Chapter 67
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Cleo
We decided to go to the beach.
I changed into shorts and Gabriel’s Jimi Hendrix T-shirt, and we met up on the front porch. Gabriel was wearing board shorts, a faded T-shirt, and Vans.
He had a blanket and one of his hoodies bundled under his arm in case I got cold.
Armed with provisions, we walked to the beach and laid the blanket on the sand in front of the dunes.
The beach was mostly empty, except for a few surfers out beyond the breakers silhouetted against the deep blue sky.
A narrow strip of vibrant yellow and orange streaked the horizon.
Soon the darkness would swallow it up, but there was still enough light for Gabriel to wield the knife without losing a finger.
Unlike me, he’d mastered the art of cutting a mango. I never knew fruit could be so sexy until I met Gabriel. I leaned back on my elbows and watched his magic hands.
While he worked, he told me about today’s meeting. “The suits were kissing my ass. It was a little embarrassing, to be honest.”
By now, he should have been used to that treatment. It had happened the first time, too, but of course he didn’t remember that.
“Do you really think my new music is good ?” he asked, biting his lip.
He wasn’t fishing for compliments. Gabriel was plagued with self-doubt. It used to keep him up at night, worrying and obsessing over his music, questioning whether his next album would be as good as he’d envisioned.
“Yes. I really think it’s good.”
“But if it wasn’t, would you tell me?”
I laughed to myself, reminded of the time I told him to write a song that didn’t suck. “I would tell you. I might be biased, but you can always count on me to be honest,” I assured him.
He glanced over. “Your opinion is the only one I trust. I think you’re the only person who really knows me.”
With privilege comes great responsibility. We’d always sought each other’s opinion. His used to be the only one that mattered to me too.
“But if your music wasn’t good, you would know it,” I said.
He nodded. “I know. But when you sit through a meeting with people blowing smoke up your ass, you start questioning if it’s even about the music anymore. To them, I’m just a cash cow,” he said, snorting in disgust. “They look at me and see dollar signs.”
This had always been a major dilemma for Gabriel. For him, it was his artistic integrity versus greed and capitalism.
“Maybe you should just go back to busking,” I teased.
He sighed longingly. “If only that were an option.”
I laughed. Sometimes he was ridiculous.
A mix of chaos and beauty. I’d never known anyone with such a beautiful soul.
After scoring the flesh of the mango, he pushed it upward, turning it inside out and knelt before me, holding the fruit to my lips like it was a precious gift. The breeze off the ocean lifted the ends of his hair and the semi-darkness cast his face in shadows, hollowing out his cheekbones.
My lips parted and I sucked on the mango, moaning like a porn star, mostly to torture him.
“You play dirty,” he said with a pained look.
I gave him a flirtatious smile. “Two can play this game.”
“I was really onto something with the fruit.” Juice dribbled down my chin and he trailed his tongue over it then licked his lips. “Mm. So sweet. Who knew a mango could be so seductive?”
It wasn’t the mango. It was him.
After eating my fill, I sat up and grabbed the other half of the mango. “Lie down,” I ordered.
“Are you going to take advantage of me?” he asked, reclining on his side with his head propped on his elbow.
“Wouldn’t you be so lucky?”
“The luckiest man in the world,” he said, his voice low, eyes at half-mast as I guided the mango to his lips. “I’m suddenly ravenous.”
I was suddenly ravenous too, but not for food.
He sank his teeth into the fruit. Sticky juice ran down my arm. I leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth. A tactical error. Three things happened simultaneously. His hands gripped my waist, he rolled onto his back and lifted me on top of himself. My thighs landed on either side of his waist.
“What are you doing?”
“Admiring the view.” Gabriel tucked his hand under his head and smiled, baring his teeth as his free hand coasted up my thigh.
I leaned forward so my breasts brushed his chest and smashed the mango into his face, laughing. He tossed it across the sand. “You think that’s funny?”
I didn’t have a chance to respond because his lightning-quick reflexes kicked in and I found myself on my back with him hovering above me, holding his weight on one forearm.
Gabriel had a mischievous smile on his face and a glint in his eye, so it took me a minute to realize that I could feel him—all of him—pressing against my stomach.
I almost made a quip about being happy to see me, but I wasn’t twelve so instead, I pulled his head down to mine and kissed him. There was mango pulp on his cheekbone.
His tongue parted the seam of my lips and stroked the roof of my mouth with intent. My legs wrapped around his waist. My hips swiveled, grinding against him, seeking friction. He groaned into my mouth and sucked my lip between his teeth, biting on it.
That only got me more worked up.
I pulled his hair. Hard.
His hand gripped my hip, fingers biting into the soft skin just above the waistband of my shorts.
“You tease and taunt me, Cleopatra.” He trailed a finger down my neck. “Do you enjoy torturing me?”
“I live for it,” I panted, digging the balls of my feet into the blanket and thrusting my hips. “I take so much joy from it.”
“You’re an evil temptress.” He kissed my lips hard then rolled off me and sat up, taking his warmth with him. “Let’s take a swim.”
“What?” I sat up, trying to clear my head. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. “You want to swim now? In the dark?”
“Sure. Why not? I want to kiss you in the ocean and taste the salt on your lips.”
“And you think that’s better than sex on the beach?”
He gave me a look. “Is that an option?”
“I mean…yes?” My gaze dipped to his board shorts. “You seemed like you were up for it.”
Gabriel looked at me for a minute, considering. “As tempting as that offer is, when we have sex, it’s going to be in my bed and it’s going to last all night long. All. Night. Long.”
My skin flushed with heat. “That sounds…ambitious. Do you have some kind of new superpower you haven’t told me about?”
“I’ve been waiting years for this. I don’t want a quickie on the beach,” he scoffed. “So how about that swim?”
I looked at the ocean dubiously. It was completely dark now except for a silver moon. What if we got carried away in a riptide or attacked by a shark?
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Gabriel said. “Promise. But you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he assured me. “If you don’t want to, it’s okay.”
The lure of danger had always appealed to Gabriel more than it did to me, but whenever I’d let my inhibitions go, I’d always felt a thrill.
Like when I rode on the back of his motorcycle.
Or when I used to join him on the roof (with the notable exception of that last time).
Or that one time we had sex in an alley. It was liberating.
I knew I didn’t have to do it. I was mostly immune to peer pressure. But when I looked at the ocean again, I had the sudden urge to dive under the waves and float on the saltwater, weightless.
My mind made up, I stripped down to my underwear and bra. It was a simple cotton set, lilac, and covered more than my bikini. It wasn’t even that sexy, but Gabriel was looking at me like I was dressed in Agent Provocateur.
I’d always loved that about Gabriel. How he always made me feel so beautiful.
“Let’s do it. Let’s go swimming.”
He took off his T-shirt and tossed it on the blanket like he was throwing down the gauntlet.
I ran and he chased. The water kissed my ankles when he caught me around the middle and lifted me off the ground. I squealed with laughter as he charged into the water, holding me aloft.
It was up to my waist now. “Are you using me as your shield to ward off the waves?”
“You’re my life preserver.”
I didn’t have time to respond because a wave was about to crash over our heads. We dove in. It was like taking a plunge in an ice bath. No wonder the surfers wore wetsuits. When my head emerged, I gasped for breath. “Oh my god, it’s freezing in here.”
“Nah. It’s at least seventy degrees.”
Okay, but it felt a lot colder than the air. “I’m the kind of person who wears sweaters in air-conditioned restaurants. I’m always cold.”
“I’m always hot.” He wrapped his arms around me. “See how that works?” He kissed my salty lips and we floated on our backs, holding hands, but after a few moments of feeling weightless, a wave snuck up from behind and pummelled us.
“Are you okay?” he asked, but he was laughing as he pulled seaweed out of my hair.
I had seawater streaming from my nose, but I was laughing too. “I think I drank a gallon of seawater. I’m done.”
By the time we trudged up the beach, I was shivering, and my teeth were chattering, but my skin tingled.
Gabriel pulled his hoodie over my head and I threaded my arms through the sleeves, burying my nose in the collar. It was soft and faded and smelled like him. Woodsy and spicy.
“That felt great,” Gabriel said, rubbing my arms to get the circulation going again. “Thanks for going along with it.”
We trekked back to the house, leaving a trail of sand and saltwater in our wake.
Now that I was warm and cozy in his sweatshirt, I was happy I did it.
I felt so alive .
I was all set to walk through the front door when Gabriel grabbed my hand, led me around the side of the house, and tugged me into the outdoor shower. It smelled like cedar wood and his body wash.
I could barely see a thing. There were no lights out here.
Gabriel turned on the shower and checked the water temperature as I shed the hoodie and after a moment’s debate, my wet bra and underwear too when I heard his wet board shorts hit the ground.
“Cleo,” he said. “Wherefore art thou, Cleo?”
I laughed, groping my way toward the shower, using my hand to feel my way. Eventually, my eyes started to adjust to the darkness and I could make out the shape of his body and his face in profile.
“There’s a step there,” he said after I stumbled up it and fell right into his arms. Literally.
He caught me and pulled me under the spray of the shower.
“This is crazy,” I said with a laugh even as I reveled in the feel of his skin against mine, “showering in the dark.”
“Kind of cool though,” he said, turning me around so my back was to his chest. I heard him squirt something into his hand and then he tipped my head back with two fingers under my chin and shampooed my hair.
My eyes closed as he massaged my scalp. I could feel his dick against my back. Hot, thick, ready.
My thighs clenched. The water poured over us like a rain shower. Steam rose into the air and I looked up at the night sky, the stars and the moon.
“All done,” Gabriel said, his voice low, husky as he turned me around and I tipped back my head, rinsing the shampoo out of my hair while he soaped and lathered my skin with his body wash.
My shoulders. My breasts. My thighs. My feet.
When I looked down, he was on his knees. Our eyes met. I gave him silent permission.
His hands climbed my thighs.
My skin burned. My legs shook.
With his eyes still on me, he parted my lips with his thumbs and then he dipped his head and flicked his tongue over my clit.
My knees buckled. I grabbed the back of his head, my fingers digging into his hair as he worked magic with his fingers, lips, and tongue.
“You’re still pretty good at this,” I said, my voice breathy.
“Like riding a bike.”
I laughed then gasped when he slid two fingers inside me, reaching and curling until he hit that mystical spot that only he had ever found while his thumb pressed against my clit. “Oh God.”
I came so hard that Gabriel had to hold me up.
When I opened my eyes, I smiled. “Welcome back.”