But I didn’t. I just let the need build, let it chew me up from the inside, let her feel what it did to me.
I was the monster, always. But right then, she wanted the monster.
She sucked in a breath, and I felt the tremor of it through her whole body. “You’re shaking,” I said.
“So are you,” she shot back, and I realized I was.
I didn’t break the stare. I let her see the hunger, the violence of it, the way the want inside me was a black tide, and she was the only thing keeping my head above water.
I wanted her to flinch, to recoil, to hate me for the monster I was.
But she didn’t. She just stared back, eyes bright as a snapped cable, lips parted.
If I moved my hand two inches higher, I could ruin her.
If she said stop, I would. I think I would. But she didn’t.
We sat like that, shadow and sun, until the others knotted back in a cluster down the sand, Sabrina’s laugh exploding like fireworks.
I jerked my hand away, pretending to scratch at my knee, and sat up straight, jaw set.
She rolled on her side to face the ocean, but I could see the blood rising in her cheeks.
She didn’t say anything, and neither did I. But I knew she remembered the touch. Her body did, if nothing else.
It was the closest I’d been to happiness since before the world went to shit.
Shane dropped next to me, shaking sand from his arms. “You good?” he said, in that way brothers do when they already know you’re not, but want you to lie anyway.
“Sure,” I said. My voice sounded like chalk dust and broken glass. “Never better.”
Amelia stood and excused herself. “I’m going into the water. I need to cool off,” she said, but her eyes drifted to me when she said the last part.
She bent over to pick up her towel, the curve of her round ass impossible not to notice. The blue fabric rode up so tight it looked painted on.
I bit down the whine in my throat. She knew I was watching, and she wanted me to. I’d never hated her more, or wanted her so badly.
It was almost funny, the way I could bench press twice my weight but was powerless against the sight of her, the way her body moved.
I wanted to dig my thumbs into that soft flesh, leave a mark, something to prove she was real and not just another hallucination born out of deprivation and want.
But the others were watching, and I was tired of being the punchline to my own sick punchline life.
Instead, I cracked another beer, let the foam run over my knuckles, and watched the horizon until she was just a flicker of movement in the blue.
"Jesus," Shane said, rooting through the cooler for something cold. "You ever gonna ask her out, or just stare until your eyes fall out?"
"Fuck off," I said, lazy, not even mad. It was fair.
I was a creep, and I knew it. Only when it came to her, though.
He shrugged, the corners of his mouth twitching in a not-unfriendly way. "Just saying, man. There’s wanting something, and there’s torturing yourself."
I didn't answer. I watched the tide. I watched Amelia dive under a wave, hair slicked back, arms flashing in the sun.
She surfaced, breathless, and as she came up for air, she arched her back, hair streaming behind her, and for a second, all I could think about was how her neck would taste, how her spine would flex under my hands if I pressed her down.
But instead, I sat and let the hunger rot me alive, because that’s what I deserved.
