Page 51 of Wild Flower

“Just keep driving,” Finn answers. “Head for the ocean.” His camera is up and his finger is on the trigger, taking photos of us driving away into the sunset like this is the end of a film and happily ever after is on the horizon.

It isn’t, of course. I’ll have to face my mother’s wrath when I get back. But right now, all I want to do is crawl into Archer’s lap and kiss him.

So, I do just that.

I crawl over the seats into the space between Archer and Finn. There’s a frenzy of surprise and arms and the car swerving. But then I’m in Archer’s lap taking his face in my hands. He calls out to Finn to take the wheel and we’re kissing. Finn laughs and whistles, and Archer kisses me like there’s no tomorrow. It’s wild as Archer presses on the gas and Finn keeps us from crashing, and the wind zips through the open windows of the car like a monsoon brewing. It’s crazy and dangerous, like jumping off that cliff, but somehow I know I’m safe.

Or maybe I don’t care if I’m safe.

Maybe all I care about is that I finally feel like I’m living.

29

FINN

After a rushed photoshoot on the beach and dinner at a taco truck with paper plates and Becca licking spicy mayo off her fingers, we end up in the jungle at Archer’s house. No, we end up at Archer’s modern mansion, made of glass and steel beams, looking like a futuristic bird cage in the middle of dense foliage.

When we walk into the main room, Archer turns on the lights, and twenty-foot floor-to-ceiling windows illuminate, looking out over an impressive view of the island. Dusk has swallowed the sun, and off in the distance Honolulu is glittering at the edge of the ocean.

I grab Archer’s elbow as Becca skips toward the view and opens her arms wide, laughing like she won the lottery.

“This place is incredible!” she praises, and I swing up my camera that’s still hanging at my hip, clicking a few images of her spinning as I hold Archer with my other hand.

“What kind of game are you playing?” I ask, lowering my camera and turning to him. “Thisis where you live? Why do you even show up at Flambé if you can afford—?” I motion to the modern chandelier above us, globes hanging like clear planets against a skylight that opens to the stars.

“Not my house,” Archer answers, shaking off my hand.

“Excuse me? Are we trespassing?” I ask in alarm, and Archer turns to cup my face like he did a dozen times with Becca during our photoshoot, giving me a playful smile.

“I manage it. Look after it,” he explains. “The owner is far away on the mainland. Now put your camera down, you have a flower to claim.”

He drops his hand and strides toward Becca, losing his shirt before scooping her into his arms and pinning her against the glass like a butterfly on a plate. Her arms and legs wrap around his waist, and she’s moaning hotly, already kissing and writhing.

I flick the lights back off, dousing them in darkness, and stand back to watch them as my eyes adjust. I lift my camera and watch their dark forms through the viewfinder: silhouettes of bodies against the blue of night and the soft bouquet of the city lights beyond them. I take several pictures which probably won’t expose, the shutter speed slow so I have to hold still. But they’re not still, becoming a blur as they pant and moan and lose clothes.

That blur of motion against the window looks like a ghost, a phantom of tangled limbs in the dark that’s hypnotizing. They’ve been mesmerizing all night. I’ve taken hundreds of photos of them as if a lightning bolt shocked my creativity to life.

I can just imagine Krista’s bashing my male gaze if I was to print and share one of these photos in class, especially this moment in front of me. I hate that her pinched voice is silencing me, because the last thing these images are is objectifying. Yes, the two of them are about to have sex, but there’s intimacy in the smallness of them against that giant window with Hawaii’s darkness looming. And that ghostly blur masks what’s really happening as if they are hardly there, even though they’re about to be connected in the most intimate of acts. It’s like the world around them is large and solid and they’re whisps and echoes, lives we hardly notice.

The dark photo in my viewfinder makes me think of Archer having cancer so young, how life could feel big and dark and like you’re so small that nobody notices. I take several more images, if only to document the blur of their passion that ignites in the dark, leaving only traces and whispers behind.

I move closer and remove my cameras and holster, placing them on the coffee table that I can now make out in the dark. I move to their left, several feet away and watch them in profile. They’re well aware of my presence even though they’re caught up in the heat of each other, Archer’s mouth taking the peak of Becca’s breast in his mouth. I unbutton my shirt slowly, noting Becca’s clothes are already mounded on the floor. She’s naked and beautiful, her knees spread and her spine flat against the glass. She clings to Archer’s neck with one hand while the other frantically tries to push his jeans down his ass.

I drop my shirt off my shoulders and pop open my jeans, pushing my hand inside to grip where I’m already thickening. I know the second Becca frees Archer from his pants they’ll be fucking, and I consider finding the door to the deck outside, where I can touch myself with the jungle suspended at my back and watch them through that massive window.

“Finn,” I hear Becca moan. Her hand has given up on Archer’s jeans and is motioning for me to join them. “I need you, too. Finn!”

She’s a siren pulling me in and before I know it I’m beside them, letting her hand cup my neck and pull me into a kiss. Becca is already ravenous, her mouth nipping and sucking as I remove the rest of my clothes and am naked against their shoulders. The glass is cold on my side, but their bodies are hot and alive.

My cock bobs against her leg, and she reaches down to stroke where I’m solid. I groan and dip forward to tease her other breast, Archer and I each lavishing her chest.

“How did I get so lucky to find you both?” Becca moans, dropping my cock as she wraps her arms around both of our backs. She uses the leverage to arch, offering her tits to our greedy mouths. “One of you is sin. But two?” she praises. “I’ll never get enough of both of you.”

The three of us writhe in a bundle of heat and mouths and hands, eager to fuck. I move behind Archer, sandwiching him between us as I push his jeans and underwear to the floor, finishing off the job Becca couldn’t do from her position.

“Your turn, let’s switch,” Archer says to me, as my cock brushes his ass.

“You’re already in position,” I point out, my additional pressure against him causing Becca to moan wildly. “You have her first.” I reach around and lift up his cock, notching him in Becca’s slickness.

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