.

  The glass was fogged in an outline from the heat of their bodies. He got her skirt pinned against the slider so he could explore her bottom. His hand traced the shape of her behind, pushing away any fabric that dared get in the way; then he opened his palm and slid it over her hips and down her front. She sucked in her breath as he slipped his finger between her legs.

  He seemed to like that sound, too.

  “This is where I want to be,” he said into her shoulder.

  His mouth moved against the back of her neck, sending chills through her arms. But his fingers, now between her legs, were delivering a new level of ravishment. He parted her, and she drew in a sharp breath. He nudged her foot with his, and she spread her legs, a little, but the last vestige of her primness kept her from moving any more. The sensation was almost more than she could stand—the air swirling up from the ground, cooling where he parted her, making her feel too vulnerable, too open. He nudged wider, saying something into her ear that she couldn’t begin to make sense of, and his fingers explored inside her, stroking lightly, sending spasms through every nerve ending. Her legs were going to buckle. She concentrated on breathing, not just gasping, as she leaned hard into the glass and heard the ocean roaring on the other side. His f
ingers went deeper.

  “God, Fin.” She didn’t want him to stop. She let herself live in the emotion for a moment, focusing on the sensations that were rocking her: Cold glass. Coconut scent. Heat from his body. Hands sliding. Slick fingers. And then his thumb, pressing down from the top, drawing circles, pressing harder, finding that delicious nerve. Her legs were going to give, and she felt her own wave rush up to overcome her, like it was enveloping her in blackness. She called out—something, she didn’t even know what—and then she crested, and floated, and came down in the darkness, and pressed into the glass. Everything else fell away.

  The perfect wave.

  • • •

  Fin caught Giselle as she slumped forward, and resisted the urge to breathe out holy fuck as he managed to remove his fingers from her body and get her turned around and facing him. He watched her expression—he wanted to see her eyes, but she wouldn’t meet his—so instead he lifted her so her legs were around his waist. He wanted her in his bedroom.

  He pushed her skirt up again so he could reach underneath. He couldn’t believe she’d had her underwear off all night—that was about the hottest thing he’d ever heard, from this prim woman who could barely say the word “sex” out loud—but now he just wanted her nakedness against him, and he bunched the skirt against his chest so he could feel her against his stomach. Damn, she was wet. As he carried her into the bedroom, he touched her once with his fingertip, from underneath, and she bucked against him but didn’t let go—just let out another of those breathless gasps.

  He needed to get his clothes off now.

  He shoved his sweats down with one hand, balancing her with the other, and they were almost near the bed, but she had her arms clasped around his neck, clinging to him as if she couldn’t let go.

  “Giselle?” he said, muffled. “You okay?”

  She nodded, so fastened to his body—her arms and legs both—that he could let go with both hands and she’d still cling. It gave him a chance to push his pants down, at least to his thighs, and he kicked them off the rest of the way with both of his feet and then stood naked. This was an excellent position for both of them—if he just sliiiiiiid her down, just a little, then he could press her up against that wall right there and be inside her in—

  A tiny sob interrupted his game plan.

  “Giselle?”

  She shook her head and buried her face in the crook of his shoulder.

  What the hell?

  He held her across her back with one hand and tried to lay her on the bed, prying her arms from his neck. He got her perpendicular to the edge, resting her back onto the comforter, until she finally let go. She flung the back of her hand over her eyes before he could see them. She was definitely crying.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “How can you say nothing? You’re crying.”

  “It’s okay. It’s nothing.”

  “But why are you crying? Is this—”

  “Fin,” she said sharply.

  He simply stared at her.

  “It’s nothing. Seriously. I’m just . . . emotional.”

  “Emotional?”

  “You could have died out there tonight. Tamara could have died. And I . . . I’m . . . happy.”

  He peered at her to see whether she were telling the truth. This was a new one on him. He’d never had a woman cry, like this, underneath him. And then say she was happy. And . . . emotional? He nodded. Okay. Maybe emotional could explain it. He was feeling something, too, that felt pretty foreign—something that smacked of . . . gratitude, or something. The precariousness of life. The fact that it could be over at any second. He didn’t know. All he knew was that he wanted to kiss her in a thank-you kind of way, along her cheek, then down her collarbone, then along her shoulder. To thank her for not getting swept into the ocean. For being there when he came out. For wrapping her arms around him that way, on the sand. For being here, now, before he went to South Africa. . . . He just wanted to kiss every inch of her—her hair, her eyelids, her nose, her lips, her neck, her breasts. . . .

  He focused on the last thought. That felt normal. Wanting to see her breasts, then rip her clothes off—that he was familiar with. Focusing on raw sex was much easier than focusing on the feelings that were tightening his throat.

  He stood at the edge of the bed and tried to figure out the fastest shortcut. He shoved her dress up, pushing it past her waist as she wriggled her naked bottom to help him.

  “Spread for me, Giselle.” He wanted more of those gasps.

  She hesitated. So prim. Her skirt was up by her face and she couldn’t see what he was doing. She paused for what seemed like an excruciating eternity. She gave him about an eighth of an inch.

  “Farther.”

  She gave him about another sixteenth.

  He smiled and waited.

  “Farther, baby.”

  Maybe another eighth.

  She couldn’t seem to move more than that. It would have to do. He brought his mouth down, between her thighs, and she about bucked off the bed when his lips made contact. “Fiiiiiiiiinnnnnn,” she cried out.

  But he just smiled. Debauching Giselle wasn’t making him feel guilty at all. He could show her desire. He had it in spades. And it was going to be a long night.

  • • •

  Giselle couldn’t remember when one experience ended and another began, but Fin was everywhere—his mouth was everywhere; his fingers were everywhere. He undid her dress in a wild desperation, bent her into several delicious positions—over the side of the bed, across his lap, her hips high on a pillow—and explored every inch of her body with his fingertips and lips, across her breasts, down her stomach, over her hips, between her thighs, murmuring things like, “That’s what I wanted to hear,” until she tingled through every raw nerve.

  By the time he rolled away to reach into his nightstand for a condom, she thought she was going to combust. She squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath while he tore the packaging open with his teeth. When she opened her eyes, he was frowning at her.

  “We’re okay?” he whispered.

  She gave him a smile that she hoped conveyed all the headiness she felt. “We’re more than okay.” She pulled him toward her, her hands splayed across his shoulder blades.

  He took her mouth again, frantically rolling on the condom, then hovered over her, triceps shaking, ready to enter her. His eyes opened suddenly and caught her gaze, as if he didn’t mean to.

  He stilled. “Giselle,” he said in almost a whisper, as if something were surprising him.

  It seemed some kind of question—a question he’d been trying to ask all day, but had been unable to formulate. And she didn’t know what it was. But somehow she knew the answer—she simply nodded, not letting him look away.

  He kissed her tenderly, then thrust, hard, catching her in a rhythm she quickly picked up. She went over the edge quickly this time, and opened her eyes to watch him—reveling in his squeezed eyes, trembling triceps, and spent glance at her, which came with a smile.

  They took a catnap and awoke at five—he reached for her, looked her straight in the eyes without a word, and her body arched toward him with a need she never knew existed.

  Late in the morning, she lay with her cheek on his chest, tracing the shape of his pectorals with her index finger as the morning sun came in through his bedroom window and cast shadows over the blond stubble on his jaw.

  “I’m usually surfing now,” he said in a gravelly, drift-away way.

  She lifted her head. “Do you want to? You can go.”

  “No,” he said quickly. “No. This is . . . infinitely better.”

  “I thought you said surfing is like sex.”

  His deep chuckle rumbled within his chest. “I said there are comparisons. Sex is definitely better.”

  He stared at t
he ceiling for a while. “Your ex is an idiot.” He looked down at her and smiled. “Got it?”

  She nodded.

  “And I might have to redefine my idea of perfection. That might have been it.” He lifted her palm off his chest with his other hand and kissed it once right in the center.

  She let his warm lips, and his words, surge straight into her heart and settle there, comfortably, where she knew she’d pull them out and unwrap them again in the future. She’d turn them over in her mind—not examining them, just listening to them—whenever she was feeling bad about herself, or feeling too much like someone’s mother, or feeling too much like the “good girl.” She’d press them against her cheek, like the kissing hand, and make use of the memory when she needed it most. Perfection. Fin Hensen. With her. She’d think of it every time she saw his picture on a surfing magazine, every time she saw him online—every time she saw that intense expression, balancing on his board.

  “You make a lot of sexy sounds,” he said.

  “I do not.”

  “You do. Do you seriously not know that?”

  “I do not.”

  He ignored that. “I knew you’d be vocal in bed. You’re so reserved in your beauty-queen way, I just knew that once you got worked up, you’d be one of those gaspers.”

  She laughed this time. It pleased her that he thought so—both that he spent time predicting it and found it to be ultimately true.

  “Does it bother you?” she asked.

  “Well, if ‘bother’ is a euphemism for ‘make you go hard,’ then yes. But I could get used to it.”

  The comment sent a strange rush through her, just for a second. But the hope turned to sadness, and she let it wash over her. This was temporary.

  She traced another figure eight across his golden pectorals. “I have to pick up Coco today.”

  “Oh.”

  It was just a single sound, but he spoke volumes with it: disappointment, guilt.

  “So, I guess . . . you know . . . I’ll have to go,” she said.

  He stroked her hair for almost a minute and thought that over. “What time do you pick up Coco?”