Chapter Twenty-One Nomi
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
NOMI
The sun never wants to let go of a Wildwood summer’s day.
The light lingers long after it’s set, the skies flaring from pink to orange to an electric violet lit from within.
When night finally does fall, the ink black wipes everything else away except streaks of neon and the glow of bulb-lit rides chirping for money.
The ocean is only visible by the suggestion of one, the roar of waves you can’t see until the moon finally rises, low and fat, wedging itself between dark water and darker air.
With sandals in one hand, and Julian’s fingers knotted in the other, I pull him gently down the beach toward the cottage.
We lost the others after the Runaway Tram Car, but then again, are you really lost when you’re hoping not to be found?
It’s easier, being with Julian alone. While Eve and Graham like him, too, I feel their smug amusement at my growing feelings when we’re all together.
It’s the most embarrassing of I-told-you-so’s.
The one time your mother was right that the playground bully pulled your pigtails because he likes you.
And a small part of me feels ashamed for forgiving him.
Because I have—I’ve completely forgiven him.
For the mean, judgmental things he’s said, for the way he fought the dispensary without understanding a damn thing about it.
For the way he kissed me like I was the most wondrous thing in the world, then declared war on everything I care about most the next day.
But all those things feel small compared to how I feel about Julian now.
He didn’t understand anything then, but I didn’t understand him, either.
Every glimpse I get of how his mind works, of how strongly he feels, I understand why he did what he did a little more.
It’s impossible to hate someone when you understand them.
I pause at the water’s edge, letting foam bubble between my toes. Julian’s face is turned to the sea. His strong features are softened by the dark, and he looks so pensive, it pulls at my heart.
“What’s wrong?”
A full beat passes, filled with the gentle shusssh of the water, while he thinks.
“Your life is so full. It makes me realize I’ve been doing everything wrong.”
“Hey.” I pull him toward me, his hair lifting on the whimsies of the wind. “Your life is full, too.”
He releases a low, pained huff. “Full of work, maybe. Full of expectations that I kill myself trying to exceed. Full of anger and bad feelings and—and loneliness.” He swallows as his eyes meet mine.
“But you’re doing it right. You have friends and a calling you believe in.
You have all this.” His eyes sweep across the rebellious blare of Wildwood’s lights behind us. “And I didn’t even know it existed.”
“Come on. You knew Wildwood existed.” I smile, because it’s easier than letting his words inside the small, lit room of my heart.
“I didn’t know that Wildwood existed like this.” Julian’s thumb runs lightly over my wrist’s pulse point. “And I don’t think it ever would have for me, without you.”
He lifts his other hand gently to my cheek, cupping it within his warm palm. “You make me realize how empty I was before I met you. And being with you, here, now, is the fullest I’ve ever felt.”
This time, I have no choice. The door to my heart slams open, and his words flood in, filling me with an aching, bittersweet relief that’s as difficult as it is beautiful, just like him.
Because I understand him.
Because I hurt the same way.
Maybe my life seems full to him, but that’s only because he’s come along and stepped neatly into the hollow space I’ve spent my adult life ignoring, filling it so completely, the edges brim with him.
Julian.
My face leans into his hand, my lips pressing softly into the cradle of his palm, kissing him there.
“Nomi,” he murmurs, his pupils dilating until there’s almost no blue left.
Just pools of hungry, pensive dark. He brings his other hand up to cup my face, his thumbs tracing the curve of my cheekbones, before he tilts my face up to his.
The soft velvet of his bottom lip slides across my own, and when our mouths open to each other, the muffled sound of want rising from his throat feels as much mine as his.
I sigh into him, and he breathes me in, like life.
The softness of our kiss contrasts with the fierce press of our bodies.
He gathers me into him, folding his arms behind my back, pressing us so tightly together his heartbeat thrums against mine.
The jut of my hips digs into his, my nipples studding, his cock pushing.
Everything in me clenches. I rake my fingers into his curls, gasping as he tilts my head back and devours my neck, the wet steam of his mouth leaving trails of rippling sensation across my collarbone, down my chest, beneath the round, heavy curve of my breasts.
I keen against this slick worship, my hips offering me up to him, again and again.
He groans, a quiet roar to match the ocean’s, and falls to his knees before me. He pushes the skirt of my short sundress up to my waist, eyeing me hungrily, before lifting his reverent face to mine. “Can I—”
“You can do whatever you want.” I dig my fingers into his hair, pulling his head back even further. “And you fucking better.”
His fingers grip me by the hips, hard, then usher me forward to his waiting mouth. Warmth builds around my clit as he exhales harshly into the thin cotton underwear, followed by the hard press of his lips against me, his teeth biting fabric and dragging it aside.
I moan, weakness pooling in the backs of my knees.
The first slide of his tongue feels like every dirty thought I’ve ever had. Standing on this dark public beach, my skirt pinned against my stomach, Julian on his knees, his hot, wet mouth kissing, licking, sucking my clit, I feel unmoored.
“Your cunt is so pretty, Nomi,” he murmurs into my crux, dragging his chin against me until I writhe against him. “And you taste—” he breaks off, groaning. “You taste like you’re mine.”
When every muscle in my core trembles, when I can barely stand, when I whimper and unabashedly grind myself against his chin, he whispers, “That’s right, that’s a good girl.” His hands grip my ass, hard. “Come on my fucking face.”
And I do, rocking into him, gripping him by his curly hair as every surge of pleasure entangles with the feeling of him, his mouth, his tongue.
The gasp chokes out of me as the orgasm blows through every synapse.
This time when the weakness hits, I melt into it, sinking to the ground.
His hungry hands guide me down until I’m on my knees before him, and he rocks my hips into his, the column of his hard cock notching perfectly against me.
Its presence sends another wave of aftershocks rioting through me.
I lift my dazed face up to his, my hands still enmeshed in his hair, as he lowers me onto my back.
The sand here is powder soft and still warm from the day’s sun.
It feels like a thousand pinpricks of pleasure against my skin as Julian settles his hips between my legs.
“You’re so beautiful, Nomi, you feel so beautiful, so perfect.
” He slides one arm beneath my neck, so that I can rest there, while the other slides down the rumpled bodice of my sundress.
He finds the vicious knot of one nipple through the fabric, pausing to rub circles around it, pinching it lightly between his fingers until I moan out his name.
“Was there ever anything so beautiful as my name on your lips?” His eyes are starrier than the night sky above us as he brings his forefinger to my mouth. He drags the pad of his finger against me, parting my lips, then diving in and kissing me as though jealous of his own hand. And I feel…
Precious. I feel right and good and perhaps just as obsessed with the man slowly grinding against me as he so clearly is with me.
“Julian.” His name floats up and out of me, landing in his hair, the shell of his ear, as he tries to meld our bodies together by sheer willpower alone.
“What do you want, Nomi? I’ll do anything.”
I bring his ear to my mouth and give the lobe a long, slow suck, relishing the way his entire frame trembles in response. “Take me back.”
He’s on his feet in an instant, and then I’m up, too, gathered into his arms as he carries me princess-style, once again, through the sandy dunes up to the beach cottage.
The conditions are infinitely better this time.
The lights are off, the others still out. Julian lowers me to my feet in the dark backyard, beneath the outdoor shower.
There’s something heady about Julian’s attention.
Intoxicating, even. It warms me up from the inside as it goes straight to my head.
I don’t feel quite like myself as I slip my sundress slowly off, and at the same time, I’ve never felt more quintessentially me.
Julian’s dark eyes watch it all, his lips parting on a small groan as I slide my saturated underwear off my body, leaving them in a pile by my feet.
I step forward and unbutton his shirt, marveling at the feverish heat of his chest, the soft smattering of dark hair nestled there, until the shirt slides off his shoulders, falling to the wooden deck beneath us.
His trunks are next, hampered only by the curve of his ass and the long jut of his thick, restless cock.
I slide my hand in the front, grasping him in my fingers, and ease the shorts down over his hips unimpeded.
His dick, already impossibly hard, swells further in my grip, and he exhales a small, helpless sound as I run my thumb over the head, sticky sweet with his own moisture.