His mom finally wished him well and hung up, so he wandered back into the living room, his damp pajama pants clinging to his calves. Kelsey was in the kitchen cleaning up, wearing one of his shirts and nothing else. It was stark white against her tan skin, long-sleeved, and reached almost to her knees. She’d rolled up the sleeves and only fastened a few of the buttons, so the V at her throat left just the first swells of her breasts exposed.
She looked at him and smiled, wiping off the counter. Maybe she
was
bored. They hadn’t been messy. “What is it?”
He’d been staring. “Just admiring my shirt.”
“Oh.” She laughed, glancing down at herself. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“How could I? It looks better on you than it ever could on me. In fact, you should only wear my clothes from now on.” He approached her and drew her close. Her arms went around his waist, and he gently smoothed her hair back with both hands, gazing down at her upturned face. Her eyes matched the skies outside. Stormy gray.
“You’re wet,” she said, stroking the bare skin of his back.
“You’re beautiful.”
Kelsey’s soft pink lips curled. “How is your mom? I haven’t seen her in a long time. I guess the last time was…well, when I saw her out having lunch with Courtney.”
“When was that?”
“Oh, way back. Before. You know.”
“Yeah. She’s fine. She sends her love, and asks you to please keep me in line.”
“How am I doing so far?”
“I think I’m pretty well lined out, don’t you?” He pulled her closer so she could feel exactly what her nearness did to him, and she giggled and swatted at him.
“You’re insatiable!”
Only for you
. “You’re not tired of me already, are you?”
“God, no.”
“Good. Because you know, rainy day, nothing to do, stuck here all morning…I can think of
lots
we could do right now.” He trailed a finger down between her breasts, and her eyes closed.
“Are you sure this is something we should get into?”
His movements stilled, and he stared at her until her eyes slowly opened. Maybe she’d heard him after all. “I think it’s a little late for that question. What’s on your mind?”
“I know you said nothing we do together could be wrong, and I want to believe that, but…”
“How
can
it be wrong, honey? We’re both free to do whatever we damn well please.” He looked her hard in the eyes, trying to delve in there, trying to get to the heart of her protests. But she managed to elude him every time. “Aren’t we?”
“It’s all so messed up. You’re my best friend. This was supposed to be your honeymoon with another woman. You were our best man, and that in itself to me screams
strictly
off limits. There’s just so much…”
“Why don’t you forget about what might be considered ‘wrong’, or what might look strange in the eyes of other people, Kelsey, and focus on how you feel. Does it feel wrong to
you
?”
“I…I don’t know. I feel like I’ve lost you in some capacity.”
“What? How?”
“It’s hard for me to explain. But it’s like you’re gone as my friend now. And you’re here as…something else, and I haven’t gotten used to it yet.”
He caught her face between his hands. “I will always be your friend. No matter what happens. I’ve abandoned you before. I’m never doing that again. I promise.”
“Good, because let me warn you now, I can’t go back to that,” she said, tears welling in her eyes as she looked up at him. “Not seeing you or talking to you. It was more like hell than anything he put me through. I’m so scared of that happening again.”
“I feel the same way. It won’t. It won’t happen again.” He drew her face to his chest, stroking her hair and shushing her. Her arms tightened around him, but she seemed to relax into him everywhere else. And he whispered repeated nonsense meant to soothe her, though he knew it wouldn’t. He’d hurt her, in his own way, just like Todd had. She shouldn’t trust him any more than she did her ex-husband. All he could do was try to show her that he meant what he said. Show her every day from now on.
“Evan?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m sorry. Talk about ruining the mood.”
“We’ll get it back, honey.” He nuzzled his mouth against the top of her head. “Soon as you spend the day like this, in my lovin’ arms.”
She grinned up at him, standing on her tiptoes for a kiss. “I think that’ll do the trick.”
“I don’t know about you, but this is my idea of the perfect vacation,” Evan murmured in Kelsey’s ear that night, tracing her lower lip with the tip of his finger. “Eat, sleep, fuck, lie on the beach.”
Kelsey gasped and giggled, snuggling closer to his warmth. It was an accurate description, blunt as it was. The rainstorm had battered the island most of the day, so they’d spent a majority of it cuddled in bed, napping, watching movies and ordering room service as the thunder rumbled and the rain poured down. Evan had even dragged her out on the lanai and they’d made out on the lounge, sprinkled with the cool splattering of raindrops blown in by the wind. Anyone who might have been watching wouldn’t have seen much, but still it had been thrilling.
By the time it had cleared somewhat that evening, they’d been too zapped by their own inactivity to do much more than hang out on the sodden beach…and eat some more. She’d probably gained ten pounds on this trip. Even so, if she were bound and forced to name a single day as her favorite of the entire vacation, this one would have to be near the top. Except for those few strange minutes in the kitchen, it was so much like old times…the dreary weekends they’d spent watching movies and generally being useless because there was nothing else to do. Or nothing else they wanted to do.
Now, there was the intimacy she’d always craved back then but could never have, the holding hands, the touches, the stolen kisses. It should have been paradise within paradise. Only paradise had a deadline, and it was approaching in a couple of days. They needed to talk, had to talk, and she had no idea how to instigate the conversation she prayed he would bring about himself:
what now?
“This has probably been the craziest, scariest, sexiest, most emotionally exhausting and unbelievably orgasmic vacation I ever had,” she admitted, taking a stab in the dark and hoping to hit her target.
He laughed. “Aw, sweetie, I meant to give you such a nice, relaxing time.”
“This is better. Way, way better.”
He traced his finger down over her chin. “Well, that orgasmic part? I’m about to bring that to the forefront. Again.”
“Oh, God…”
So much for meaningful conversation. She wondered if, after that episode this morning, he only began making love to her to shut her up.
It was an effective technique and one she couldn’t say she minded. He kissed her, a sweet, languid caressing of lips, his hands stroking down her bare back. She smoothed her palms over his chest, his shoulders, slipping her tongue into the rich flavor of his mouth as her nipples pebbled against his flesh. He groaned as his hand followed the curve of her hip and slipped into the crease of her bottom. His fingertips lined the cleft until he found her pooling moisture, and Kelsey’s heart skittered. She snuggled closer to him as his erection slid against her thigh.
“See what you do to me?”
“Mmm, I like it,” she whispered.
He slid his hand around to the front and urged her onto her back. “Open your legs.”
She did.
“Wider.”
“Evan…”
“Give me everything, baby girl, remember?”
He already had every part of her. The very nuclei of her cells cried out for him. She whimpered as two of his fingertips slid delectably over her clit, the too-light pressure urging her hips upward into his touch. And then he didn’t have to coax her. She opened herself fully as his lips sought and found her nipple, locking around it with a gentle suction that had her arching her back and grasping his hair.
“If you keep doing that…I’m going to come.”
His eyes flashed up at her. “Then come. It won’t be the last time, I promise.” He pushed his fingers into her pussy, and she felt her own wetness glide against them as her muscles clenched and she moaned.
“I love it when you make that sound,” he said. “You only make it when part of me is inside you.” He pushed deeper. “I love how you love this.”
She nodded fiercely, scarcely able to breathe. “How could I not?”
His head slid down her belly, and anticipation exploded through her until she was squirming with need. Kelsey watched as he leaned over her and pressed his warm mouth against her mound, his fingers still buried deep and tight inside her. His tongue fluttered her throbbing bud and her breath became a burn through her lungs.
“Oooh, Evan…”
He sucked her into his mouth and began slowly thrusting with his fingers, and then she couldn’t open wide enough for him, couldn’t get him deep enough, couldn’t get enough of herself in his mouth. She sobbed and cried out and cursed until he made her come so hard she forgot her name, though she remembered his. Because she screamed it. And she collapsed, panting.
“You make me so fucking hard,” he murmured as he slid up her limp body. She managed to reach down and touch him, her fingers tangling with his as he stroked himself. Maybe someday, when she could last a few minutes without jumping his bones at the sight of his nakedness, he would let her watch him do that until he came. A new rush of warmth throbbed between her thighs at the thought. But he was like a rock now, and she didn’t want it anywhere but inside her. She gasped as the thick head nudged her wet entrance.
“Okay?”
“Sensitive.”
“Mmm, I know. Just one more thing I love about you.” He breached her, and she pulled tight and clung to him as enflamed tissues stretched and quivered around him. It was one long, slow slide that drove her out of her mind. She was aware of sounds coming from her lips but she didn’t know if they were words or incoherence.
He paused and grasped her behind her knees, pulling both her legs over his shoulders. “More, baby, need more of you,” he groaned in her ear.
“Then take all of me.”
His breath rasped as he began to thrust, each stroke pushing farther, forcing the breath from her lungs, whimpers from her throat. “That’s it. Oh, God, Kelsey.”
She wished wildly in that moment for mirrored walls. She wanted to see it as she felt it and heard it, wanted to feast her eyes on the sight of his ass flexing as he thrust into her, wanted to see herself practically folded in half before him and taking his entire magnificent length. The thought of it alone had her teetering on the edge of climax. She reached up and grasped his face between her hands.
“Evan!”
His fingers slid over her clit, rubbing deliciously. “Are you going to come for me again?”
“Yes yes yes…”
“Jesus, you’re perfect.” He reached up and grasped the headboard, trapping her that way with her legs over his arms. Anchoring himself, he gave her everything. Hard and fast the way she wanted it. And his angle…oh God, it was hitting the right spot, wrenching a cry from her each time he brushed it. He smiled down at her in pure male triumph, adjusting his speed and depth so that he struck it again, over and over, and then she was lost in another orgasm so severe it didn’t occur to her to do anything but grasp his hair and show him every way she could just how shattered she was. No hiding.
Somewhere in the middle of it, she felt him throb inside her, heard the growl tear from his throat, imagined him filling her up. It was sweet, so sweet, too sweet. It was something she wanted every night for the rest of her life. Him inside her. Leaving a part of him with her. She wanted to tell him she loved him so badly the words were like a monster in her chest trying to claw its way out.
They came down together, muscles relaxing and falling limp. Her knees slipped from his shoulders and she cradled his weight against her, stroking his sweat-slick back as he pressed gentle kisses to her lips, her cheeks. Her closed eyes. Gently, he withdrew from her and gathered her back into his arms, still prowling her body tenderly with one hand. She loved how he did that. It was so soothing after such a firestorm.
“It only keeps getting better,” she whispered into his chest.
He smoothed his palm over the curve of her hip. “I know.”
“It’s scary to think that…it can.”
“That it can keep getting better? Why is that scary, baby?”
She paused before answering. “It just is.”
And her heart ached, not with emptiness, but with the fullness he gave her. She was so confused. He’d promised to be her friend, to be there for her…but it wasn’t enough. She’d learned long ago that as beautiful as her feelings for him were, they were nothing if he didn’t feel the same.
The last thing she needed was another humiliation in her life. Which was the very thing she would be left with, if this didn’t progress. If it went no further, if it ended. At least if it ended now, before they went home, the humiliation would be limited to their intimate circle of two. If they braved the questions from friends and family, and endured the likely outbreak of scandal they would cause back home, and
then
it ended… Hell, she would just have to move back to her hometown. Married the groom, had sex with the best man…what next? Thank God Todd didn’t have a brother the vicious tongue-waggers could link her with. She could hear it now.
And it would end, wouldn’t it? She was sleeping with Evan Ross. She knew the consequences, knew the likely outcome, had seen it many times in the past…and still she’d done it. Why think she was any different than all the others? He claimed she’d been a fantasy of his and it had taken him ten years to realize it, but now that he’d had her, the mystique would wear off. Bumping their status from “friends” to “friends with benefits” was unacceptable to her now, even if there was a time she would have welcomed it, welcomed anything, any change.
She really could use a dose of his optimism right now, but his breathing was deepening and she wasn’t sleepy at all. Sighing, she kissed his cheek and rolled from the bed, thinking she would walk out on the lanai and watch the waves for a while. Maybe some sudden wisdom would come from the sounds and the power of the ocean…or maybe sleep would come, at the very least. Their vacation would be over before she knew it, and she needed to get her circadian rhythms back on some semblance of a normal track.