Chapter Twelve

GEORGINA

 

 

We started packing up, covering the dying fire with sand. The sun was down, but there was still enough light left in the ocean-colored sky to see by.

Blake lifted and shook out the picnic blanket, and sand sprayed all over me.

“Watch it,” I said, picking up a handful of sand and tossing it back at him.

“Don’t start something you don’t want to finish,” he challenged.

I scooped a great ball of sand and flung it at his chest.

“That’s it.” He sprinted for me, and I squeaked, dashing away. On my short little legs, I had no chance. Blake barreled down on me, spreading the blanket like a net. He wrapped me up in it with him, and we both tumbled down into the gully between two dunes.

We were pressed together between the blanket, our bodies hot, sticky, and gritty. I spat sand from my mouth.

“This is very uncomfortable,” I said.

Blake’s voice was a grumble. “Well, if you’re going to have sex on the beach you need all the stuff that goes with it—sand in your ass crack, sand burn on your knees, sunburn on your back, waves almost drowning you, seaweed in your hair, the potential of strangers stumbling over you. Sex on the beach should be a ridiculously uncomfortable experience, or you’re not doing it right.”

I looked up at his eyes, so blue, and so close to mine. “Are we going to have sex on the beach?”

Blake pressed the tip of his nose against mine, then ran it up the length until his lips were there instead. “That’s up to you.”

He was right.

At every turn, I blamed not being able to stop myself, blamed being out of emotional control, but the truth was it was always up to me. I’d always made my choices. I’d always wanted him. And I wanted him now, too. I was choosing him. I was choosing this.

I would choose him, and I would make this right. I would tell him the truth. I would make this work. How could I do anything else?

His breath blew across my cheek, then our mouths met and held in a long kiss. I tasted salt on his lips and tongue, tasted the ocean and sun and laughter in that kiss. His hands slid under my back, lifted me up and pressed me into him. The sand shifted below us. It trickled past my heels, tickling my ankles. The blanket fell down around us, spreading beneath us and blowing up at the corners with the small gusts of cool wind. The full moon came out, shining down a bright silver light over our sand-covered bodies.

His fingers caressed my hair, ran through it. More sand sifted and slithered, yielding below our bodies as our flesh yielded to each other’s touch. When I sat up and took off my bikini top, he remained lying beside me and stroked his hand down my back, tracing the lines of my tattoo.

He hugged me, then pulled me back down onto the blanket beside him. My nipples tightened from the cold air blowing over them and then his mouth was on them, gentle but firm. Hot sensations crept along my spine. Excitement exploded within me and I wrapped my arms around his upper body, pulling him closer.

He kissed me again, making me dizzy with lust. My own mouth sought his. My tongue caressed his and asked for more.

His hands slid my bikini pants down to my knees and I shuffled them off the rest of the way. His finger pressed into me, slid all the way inside. I grasped at his shorts, finding them tacky with seawater, and I laughed as I struggled to pull them down.

Blake didn’t help. He pushed me back onto the blanket. He bit his lip and rolled his fingers within me, making my eyelids flutter closed.

I heard hook-and-loop tearing, and felt Blake get something from his pocket, then push his shorts down. The crinkle of a condom packet opening made me moan in anticipation.

“Georgie,” he whispered into my ear as he thrust into me.

He filled me completely, and made me feel whole. He moved slowly, his fingers circling and rubbing in time to his thrusts. I moaned, not caring if there was anyone nearby. Sweat appeared like dewdrops upon my body despite the breeze and the darkness, and I pressed my face up into Blake’s chest, wrapping my arms and legs around him, trying to fuse myself to him.

He groaned and I could feel his stomach muscles tightening. He withdrew from me, moving down my body so swiftly I didn’t know what he was going to do until his tongue pressed into my pleasure-swollen flesh. The feel of his lips sent shockwaves and shivers across my hips and down to my toes.

Ecstasy shot through me. My mouth opened in a frenzied cry as his fingers went back into me, pumping and driving as I whimpered and writhed, riding his face and fingers until my whole body tremored and seized up, pleasure smashing through me harder than the waves crashing against the cliffs.

He came back up, kissing a path all the way up my body. I could only lie there, still shaking with uncontrollable vibrations, as though he’d set off an earthquake within me.

He parted my legs and slid in on a tide of hot desire, all the way inside me so that I could feel the pressure of him in the base of my back. He still didn’t feel close enough.

The waves sang and sighed as they met the shore, and Blake and I matched that force of nature as our bodies met and sang together. As lustful sensation hummed through us with every movement. As love and need and sadness and beauty touched us with our every caress.

Blake clenched his teeth, clenched his whole body, as he growled and cried out with pleasure above me. I gasped for air. Tears ran down my cheeks, tears of joy and love, adding to the salt of the sea. Nothing had ever been so perfect.

If I had to die, and I knew we all did, at least I could do it having had this moment. The whole day had been perfect, even the rain at the beginning had made the sunlight seem that much stronger and sweeter.

Blake and I tangled into each other, a pile of pleasure-soaked limbs. There was nothing uncomfortable about it at all.

“That was amazing. I don’t think we did it right,” I said breathily.

Blake lay tiny kisses all over my neck. “Bugger. Should we try again?”

I wiped the tears from my cheeks but couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

“Thank you for today. I wouldn’t have had any of this without you.”

Blake squeezed me tighter in his embrace. “Can we call this a relationship now?”

“Yes.”

After lying like that a while longer, we got our clothes back on and finished packing up. Before getting into the car, I checked my phone for the first time all day and saw a missed call.

The hospital had rung. I listened to the message even though I knew what it would say.

My results were in. They needed me to come in and hear them in person.

“What was that?” Blake asked, as I put the phone back in my bag. I could feel the color gone from my face, the joy washed away, and I knew he could see it too.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

I couldn’t spoil today.

I asked Blake if he’d drive home, and then stared up at the stars the whole way.

Mom … please … please.