36. Pippi #2
A tear tickled my cheek. I swiped it away. But more followed.
“You can head to your goofy friends next door. Or stay here. I don’t care. I’m not giving up the bed, though.” He turned, leaving his bathroom stuff scattered haphazardly along the counter, and bulldozed past me. “Don’t wait up, babe. ”
And then he was gone, slamming the door shut behind him.
Two of the watercolor paintings on the wall bounced right off their hangings and crashed to the floor.
Ripping off a Band-Aid lashed some intense pain into your skin.
But after? Once the adhesive was gone and the sting had receded…
Relief.
Your flesh was clean and new.
The absence of pain left you wide eyed. Alive.
It was that rejuvenation that set me bolting out of my cottage at midnight, running down the cliff path—at a pace far too quick to be safe—and blurting to Alistair, “Let’s go. Please. Somewhere. Anywhere. Where it’s just the two of us.”
He hadn’t even said anything. I hadn’t given him the chance to.
But I’d felt him there—his happiness, and sorrow, and relief, and hope, and all the wonderful, tentative emotions he had. They’d cradled my heart as soon as I’d slid to a precarious halt in my usual spot.
His answer massaged my brain, healing the pain that’d been mounting all day. “As you wish, Pippi.”
I slipped out of my shoes and climbed the rest of the way down to him.
“Your clothing is lovely today,” he added. “It always is. But those colors. All of them. They’re…” he paused. Considering. “ Beautiful . But that’s not a strong enough word. And…and…your hair is different.”
I still wore the rainbow blouse and pink skirt from the boat tour—I figured there’d been no point in getting changed just to get fresh clothes soaked in the sea—and my hair was still twisted into the woven bun Elisabeth had done for me.
“Thank you.” I beamed as I clambered to my usual spot atop Alistair’s head.
“I should have told you earlier. About the clothes. But I…When you d-d-disappeared…When he pulled you. You were gone. And people were speaking… saying …someone was s-s-s-sick. And…I worried.” This was all said in a stuttering rush and accompanied by a residual sprinkle of fear.
Stars, he was so sweet.
I really, really, really liked him.
Too much.
“You’re sure he didn’t…hurt? He looked…ru-ro-rough,” Alistair continued.
“I’m okay. Really.” And, thankfully, my pulsating jaw was only a little red. The bone was definitely bruised, but the purple blotching hadn’t spread to my skin. With the way Alistair grumbled disbelievingly, he never would’ve bought my “no” if I’d said it while sporting a shiner.
“Honestly,” I insisted. “I’m fine.”
“He seemed a-angry.”
“He was. A little.”
“That was your boyfriend?”
“ Was . Yeah. Good choice of word, Alistair. Was. Although technically he might still be? It’s a long story.”
“Would you like to tell me?”
And I did.
Alistair took me to the other side of the inlet, where I sat on the cliffs, safely away from the sea, and he kept his head out of the water, resting it near me.
And I told him everything.
The fight s . Plural. Fights.
The breakup.
The aggravation. The frustration. The sorrow. The heartbreak. All of it.
I didn’t cry—pretty sure that well was bone dry—and the sound of my own voice as I spoke was eerie . I was too calm. Too detached.
But the anguish was there, circling my heart like a shark, waiting until I let my guard down before it swept in and consumed me.
“I’m so very sorry, Pippi.” Alistair blew out, letting his warm, fish-scented breath stroke my body.
I was shaking.
And I hadn’t even realized it.
I scooted over, pressing my hip into the side of his nose, wanting, needing , the contact.
He whiffled and nuzzled against me, giving what he could. “Is there anything I can do?”
I ran my hand over the coarse scales above his nostrils. “You could tell me that I made the right call, and I didn’t just demolish my life on a whim. Even if it’s a lie and you’re really sitting there thinking I messed everything up. Tell me…” My fingers trembled. “Tell me I did the right thing.”
“I think you did. And that’s not a l-lie, Pippi.”
“It just…we weren’t working. Together.”
“It doesn’t sound like it.”
“And I gave up so much of myself for Jackson. But it never felt like he was giving for me. And I was tired of our relationship being like that , all hollow and one-sided. Stars, what a selfish thing to say.”
“You are not . S-selfish,” Alistair huffed.
“I keep thinking it was kinder to let him go. But maybe it’s cruel? Oh, goodness, I don’t know.” My hand curled into a fist. “It just wasn’t working. And actually…the sex wasn’t even that good.”
A shocked laugh boomed out of Alistair.
“I’m being serious.” A grin tugged at my lips.
“I didn’t say you weren’t.” He wrestled to quiet his laughter. “I wasn’t e-e-expecting that.”
“I wasn’t expecting to say it. It just sorta”—I touched my hands to my chest and then threw them outward with a low bllllluuuggggh sound—“burst outta me. But yeah, it was pretty average. I mean, Jackson is hot ?—”
“Is he?” Alistair whiffed, as though I’d just rooted through the trash, pulled out some moldy five-day-old leftovers and called them art.
“ Yes . Very. Unfairly. And I liked looking at him, y’know? Liked feeling him. So I’d drink all that in. The sights, the feelings, the noises he’d make, everything . And I’d tell myself the sex was good. Great, even. When it was…”
One-sided.
Underwhelming.
“…bland.”
Bland.
Stars.
Could I have picked a blander word to describe the experience?
“Jackson never really cared about what I wanted,” I prattled on before Alistair could say anything.
“I gave him more flipping blowjobs than…” I shook my head, grunting in annoyance.
“But heaven forbid I asked him to go down on me. Or for any foreplay. Or even cuddling…he never cuddled. Ever. I cuddled him. But he never cuddled me back. And I love cuddling.”
This said as I moved even closer to Alistair, gluing every inch of my body to his head.
And he’d shifted closer to me, as though trying to do the same.
“I love c-cuddling too,” he said.
“It’s awesome, right? Jackson barely tolerated it.
And…” I scoffed. “Talking about all this now, it’s no wonder I had that dream about you.
My brain was trying to tell me something.
And you…I get that I don’t know you all that well, and I’m really, really sorry if this is crossing any lines.
You can tell me to shut up if it is. But I can’t see you leaving a woman hanging. If you know what I mean.”
“Ah,” Alistair cooed. “No. I would not, never, leave a woman h-h-hanging.”
“Didn’t think so.” I stroked his jaw, smiling when he purred. “This is getting weird, though. Isn’t it? I’m sure you don’t want to hear about my sexual blues. I’m sorry, Alistair.”
“It’s not,” he said. “Weird.”
“Only sad and pathetic, right?”
“No.” He nestled his nose more firmly against me. “I un-under…stand…understand. Pippi, you forget…I had a dream too.”
“Ah, that’s right. The one you said I was naughty in.”
“Hmmm. But you never c-c-confirmed if I was naughty in yours .” His eye shifted, fixating on my face. “Was I?”
That voice …
Combined with that intense stare that stripped right through my flesh and peeped into my soul… Goodness.
My belly quivered as heat flooded it, making me ache .
I laughed. Tightly. And it was a delicious torture as it vibrated through my body.
“You were,” I rasped. “Plenty naughty.”
“Oh, yes?”
“If you want more details”—I booped the tip of his nose—“I think we’ll have to agree on a fair exchange. You tell me the naughty things I did in your dream, and I’ll tell you what you did in mine.”
His nostrils billowed. “You r-r-rode me.”
Which…
I didn’t know what I’d expected him to say. But it hadn’t been that.
“I rode you? ”
“Yes.” A shudder quaked his body.
“I… Interesting. ” Hot. Okay. That was hot. Although… “I don’t quite think the mechanics of that would work.”
An image flipped into my head.
There and gone, in less than an instant. So fast, I couldn’t absorb it. But fragments of the flash lingered.
Me straddling the tall man from my dream. Riding him. Watching his sweat-slick body strain beneath me and savoring his anguished mewls and grunts.
Well…
I was officially, thoroughly, and uncomfortably , turned on.
“Anything can work. In a dream,” Alistair said.
“Yeah.” I gulped. “Guess so.”
“And you?” Alistair asked.
“Me?” I parroted dumbly.
“What naughtiness did I do? In your dream?”
“Oh. OH. I…We…we…There was…kind of a lot. But the bulk of it…you were…pleasuring me. Under the stars.”
“I was?” Alistair’s voice deepened. Roughened. “How?”
Stars. Help me.
“With your mouth.”
He rumbled, and his arousal plowed into my side like a javelin thrown by an Olympic athlete. It stole my breath, leeched every ounce of blood out of my head. All of it. Every single drop. It all rushed down, pooling between my legs.
Brains needed blood to operate.
Because otherwise, they blurted stuff like this: “Would you…since we both…you know…had wet dreams…would you wanna… not have them be dreams? Make them real?”
Alistair sucked in a big breath, one that fanned out the gills along the side of his neck.
“Obviously some things we can’t…but other things we can. Right? If we get imaginative. Would you want to?”
Blackness pooled across his eyes as his pupils dilated, almost choking out the orange. “I would love to.”
Thank the stars.
Because in the half a second between me finishing the question and him answering it, I’d started to feel mighty stupid. And almost predatory , propositioning him.
What was I thinking?
“But I want you in the water,” Alistair continued.
“Oh.”
“These rocks are n-n-narrow. I don’t want you to fall.”
“I mean.” I gulped. “We don’t actually have to do anything. I was…”
Wishing out loud.
Letting my ravaged emotions turn me into a horndog.
Alistair barked a pained-sounding laugh. “I want to. More than anything. I want to t-t-taste you.”
A tinny eeeeep squeaked out of me.
He chuckled.
“You can’t say stuff like that,” I muttered.
“Why?”
And I had no answer for him. Because if I told him I liked it—too much—he’d milk it for all it was worth.
But I think he knew anyway, with the way his delight coursed through me.
“The waters are calm.” Alistair rubbed his nose soothingly against me. “There are rocks you can hold on to. I can p-p-p-pleasure you. Like in your dream. In the water—you’ll be safe, Pippi. I promise.”
Safe.
He never needed to remind me of that. The security was there with him, always, wrapped around me like a cushy blanket. It was the only reason I clambered down the side of the cliffs, holding on to his nose for balance.
But some uncertainty snuck into that security blanket as I neared the bottom, where the water sploshed against the rocks.
I shook. My legs trembling, fingers numb, as I slid my panties down my leg. Not teasing or putting on a strip show, just fighting for composure and balance.
Alistair groaned softly.
I felt like the sexist stripper in the world, with the way Alistair watched me. With the soft noises he made. With the way his breathing deepened.
He rubbed his nose against me once the panties were gone, in a sweet, affectionate pet.
I folded my panties—actually took the time to tuck them into a neat little square—before I placed them on a rock. It was the few seconds I needed to convince myself that I really did want this. That Alistair really wanted it too.
And when guilt started circling my heart, reminding me that I’d only just broken things off with Jackson, I told it to stuff itself.