7
Caleb
The air-conditioner kicks in loudly and my eyes flutter open. The room is familiar, but it isn’t mine. The scent of sex and sweat surrounds me, but instead of wanting to get up and shower, my dick stirs, looking for a repeat of last night, especially feeling her smooth skin so close to mine.
Charlotte’s soft breaths tickle my chest. She’s resting on top of me with her mouth slightly open. I want to run my thumb against it, but I also don’t want to wake her. I kept her up most of the night, unable to satisfy this new insatiable need inside of me. There’s a combined sweetness and confidence in her that stokes my desire and, no matter how many times I take her, I want more.
My dick stands to attention when I recall the ways her body bent to mine last night, and I groan when her leg inadvertently caresses my thigh.
Her eyes open and she rubs the sleep away from them, turning and stretching as she wakes. She gives no thought to the sheet moving down her breasts, exposing her nipples to me, or the way her outstretched arms tighten the muscles in her stomach, making me beg for the sheet to move further down.
I rub my eyes, not from lack of sleep, but from disbelief. How can I want this woman so much?
“Morning,” she says through a yawn.
“Morning.”
She snuggles closer to me and my hand travels from her back to her rounded ass. It’s more than a handful and I want to get both my hands on it, so I roll her on top of me.
Her giggling is adorable, and her hair tickles my chest. “Are we planning to spend the day in bed?”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
She laughs. “Me, too.”
My hands run up and down her back and along the curves of her cheeks. She shivers and goosebumps form along her soft skin.
She turns her head toward the patio doors. “The sun seems strong today. I bet the water at the beach looks beautiful in this light.”
“Mmm,” I say, but I’m distracted by the two dimples at her lower back.
“At some point, I need to walk on that beach. I can’t go back home without putting my feet in the sand.”
“Mmm,” I say again, dipping my thumbs in the indents. “Wait. What? You haven’t been to the beach yet? ”
“No. I stayed by the pool the first day and then yesterday was the Off-road Adventure. I haven’t had a chance yet.”
My fingers pause. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. Why would I lie about that?”
I’ve no idea why this bothers me. My dick is still hard and I should just leave it alone, but I can’t.
I throw the sheet off and stand up from the bed.
“Where are you going?”
“To the beach. Come on, there’s a great spot I want to show you.”
She narrows her eyes, but slowly gets up. “I should take a shower.”
“Put on your swimsuit. We’ll wash up in the ocean.”
“That feels very Medieval—but, I like it,” she laughs and grabs her swimsuit. “What about you? Do you want to stop by your room to get yours?”
“Yeah. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
“Okay.”
I rush upstairs, like a schoolboy, and put on my swimming trunks. As I throw on a clean shirt and stare at myself in the mirror, I don’t recognize the giddy smile on my face. Shit.
When did that happen?
I return to the room in less than five minutes, but Charlotte is ready and wearing a red bathing suit and a sheer black cover-up. “You look beautiful. ”
“Thank you,” she says with a smile.
I reach for her hand, and we walk along the cobblestone pathway toward the beach. Several people are lounging underneath palapas, others are in the water. Instead of walking toward them, I turn to the left. “The place is further this way.”
Charlotte is staring at the water. Her face is serene, but there’s something in her eyes that makes me wonder if it’s the first time she’s seen the ocean.
The pathway at this point ends and there’s just sand up ahead and some bushes on either side.
“It’s not much further from here.” Her flip-flops kick up sand, so she bends down to take them off. She stops for a moment and wiggles her toes. All I see is her red toenail polish peeking from beneath the white sand.
“Ah, this is so soft and warm,” she gushes.
I’m tempted to join her, so I take off my running shoes and socks. “That is nice.” I stare at her as she stares down at her toes and I get this strange feeling inside me. I can’t explain it. So, I simply move on. “Come on.”
We walk further along; there’s no pathway but I’m familiar with the curve of the beach and finally we reach the spot. The bushes end and there’s a clearing close to the water’s edge.
“Oh, wow,” she says when we reach the shore. “I can see the whole resort from here. ”
“The shore on this side of the island is like a big ‘C’, so if you walk far enough, you get a brilliant view from this end.”
She shields her eyes from the blazing sun and stares off into the distance. “The surrounding beauty is incredible. I wonder if the locals know how lucky they are to see this every day.”
“I’m sure many do, but like most people, you don’t appreciate what you have until it’s gone.”
She turns her back to the sun and drops her hands. “I can’t wait to show Charlie places like this one day. He’d love it.”
“I know it’s none of my business and you can tell me to fuck off, but what happened to Charlie’s father? When you said he’s no longer with you, did you mean…is he dead?”
“No. But I wanted to kill him for the longest time.”
I chuckle at her joke, but she isn’t smiling. “What happened?”
“It’s a long story.”
I never ask a woman about her past relationships. It doesn’t matter what happened in the past, but this time, I want to know her story. “I’ve got time.”
She smiles but looks away. “Well, in a nutshell, Jason and I were high school sweethearts. We even went to college together. We had our whole lives planned out. He would become a lawyer, and I would be a teacher. We planned everything out—the vacations we would take, the home we would buy, and the cars we would drive. We discussed having kids, and we agreed we didn’t see that in our future.”
“Then how…”
“Well, we didn’t take into consideration that condoms can break.”
“Ah, shit. That sucks.”
“Yeah. And so did the weeks afterward.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jason wanted me to have an abortion. We didn’t want to have kids, he reminded me. Which was true, but that was before I had one inside of me. I was far along in my pregnancy when I found out, never thinking I could be pregnant. And I respect everyone’s choices, I do, but I can’t explain it. I just knew that I would see this pregnancy through.”
“But Jason didn’t agree?”
“No. He said if that’s what I wanted, I’d have to do it on my own. He wanted no part of it, and didn’t even contest my request for full custody.”
“That’s a really brave thing you did.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know if it was brave. But I don’t regret it.”
“And you still became a teacher. ”
She smiled. “I did. My friends helped me and so did my parents during exams. Somehow, I got through it and graduated.”
The woman couldn’t be more than five foot three inches and at this moment, she’s the strongest person I know.
“It’s difficult to stick to something, especially if it changes everything.”
“It’s not easy. But some things are worth it.”
While it wasn’t what she had planned, she made the best of it.
I should be on a plane right now chatting up Teo, but I can’t deny this is where I want to be.
I can still leave, but not yet. Just one more day.
“Do you want to grab some lunch?”
She looks up, and her brown eyes are warm and soft. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
*
“The fish here has so much flavor,” says Charlotte, taking another forkful of her dinner. We had lunch at this restaurant earlier, but it was a buffet. They serve dinner a la carte.
“My favorite is the Mahi Mahi. It melts in your mouth. They don’t always have it on the menu, though. ”
“Well, I’ve never had Mahi Mahi, but this… what is this again?”
I chuckle. She isn’t trying to be funny, but her sense of humor is refreshing. Often people around me pretend they’re more high-brow or cultured than they really are, but Charlotte doesn’t try to be something she’s not. I like that.
“I believe you ordered the snapper.”
She snaps her fingers and smiles. “That’s it.”
She snaps again and snorts. “You know, Simon would be all over me with that one.”
“Simon?”
She shakes her head and smiles through another bite of her dinner. “He’s one of my students. A real pain-in-the-ass, you know. But man, he’s quick on his feet. Sometimes, I make an excuse to leave the classroom so I can laugh out loud.”
“Ah, so you’re one of those teachers, are you?”
“What does that mean?”
“You have the reputation of being the mean one, but inside you’re just as goofy as they are.”
She raises her eyebrows in what I imagine is her haughty impression, but she fails miserably.
“Do the kids actually fall for that?” I tease.
She purses her lips and smirks. “Every time. I can be very convincing in a tight bun and cardigan. ”
I laugh and shake my head, enjoying the banter. “Which part of the U.S. are you from?”
She stops laughing and holds her fork in the air. “I… umm…”
Her uneasiness is palpable. “I won’t stalk you, I promise.”
Usually, I’m the one hesitant to talk about myself. When people find out who I am and what I do, they act differently. I rarely ask personal questions, trying to avoid them myself, but this one slipped out. “Never mind.”
She puts down her fork and sighs. “I really am the tight-lipped, button-down teacher. The Charlotte you’re sitting across from now, isn’t me most days. I never do anything goofy or adventurous.”
Now, I’m the one raising my eyebrows. “I don’t know about that. You were pretty adventurous yesterday, and I’m not just talking about the excursion.”
She shakes her head. “That wasn’t me. That was ‘Opposite Charlotte’.”
My face must show my confusion because she holds her hands up. “I’m not crazy, I swear. It’s just something I coined before I left for St. Kitts.” She smiles. “You’re right. Going on this vacation in the first place all alone is something I would never do. But my friends bought me this trip and I’ve never left the country, so I convinced myself I would not be the ‘Responsible One’ for a week. I would be completely selfish and be ‘Opposite Charlotte’. Going on an excursion with someone I just met, in a country I’m completely unfamiliar with? Yeah, that’s ‘Opposite Charlotte’.”
“Opposite Charlotte,” I repeat the moniker and like the sound of it. “That could be fun. Do you mean you are going to let yourself do things you normally wouldn’t do?”
“Ah huh,” she nods, and takes another bite of her fish.
“And try things you normally wouldn’t think to try.”
She narrows her eyes. “Maybe.”
“That’s not what you said. You said you would be Opposite Charlotte.”
“Okay,” she says slowly. “What are you getting at?”
“If you’re normally cautious, then we throw that to the wind for the next couple of days. We’ll keep this casual. No last names, no more questions about ourselves. It’s just about experiencing as much as we can for as long as you’re here. Deal?”
She presses her lips together and looks around the restaurant. “Why do I feel like I’m agreeing to something I might regret?”
“You’ll always be in control, but I might tempt you out of your comfort zone more than a jeep tour. ”
She leans back. “That wasn’t just a jeep tour, and you know it. Oh, that reminds me, we should ask the front desk to check how Arturo is doing.”
“I already did. They released him from hospital and he’s resting at home with a nurse.”
“Oh. I’m glad to hear that. That’s a great healthcare system they have on the island to provide that.”
The health care system didn’t pay for the nurse. I did.
“So, do you agree?” I have no idea why tempting Charlotte to do things she normally wouldn’t do is the most exciting thing to happen to me since my team won the World Series years ago.
She sits straighter in her seat and licks her lips. “Fine. Agreed.”
“Great. Let me know when you’re finished with your dinner, because I have plans for you.”
“What plans?”
“I plan to do a little exploring at the beach tonight.”
“I didn’t bring my swimsuit.”
“You won’t need one.”