day three, june 26th
We’d slept on the boat. I woke to the water still moving under us, Skye already up and leaning over me.
“Sugar Cane, get up,” she whispered, pressing a light kiss to my mouth.
Before she could pull back, I caught the back of her neck and brought her down again.
I pressed my lips to hers, slow, and when she sighed into it, I took more.
Tongue, teeth, my hand gripping her neck right where she liked it. She arched into me.
“Hmm.” She pulled back. “No, we gotta get up.”
“Mm. Why would I do that when I got you back in my arms?”
She showed me her phone. The app had pulled up the day’s first pick. Four-wheelers in the mud. I looked at her, and she looked back, already bright and ready for whatever it threw at us.
“The week is about me, correct?” She drew hearts on my arm without looking up.
“It’s always about you, Spot. Let me feed you first.”
We ate breakfast on the boat before we docked, the island glowing across the water in the early light. I held up a piece of mango, and she leaned in and took it without breaking her sentence. Skye Campbell didn’t let anybody take care of her. She’d always let me.
“You’re too good to me. Come on. I need some excitement.”
We docked and walked back through the marina hand in hand. Shit had changed since the boat. I was happy as fuck about it.
She stopped at the garden she had clocked the day before and took her time moving through it. I stood back and let her work.
Skye picked up a stem, held it against another, and put one back. She kept going like that, deciding what belonged and what didn’t, building an arrangement out of whatever was in front of her.
I thought about what she’d told me yesterday. Some part of me had always known we’d have to fight to keep what we had. Skye had already lost too much at a young age: her parents, her whole sense of home. I shook it off before it could pull me all the way under and looked back at her.
My jaw tightened thinking about her sitting through that Christmas dinner with her mind already made up, carrying it alone. There was a lot I still didn’t have words for. I’d save it for my run. My mind did its best processing when I ran. Right now, Skye had all of me. The whole week was hers.
She looked up from her arrangement and found me watching her.
“What?” she asked, hiding the sun from her face with a smile.
“Nothing.” I pushed off the wall. “You ready?”
She looked at the bouquet in her hands, adjusted one stem, and held it up for my opinion.
“Perfect.”
She grinned, and we kept moving.
“Have you ever had such a perfect morning? Well, since you lost me, of course?”
I laughed, sliding my arm around her shoulder and pulling her close. “Skye, I can assure you I’ve been living in misery. Down bad. Dick in the dirt.”
“Good, that’s what I like to hear,” she laughed with a wink. I shook my head.
We continued the short walk back to the resort. She headed toward her villa, and I fell into step beside her. A sadness washed over me at the thought of us separating after such an amazing time together. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep without her tonight.
As if she could read my mind, she turned and stopped at her open door with her key in hand. “Actually.” She paused. “Can you have my things moved to your villa?”
I stepped up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist. She leaned back into me without hesitating.
“Done,” I said into her hair. “Anything else?”
“Don’t make it a whole thing. I’m just trying to save you some money in this economy. Just say thank you.”
“Yeah, okay, thank you so much,” I joked, tapping her on the ass.
She turned her head to speak, but I kissed her neck before she got the words out. I felt her exhaling, the words getting stuck in her throat.
“What’s gotten into you?” I asked.
She shrugged.
“This is moving forward. That’s what we want.” She paused. “You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”
I kissed her neck again, lower this time.
“Never.”
She stood there for another second just breathing, and I held her until she straightened up and put her key away.
“Go on,” she said, pushing me toward the door. “I need to get dressed, and I can’t do that with you looking at me like that.”
I kissed her temple and let her go.
Outside her door, I pulled out my phone and called Lola.
“Need you to get the resort to move Skye’s things to my villa. All of it. Today.”
“On it.” A pause.
“What?”
“Just happy for you. I can’t wait to meet her.”
“Lo, you’ll love her but stay out of my business,” I laughed, and so did she.
When we hung up, I quickly changed into cargo shorts and a tank top. Within twenty minutes, I was back and stepping into her villa.
Skye came around the corner in biker shorts with the split up the crack, the cropped top not helping my situation either. She had her hair braided back, and when she bent to slip her shoes on, I damn near fainted.
I looked her up and down twice. Skye always had a body, but this was different. Fuller. Her hips had spread, her thighs thicker than I remembered, everything a little softer and a lot more woman. Time had filled her out in all the right ways; it had been good to her.
“Do I need to tell you not to kill yourself today? No war wounds, Skye.”
“You are no fun, but I’ll be on my best behavior. I’m no spring chicken anymore.”
“You stiff now, Skye?” I asked with my brow raised and a smirk on my face.
“Wouldn’t you like to find out?”
The staff arrived to start moving her things, and we headed out leaving them to it.
The four-wheeler trail was twenty minutes from the resort, wound through dense green, and opened into stretches of wet red earth.
They handed us helmets and ran through an orientation that Skye stopped listening to after the first minute because she had already located the throttle and was done with instructions.
She took off before I finished adjusting my helmet. I groaned and went after her wild ass.
An hour of mud, noise, and Skye hitting every puddle at full speed, looking back to make sure I saw it had my nerves on edge.
She was not cautious. Not careful. Just fully in her body and fully alive.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Covered in mud, laughing at everything, going faster than she needed to because she could.
She pulled up beside me at a clearing with her helmet pushed back, face streaked with mud.
“I won,” she screamed, arms up, giggling.
“It wasn’t a race, Speedy Gonzales.”
“I still won.” She pushed her helmet back down and took off toward the kiosk.
She was still giggling when I led her toward the private showers I’d added to the day.
“That was so exhilarating. I might do that more when I get home. I need a farm.”
“I’ll get you a farm, but no four-wheelers. You too damn wild, Spot.”
“Oh please, you’re just a scaredy cat. Always have been. Remember the Holiday World fiasco?”
“It wasn’t a fiasco. I made an informed decision not to break my damn neck and back on a water slide.”
She looked back at me over her shoulder. “Why do you always think of everything, Brain?”
“I don’t move behind the eight ball anymore. Stay ready, and you don’t have to get ready.”
She rushed into my arms. I grabbed her by the bottom of her ass, carrying her the rest of the way.
“It’s just showers, bae.”
She twisted her lips at me for playing it down. “Ducane, I want to reject this so bad. But I can’t, and I can’t stand it,” she whispered against my lips.
“You can’t get rid of me this time. Seems like I won.”
She grabbed my face and kissed me so passionately I had to lean her back against the glass door.
“That must mean I did a good job.”
“You did good. This is some romantic, fly ass shit.”
The shower station sat at the end of a wooden path that curved off the trail and disappeared into the trees. Private didn’t cover it. The platform was walled on three sides by dense green, the rainfall head above us wide enough for two, the water hot and soothing straight out of the tap.
I set her down on the bench and caressed her neck. She leaned into my hand and looked up at me.
“Always the brightest star in the sky,” I murmured.
She stood and began removing her clothing.
“Well, don’t just stand there. Strip.”
I pulled my shirt over my head and caught her watching. She wasn’t hiding it, eyes moving over me, lips parting just enough. Her breathing had already given her away, and mine wasn’t holding up much better.
I stepped out of the rest of my clothes. She was bare already, standing against all that green. When I stopped to take her in, she let me. Gorgeous. Sexy. Soft. Mine.
I guided her underwater, grabbed the soap and two loofahs, and handed her one. We took our time cleaning each other, laughing about the mud turning up in places it had no business being. Her laughter eased my mind.
She reached to pull me down for a kiss but stopped once our lips were inches apart.
“Do you want to fuck me, Ducane?”
“Do you want me to fuck you, Skye?”
She looked at me under heavy lids, those bedroom eyes that always did me in. I kissed her ear. “Yes or no, Skye?”
My hand was traveling down her side, over her stomach. I slid two fingers between her legs, warm, eager, and ready. She pulled in a sharp breath when I stroked her swollen bud.
“Tell me what you want,” I said against her neck, still moving my fingers.
“Yes. I want you so bad.”
“How does the princess want it?” Her eyes were fluttering, walls clenching around my fingers. The water poured over both of us. “Stay with me, baby.”
“Save the soft shit for later,” she panted, catching her first orgasm. I kissed her lips roughly until she pushed me back and turned around.
“Your wish is my command.”
I grabbed her braid and entered her from behind. She arched into it the second I was inside her, same greedy pull she’d always had for me. “Gahdamn.”
“Shit,” she moaned, bending forward, throwing her ass back.
I gripped her waist with both hands, slowing her down.
I was taking my time getting reacquainted with every inch of her.
She reached back and grabbed my thigh. I took that as the signal to move.
The water came down hot. Skin on skin mixed with the rainfall, the trees, her breath catching every time I pulled her back into me.
I pulled out and turned her around to face me.
“I wanna eat this pussy, Skye. Can I do that?” I palmed her breast and rolled her nipple between my fingers. “I need an answer.”
She was still being hardheaded, so I took her nipple in my mouth, flicking my tongue over it, and looked up at her while I did it.
Her head had dropped back, lips parted, that grip she had on her own composure slipping right in front of me.
She was close to giving me whatever I asked for, and she knew it.
“Ducane, baby, yes. You can do whatever you want.”
“That’s my girl. Was that so hard?”
I grinned, bending down to lift her legs over my shoulders. With her juicy pussy in my face my control snapped. I dove headfirst, kissing her clit before lightly sucking on it.
Both her hands were on my head, guiding me. I slipped my tongue between her walls, and she rode my tongue like a pro.
“That’s right, baby, fuck my face. I love that shit.”
“Ducaneeee,” she called out, pushing my head away but also arching into my tongue.
“I’m right here. Talk to me.”
I had to be back inside her. I pulled her up, spun her, and pushed in from behind, and we both groaned when I bottomed out. Back where I belonged. I dropped my head onto her shoulder.
“I missed you so fuckin much, Skye.”
Her walls tightened around my dick. Her whole body told me what her mouth was about to say before she said it.
“Shit, I’m about to cum again.”
“Well, don’t be stingy; give that shit to me, princess.”
I gripped her braid tighter, giving her exactly what she asked for, no soft shit. She came apart against the glass. The water beat down my back as our bodies slapped together, making the sweetest symphony.
“Fuck baby, this pussy feels so good to me, shit.”
I came right behind her, gripping her like I could erase every year I wasn’t the one doing this. The thought of anybody else having had her while I was gone damn near broke me. I pushed it down and held her tighter. Mine. She was mine again, and I wasn’t going anywhere.
We stood under the water together after, her back against my chest, both of us still breathing hard, neither of us in a hurry to move.
I reached past her and turned the water off.
The resort had left thick, white robes on the hooks at the edge of the platform. I wrapped her in one before I put on my own. She tied the belt, pushed her wet hair back over her shoulder, and looked at me without regret.
“You good?” I asked.
She reached up and straightened the collar of my robe.
“I’m good, Sugar Cane.”
We walked back through the trees toward the resort in the late afternoon light. I held her hand the whole way.
“That was amazing.”
“Hell yeah, it was, but which part?” She grew bashful and hid her face in my chest. I pulled her all the way in and held her there for a second. This woman. Still blushing.
“Both,” she giggled.
“So damn goofy. Are you enjoying yourself, beautiful?”
“Yeah.” She looked up at me. “I am. We need a nap. I’m beat.”
“Shit, same,” I said, leading her back to our villa.
Ours.