31. Hunter
Hunter
The hotel room door closed behind us.
The afternoon light was coming through the balcony doors — warm, gold, falling across the bed and the tile and her body. She was standing in the middle of the room. Her sarong loose around her hips. Her bikini top still damp from the sea. Her skin already golden from the sun. Salt in her hair.
The sun and the sea had stripped away whatever New York had layered on her and what was left was Jess — golden and salty and bright-eyed and standing three feet from me and I couldn't wait to get my hands on her.
She'd never looked more beautiful.
She was looking at me the same way. Her eyes moving down my chest. My board shorts low on my hips. My skin dark from weeks of sun and salt water. Her lips parted.
I stepped forward and my fingers found the knot of her sarong at her hip and I pulled the loose end through, slowly, until the fabric loosened and fell to the floor around her feet. Her bikini bottoms were underneath — black and simple, the small ties knotted at the points of her hips.
My hands moved up to the strings of her bikini top behind her neck and I pulled the bow at the back, and the straps fell forward across her shoulders and the fabric loosened across her breasts, and I caught it before it could fall and slid it off her arms and dropped it on the floor at our feet.
Her breasts were full and warm in the afternoon light, the tan lines from the bikini drawn pale across her skin, her nipples tight from the cool of the air against the wet of her.
I ran the pad of my thumb across one slowly, the slow drag of my thumb over the peak.
Her breath hitched and her stomach pulled in.
Her hand came up and closed around my wrist and held on.
I untied the knot at one hip and then the knot at the other, and the fabric fell, and she was bare in front of me.
Her hands found the waistband of my board shorts and pushed them down, her palms flat on my hips and her fingers dragging over my skin on the way down. I stepped out of them and she came closer until both of us were pressed against each other in the quiet of the room with the sea moving below us.
I took her hand and led her to the bathroom.
I turned the water on in the shower and steam came up off the tile. I stepped under it and pulled her in after me.
The hot water hit my shoulders and ran down my back. My muscles releasing. Her body against my chest — her breasts pressing into me, her skin hot and wet. Her hair going dark under the spray. The salt washing off both of us.
I reached for the soap. Worked it between my hands. Put my palms on her shoulders.
I washed her slowly. My hands moving over her shoulders, down her arms, my fingers tracing her wrists.
The soap running in white trails over her golden skin.
I turned her around. My hands on her back — the muscles along her spine, the curve of her waist, the dimples above her hips.
My palms flat. My fingers spreading. Every inch of her.
My hands learning her again after weeks of reaching for her in the dark and finding nothing.
I turned her back to face me. My hands moved to her chest. I cupped her breasts, my thumbs tracing slow circles over her nipples, the soap slick between my palms and her skin.
She closed her eyes. Her head tipped back into the spray.
Her mouth opened. A sound — low, quiet — that went straight through my stomach.
My hands moved lower. Her ribs. Her stomach. Her hips. I knelt on the tile. The water running over my shoulders. My hands on her thighs — washing, slow, the inside of her thighs where her skin was softest. She braced her hand on my shoulder. Her breathing changing above me.
She pulled me up. "My turn."
She took the soap. Worked it between her palms. Her hands on my chest — slow, deliberate, her fingers spreading over my pecs, finding the grooves between muscles, tracing the ridges of my abs.
Her palms slid down my stomach, and my muscles contracted under her hands.
Lower. Her fingers followed the line of hair below my navel.
Her hand closed around my cock — gently, the soap slick, her grip warm and firm — and my head dropped back, and a groan pulled out of my chest.
She stroked slow. Her hand moving on me while the water ran over us.
Her other hand on my hip. Her eyes on my face — watching me, reading every reaction.
My hips pushed into her grip. My jaw locked.
My hands found the wall behind her — braced, my arms on either side of her head, my body leaning into her hand.
"Jess —"
She kissed me. Her mouth on mine. Her hand still on me. The water between our lips. I kissed her back — deep, hard, my tongue finding hers, my hand sliding from the wall to the back of her neck and pulling her in.
I took her hand off me. I couldn't wait any longer. My body was tight and aching, and I'd been without her for weeks, so her hand on my cock was going to end this before it started.
I pressed her against the tile. Gently. My hands on her waist. Her back met the cool wall, and she gasped.
My mouth found her neck — kissing, tasting, the salt and the clean water and the skin underneath.
My hand slid between her thighs. My fingers finding her — wet, swollen, her hips rocking forward into my hand.
I circled her clit with my thumb, and her whole body jerked.
Her hand grabbed my shoulder. Her nails digging in.
"Hunt — God —" Her voice broke. Her hips pressed into my hand. "I need you. Inside me. Now."
I lifted her. Both hands under her thighs. Her legs wrapping around my waist — tight, her ankles crossing behind me, her arms around my neck. Her back against the tile. Her forehead against mine. Her eyes open. The water running over both of us.
I reached between us. Positioned myself and pressed in slowly. The head of my cock pushed into her and her breath caught. I pressed deeper. Her fingers dug into my shoulders. Her eyes widened. Her body stretched around me — tight, hot, the grip of her almost too much.
I held still. Both of us breathing. Her legs tight around my waist. My arms shaking from the hold. Her heartbeat hammering against my chest.
"Okay?"
"Yeah." A breath. Her hands sliding to my face. Her palms on my jaw. Her thumbs on my cheekbones. "Move, Hunt."
I moved. Slow. My hips rolling into hers. Her breath leaving in time with each stroke. Her palms on my jaw. Her eyes on mine. My eyes burned. My throat tightened. I kept moving.
"I missed you." The words rough. Between breaths. My forehead against hers. "Every night. My body ached for you. Every night."
Her eyes spilled over. Her thumbs pressed into my cheekbones. "I'm here. I'm right here."
I pulled back and drove in deeper. She gasped.
Her back arching off the tile. Her breasts pressed further against my chest. I found a rhythm — slow, deep, each thrust pressing her up the tile and pulling a sound from her throat.
My hands gripping her thighs. Her hands on my face.
The water pounding our shoulders. The steam thick around us.
My pace built; I couldn't hold back. Her breathing quickened, and her body tightened around my cock.
Her hips rocking to meet mine — harder now, urgent, her heels pressing into my lower back and pulling me in.
The sounds she was making — louder, higher, desperate — hitting my chest and my stomach and the base of my spine.
I slid my hand between us. Found her clit. Circled with my thumb in tempo with my hips. Her whole body went rigid. Her legs locked. Her fingers pressed hard into my shoulders.
"Hunt — I'm — oh God —"
Her head tipped back against the tile. Her throat bare.
The water running down her neck and between her breasts.
Her body clenched around me — tight, pulsing, her stomach contracting, her thighs gripping — and she said my name.
Broken. Raw. Her back arched off the tile, her mouth opened, and the sound that came out of her echoed off the wet walls.
I followed. Her body pulling me over. My forehead dropped to her shoulder.
My hips drove forward — once, twice — and the release hit.
My vision went white. My arms locked. My body pressed hers against the tile, and I shuddered — deep, wrenching — my cock pulsing inside her while her hands held my face.
We stayed like that for a while. Just holding each other until the water cooled. Her heartbeat slowed against my chest. Mine slowed against hers. Her fingers in my hair.
I ordered room service while she padded across the carpet, pulling on the t-shirt I had been wearing on the boat that morning.
Her hair was wet and dark, and when she turned around in the doorway of the bathroom in nothing but my shirt, I had to take a slow breath through my nose to remember what I was supposed to be doing with my hands.
I pulled on a pair of shorts. I slid the balcony door open and the sea air came in warm and salt-thick across the room, and the late afternoon light had begun the slow gold turn it made over the Coral Sea every day at five.
When the food came, she climbed onto the bed and folded her legs up under her against the pillows with a plate balanced on her lap and ate the way I suspected she hadn't eaten in weeks because I hadn’t.
Small, fast, hungry bites, the fork moving without ceremony, her free hand cupped underneath to catch the crumbs.
I sat across from her with my back against the headboard and my plate at my hip.
I watched her eat for a minute before I said anything. "Tell me," I said.
She stabbed a shrimp. Ate it. Stabbed another one.