Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Mark
T hree weeks later…Bimini. With bikinis
Years of hurt don’t just disappear in a matter of weeks. It just wasn’t possible.
But by approaching it the way we had, we’d opened the door for me and Layla to heal together.
We’d shown each other that the foundations from years before were still there to build on, and we were stronger for it now while we spent time together, creating new memories and talking through the past to help us start a new life together.
And I’d never been happier in my life. Although, we were both missing Zeus, who was having a mini vacation at his siblings’ place while we were here. That little guy was awesome, and thanks to him, Gilbert had stopped stalking Layla, so she was getting more sleep.
Lying on the bed, one arm behind my head as I listened to the sound of the waves hitting the sand outside and the rain falling, I felt more at ease than I could ever remember feeling. Granted, the heavy rain falling today wasn’t what we’d banked on for our second day, but with the rain came growth, right? Plants needed it to grow, and we hadn’t had a set itinerary when we came here, so I was using it as a day for growth for us, too.
“I’d hate to be out in that water right now,” Layla mused as she came back into the room through the open door to the balcony. “I’ve never gotten seasick, but that might just have made it happen.”
I grinned lazily at her, holding an arm out. She looked beautiful in just a tank top and her panties, but I could see the clear outline of the bikini she’d worn yesterday, thanks to her sunburn.
“Stop laughing at it. I swear I put the sunblock on. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to take your bikini off and still look like you’re wearing one?”
I threw my head back as a bark of laughter burst out of me. It really was that bad, which was another reason why it was good it was raining today.
Picking my head back up, I watched her crawl onto the bed, her lower lip only just sticking out in a Layla-style pout.
“Baby, you put it on first thing in the morning. By the time we came in from the beach, it’d been washed and sweated off. That’s why they tell you to keep applying it.”
She sighed and looked down at her shoulder, wincing at the white strap mark lying outside of where her tank top sat on the skin. “If I wear anything strapless, people will laugh at me. I look awful.”
Pulling her on top of me, I kissed the line in question. “I think you look cute, and I’ve seen you naked and witnessed all of your tan lines.”
“You’re just biased,” she pointed out. “Plus, the first time was when I was soapy in the shower, which distracted you. The second time it was nighttime, and you wanted to rely on the light from the full moon. And the third time, this morning, you were half asleep.”
My lips twitched as she reminded me of each occasion we’d had sex since yesterday afternoon. “Maybe I should check you again.”
Before she could argue, I pulled the bottom of her top up and managed to have it over her head before she could stop me. Then again, she had Townsend DNA, so Layla could likely have stopped it by maiming me in some way accidentally while she tried to escape if she’d wanted to.
Dropping it down onto the bed next to me, I skimmed my hands up the sides of her waist, keeping my eyes on her face.
“Is it awful?” she asked, chewing on her lower lip. “I could get fake tan and put that on, and that way it won’t stand out so much.”
Ignoring the absurd suggestion, I trailed the tip of a finger over the swell of her breast. “Does it hurt?”
She shook her head. “No, I have this aloe vera gel thing for sunburn, and it works much better than I thought it would.”
Moving so that my palm was on her abdomen, I stroked it upward until it rested between her tits. “You’re beautiful. You're the most beautiful person I've ever seen with sunburn, without it, and every way in between.”
“What about when I’m high on painkillers I shouldn’t have taken?”
Who could forget that?
“Still beautiful, even when you’re acting like a female Cole.”
Her lip curled. “I was never as bad as him.”
“ I’m Batman !” I tried to make my voice sound high-pitched and raspy at the same time, just like she’d sounded when she’d kept telling us. “And let’s not forget poor SpongeBob .”
She may have been blushing, but her cheeks were too pink already from the sun for me to tell.
“You know, you’re a real chatty Cathy. We need to find a way to shut you up.”
I raised an eyebrow at the look in her eyes as she skimmed her gaze down my body. I was as naked as the day I was born under the sheet, so my reaction to her semi-clothed state was obvious.
“I seem to remember you wanting to suck me off while you were Batman. You dropped onto your knees and wouldn’t let go until I promised you that I’d let you do it when you felt better.”
She grinned widely at that. “Wow, you’re really lucky. I still wanted to blow your mind, even feeling like shit with the flu and a throat infection. Most men would consider themselves kings if their wife did that.”
“Baby, I considered myself a king long before that. If those men need that to feel an iota of what I know I am on a daily basis, that’s up to them.”
Her face softened as she looked down at me, but then she yanked the sheet off my lower half and crawled until she was settled between my legs. “Those, kind sir, are the words of a champion, so as a reward, I’m going to blow your mind right now.”
I never knew what to expect from one minute to the next, and it was part of why I loved her.
Even when what she was doing made me test the boundaries of my sanity.
Leaning down, she swiped her tongue up the length of my shaft, firmly from top to bottom, not touching it with her hands.
“You’ve got a vein right here,” she murmured, tracing it with only the tip of her tongue. “And right here, you’ve got a slight ridge that makes you jerk when I flick it.” She did just that, and the sensations from it made my hips flinch slightly. “Just like that.”
I gripped the sheet in both hands as I watched her explore.
“What I love is when I take you in my mouth and rub my tongue along this bit under the tip. Your breathing gets louder, and I like knowing I can do that to you. I always make sure it’s rubbing on my tongue the farther down I go so that I can hear that change.”
I didn’t expect her to suck the tip into her mouth, but when she rubbed her tongue along the area in question, I knew she heard the change in my breathing starting because her eyes crinkled at the edges like they did when she smiled.
She slowly took more of me into the hot cavern of her mouth, her eyes never leaving mine once. I was torn between begging her to suck harder and move faster or pulling her off it and slamming into her sweet pussy.
Gripping a handful of her hair, I rubbed the side of her jaw with the pad of my thumb, watching as she withdrew my hard length from her mouth, the skin glistening from her saliva, and then she swooped down it again, sucking it back into her mouth.
The need to be inside her hit me, and the choice of whether to continue like this or plunge inside her pussy was gone. I needed the latter.
I gripped her under her arms, pulled her off me, and lifted her until she was over my crotch.
“Wha- What the hell was that?”
Urging her onto her knees, I positioned myself at her entrance with one hand, then gently pulled her down using the other hand until I felt the tip of my dick being engulfed by her wet sheath.
“I loved what you were doing, but I needed to be like this with you.”
I helped her lift up again but stopped applying pressure with my hands and let her take over the movements.
She lowered until she was halfway down my length. “But I was enjoying myself.”
An idea hit me. Gripping her waist again, I lifted Layla until she was off my dick.
“I won’t force you to do something you don’t want to. If you give me twenty minutes to have a shower, I’ll ta—”
“Hey, hey ,” she snapped, “let’s not be hasty, okay?”
In a move so quick it made her squeal, I spun her, so she was face down on the bed and got up onto my knees behind her. “So, you’re not going to argue with me if I do this?”
I pressed my cock into her, squeezing my eyes shut when her tight, wet heat swallowed the tip again.
“No,” she breathed, “I’m definitely not arguing with that.”
Given that she was lying flat on her front, I couldn’t find the angle that I wanted to plunge into her, so I pulled her up onto her hands and knees and rolled my hips, more of my length making its way into her in the process.
Taking me by surprise, Layla lowered her front so that her shoulders rested on the bed and pushed back the next time I thrust into her.
A loud groan burst out of me when I finally had my full length buried deep inside her with my balls pressed against her clit. “Fuck, baby.”
Running my hand from her ass up to the base of her neck, I made small stabbing motions, quick withdrawals and thrusts back inside her.
“Keep your hand there,” she begged, grinding her ass into me and moaning.
I squeezed the hand I had on her neck, assuming that was the one she meant and not the one I had on her hip. “You want me to hold you in place while I fuck you?”
“God, yes,” she whispered, grinding down again. “That feels so good.”
I took my time withdrawing until only the tip of me was inside her, and then with a snap of my hips, I thrust inside her, hard enough to move her up the sheets.
“Brace your hands against the headboard,” I barked on the next thrust, watching as they shot out and gripped the wooden slats hard enough to turn her knuckles white.
With them stopping her from moving now, I had enough resistance when I thrust into Layla for her to get the force she loved so much when I thrust into her. Using my free hand, I skimmed it from her hip to the base of her spine and pressed, urging her to arch her spine.
That changed everything. Whereas before, I’d been skimming over that patch inside her that drove Layla nuts, now every movement I made was with complete contact to it, meaning that within five thrusts, she was crying out, and I felt her muscles clamp down around me.
I didn’t let up once, not even when it became hard to press through her spasming walls. At one point in time in our relationship, I’d only been able to last out until she came, but now one wasn’t acceptable. If I could hang on for her to come again, I made sure it happened.
Like now.
Bending over her until my hand was braced on the bed next to her head, I whispered in her ear, “You’re my heart and my entire world.”
She raised her head and pressed it against my shoulder as I increased the timing of my thrusts. “To the moon and back, Mark.”
Then, leaving one hand on the headboard, she slid the other one down the sheet and pressed it under mine, linking our fingers together.
Something about that gesture, effectively anchoring herself to me, made the familiar tingle in the base of my spine that signaled I was about to come hit.
“I want you to come with me.”
Her head pressed even harder against my shoulder, but then every muscle that I could feel in her body against my own tightened, and she cried out as it hit her again, pulling me over the edge with her.
I lost the ability to feel any of my limbs as the pleasure rushed through my body, and when I finally regained control of my senses, I realized I was lying wholly on top of her. When I’d done this the first time, I’d been worried I was crushing her and stopping her from breathing. Now I knew she liked it when it happened, so long as I didn’t lie there for any longer than necessary, i.e., enough to suffocate her.
Lifting my weight off her ribs, I brushed the hair off the side of her face so I could see it. “You okay, pretty girl?”
“If by okay you mean can I feel my body and could I possibly be a productive member of society at any point in the rest of my life? No, and unlikely.” Turning her head slightly so she could see me, she grinned. “Well, the last bit might happen, but the first one is a definite no.”
A flash of light lit up the room and was quickly followed by a loud crack of thunder, and the wind blew, making the light curtains dance as they lifted up with it and alerting us to how sweaty we both were. This was a good sweat, the best kind, though, and the breeze that hit us felt like heaven.
I rolled to the side, bringing her with me, and lay spooning her with my chin on her shoulder, my fingers idly running over her stomach.
“So, how bad is it exactly?” Layla asked finally.
Feeling drowsy, I frowned at the question. “How bad is what?”
“How bad is the sunburn?”
Lifting onto one arm, I rolled her onto her back and took her in from her head to her hips. It really was terrible.
Instead of answering her question directly, I asked slowly, “Are you sure it doesn’t hurt?”
She tried to shuffle away from me, and when I didn’t let her go, she moved her foot around and hooked the sheet on her big toe to pull it over her body. “Oh, God, it’s bad, isn’t it?”
If I said yes, she’d feel self-conscious, and I didn’t want that for her. I was also genuinely concerned that she was in pain with it. “Do you need me to go and get the aloe? Maybe they have a doctor who can come and check you over?”
“I don’t need a doctor,” she hissed. “Now tell me how bad it is. On a scale of one to ten—ten being an overcooked turkey.”
Looking closely at it, I realized that one of the reasons it seemed so bad was because the parts of her that her bikini had covered were so pale in contrast to the ones that hadn’t. Layla was naturally very fair skinned, which altered my grading using her scale.
“It’s definitely not a ten,” I finally decided. “But I’d say it’s around a six.”
She threw an arm over her eyes and swore. “Just great. Anyone who says tan lines are sexy is talking out their ass. I really do look like I’m still wearing a bikini when I’m naked. How is that sexy?”
I happened to like it, which I made sure she knew by paying as much attention to them as possible.
It wasn’t until much, much later, that she found out something I’d noticed when she went looking for the panties she’d been wearing earlier that day. I didn’t remember taking them off, and neither did she, but she sure as shit wasn’t wearing them, so one of us must have removed them.
There was another flash of lightning when she bent over to pick them up, and with how she was standing, it lit up one side of her—front and back—meaning I finally noticed the difference in colors between the sides. Yesterday, we’d played in the sea and gone snorkeling, but when we’d come in, we’d laid in the sun or sat side by side talking as we watched the ocean do its thing.
That meant her front had gotten more exposure to the sun and was a few shades darker than her back. To make matters worse, if I’d seen it correctly, the back of her legs were even lighter.
“I’m going to start the shower,” she said as she walked toward the bathroom. “I’ll meet you in there.”
I’d just gotten out of bed when I heard her scream.
“Oh, come the hell on!”
Moving to lean against the side of the door frame, I started laughing when I saw her looking at her reflection in the mirror.
“It looks like it's getting worse. I didn’t even know I was this white,” she moaned as she turned to look at her back. “Wait, is the back lighter than the front?”
“It is.”
“For fuck’s sake, man, why?” It was a rhetorical question, so I didn’t bother to answer it. “Is it that noticeable?”
I shrugged a shoulder and moved past her to turn the shower on, since she’d gotten sidetracked. “I’m sure your legs will even up by the time we go home, so I wouldn’t worry about it. You’re not the first person to have gotten an uneven sunburn.”
“My legs?” she squeaked, then there was a gasp. “Did the back even get any sun at all?”
Oops.