SHORT STORIES 10 #2
His hand was warm on her elbow. When he guided her back until spray from the fall touched her shoulders, the dress went nearly sheer.
He reached out and eased one strap down her arm. "For the collarbone," he said. "Say stop anytime."
She did not say stop. Her nipples tightened hard against the wet cloth. He took more pictures. Then the other strap. She crossed her arms over her chest on reflex, then let them fall when he waited without touching her again.
"Tessa," he said, camera lowered now. "We can end here. These are already strong."
She should have ended there. She knew that with a clarity that almost hurt. Instead she heard herself ask, "What would the next version look like?"
His eyes held hers. "Honest. Still beautiful. Only if you want it."
"I want it," she said, and the words felt like stepping off a ledge she had been standing on for years.
He set the camera on a dry rock within reach and came back into the water.
This time when he pushed the dress down to her waist, she helped.
Cool air and mist touched her bare breasts.
Andre looked at her the way he looked through a lens, focused and almost reverent, and then he kissed the side of her neck.
She made a sound she did not plan. Her hands found his shoulders.
The muscle under his shirt was dense and real.
He lifted her easily. She wrapped her legs around his waist because the center of the pool was too deep to stand.
His mouth moved from her throat to the upper curve of her breast, then to her nipple, warm and deliberate.
She pulled his shirt up and over his head.
Wet skin met wet skin. When he dragged the rest of the dress away and hooked his fingers in her underwear, she nodded before he could ask.
The fabric tore slightly as it came free. She did not care.
Under the water she reached between them and freed him from his shorts.
Her hand could not close all the way around him.
The size of him made her breath catch, not with fear exactly, but with a sharp, hungry surprise.
She guided the head of him against her and rubbed, slick and ready in a way that embarrassed her even as it thrilled her.
"Not here," he murmured. "I want to see you."
He carried her to the shallow shelf where the stone was smooth.
She went to her knees in the wet without being told, took him in both hands, and brought him to her mouth.
She could only manage the first part of him.
The rest she stroked while she used her tongue, tasting clean water and skin.
Andre's hand rested in her hair but did not force.
When he eased her back onto the stone and settled over her, she opened her thighs and watched his face as he pressed into her.
The stretch burned and then melted into something fuller. He went slow, checking her with every inch. "Yes," she whispered when he paused. "Keep going."
He filled her until she felt claimed in a way her ordinary nights never quite managed.
When he was seated deep, he held still and let her adjust.
She rolled her hips first. The friction pulled a broken sound from her throat.
He began to move, long strokes that made the water slap softly around them.
She came faster than she expected, sudden and hard, clenching around him while her hands dug into his back.
After that she wanted more control. She pushed at his chest until he lay back on the stone, then straddled him and took him in again, inch by careful inch.
From above she could watch the place where their bodies joined.
The sight alone nearly undid her. She rode him with growing confidence, breasts moving, thighs burning, another climax building from a deeper place.
When it broke, she shook through it and kept moving, greedy now.
Andre sat up with her still in his lap, kissed her open mouth, then turned her onto her hands and knees at the edge of the pool.
He entered her from behind and the new angle made her cry out into her own arm.
His hands held her hips. She pushed back to meet him.
The rhythm went from careful to raw. When he finally came, she felt every pulse of it inside her, hot and unmistakable, and the feeling dragged a third orgasm out of her that left her limp against the wet stone.
For a long moment there was only breathing and the endless sound of the fall.
Then she heard the soft, familiar click of the shutter.
She turned her head. Andre had the camera again. She was still bare, still open, still marked by what they had done, mud and water on her skin. Panic flared, then tangled with something darker and more complicated when she saw his face. He was not mocking her. He looked stunned by her.
"I can delete them," he said at once. "All of them. Say the word."
Tessa swallowed. Her body still hummed. Her mind was already racing toward Greg, toward Thursday, toward the woman she had been that morning.
"Not yet," she said. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. "Just... get me back."
He nodded, set the camera down, and helped her find what was left of her clothes. The drive to the resort passed mostly in silence. When he stopped under the hotel portico, she got out before he could speak again.
In the elevator she caught her reflection in the brushed metal doors. Same face. Same body. Everything else rearranged.
In her room she stood under the shower until the water ran cold, washing sand and evidence from her skin while the truth stayed exactly where it was.
She had come to Jamaica to celebrate a marriage.
She had given herself to a man whose last name she did not know, under a waterfall that would look perfect in a frame.
And somewhere in a camera bag, there were photographs that proved it.