Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 115198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 576(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 576(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
We get back that first morning, drop our clothes, and finally get in the shower together. Messy, wet kisses, soapy, roaming hands work us both into a fever. It’s not fully light out yet; we have all day. But we must forget all of that because we don’t take the time to dry off; I set my hands on her hips, walking her backward to the bed, where I coax her down and beg my way between her legs, promising to make it good, nipping at her stomach, across her hips, until I tease her with a finger, and then my tongue, watching up the length of her body as she arches and presses into my touch. It’s only the first time I’ve done this to her, but the shape of her is familiar; she tastes like something I’ve always known. With my arms around her thighs, hands clamping her knees open, I lose myself, ravenous for her silk and sounds, the scrape of her nails in my hair, and the wild, clawing stretch of eternity where she comes against my tongue.
Drunk with lust, Anna drags me up her body, flips us over, and sinks down on me, seeking, it seems, every possible way to drive me to madness: fingernails digging into my chest, teeth scraping my neck, the way she lifts her hips just as I think I might come, teasing and withholding her slick heat, giving me only the barest friction until I feel like a barbarian, rolling on top of her and pinning her wrists over her head, fucking her with a desperate fury that leaves me gasping and astounded and leaves her poured like warm honey across the sheets.
We fall asleep in a breathless stupor, waking hours later, exhausted and starving. I don’t think either of us cares for one second what we look like emerging from our bungalow, but Anna looks stunning anyway. Her hair is in a messy bun on top of her head, her face free of any makeup, and the glow of pleasure lights her skin from beneath. She walks beside me along the beach to the café for lunch, her legs long and bare in cutoff shorts, arms supple and tanned in a simple white tank, and I slide my hand into her back pocket, relishing the way she fills my palm as she walks.
I can’t resist reaching across the table while she spears a bite of fruit, or touching her bottom lip as she chews. She laughs at me as I move to the chair beside her so I can lean closer, press my nose into her neck, and inhale the way her sweat and my sweat together mix with the soap from the shower we took earlier. She smells like sex and sugar and me.
My hand finds its way to her thigh, my food forgotten. Her skin is satin on my fingertips, and I think about kissing it not three hours ago, think about how hard I took her after, and the way the mess of her desire spread down her thighs, right where I’m touching. She turns to capture my mouth in a kiss, her sweet pineapple tongue sliding with mine. Anna reaches with one hand to dig into my hair and I don’t care who’s there, who might be watching. I don’t think about anything but her.
“I need you back in bed,” I tell her. “On your hands and knees.”
We take the rest of the food to go.
* * *
WHAT WE DON’T DO is talk out what collaborators with benefits should look like. We never stare directly at any of it, and nothing about this feels simple anymore.
Starting that first day after we make love, it might as well be just the two of us on the island. While everyone else is at a sunset game night, Anna and I hike to a secluded cove where we skinny-dip and then collapse on a blanket where she shimmies down my body, teeth dragging down my abdomen, teasing my cock with her kisses and tongue under the moonlight. The following morning, we wake slowly, lazily, making languid love with me curled behind her, my hands roaming the warm front of her body. We book a private boat to take us to a reef a few miles offshore where we snorkel and enjoy lunch on the deck, and I trace patterns on Anna’s stomach as she sunbathes topless on the bow. Later, we tumble into our bungalow, where I finally play out the fantasy that looped in my mind for hours: straddling her ribs, roughly stroking my aching length, spilling on breasts still warm from the relentless sun. We have dinner that night at Jules Verne, at the table in the most private corner, hidden by the branches of a giant mangrove, and I have no idea whether anyone looks our way; all I know is no one dares to join us.