10. Unbothered
After Fred had been evicted from our cabin, Nikki whooped and cheered. “Holy shit, Gems! That was amazing! I’m so proud of you kicking his sexist ass to the curb like that!”
I smiled with relief. “I’m just glad it’s over.”
“Me, too,” said Jason, and he pulled me into a kiss that made my toes curl. I sank into his embrace as easily as sinking beneath the ocean waves, and let the current carry me towards a place without stress.
When at last we pulled apart, I could feel the intensity of Nikki’s stare from behind me. I gazed into Jason’s handsome face and said, “I think we have a little explaining to do.”
“What the FUCK?!” Nikki shrieked at a pitch so high, I was shocked I could still hear it. “What? When?”
“Nikki—” I began, trying to be gentle in my approach.
“Was this why you were out so late? Or was this a plan from the beginning? Did you arrange this whole thing with me as an alibi? Are you a schemer?”
“Breathe!” I took her by the shoulders and tried to hold her steady as she lost her grip on reality. Siti, still present at the hall to Nikki’s room, looked very confused by all that happened so quickly in front of him. “Siti, I’m so sorry for all this. If you don’t mind, can you wait in Nikki’s bedroom for a moment? I’ll return her to you soon.”
He nodded, relieved, and vanished down the hall.
I guided Nikki to sit on the edge of my bed. “I didn’t want to spring this on you, but it’s already done.”
“I wanted to tell you this morning,” said Jason.
“This morning?” she squeaked.
I grimaced. “So, when you brought Siti back last night, I had to escape because—again—the walls in here are not floor to ceiling and sound travels. So I went for a walk and ended up at Jason’s.”
“One thing led to another…” he added.
Nikki, eyes like saucers, gaped between us. “You slept together.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you just tell Fred that? He could have left so much quicker!”
“I wanted to make it as clear as possible that my ending things with him was not about falling into the arms of someone else, but because I was tired of being ignored, forgotten, dismissed. He needed to know that not only was it my choice to end our relationship, but that his actions pushed me away. He needed to hear me, to understand that I’m a fully formed human with thoughts and emotions and needs that were not being met. I don’t bow to him. Besides, it’s no longer his business who I’m with.”
She was silent, processing all the new information.
“You kept this from me all day.”
“I was going to tell you this morning, but you bombarded me with all that stuff about giving Fred another chance, and I got angry. Then you wanted to spend the day with Siti, so we had some time to figure things out.”
“What about Annie?” Nikki asked Jason.
“We’ve been separated for over a month. I called her a few hours ago to tell her I’m moving forward with a divorce,” he said.
She blinked at me and shook her head. “This is a lot to take in, and to be completely honest, Siti and I shared a brownie about an hour ago, and it kicked in just as you all walked in off the shore. I’m not entirely certain how much of this was real, or what I’ll even remember when I wake up tomorrow.”
“That’s a shame, because I am not doing that whole thing again just for you!” I joked.
“Yeah,” she said in a way that made me think that brownie packed more of a punch than anticipated. “Well, glad this finally happened,” she said, gesturing between us, “in spite of having to explodify your current relationships to do so. How long have I been nagging you about your feelings for each other?”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. Every chance you got from sophomore year on, whenever we crossed paths, I never heard the end of it.”
“It’s just sad to me that it apparently takes a decade for my advice to work on you. I’m sure you two would like to be alone, and I am going to ride out the storm with my beautiful and burly companion. Just a warning: I have no intention of keeping it down, so you don’t have a lot of time before it gets weird.”
I knew better than to ignore that warning, so I began to usher Jason to the door.
“Wait,” he said. “We don’t know if Fred’s still on your porch. If he sees us leave together in this downpour…”
“Same if you stay, though,” I add. Some low chuckling from the next room floated over the wall to us. “Take it from someone who lived with her through her horny college years, we do not want to stay in range much longer. I say we risk it out there.”
With a nod of agreement from him, I threw open the door and we ran out into the dark deluge. The rain fell in sheets, but at least it was warm. Together, we hurried to the narrow jungle path we’d made over the past few days, and slowed under the thick canopy where the rain fell in less of a torrent. Halfway through, I felt Jason’s hand take mine.
“I didn’t see him at all, did you?” he asked.
“No,” I shouted over the loud thok-thok of fat raindrops hitting thick palm fronds overhead. “I didn’t hear his voice, either, but I’m not sure we could have in this.”
We continued on and were at his resort in no time at all. At the door to his villa, he stopped me. “We’re soaked through,” he said with a quirky smile.
“Yeah? Here I thought my invisible raincoat was keeping me bone dry,” I replied, wringing out my hair on the porch. My sarong cover-up had become a translucent second skin on our trek, so anyone who caught a glance of me would not need to imagine my nude form. His turquoise linen shirt and off-white shorts had suffered a similar fate, though with far less intimate details revealed as mine.
“No, I mean that, while everything here is meant to withstand tropical island wear and tear, I’m not sure either of us are looking forward to sleeping in a bed that’s mildewing as we lie in it.”
“I assume you have towels.”
“I have an idea for before we use the towels.” With one eyebrow raised, he said all he needed to say to pique my interest. “Do you trust me?”
I nodded and took his hand once more. He guided me along the wraparound porch to the back of the building, similar to the one on Nikki’s and my villa that we just left. Here, though, when we reached the very back corner, there was a door Jason slipped his key into and opened. Behind the door was a walled-in courtyard similar to ours, except his was not only equipped with a shower and curtained daybed, but also with a private pool that glowed from below. One wall of the courtyard was entirely made of glass that looked into the villa, and appeared to be a stacked sliding door from end to end.
“How did I not see this last night?”
“There’s a room behind the bed, kind of like a gargantuan mud room. And we didn’t really leave the bed once we got in it, if you recall.”
The rain was lightening, and when I looked up, I saw that his courtyard had a screened roof to allow air and light in, but not bugs or debris. Rain could also pass through, as well, but at least we could be free of anything falling from the trees.
He led me in, made sure the door closed and locked behind us, and gave me a look filled with desire. Together, we pulled back the canopy curtains of the daybed and knelt on the mattress. It was certainly not as plush and fluffy as the one inside, but it was perfect nonetheless. Without any more words, I tore his wet clothes from him, and let them fall in a puddle on the stone slab floor. He struggled a bit with my sarong, the knot at the back of my neck becoming an indecipherable tangle, but eventually was able to peel the fabric from my skin. He did so much slower than I had, as if savoring the opening of a long awaited wrapped present, teasing out the moment second by second.
When we were both free of any stitch of clothing, I ran my hands over his chest, his shoulders, palms sliding easily over his rain-drenched flesh, pools of water gathering between my fingers. His fiery lips slid over my singing skin, over the rounds of my breasts, across my abdomen as he laid me down. My eyes closed, and I felt his strong hands caress up the length of my legs. He hesitated when he reached my hips, and for a moment, I wanted to feel him plunge into my depths. Instead, his mouth pressed against my belly, and his arms wrapped around my middle.
I rolled us over until I straddled him, and when I had him sitting up, he said, “I’m not letting anyone come between us again. Not Fred, not Annie, not even Nikki. There won’t be any room for doubt, either. I’m telling everyone that we’re together.”
I laughed and brushed his dripping wet hair back from his face. “Maybe wait until your divorce is finalized. I don’t know what kind of prenup you may have had, but something tells me that Annie won’t go down without a fight if she found out.”
“I don’t care. She can have my car, the house, as long as I’m free of her. I’m yours, Gemma. I should have said it all those years ago, but I’m saying it now. I’m yours.”
As delirious as it sounded, I felt the same. Maybe it was the rush of everything going to our heads, maybe it was being naked in a rainstorm with him so far away from everything familiar, or maybe it was true. In that moment, there was no way for us to know, and we didn’t care.
My body pressed to his, my knees clenched tight against his hips, I kissed him with my whole heart. I eagerly awaited the moment my body yearned for, but we remained upright, his hands cascading over my quivering flesh. One kiss placed on the nape of my neck renewed the flames in my belly. His lips massaged, his tongue danced, and my nerves buzzed with endorphins. I moaned in delight as his mouth traveled between my shoulder, throat, jaw, and back again. He squeezed both cheeks of my backside, and the pleasure of it shot through me like electricity.
Before I could settle onto him, his hand drew back over my hip and slipped between us. I gasped as his thumb grazed over my pearl, sending more shock waves through me, my body twitching with each one. With tiny circles and the occasional long stroke, he sent me careening through the swelling, surging tides of rhapsody. I gripped his shoulders tight, but each crest wracked me, my spine arched, head thrown back, hips writhing over him.
At last, he clutched my buttocks firmly with both hands, and I curled over him, my wet hair hanging in curtains around our faces. I kissed him in tiny, greedy pecks as he smiled up at me. “I like watching you twitch,” he sighed. “It’s irresistible.”
“I like the way you make me twitch,” I breathed.
“You want more?” he asked with a grin.
Again, I kissed him furiously. “I want all of you.”
I took him in, enveloped him from tip to hip, and a pleasant warmth rolled through me. This was more than some tropical fling, more than a passing affair with my college crush. That much was certain in the way we moved, the way his eyes studied my face as the exhilaration burned through my insides, the way he breathed my name and I melted into him.
Our skin was slick with sweat and precipitation, and our hands glided over each other’s bodies like condensation rolls down the outside of a cold glass in summer. My hips rocked forward and back, faster and faster as the pressure within me continued to build. Then suddenly, with confidence and command, Jason wrapped one arm around my torso and we rolled, and then he was above me. He kissed my lips, my neck, pulled my nipple into his mouth, each of these separate moments eliciting a different gasp or sigh of bliss from me.
He leaned up on his knees, gripped my hips and jerked me closer to him, his member thrust deep. With his hands, he pushed down along the inside of my thighs, slowly outward, until I was spread wide beneath him, my knees pressed into the mattress beneath me. As he held me firmly in place, he pulled himself back until he was at the edge, nearly free of me, and then with great force and sudden speed, he plunged into me as far as he could, his hips crashed into mine almost painfully. Slowly again, he drew back until his length threatened to pop free, and again, I yielded to him as he drove into me.
He gathered speed, hands tight around my legs as they pressed down with half of his weight. I watched his taught body undulate above me, shoulders and arms tensed and muscles taut, his hips appeared to be moving free of the rest of him, the shine of what little light fell upon us from inside the cabin made him glisten in the rain. The force of his movement, how he slammed against me with such effort that his breathing turned into labored grunts, made my flesh ripple outward, my breasts bounced, and I steadied myself by pressing both palms into the headboard.
The edges of my senses started to blur. My toes and fingertips tingled. Behind my navel, my insides twisted and pulled. My eyes rolled back. A great rushing sound rose in my ears.
Everything all at once expanded, exploded outward from my belly to the soles of my feet. I bucked wildly on the bed, unable to keep the grip on the headboard I had just secured. I trembled and shook, my vision reduced to the ever-shifting colors on the insides of my eyelids as I clenched them closed, my throat raw from the scream that ripped from somewhere deep within me.
Panting from the exertion, I sank back onto the firm mattress. Every few seconds, I shuddered as another aftershock of pleasure flew through my body, gradually decreasing in intensity as my heart slowed. Jason remained upright, shaking, eyes closed for a few moments longer, before at last he withdrew, and crawled forward to rest on my chest. Our skin cooled, still covered in sweat and rain, and I could tell that soon, we would be fused together in an exhausted heap of an afterglow. But I didn’t want him to move away from me. I was dizzy, elated, and in danger of falling into a state of mind too far removed from reality and responsibility. I wanted to let myself slide into it, to release myself from stress, from deadlines, from loneliness, and instead be wrapped up in a cocoon of sex and tropical breezes and warm rain. Holding onto Jason’s naked form as he lazily kissed me wherever his head fell somehow kept me grounded in spite of myself.
When the world stilled, Jason settled against my side and kissed along my shoulder and arm. The rain looked to be clearing up with drops falling less and less frequently as we embraced. My ears rang, my hands and feet prickled, and my shoulders relaxed fully for the first time in months. I rolled over to face him and found his cheeks flushed, hair in wild disarray, and a lazy lopsided grin on his lips.
“I haven’t been this content in so long,” I said. “I can’t even remember the last time I felt like this with another person.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
We remained in the afterglow for some time. The rain had stopped, and tiny droplets shook free from the screen overhead, occasionally dripping onto our bare bodies. I gazed at him through the darkness, the only light coming from a single lamp near the front of the cabin, barely peeking through the glass wall. It made the water in his hair and on his skin glisten and twinkle. He looked like someone I conjured up in a dream, but he’s real, and I can touch him and stroke his hair and kiss his mouth.
“It’s a wonder the human race has survived for millennia, because all I can think about is touching you. How could anyone think of anything else?” he said.
“At least we can ignore everything else for the next thirty-six hours and stay in bed like you wanted.”
His smile faltered. “I forgot you’re leaving so soon.”
“When’s your flight back?”
“A couple days after yours.”
I sighed, thinking about all of the things waiting for both of us when we got home. Both of us needed new places to live, which required both the finding of and the moving of all our belongings to the new places. Then, there was the possible confrontation regarding the breaking of my lease, and how Fred would inevitably try to remove himself from any and all responsibility for it. Plus, of course there was Jason’s divorce, which I couldn’t imagine would be very quick, if I knew Annie at all.
But most of all, once we left this island, how long would all that take? With both of us needing new homes, would it be foolish to start our relationship already living together and claim it was our way of being economical? Or would that make things worse? And if we did get separate places and ended up spending the majority of our time only at one, would that be the foolish choice for wasting money?
And now that I at long last had what I wanted, could I wait much longer for all of that to be finalized before we could have our happy ending? Because I wanted to start that chapter of my life as soon as possible.
I closed my eyes and kissed him sweetly, savoring the softness of his lips, and pushed all worries of the future away. For the next thirty-six hours, all that mattered was the two of us here in paradise.
“So,” he said, as the afterglow ebbed away, “what happens when we get home?”
I couldn’t help but laugh.