18. Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
Gina
A chain of small, forested islands arcs out from a rocky point, protecting a quiet bay beyond. I bring us around the back of the second island. There’s a little pocket of beach perfect for landing, and we splash out of the canoe and lift it onto the shore.
The island is about twenty feet wide in the middle, with a fire pit, a stack of firewood under a rough shelter, and a picnic table that’s been here for decades.
I’ve been here hundreds of times, but I explore the narrow trail running down the island's length with Benji, and it almost feels like the first time.
We look at blooming waterlilies off the tip of the south end, initials carved into a tree trunk, and a wooden box hanging on a tree trunk that serves as a nesting place for wood ducks.
“Not the kind of duck that got you,” I say, patting his arm. It’s just a feeble excuse to touch him.
Benji laughs and takes my hand. We walk back to the middle of the island, where we spread a picnic blanket out in the dappled shade.
“You talked about this spot in Vegas,” he says, sitting beside me. “Your mom took you out here when you were little.”
Those were some of my favorite memories. “She came out here a lot as a kid. As a teenager, too. Her initials are carved in one of these trees.”
“Weren’t you…?”
“Conceived here? I told you that?” I laugh. “She likes to say I was. Odds are higher that it was in the backseat of some dude’s pick-up, probably in Gallo’s parking lot. Never mind she was too young to be hanging out at a bar.”
We unpack our lunch, and I don’t know why this is true, but a simple ham and cheese sandwich tastes much better out here.
After we eat, we stretch out on the blanket, staring at the blue sky through the branches overhead, talking about everything and nothing.
Growing up in Havenwood and growing up in the Chicago suburbs.
First kisses and crushes. Coming out as bi to our accepting families.
School and struggle and work. If we talked about any of it in Vegas, Benji doesn’t seem to mind talking about it again.
Eventually, the heat of the day lulls us into a comfortable silence.
I stare out through the trees in the general direction of Happy Lake.
Maybe I can’t tell Benji why I’m marrying Milo until I have Milo’s permission, but would it be so bad to ask him to wait?
Would he be willing to stay if we had to keep us a secret for a year or two?
It feels like such a shitty thing to ask.
“Don’t,” Benji says softly.
I turn toward him.
“The working bee is going fine without you,” he says.
I forgot all about the working bee, but I smile ruefully. “Want to go for a swim?”
“Yeah.”
He doesn’t move when I get up. He just watches me kick off my shoes and pull off my socks.
I’m wearing a dark olive green bikini under my clothes, and when I shimmy out of my shorts and pull my T-shirt over my head, his eyes go all hooded, and his lips part in a way that makes me want to throw myself on top of him.
Instead, I start down the rocky beach where we landed the canoe, looking back over my shoulder. “Are you coming?”
“Fuck yes,” he mumbles.
The water is refreshing as I walk in. A little contented sigh escapes me. This is a perfect day.
I can hear Benji moving behind me, and belatedly, I wonder if he’s going to strip bare. He doesn’t have any swim trunks yet. He gave that paddleboard lesson in a pair of gym shorts.
I turn as he comes crashing into the water. He’s wearing his black boxer briefs and oh shit—he’s coming right at me and not slowing down. I shriek and run for it, but I’m already thigh-deep and he’s in shallower water.
He doesn’t exactly tackle me. At the last moment, he drops his arm so if I stand my ground, it’ll slip by me, and I’ll remain standing.
But I want to be taken under, so I relax into the tackle.
We come up laughing, Benji shaking water from his head like a dog while I push the hair plastered to my face back.
I try to dunk him, but he scoops me up and tosses me in.
My sides hurt from laughing, and my face aches from smiling, but it feels so good to play around.
Like the warm spring sun on my face after a long, cold winter.
But then he stops laughing, his gaze lowers to my mouth, and we’re no longer two goofy kids trying to dunk each other but a tangle of wet limbs and slick skin pulling closer, realigning as we catch our breath. Except I can’t seem to catch mine. My racing heart pounds louder in the quiet between us.
He cups my face, and his lips find mine. It feels so right kissing Benji. We fit so comfortably, like we’ve always been us even before we met. Like he’s the piece that had been missing from my life.
A yearning pull settles deep in me, and I need to be closer.
Maybe he can read my thoughts because he drops his hands under the water, slipping them under my ass so he can pull me up.
The noise he makes when I wrap my legs around his hips is desperate and tortured, and I get it.
The rock-hard feel of him between my legs has me gasping.
He reaches one hand between us to adjust himself, and when I look down in the clear water, I can see the head of his cock above the band of his briefs.
Tentatively, I rock my hips, dragging myself over his length. His fingers dig into my backside as he pulls me tighter against him, so I do it again and again, clinging to his shoulders for leverage.
“Fuck, Gina, you feel so good. Rub your pussy all over me. I want to watch you get off from it.”
My breath catches as I stare at him wide-eyed, but Benji thrusts against me, and oh, he feels so good.
He bends to kiss me as I rock against him, harder and faster, until little waves slap in the narrow gap between us.
The friction is unbelievably good, and there’s so much of him.
He slips his hands under my bikini bottoms, his hold on me tight.
It takes a shamelessly short amount of time for me to get close, for my rhythm to turn frantic. I’m gasping, panting, and his lips move along my jaw to a spot under my ear, and oh fuck. I bite off the moan, my thighs squeezing him tight as pleasure rolls through me.
He murmurs something—an encouragement, an endearment, whatever it is, I’m too far gone to tell.
I’m floating back to earth when he pushes his boxer briefs down and hikes me up.
“Look at us,” he whispers, so I do. The head of his cock slips over my bikini bottoms, right over my still throbbing clit, as he thrusts slowly against me.
“Oh my god.” Watching him rub himself against me is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen, and I can’t look away. To my surprise, pleasure builds until I’m coming again, hard and sharp this time, bucking against his tight hold on me, unable to stop myself from crying out.
“Oh, fuck,” Benji gasps, thrusting faster, more erratically. Then he’s coming, milky white fluid dispersing in the water between us with each thrust. He makes a contented noise as he slows to a stop.
When I look up, he’s watching me, a happy, sleepy look on his face.
I should say something, but I’m too sated to know what, so I pull him down to my lips.
We kiss for a long time afterward, as if neither of us is ready for the next part.
But we can’t stay in the lake forever. Eventually, we break apart and go ashore to dry off.
I lay on my stomach on the picnic blanket, Benji facing me on his side as he traces a finger slowly up and down my spine.
Lying here together as water droplets dry from our skin in the hot sun feels so good I could fall asleep.
I should pretend to sleep to avoid the conversation we need to have, but Benji doesn’t seem to be in a big hurry to have it, either.
My hair has dried by the time Benji moves.
He climbs over me, his knees bracketing mine, one hand braced next to my shoulder while the other gathers my hair and moves it aside.
His lips graze my neck, and I shiver, desire growing deep inside me again.
He starts at the back of my neck, kissing down every bump of my spine, repeating with his lips the path his fingers took.
Between my shoulders. Lower. The small of my back, just above my bikini bottoms. His mouth is warm and wet.
I want to feel it on my breasts, between my legs.
But he works his torturous way back up my spine.
When he reaches the base of my neck, he lays next to me again.
I lift my head to look at him. He’s on his side like before, propped up on an elbow. The black boxer briefs can’t hide that he’s as turned on as I am.
“What was that for?” I ask. Why wind me up and stop?
“We should talk about the lumberjack in the room first,” he says.
I roll onto my side and sit up, drawing my knees to my chest. I don’t like seeing that troubled look in his eyes, but nothing I can say about this will do anything to ease it. “Do we have to?”
“It’s complicated,” he says, ignoring my attempt at avoidance. “We’re married, which trumps your engagement, so I don’t feel too bad about kissing you by the campfire. But wet humping—”
This is serious, but I can’t hold in the laugh. “ Wet humping? ”
Benji sits up and laughs, too. “If we do it in the water, it’s wet.”
My face heats because I want to do it again in the water and on land. “Can’t argue with that logic.”
He sobers again. “It’s cheating. I think.
I don’t know because you aren’t sleeping with him.
You’re engaged to him, but you’re married to me.
You want me. Not him.” His brows pinch in confusion, but he shakes it off.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but maybe we need to stop or at least slow down.
And that’s really hard because I want to be inside you so fucking bad. ”
He’s not joking, but that abrupt admission shocks a tiny laugh from me. His expression clouds at that laugh, so I admit, “I want you, too.”