Page 111 of Catch a Kiwi
We walked into an empty house. The relief I felt about that was probably outsized.
“Delilah actually texted me,” Summer said, looking at her phone. “Saying she’s gone to breakfast, and then the beach.”
“Good.” I reached for her phone. “Put this in the kitchen, you reckon?”
She hesitated for just a moment, then turned, put her hands on my forearms, looked up into my eyes, all of her fine and strong as silk, and said, “If I want to let go, if I want to be wide open … I have to do it. For the next hour or two, I’m not going to worry about what could happen. I’m not going to wonder. I’m going to be with you.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I kicked off my jandals, watched her do the same, walked up the stairs with her, set our phones on the kitchen bench, and said, “Come with me.”
Into the master bedroom, secluded up here behind two doors. Across the floor, passing the wall of open windows looking out on the sea, the roar of them even stronger than they’d been at the café, because the tide was coming in. Intothe ensuite bath, then, reaching into the double shower to turn on the taps, then turning to Summer and pulling her damp T-shirt over her head. She did the same for me, then put her two hands on my chest, leaned forward, and pressed her lips to my bare chest, sweat and all. My hand reached for her head and tightened around it, and she smiled up at me and said, “Salty.”
Acceptance.
“Mm.” I couldn’t say more than that. I had those stretchy shorts down her legs, and she got them off as we shed the rest of our clothes with every bit of hurry and no idea of tantric sex.
Until we got into the shower, and it changed. It was the drumming of warm water from six different showerheads, maybe. Over our heads. Onto our chests, and farther down. Turning, then turning again, as Summer did the same. The steam rising in the enclosed space until we were two figures in the mist. Collecting a handful of slippery shower oil, and the scent of it rising with the steam. Almond and flowers, like her scent. Sliding my hands over her neck, her throat, slowly, gently, as she raised her chin and let me do it. More oil on her shoulders, her arms, and my hands slipping down to her wrists and back up again. Down once more, until her hands were in mine and I was threading my fingers through hers. Not kissing each other, but touching lightly, turning in the steam.
It was a dance. My oiled hands on her breasts, her belly, her back, as the water streamed over her head and mine, as her mouth opened and she tipped her chin up again and drank. As her arms went up over her head to feel my hands sliding down her body, washing her clean. As she backed against the shower wall as if she didn’t trust her legs to hold her up and I dropped to my knees to wash her some more. To wash her better.
Finally rising again, and her hands on my chest at last. She found the bottle and turned me so my back was to her, and I was surprised. Her lips at my back, now, kissing my spine the same way I’d kissed hers, her mouth lingering, her hands caressing. My shoulders, my arms, my hands, until she was holding my hands the same way I’d held hers, and my body was trembling with the slowness of it, with the effort to hold back.
When I felt her hands on my arse, then sliding their oiled way down my thighs, my calves, I jumped. She had to be on her knees, but I wasn’t facing her, and I couldn’t see. I started to turn, but she put her palms flat against the backs of my thighs and said, barely audibly over the sound of the water, “Don’t. Let me feel you, Roman. Let me know you.”
Oh, God. Her slippery hands everywhere, sliding, stroking, languid and gentle and slow, tracing their way over me. Up my outer thighs and down my inner ones. Lifting one of my feet and setting it against her own thigh, then kneading my calf, releasing muscles I hadn’t known were tense, and doing the same thing for the backs of my thighs. Her thumbs strong and sure, as if she saw with her hands. As if she really did know me. One leg, then the other, and she still hadn’t touched me where I needed her most.
When I felt her rising to her feet, her hands beginning to work on my shoulders, I wanted to say,No,but my body was also sighing, and that was a yes. Biceps and triceps. The trapezius, those tightest of muscles, from the back of my neck down to my shoulder blades, her hands kneading, working, digging. The oil. The water. The pleasure.
She kept it up until my forehead was against the wall. Until the water began to lose its heat. Then she turned off the taps and took my hand, and we stepped out of the shower into a world of steam. Found the white towels, and rubbedeach other dry. Looking into each other’s eyes. Drinking each other in.
It was too close. It was too much. I wanted to turn away, and I couldn’t. My bridges were burning. Burning.
Falling into ruins.
Summer
I hadn’t got into the shower with a plan, other than,Let’s get clean.But when Roman’s hands had begun their patient journey, when he hadn’t kissed me, when he reallyhadgone so slowly, like all he wanted to do was to feel me, and to feel me responding …
I’d sworn that I’d never be in this spot with a man again. I’d never be on my knees, worshiping his body, easing his stress and his pain with everything in me, giving myself to him like that. Not unless he did the same for me first.
The thought occurred to me, and then it slid away into the steam, because I had no defenses left. It wasn’t even a choice. It was my hands, comforting him, offering him peace. Offering him solace. When I felt his muscles relaxing and releasing under my palms, when I saw his forehead pressed against the shower wall, something untwisted inside me in exactly the same way. I didn’t decide to take care of him in my brain, not in any way I could determine. My body decided, and it wasn’t listening to reason.
The roughness of the white towels, then. The openness in the face that looked into mine. The intensity in the jade-green eyes. And the thrill when his arms went behind my shoulders, behind my knees, and he picked me up, walked into the sunny bedroom, and laid me on the big bed.
At last, his mouth coming down over mine. At last, his tongue exploring my mouth, his hands in my wet hair. And atlast, after he’d kissed my mouth until it was swollen, had kissed my neck until my hips were rising from the bed, my own hands on him, too, turning him over onto his back, and licking and kissing my way down his body. My hair drifting over his skin, and his hands on my shoulders, around my head. His body shifting under me, needing it so much. The power and the rightness of taking him into my mouth, then, of drawing out his pleasure. Of giving him everything I had, slow as I could make it. Thorough as I could do it, until he was rising under me, calling out, sounding tortured. Sounding all the way here with me.
The shock when he pulled me off him. When he was breathing so hard, and when he was so close, but still not ready to be done. When he was groping for the condom, and I was watching his hands shake. And, finally, when he was inside me, piercing me to the heart.
I can’t even describe the intensity of it. My toes literally curled, that was how good those achingly slow strokes felt. Over and over, until I was gasping. Until I needed more. Which was when he turned with me and said, “Ride me. Slow as you like.”
Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. The light of the summer day bathing us, the breeze wafting over us, the sound of the surf surrounding us. Roman’s eyes burning into mine, his hands gripping my thighs. I said, “I want you to … move me. I need to … I need …”
He said, “I’ll give you what you need.” Like a promise. Like a vow. My hand on myself, unembarrassed and unashamed, finally taking those last steps to fulfillment. His strong hands digging into my thighs, sliding me down onto him and back up again, his mouth opening at the impossible pleasure of it. The moment when the circles of pleasure started closing in on me, when I wanted to close my eyes but wanted to watch him more. The way his facetwisted as the train gathered speed, as it began to barrel down the track.
The soft whoosh and roar of the waves. The gentle rasp of soft sheets under my knees, my calves, my feet. My hand stroking, stimulating every inch of me from outside, and him doing the same thing inside me. The sharp, nearly painful pleasure that grabbed me at last, that shook me loose.
The look on Roman’s face.
I was drowning. Drowning. And he was going down with me.
