Chapter 10 #2
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” she said, voice so low I doubt anyone else on the beach could have heard it.
“I always do.”
A silence pulsed between us.
Then, fuck it, I let myself touch her. Just the tip of my finger, grazing the inside of her thigh, and I watched her eyelids flutter.
She angled her hips just a little, inviting it.
I traced a lazy circle over her skin. The sweat beaded there. I could have spent all day mapping the nerves just under her surface.
Maybe she would have let me, if the others weren’t a hundred yards away.
She swallowed, throat working. “You’re not supposed to touch me.”
“Why not?” I didn’t move my hand.
“Because it’s not fair,” she said, her voice hot and crumbling.
I snorted, fingers pressing down, just a shade firmer. “Nothing about this is fair.”
Her eyes snapped to mine, and for a second I saw the old Amelia, the one who would claw your eyes out before she’d let you win. “You don’t get to be the victim, Caiden.”
I grinned, couldn’t help it. “Maybe I just want to see if you’ll stop me.”
She didn’t. We both knew she wouldn’t.
The heat between us swelled.
I let my hand drift up, skating under the edge of her suit, just a millimeter, just enough for her to know I could.
I could have gone further, could have slipped my fingers under the suit and tasted her right then and there.
But I didn’t. I just let the need build, let it chew me up from the inside, let her feel what it did to me.
I was the monster, always. But right then, she wanted the monster.
She sucked in a breath, and I felt the tremor of it through her whole body. “You’re shaking,” I said.
“So are you,” she shot back, and I realized I was.
I didn’t break the stare. I let her see the hunger, the violence of it, the way the want inside me was a black tide, and she was the only thing keeping my head above water.
I wanted her to flinch, to recoil, to hate me for the monster I was.
But she didn’t. She just stared back, eyes bright as a snapped cable, lips parted.
If I moved my hand two inches higher, I could ruin her.
If she said stop, I would. I think I would. But she didn’t.
We sat like that, shadow and sun, until the others knotted back in a cluster down the sand, Sabrina’s laugh exploding like fireworks.
I jerked my hand away, pretending to scratch at my knee, and sat up straight, jaw set.
She rolled on her side to face the ocean, but I could see the blood rising in her cheeks.
She didn’t say anything, and neither did I. But I knew she remembered the touch. Her body did, if nothing else.
It was the closest I’d been to happiness since before the world went to shit.
Shane dropped next to me, shaking sand from his arms. “You good?” he said, in that way brothers do when they already know you’re not, but want you to lie anyway.
“Sure,” I said. My voice sounded like chalk dust and broken glass. “Never better.”
Amelia stood and excused herself. “I’m going into the water. I need to cool off,” she said, but her eyes drifted to me when she said the last part.
She bent over to pick up her towel, the curve of her round ass impossible not to notice. The blue fabric rode up so tight it looked painted on.
I bit down the whine in my throat. She knew I was watching, and she wanted me to. I’d never hated her more, or wanted her so badly.
It was almost funny, the way I could bench press twice my weight but was powerless against the sight of her, the way her body moved.
I wanted to dig my thumbs into that soft flesh, leave a mark, something to prove she was real and not just another hallucination born out of deprivation and want.
But the others were watching, and I was tired of being the punchline to my own sick punchline life.
Instead, I cracked another beer, let the foam run over my knuckles, and watched the horizon until she was just a flicker of movement in the blue.
"Jesus," Shane said, rooting through the cooler for something cold. "You ever gonna ask her out, or just stare until your eyes fall out?"
"Fuck off," I said, lazy, not even mad. It was fair.
I was a creep, and I knew it. Only when it came to her, though.
He shrugged, the corners of his mouth twitching in a not-unfriendly way. "Just saying, man. There’s wanting something, and there’s torturing yourself."
I didn't answer. I watched the tide. I watched Amelia dive under a wave, hair slicked back, arms flashing in the sun.
She surfaced, breathless, and as she came up for air, she arched her back, hair streaming behind her, and for a second, all I could think about was how her neck would taste, how her spine would flex under my hands if I pressed her down.
But instead, I sat and let the hunger rot me alive, because that’s what I deserved.
My mouth went dry. I’d have killed for a cigarette or something to take the edge off, but there was nothing in the world that could dull how badly I wanted to get my hands on her.
She was the only thing I’d ever wanted that made me feel alive instead of just less dead.
I kept my eyes on the horizon, but every cell in my body tracked her as she swam, as she waded out, the ocean sluicing down her thighs, the blue suit dark and clinging, the curves of her body carved out like sculpture.
She came out of the water, dripping, skin goose-pimpled from the chill, and she was so fucking alive it hurt to look.
She didn’t come straight back to our towels. Instead, she stood with her arms stretched up, letting the air dry her, her nipples outlined through the suit, her hair wild and tangled down her back.
She peeled the suit up to adjust it, the movement casual but so intimate it made the world tilt sideways for a second.
I felt my fingernails dig into my palm. I’d left marks there before, just to keep myself from grabbing her when I shouldn’t.