I THOUGHT I DIED AND WENT TO HEAVEN
28
Prudence : Where are you girls?
Nuri : I want to buy a hat.
Nuri : Evie is with me, making sure I don’t get lost.
Prudence : Why not ask me?
Nuri : You looked so focused on your work, we didn’t want to stop you.
Nuri : And before you start to go all insecure on me, no I’m not replacing you with Evie.
Nuri : Although, she’s kind of amazing.
Nuri : Can I ask her to come to girls’ night with us tonight?
Prudence : Absolutely. I was going to ask you the same.
Nuri : She said yes.
Nuri : We’ll also buy wine on our way back.
PRUDENCE
Nate was right.
I’m currently lying on my stomach, facing the water, my tablet flat on the mattress, as I’m trying to draw a scene of us at the restaurant. Good thing that I applied sunscreen to my ass the second Nate was looking somewhere else.
I lift my head for the 10th time in an hour to make sure I still have a clear sight of Jack and Ikram, currently sitting on the sand, the water reaching their thighs with every wave.
Satisfied that they haven’t drowned, I focus back on the drawing taking form in front of me. The perspective when drawing such a scene, with people facing each other at a long table is always a little tricky, but I manage to capture that moment where everyone was smiling. First, Ikram and Evie, facing each other. She tastes the sauce on his plate using some bread and he tries to bat her hand away. Next to him, Jack, laughing at something Nuri is saying, holding Ikram’s hand over the table. And in the back, me, next to Nuri, looking at Jack with a smile, Nate staring at the side of my face with inscrutable eyes.
Because that’s what he did nearly for the whole meal. Just staring at me.
I jolt when I feel hands getting a hold of my foot, that was until now, just kicking in the air above my back with its twin.
“What—” I start as I fight to turn around and meet Nate’s eyes above my shoulder. “are you… doing?”
He cocks a brow, his lips tilting at the corner. “Figured I’d finish what I started at the restaurant.”
I open my mouth to object but close it without saying anything. Why would I object? It felt good. And, no matter how embarrassed I was, I wanted him to keep doing it.
I lock my tablet and put it back in my bag, freeing the space in front of me to fold my arms under my head. He lets go of my foot and I hear the lounge chair being dragged a little closer until it knocks against my own. Not two seconds later, he sits back and has my foot back in both his hands. Both of them. God, if one hand felt good then—
Good thing my face is buried in my arms and the sounds are muffled by the thick mattress, because the sound that just escaped me? It’s a sound I rarely make. Yes, even for sex. I’m almost certain that my back arches in response, and I can’t even be bothered to care that he has a full view of the underside of my ass.
It’s that good.
“Hmph.”
“You okay?” He asks, stopping the delicious rotation of his thumbs against the sole of my foot and I want to slap myself in the face for allowing that sound—or whatever that was—to reach his ears.
I lift my face just enough for my words to make sense. “Yeah, I’m—Sorry, my feet just hurt so bad, and what you’re doing is…” I sigh, searching for words… Two random feelings a day. Okay… Yeah, I can do that. “It feels good. Really good.”
He resumes his careful massage then, and I’m pretty sure the whimper escapes me before my face is safely buried in the mattress.
“Look at you, sharing feelings with me… We’re already making progress.”
He presses a little harder on a sore spot on the outside of my foot and my hands turn to fist above my head.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to— ah… Make fun of each other?” I say, but the sound is a little muffled and he chuckles behind me.
“I’m not,” but I hear the smile in his voice.
“I have another feeling I can share,” I mutter dryly.
“I’m all ears.”
I try to pull on my leg when he—I’m sure, voluntarily—tickles the arch of my foot.
“The shower ,” I admit. “I’m weirdly getting more confused than embarrassed. You literally couldn’t run away from there faster, and now I’m not sure if I dreamt what you said last night and this morning. Because it felt like… Like you didn’t want to. See, I mean.”
His hands freeze on my foot and I wonder if I said the wrong thing or if I overstepped. The need to apologize is growing and the anxiety is becoming a tight knot in my stomach. He doesn’t say anything. And the silence is too heavy.
“I’m sorry, it’s—”
He lets go of my foot and I close my eyes, convinced now that maybe I shouldn’t have shared that feeling.
But I don’t even have the time to mourn his touch, since I feel the mattress dip a little on my side and the next thing I know, Nate’s warmed body is half laying on it and half on my back, his hand on my hip.
“You gotta stop apologizing for things that you feel,” he says softly in my ear, and I catch sight of his face, hovering over the side of mine from the corner of my eye. “You want to know what I felt that made me leave in such a hurry?” I nod. “Horny. And I didn’t want you to… notice.”
His throat bobs. I pause, turning over his words. “Horny.” I echo, and I feel the warm air of his sigh against my shoulder. “Because of the wet shirt—”
“Because of your breasts ,” he corrects. “Your breasts, that were visible through my wet tee-shirt. It got me all kinds of worked up. So if someone has to apologize here, it’s me.”
I lift my head then, to turn it towards him. How are his eyes a different shade of blue?
“Why would you apologize?” I ask softly.
Both of his eyebrows lift in surprise before he finally talks. “For making you doubt what I said last night and this morning. For making you believe for one second that the sight of your fucking amazing breasts and tight nipples could ever make me feel something other than the need to touch and hold and nip at them. But, yeah. I left. Because I figured our talk was too fresh and it might scare you away if I made a move right there in that damn shower.”
I blink. Once. Twice. A hundred times. And decide not to follow my brain on the freak out path, or acknowledge the sudden throbbing between my legs.
“Amazing, uh?” I ask in a light tone, turning on my side to fully face him, giving him more room on the mattress that he immediately takes, flushing our bodies together.
He smiles then. A full-on grin, flashing his dimple and teeth and transforming even his eyes.
“The best sight ever.”
“Hmhm.”
“I thought I died and went to heaven.”
“Sure.” I roll my eyes and he chuckles, his large hand sliding from my hip to my waist to squeeze softly.
His head is propped on a fist, making it one of the few places we’re not touching. My breasts—thankfully, covered by my bikini top—are partly against his hard chest, our legs and feet entwined.
He keeps his hips back though, and I don’t want to assume, but it might have to do with what he was feeling in the shower this morning.
He lifts his hand from my waist to slowly meet the back of my head, and my throat dries. Is he going to kiss me? Right here? When Jack only has to look behind him and spot us? Or, Nuri and Evie could come back at any time? Why am I only slightly worried?
My eyes drop to his lips. Full and soft looking. I wonder what he tastes like.
I feel him fumble with my hair and I close my eyes. Kiss me, kiss me, just kiss me…
But he doesn’t. I feel my hair tie being softly pulled away and my hair escaping the ponytail until it’s free behind me.
“What are you doing?” I murmur, opening my eyes to realize that my face is inches from his collarbone. I kinda want to lick at it.
“I’ve always wanted to slide my hand in your hair. It looks—” his Adam’s apple goes up and down as he pauses. “—Silky. I love your hair.”
“You do?” I ask, surprised.
“Yeah. It’s so long, thick, and wild.” His fingers slip through the strands, sliding slowly from the roots to the ends, and repeating the motion. “Soft. So soft.”
It feels good. So good that I close my eyes and tilt my head back in appreciation, a smile tugging at my lips.
“I’ve always found it… Dull.” I admit, thinking about the ordinary brown.
“I think it’s beautiful. Like a chocolate fountain that’s turning bronze when it reaches the bottom.”
I almost purr at the next passage of his fingers. I can’t help it, I’ve always loved head massages when going to the hair salon. And with today’s nearly orgasmic foot massage too? I guess massages are the way to my heart.
I don’t stand a chance against a physiotherapist.
“At the restaurant,” I start, relaxing into his touch, “the first thing I thought when you started to rub my foot was that your hands were probably magical.”
He chuckles and I realize his face is closer than I thought when I feel the air against my temple. “I really want to hold off on the inappropriate comments, so I’ll just say thank you.”
I blush, but I don’t move to hide it. Wouldn’t want to stop the amazing things he’s making me feel with his hand in my hair…
“I think we’re late in our sunscreen reapplying schedule,” he murmurs almost directly in my ear, and the hairs on my arm rise as a shiver goes down my spine.
“Oh, no… What will Ikram do to us?” I ask playfully.
“Shouldn’t we take care of it, so we don’t find out?”
I clench my legs together at the low tone of his voice. The promise of his hand sliding over every inch of my uncovered skin.
“Definitely. I wouldn’t want him to pull on my hair in a fit of rage…”
“Exactly.”
He shifts then, his hand leaving my hair and I manage to hold the little whimper of disappointment at the loss of his touch. He’s quickly back and touches my shoulder to make me lie back on my stomach. I feel one of his knees press on one side of my ass before the second one lands on the other side.
Straddling me. He’s straddling me. He does make sure to hover and not sit, though…
I hear the sound of the bottle being opened and I shiver at the cold cream landing on my skin. He fumbles with the strings of my bikini top, untying it at the nape and back, leaving them hanging on the sides.
“I heard sunscreen can damage and discolor the material,” he says, his voice raw.
“Oh, we definitely wouldn’t want that…”
“Yeah.”
Finally, his strong hands are back on my skin, smearing the lotion on the expanse of my back, my arms, my shoulders, and my sides with sure movements. I’m so relaxed and tense at the same time, I’m not sure how it’s possible, but I feel like my skin is too hot and I might burst out of it. I’m trying not to clench my thighs because with his position he might notice. But again, do I really mind if he does? He knows how he makes me feel—thanks to drunk me—and I know how he feels about me. It’s not like we’re in uncharted territory here.
His hand slides slowly all the way down to the edge of my bikini bottom, pressing with his thumbs along my spine. It sends heat pooling at my core and I moan into the mattress at the unexpected pleasure.
“With the soft sounds you make, I kind of hate that we’re on a beach with other people right now,” he says, leaning forward so he can whisper in my ear, planting his hand next to my head to hold his weight while the other one grabs onto my waist to squeeze once.
The movement makes his hips settle against my ass and I bite my lips when I feel exactly how horny I make him.
He exhales a ragged breath in my neck when my back arches almost automatically, pressing against him.
If anyone looks towards us, we’ll probably get kicked out. The position we’re in? So inappropriate . It makes all sorts of dirty pictures pop up in my mind, and I swear I might start to draw some really indecent scenes. This exact scene, to be honest. Even though he’s technically only applying sunscreen on my back, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so aroused in my entire life. And I don’t see his eyes, but I’ve spent enough time studying them that I can clearly picture the bright, hooded, and slightly dazed look on his face.
“These damned curves of yours,” he groans before giving my waist another squeeze and straightening back up, carefully tying the strings of my bikini top before getting the bottle back from the floor next to the lounge chair.
“What about them?” I ask, a little breathless.
“They’re perfect. You’re perfect, Prudence.”
He moves back and fidgets with the head of the chair to bring it down, making it possible for him to straddle my calves. He squeezes some lotion on both my thighs and starts rubbing it against my skin. His hands slide up from behind my knee, inch by—torturously slow—inch, and stop just under the curve of my ass.
“Okay?” He rasps.
“Yeah.”
His thumbs brush just above the line where the swell of my rear begins and I hear his sharp inhale.
“You sure?”
“Please.”
“Fuck.”
His grip tightens for a second on the back of my thigh before his touch resumes his slow exploration. My eyes roll in the back of my head. Is it sad that it’s probably the most erotic experience of my life? Just Nate applying sunscreen on my body? I’ve never craved a touch like I do now. Crave more .
He curses as he grips my ass a little more firmly and my toes curl behind him, my back arching again.
“I’m gonna stop. Because I kinda want to bite that soft ass of yours and that would be wildly inappropriate,” he says, sliding his hands back down until it reaches the back of my knees.
“Wildly,” I breathe.
He stands up for a couple of seconds, just the time to grab my calves and lift them before he sits back on the chair, my shins resting against his chest, feet on his shoulders.
“Heads up, your brother and Ikram are heading our way,” he says in a low voice, his hands applying more sunscreen on my calves, his touch more efficient than erotic this time.
I jolt a little, but his grip on my leg is firm.
“Relax, we’re not doing anything wrong. Just following Ikram’s strict schedule…”
I can hear the amusement in his voice, and I turn my face to glare at him over my shoulder, only to meet his deep blue eyes looking at me intensely.
“And if someone has something to be worried about, it’s me. You don’t have a raging hard-on screaming to the world how you feel about your best friend’s sister,” he says, tilting his lips in a playful smile.
My eyes drop of their own accord but his “raging hard-on” is hidden by my legs, and my attention is brought back to his face when he pinches the skin at my ankle.
“I doubt you need visual proof, as it was rubbing against your ass barely five minutes ago. Not to forget you kind of sat on it for a while last weekend.”
My cheeks flush at the memories, but I don’t bother to hide it.
“Was it really an automatic response?” I ask, turning back towards the sea to see Ikram and Jack getting closer, with smiles on their faces.
“Yeah. Automatic response to having you so close to me.”
“What, like it wouldn’t happen with someone else?”
“Not like that, no.”
I look at him again from the corner of my eye, and see him focused on his task, sliding his hands up and down my leg.
“You’re telling me, that a hot girl, like an actual wet dream, sits on your lap and you wouldn’t get hard for her?”
“Depends, is her Name Prudence Willow?” he asks softly, his hand going back to the sole of my feet. “Does she have large brown eyes with flecks of gray, green, and gold that see too much but don’t send the good information to her brain? Long silky hair I could wrap around my hand in the most inappropriate way? A voice so sweet that I keep hearing it in my dreams, just to wake up flustered?”
My breath itches in my throat. Jack and Ikram are almost at earshot, and I tense slightly.
“Because she’s the only woman who can have such a strong effect on me.”