Chapter 7
Seven
Darla
We are walking hand-in-hand toward the edge of the ocean when I spot the jet ski rental counter out of the corner of my eye.
Every day since my family arrived in Hawaii, I’ve walked past the water sports counter, and I get anxiety every single time.
But I don’t feel like a fragile accident victim right now.
I feel vital and capable. After all, I’ve made love with a stacked seven-footer twice now and lived to tell the tale.
And when I think of how I stabbed my mother’s breakfast roll and stood up to my mother this morning, it makes me want to be even more brave. To take chances again.
To face my fears.
“I think you’ve made me feel invincible,” I lean my head back to say to Moby.
He stops mid-stride and bends down, putting his hands on his knees so we’re closer to eye level. “What do you mean?”
Shifting side to side in my sandals, I lean sideways to peer past Moby to the water sports counter.
“I was thinking…I want to get back on a jet ski. I’ve been having nightmares about the accident for such a long time.
Maybe some immersion therapy would cure me.
” I lean in to give him a peck on the lips, and he rumbles in response, his eyelids drooping.
“If I’m going to face my fears with anyone, I want it to be you. ”
Affection makes his gray eyes softer. “My brave girl.”
Strings pull taut in my chest.
Is it crazy that I’m already falling in love with Moby? I’ve never experienced so much acceptance and safety and connection with anyone else. Not in my whole life. Leave it to me to need a whale to shift into a man in order to get a boyfriend.
Oh, my goodness, this hunky marvel is my boyfriend.
I can barely stop myself from squealing into a tap dance.
“We will go out on this jet ski, Darla. I will not let anything happen to you.”
“I know, Moby,” I whisper, kissing his chin.
Again, he rumbles, but this time, the sound is a little more breathless. “I love your kisses, little human,” he says, adjusting the growing bulge beneath his towel. “But please wait until we’re somewhere I can mate you before you give them to me.”
I’m beaming, I can’t help it. “Sorry.”
He scans the packed beach, then looks down at my body. I’ve dressed in my yellow bikini and short, white sarong for our day out, and his heated gaze tells me he likes my outfit very much, but he likes what is beneath even better. “Here is definitely not a good spot to mate?”
“Definitely not,” I giggle, pulling him toward the rental hut. “Come on.”
He makes an anguished sound but allows himself to be dragged to the hut. I tell the resort employees my room number and set about securing the rental for the afternoon, although the water sports attendant keeps one fearful eye on Moby the entire time.
“You need a j-j-jet ski that will fit him?” asks the man.
“She needs one that will fit both of us,” Moby corrects him in a no-nonsense tone. “She will not leave my arms.”
“Yes, sir,” the attendance winces.
Probably because Moby’s tone of voice is the kind usually reserved for death threats.
I squeeze my boyfriend’s hand and smile up at him, coaxing a lopsided grin from his handsome face, and the attendant breathes a sigh of relief.
Twenty minutes later, we are standing at the edge of the water beside a row of jet skis.
“Wait here,” instructs the resort employee. “I will ask my colleagues to assist me in pushing the jet ski into the water—”
“No need,” Moby says, stooping down to grip the back of the machine, dragging it toward the water like it weighs five pounds. Tossing it out among the whitewash. “Come, little human,” he calls over his hefty shoulder.
Feeling free and giddy, I ignore the twinges in my leg and jog to join Moby.
He plucks me up by the waist and deposits me on the smooth, warm leather seat, before throwing his leg over the back and climbing on behind me.
The machine sinks ominously into the water, and I get nervous that we’ll have to forgo our ride, but somehow the thing stays afloat.
I turn the key and press the ignition button, explaining to Moby how the controls work, in addition to our earlier tutorial from the staff.
“Should I drive for a while, then you can take over, if you want?” I ask over my shoulder.
“Yes,” he says, securing me to his chest with an arm of steel. His expression is deadly serious. “I will watch for threats.”
“There probably won’t be any. My accident was an unusual occurrence.”
He massages my leg with his free hand. “Still.”
For the hundredth time in an hour, I feel this sweeping sense of belonging and joy, and it causes me to blurt his name. “Moby?”
“Yes?”
“You make me very happy.”
His heart thumps heavily against my back, a telltale reaction. With a gruff clearing of his throat, he squeezes me tighter and lays a hard, prolonged kiss on the crown of my head. “You are my happiness, Darla.”
My pulse is racing as we leave the shore, galloping over waves until we’re away from the immediate resort area.
My fear takes hold when we pass another group of guests on the backs of their own jet skis, but Moby murmurs assurances into my hair, and the tension uncoils again in my middle once we’re isolated again on the water.
“Right about here is where I had my accident,” I confide in Moby.
“There was blood…everywhere. I was so worried a shark would come eat me, before help arrived.”
A violent shiver passes through him, shaking the both of us.
“Sharks,” he sighs. “What a bunch of assholes.”
I twist around with piqued interest. “Really?”
“Oh, yes.” He sounds quite sage. “Always needing to be the center of attention. Their behavior is exhausting. We get it, you have sharp teeth. We’re all impressed. Now, fuck off.”
My throat hurts from trying to hold in my laughter. “What about dolphins?”
He shakes his head. “Meddlers. Always up in everyone else’s business.”
“Wow. Are there any sea creatures that you like?”
“I guess I don’t mind the turtles.”
“Aww.” As we’re sitting stationary on the lapping blue water, the ocean is so vast around us, and how lucky am I to have Moby’s first-hand perspective. “If you were to stay on land, permanently…” I trail off with a small frown when his muscles leap. “Would you miss the ocean?”
Moby thinks for a moment. “I suppose I would miss the familiar things. My family. The muffled quiet, the life cycles that are as old as time. The embrace of the various currents.” I hear him swallow hard.
“But if I returned to the ocean, my despair over being without you, Darla, would turn everything stale and dark. I would just sink down to the bottom and hope hell swallowed me.”
“Then you should stay,” I whisper, the backs of my eyes burning.
He seems like he has more to say, but in the end, he simply kisses the part of my hair, holding me so close, I can barely breathe.
Moby is not one to hold back, leading me to wonder if there is something he isn’t telling me about his curse.
Maybe if we go somewhere quiet and secluded, I can coax it out of him.
“There is a pretty cove in this direction,” I say, steering us south. “The water is the most incredible shade of blue.”
“Show me.”
I’ll never forget the next hour I spend driving the jet ski down the coastline, my back plastered to Moby’s broad chest. Especially because it marks the first time I hear him laugh.
When I get a little more confident in my driving abilities, I take a hard right and make donuts on the water, prompting a deep chuckle in my ear, and my entire network of nerve endings flutters in response, my tummy flipping with bliss.
Moby takes over the driving eventually and I point in the direction of where I want to go.
Now, we float between two rock formations that stretch from the coastline like the arms of a hug, bobbing on the cerulean water, the afternoon sun beginning to dip low in the sky. There is no sound, save the beat of our hearts and the gentle waves breaking against the sides of the jet ski.
It's magic hour.
It’s never been more magical than right now.
Moby turns off the jet ski’s ignition with a deft twist of his wrist, his breath deepening above me.
Deepening some more. His palms coast down my bare thighs, working their way back up to my hips, drawing my lower body higher and backward, so my bottom perches on his lap—and I let out a moan, because he’s so hard.
“Have I mentioned that your tight little butt makes me fucking crazy?”
I feign confusion, as if that rasped declaration hasn’t covered me in goosebumps and soaked my flesh. “It does?” I grind my hips in a circle. “I had no idea.”
“Yes, you did.” Moby’s head falls back on a loud groan.
“Good girl. Just like that. Ride it like you want my dick in your ass again.” He unfastens my life jacket with unsteady hands and hangs it up on one of the handles, his palms skimming possessively up my ribcage, those gigantic hands sliding up beneath the triangles of my bikini top, fondling my breasts like they belong to him.
They do. All of me does. I’m so attuned to him, I can’t believe I was existing before he walked up onto the beach.
Moby is my soul.
My heartbeat.
The focus of all my needs.
Wanting to arouse him past the bounds of his sanity, I lean forward, gripping the handlebars of the jet ski, continuing to work my backside on his thick protuberance, only now he has a clear view of my buns writhing on that ripe, ready part of him.
He lifts me for a brief second, only to yank his towel away, leaving me flush to his heavy shaft, nothing but my tiny yellow bottoms between us now.
“If we were in the room, I would suck you to the back of my throat, Daddy.”
His moan is so forceful, it makes my molars throb.