Page 190 of The Fall
His hands slide up my back, following my spine, one vertebra at a time. “We have all night,” he says, and his voice vibrates through his chest into mine. “If you want.”
“I want.” My lips brush against his throat as I speak, breathing in the scent of salt and soap and sex. “I want everything with you.”
Blair’s hands cup my face, tilting it up until our eyes meet.
“Then everything is what you’ll get.” He pulls me into a kiss that starts gentle but deepens quickly. His tongue slides against mine, and I moan into his mouth, my body already responding, already wanting more. His hands move lower, gripping my hips, guiding me against him. He’s hard, too.
“Already?” I breathe against his lips, smiling.
“Always,” he says. “For you, always.”
Thirty-Eight
The plane hums beneath us.Outside, clouds stretch like pulled cotton, blinding white against the endless blue.
I glance at Blair, sitting beside me in the first-class cabin. He lifts my hand and presses his lips to my knuckles.
A flight attendant passes with drinks, and Blair orders two cans of 7-Up. When she moves on, he leans close, his breath warm against my ear. “Two more hours until I get you all to myself.”
“I’m counting the minutes.”
He dozes off halfway through the flight with his head on my shoulder. I lay my cheek against his hair, and, somewhere over Caribbean waters, I fall asleep.
I dream in fragments—his hands skating up my ribs, the hitch in his breath last night, a whisperedagainagainst my skin—and I wake to his fingers carding through my hair and a bright, brilliant aquamarine filling the cabin.
Kamara Cay emerges from the sea, an emerald jungle spilling down to white beaches ringed in cobalt and peacock and sapphire waters that run right out to the horizon.
When we land, the heat is a solid wall. The island air smells heady with salt and the tropics, with jungle vines and anexplosion of brilliant blooms and crystal-clear air blown in on tradewinds.
Customs is a blur of stamped passports and overhead fans. Our bags appear on the carousel, and a driver meets us outside arrivals with chilled towels and bottles of water beaded with condensation. Blair lays one on the back of my neck as we slide into an open-walled Jeep, his other hand splayed warm across my thigh.
Palm trees whip past. The road to the resort clings to the coastline, offering peeks and glimpses of coves where waves curl lazy as cats stretching in sunlight. Blue, the same shade as Blair’s eyes, reaches to the horizon. The water is clear enough to trick the mind, sky dissolving into sea. His fingers tighten on my leg every time we round a curve and catch another impossible view.
The resort lobby is luxurious minimalism. There isn’t much to it, but what’s there is opulent, top-of-the-line. We’re driven down a winding, private path of crushed beach shells to our villa. Heat clings to the air, brimming with wildflowers and salt. Luminaries and bunches of blooms line the drive, wave after wave of clementine and aubergine, fuchsia and cardinal, the brightest, boldest colors I’ve ever seen.
Our villa sits on stilts over crystal-clear water, connected to the main island by a wooden walkway. We’re escorted inside, and all at once I’m inside a postcard. Wide glass doors frame the endless sea while white curtains billow over marble floors. The bed dominates the room, king-sized and draped in gauzy curtains that stir in the breeze. Outside, a private dock and a personal infinity pool spill straight into the ocean.
Blair drops our bags with a thud. “Holy shit.”
The attendant pulls the door closed with a soft click, and then we’re alone. He crosses to me in three strides, his eyes never leaving mine. When he reaches me, his hands frame my face before he kisses me as if we have all the time in the world.
“Look at you,” he whispers. “Standing here like you walked out of my dreams.”
A bead of sweat slides down his temple, following the curve of his jaw. I reach up and follow its path with my fingertip, tasting salt when I bring it to my lips. “That’s my line,” I tell him.
His smile unfolds slowly, like he has me exactly where he wants me. My palms flatten against his chest before sliding up to his shoulders.
“We should unpack.” His lips brush my ear.
“No, we shouldn’t,” I breathe.
We lose ourselves in each other before we’ve unpacked, twisting and colliding as we fall onto the bed, and I end up on top, straddling him. There’s nothing between us but heat and hunger. The tropical air sticks to our skin as we move together, his hands gripping my thighs while I rock against him.
“God, Torey,” Blair gasps. His hands slide up my back, mapping every inch of me.
“Want you,” I whisper against his mouth. “Been thinking about this since we got on the plane.”
Blair’s hands move to my hips, guiding my movements as we rock together. Every slide of skin against skin builds the pressure low in my spine. “You have no idea what you do to me,” he breathes.
