I wanted her. I wanted to see if she would bend, just a little, for me again.
But then she turned and saw me. There was a flicker of warning in her eyes, green and cold as glacier water.
Sabrina grinned at me, the kind smile that always made me feel like I was being set up for something. “Morning, Caiden!” she said. “You want eggs? I can make you eggs.”
I shook my head. “Just coffee,” I muttered, and tried to peel my eyes off the smooth curve of Amelia’s waist, the shadow where her hip bone cut against the fabric of her suit.
Sabrina poured me a mug, her movements fast, and I took it, watching the way the steam curled up and vanished, a small, pointless miracle.
I tried to remember all the reasons I shouldn't want Amelia, but they washed away in the undertow.
Alex and Shane wandered in, their voices loud and easy.
I braced myself, jaw twitching, as Alex slid an arm around Amelia’s waist, fingers splaying over her bare skin like he owned it.
I remembered the therapist’s words:You can’t control her.
Fucking obvious. But it didn’t stop the urge, the way it pooled in my gut and demanded more.
"Yo, Caiden!" Shane grinned at me, clapping a hand to my shoulder. "You joining us on the sand?”
Amelia's gaze flicked over, then away. I shrugged and grabbed a beer from the fridge, ignoring the way Alex's hand lingered low on her back. "I'll be there," I muttered, even though the thought of sitting in the sun with all those happy assholes made my teeth ache.
Still, when Amelia started toward the door, I followed, trailing just behind her on the narrow steps down to the sand.
The day was windless and hot, the kind of heat that made every living thing wilt.
We spread our towels on the sand, and the girls arranged themselves in a loose, lazy star, their limbs overlapping, laughter spilling like wine.
Amelia stretched out on her stomach, her back a long, honeyed line, and I had to look away or risk something obvious in my swim shorts.
I sat at the edge of the group, poker-faced, watching the horizon, but every fiber of my body was tuned to the movement of hers.
The towel she lay on was thin, and the way her ass curved above the blue bikini bottom was putting filthy fucking things in my mind.
Eventually, she propped herself up and grabbed the sunscreen.
She squirted a fat ribbon of lotion into her hand and worked it over her arms, kneading it into the skin with the slow deliberation of a cat grooming its fur.
The movement was hypnotic.
I watched, jaw clenched, as she skimmed her palm over her own shoulders, the cream turning her skin to silver in the sun before it faded to nothing, leaving only a bright sheen.
She rubbed it into the long sweep of her thigh, the inside of her knee, and I swore under my breath, shifting on my towel so my hard-on didn’t show.
She caught me watching. She always did. She didn’t break eye contact, though her cheeks went pink and her hands worked faster, rougher now, as if she could polish the hunger out of her own flesh.
When her hands reached her tits, I nearly fucking folded.
Her palms were kneading the bare skin above the suit, creamy foam tracing the valley between her breasts before she worked it in with brisk circular strokes.
I thought I might actually die watching her. But I couldn’t stop watching.
Every time her fingers swept too close to the straps of her suit, a little line of white would ghost the edge of her breast, and she’d have to rub it in, slow and deliberate.
My jaw hurt from the effort of not staring.
It was grotesque, the way I needed her. Like I’d been starved of light my whole life, and she was the only sun I could look at without burning out my retinas.
