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We get out, tipping the driver, and hail another taxi to the ferry terminal. Persephone blinks as I pay the driver, climbing out to look at the large ferry boat. She waits until we are alone before she asks me any questions, though.
“We’re crossing the water?” she guesses.
“Aye,” I say. I peel off a few hundred euros and push her toward the terminal. “I’ll get the tickets. Ye take this money and get us both a change of clothes in the gift shop. We want to blend in with the tourists for a time.”
She nods, her brow furrowing as she walks toward the neon colored Ibiza t-shirts. I watch her for a moment, wondering if I should trust her. She scuttles along, her dark head bowed, her arms wrapped around herself. After all, I did just hand her cash and send her on an errand.
I suppose I will just have to trust her. So far as I trust any woman, which is not very damned much. It would be a lie to say that I wasn’t expecting her to disappear as soon as I take my eyes off of her for a few minutes.
When I return from the ticketing booth, though, Persephone is standing in the middle of the open terminal. She’s still wearing her own clothes, but she has a bulging tote bag full of items from the gift shop.
I jerk my head toward the unisex bathrooms. “Come on. We have to get rid of everything.”
She screws up her face, looking at me. “What do you mean?”
I catch her elbow and steer her into one of the cramped, metallic bathrooms. “Everything that yer wearing right now goes into the trash. And I do mean everything.”
Her brows rise delicately. “Even my panties?”
I shoot her a look, locking the bathroom door and beckoning for the bag. “What did ye get?”
She sets down the bag and shows me her haul, day-glow colored t-shirts with Ibiza on the pockets, odd khaki-colored shorts, two tie-dyed Ibiza hoodies. I’m glad to find sunglasses and sandals in the bottom of the tote bag.
“Strip,” I tell her pointedly. I start unbuttoning my dress shirt, feeling a little strange. It’s not often I am naked in front of other people.
Not to mention a woman like Persephone, who could easily be a fucking runway model in Paris if her life had played out slightly differently. But I rip off my shirt and unzip my slacks, pushing away the material as if I have nothing to hide. And really, I don’t, except that I am very careful to keep my back facing the wall.
I don’t need Persephone getting a good, long look at my ravaged skin. I know she has seen it before. Touched it, even. But my walls are up just now and I don’t need Persephone ripping through them with a tiny, tossed off comment.
Hurrying myself into the tourist clothes, I don’t say another word.
Persephone for her part turns her back to me and changes quickly. I only see her naked back for a half minute. And when she takes her panties off, she makes sure to use the hem of her fluorescent t-shirt to hide her shapely ass from my view.
It doesn’t stop me from taking in her miles and miles of long, toned legs though. She whips around as soon as she pulls up the shorts, her cheeks burning.
Seeing the clothes in her hands, I point to the trash can. “Hurry. Our ferry leaves soon.”
She heaves her old clothes into the bin with a silent sigh on her lips. I toss her the smaller flip flops, strapping the larger sandals to my feet. And then we leave the bathroom, putting on our neon tie-dyed hoodies in unison.
Once we get on the ferry, Persephone curls up in the seat beside me, leans her head against my arm, and promptly falls asleep. It’s an odd feeling, the sensation of being trusted.
But twice this morning now she has clearly trusted me. Once when she actually turned up with an overflowing tote bag of items from the gift shop. And again now as she wordlessly slips into a doze while she rests against my body.
For a second, I just stare at her. People filter in and out of the seating area we are seated in; aside from the shelter of the high-backed seats, absolutely anything could happen to her.
But I’m here, so I know nothing will.
I raise my arm, settling it around her shoulders, and urge Persephone toward my lap. She lets me pull her down and her head finds a comfortable-enough spot on my right thigh.
Her hands ball into fists and rest on my knees, the right one eventually unclenching. She looks like a Venus in repose. Her face seems etched into marble by some incredibly talented artisan. Her dark hair swirls in waves around her face. The perfect bow of her lips parts as she is pulled deeper into sleep, her face wrinkling in the echo of a frown every so often.
God, she smells heavenly, like lemon and lavender and just a hint of freshly baked bread. I lean down for a moment to press my nose into her hair, inhaling deeply.
My cock stirs, excited when she turns over in her sleep and brushes it through my shorts ever so gently.
I find myself moving, shifting, adjusting this way and that to make her more comfortable. Taking her trust seriously, I mostly keep my gaze turned outward, studying every single person who strolls by.
But Persephone keeps distracting me with the shift of her warm body against my own. Her sweet scent beckons as I study her finely hewn face.
