Luke

I lay there, between the silky Italian sheets, watching her sleep. The sun was starting to rise, and I remembered how it felt to touch her smooth skin, the way she’d quivered and writhed—and how just as I’d imagined—all that nervous energy enlivened her once we started to kiss without inhibitions. It was all so much better than I’d thought it would be and believe me I’d thought about it a lot. I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t keep my hands off of her any longer. I pushed the strands of hair out of her face and kissed her lips and kissed her neck and kissed her breasts and kissed her belly. By the time I was kissing her thighs, she was quivering again, and I made her writhe around and arch her back and cry out again, over and over, pressing my tongue into her and using my fingers. She was so warm and sweet and slippery between her legs. I had intended for it to be a selfless morning wake-up call, but I just had to be inside of her again and she begged for that too. By the time we had finished coming together I knew that I would stay with her for as long as she wanted me to. I wanted to always have the smell and taste of her in my mouth and on my fingertips. I wanted to be the one to make her wet, to make her sigh and moan, to make her toes point and curl, her skin pink and flushed. I wanted to hear her whisper and scream out my name while I sent shockwaves of pleasure through her body and soul. I was a goner, as they say. I was hers.

By that afternoon, it was hard to believe that there was ever a time when we weren’t kissing each other. It was just as hard to believe that we had both been so cold and uptight, two plane rides and a world away only a few days earlier. We ate toast with marmalade and lots of butter and we ate many, many fresh fruits dipped in melted chocolate. She went with me for my morning run on the beach, and managed to keep up with me for approximately sixty seconds before cursing and announcing that she’d wait for me to return. We enjoyed the Chandra’s infinity pool and the outdoor Jacuzzi tub.

I asked her about her childhood and she spoke more about how her father had left when she was fourteen, which was when her mother started working at two jobs, and Avery had begun saving money from babysitting and tutoring, so she’d never have to struggle like her mother did. “I don’t want to give the wrong idea about my Mom though,” she said, as I stroked her hair. “She was a wonderful person. She always managed to make both me and my sister feel like the most important person in the world. I don’t think I’ve ever made anyone feel that way. Except bosses and clients, I guess.”

“You’ve made me feel pretty good lately,” I assured her.

She kissed me on the mouth. Her chestnut brown eyes were watery, although her voice remained steady. “I hope so. I want to.” She looked off into the distance as she continued telling me that her mother died suddenly of a ruptured brain aneurysm when she was in her final year at Wharton. Avery wasn’t there with her. Her mother had developed high blood pressure from stress. Avery received some money from the life insurance, used it to pay off her student loans. She grieved deeply, for one solid month, which was all the time she could schedule for grieving, and then threw herself back into her studies and work.

I took her hand and kissed it. I wanted her to feel safe with me. I also wanted to help her to enjoy life more. I would have been happy to stay at that villa all day with her, but I had gotten up in the middle of the night to plan and arrange a special outing for the afternoon.

I surprised Avery with a flight to the nearby island of Eleuthera in a private seaplane. I figured I only had another twenty-four hours to make a good impression, so I may as well pull out all the stops. We went to a secluded, ethereal pink sand beach. It was so beautiful and amazing it was surreal, sort of like being in the Bahamas and having sex with Avery. We strolled and sat and lay out on the beach. We splashed around in the impossibly crystal clear turquoise ocean. We dried off and lay out on the beach some more, eyes closed, only our fingers touching. I was infinitely content.

Every now and then, she would suddenly shake her head and cover her face and say, “What are we doing?” and I’d say, “We’re living in the moment,” or “We’re making the most of our time together here,” and then she’d nod her head and say “yes,” and go back to kissing me.

“I’m very glad to know you,” she said in a very convincing Victorian English accent.

“And I am very glad to know you. I’m quite fond of you, you know?”

“I too am quite fond of you, sir.”

We lay quietly for a moment, and then I started singing the One Direction song Kiss You. At first I was singing under my breath as I lay on my back, then I sat up and sang louder, and soon I was up and performing for her—I even hit the high notes. There weren’t many other people around, but I didn’t care anyway. I stood up and serenaded her, boy band dance moves and all. She thought I was insane at first, then laughed and laughed, then looked like she was going to cry, and then she grabbed me and kissed me. Served her right for telling me I wasn’t One Direction.

Avery

It took almost all of my will power to keep from crying. No guy had ever gone out of his way to do something like that for me before. I loved it. I was some alien version of myself, the one from Planet Sexy Good Times. I couldn’t speak, but with my remaining energy, I grabbed him and kissed him, then I touched his cheek with my hand and rested my forehead on his chest. He put his arms around me and we lay there on a turquoise towel on the pink sand, holding each other, for I don’t even know how long. If I were a stranger walking by, I’d have thought we were so cheesy—I would have vomited inside my mouth. But I was not a stranger walking by. I was there in Luke’s arms, and it felt so good that I was terrified of what it would feel like when it was over.

He kept staring at me, smiling, shyly, pensive.

“What?”

He blushed and looked down, laughing quietly and shaking his head. “It’s silly really.”

“Tell me.”

He considered for a moment and then said, “I was just remembering that when I was a young lad my favorite book was The Magician’s Nephew. You know, by C.S. Lewis? The Narnia Chronicles.”

“The origin story for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, yes, I’m not a complete American idiot, I loved that series.” I didn’t mention that I remembered thinking that the boy in it, Digory, was quite the little snotty English turd.

“Oh good,” he said, getting more open and excited and nerdy. “Well you know how the boy and girl—Digory and Polly—were transported from his uncle’s room to the Wood Between the Worlds and then they’d take each other’s hands and jump into these pools of water and have adventures together in different worlds?” He reached out for my hand.

I smiled, because I knew what he was thinking before he even said it.

“I remember wishing that I could have a girlfriend like Polly, whom I could have adventures with, and I was just thinking that our whole internet connection prior to the Bahamas was like The Wood Between the Worlds, and now you and I are —”

“Jumping into pools of water and having adventures together in different worlds.” I finished his sentence and then put my mouth on his mouth because he was being so adorable I just couldn’t not kiss him.

He didn’t even pull away his lips to say “Although hopefully I’m not quite as big a twat as Digory.”

“Enh,” I shrugged. The fact that you are a nerd makes you even more attractive to me dammit.

“I mean, regardless of how one might interpret the Narnia books as an adult, if we simply focus on the story—”

“Stop talking, Oxford.”

“You got it. Although I went to Cambridge, actually.”

He grinned and put his hands on my shoulders, pressing me down and lowering himself onto me as he kissed me deeply and I slowly sank deeper into the warm sand, wrapping my legs around his, as comfortable as if I belonged there and he belonged this close to me, pressing into me, touching and kissing every inch of me like the waves kissing the shore, as the sun began to set, and we could easily have been the only two people in the world.