Nikki
When we get to Stave Island, we bring down and secure the sails, and Dalt anchors the boat just off the sandy beachside of the island. The island is beautiful, tranquil. It’s like Dalt and I are the only two people in the world. Except I still haven’t told him about the tiny human we made together and the guilt keeps jolting me out of the blissful peace the environment is providing. The most important thing to Dalt is honesty and trust. I can’t think of anything that would be more of a breach in trust than this. I have to find the right words.
“You okay?” Dalt’s arms wrapping around my waist from behind me startles me out of my thoughts. “Wow. Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t scare me.” I drop my head back onto his chest. “I was just thinking.”
“Thinking about what?” He keeps his arms wrapped around me and gently rocks us, matching the lulling movements of the anchored boat.
‘How beautiful all of this is.”
“The island?”
“The island, the ocean, the day, you. Everything’s so beautiful, perfect.”
“It is,” he whispers in my ear.
“But I was also thinking about something your father said.”
“Dammit, Nik!” He spins me around in his arms so we’re face to face. “Forget everything that asshole said. It’s not important. It was all lies.”
I cup his cheek with my hand. “I know everything he said about the engagement and the money was lies but some of what he said is true.”
“No!” He grabs my hand, holding it onto his cheek and squeezes, like he’s trying to press the condemnation of his father into my fingers. “Everything that comes out of his mouth is bullshit lies.”
“Except the part about our lives having been different.”
“No, our lives—”
“Dalt.” I cup his face between both of my hands to force him to look straight into my eyes. “Our lives were very different. You had everything, and like I said, I had nothing. There were times after my dad died I was lucky if I had a decent pair of shoes to wear to school.”
“Those things mean nothing, Nik. Hear me. Feel me.” He places my hand on his chest. “This is me, babe. I’m just me. We have each other now. It’s all we need, all we’ll ever need.” If I ever had any doubt of loving this man, the beseeching expression in his eyes right now has crushed all uncertainty.
“I know.” I wrap my arms around his neck and feather a kiss across his lips. “But all this has me realizing things I never thought about before. Even though we were poor, my life wasn’t deprived. Except for the awful blip in our lives known as Bert, I believe we were rich in the most important sense. We lived a beautiful, clean, simple life and we loved each other. Growing up with my little family on the farm was an amazing experience.”
“I get that, Nik. Except for the crap you had to go through with Bert, I never thought your life was anything but beautiful. And when I meet your mom I’m going to wrap her in a big hug and thank her for throwing that scumbag out and raising the perfect woman for me to fall desperately in love with.” Dalt places a quick kiss on the tip of my nose. “Why are we talking about this? I told you, the money means nothing except for the things I can give you if you want them. Whatever you want, baby.”
He’s so earnest when promising me the moon and the stars. And when he gives me his lopsided grin, there’s way more than butterflies taking flight inside me. It feels like a whole zoo of animals is doing acrobatics in my stomach. But even with all his heartfelt sincerity, I stop myself from being honest in return, from telling him the real reason I’ve been thinking about the discrepancies in our lives.
I still don’t know how to tell him we have a little girl who is happy and loved and has been living a wonderful life despite the fact I kept her daddy away from her for her entire little life. How is he going to deal with that? Especially when I think about his past, surrounded by every material desire, but devoid of love after his mom died. My heart breaks for him and the guilty weight of having kept his daughter’s love from him for this long sits like a triceratops on my chest. If the tables were turned, if he had kept Chloe from me, would I be able to forgive him?
I sigh. “I’ll settle for a picnic lunch and a cold bottle of water for now.”
“Water? No cold beer?”
“No thanks. I’m trying to turn over a new leaf, clean up my diet a little.”
I want this one perfect afternoon with him before I tell him the reason for my new leaf, before I reveal just how much of a fool I’ve been for the past two years and shatter his perfect illusion of me.
***
We pull the small raft we used to get from the boat to the beach onto the sandy shore. Dalt hoists out the cooler full of food and drinks we took out of the boat’s fridge and carries it up to a shady spot under some trees. After spreading the plaid blanket I took from one of the storage benches on deck over the mossy grass, I plop down onto it.
Sitting with my knees pulled up to my chest, I wrap my arms around my legs and inhale, spending a moment to take in the beauty of the scenery all around us. Dalt lays down next to me and stretches, exposing a glimpse of chiseled abs, before tucking his arms under his head to use as a headrest. The only scenery I’m interested in now is the gorgeous manscape of humanity lying next to me.
“This is perfect, isn’t it?” Dalt tilts his head up to view the ocean and the crystal blue horizon. “Just you and me, together, finally, in this beautiful world.”
The hefty triceratops does a jumping jack on my chest.
I follow his gaze out over the horizon. “Um…yes…but it’s…”
“Hey, Bud. Come here. What are you doing all the way over there?” Dalt stretches his arm out across the blanket. I slide down, curling up next to him. With a quick flex of his arm, he rolls me over on top of him so we’re nose to nose. He holds me there for a moment, pressing my breasts into his hard chest. The intensity in his silver blue eyes makes me feel like I’m being pulled even further into him, drowning in their liquid power.
“I have a great idea,” he says quietly in between brushing kisses across my lips.
“Uh huh. What’s that?” I touch the whisper onto his lips and return the soft kisses.
“How about you give me those lessons you promised me?” he asks while continuing to trail kisses down my jaw and neck.
“Mmm. Right…right here? Outside…in…front of all of nature?” It’s hard for my brain to remember how to make my mouth speak while he’s holding me and kissing me like this.
“Yup. Right here,” Dalt whispers, sliding his hands down my waist to my thighs. “In front of the birds and bees and anybody else who wants to watch us.”
The way he’s moving his hands in slow strokes up and down my legs has me moaning into his mouth. “Mmm…very…uh…clever…mmm…the way you referenced the birds and the bees there.”
“I thought so.” He nibbles my bottom lip and then his hands are on my ass, squeezing and kneading.
My pussy craves him, causing me to inadvertently rock into the massive shaft pushing into the fabric of my shorts. Though I consider myself a bit of a rebel, having sex outside in the middle of the afternoon where any one might happen to see us is just a little too rebellious, even for me.
“Ooo…wait, Dalt…stop.” I sit up straight, my legs still straddled on either side of his hips. I have to put some distance between me and his soft, kissable lips to be able to think clearly.
“You want me to stop?” The confused expression scrunching his face makes me want to throw all sense out the window and crash my lips onto his; give him what he wants, what I want, out here in front of the birds, bees, squirrels, fish, and anyone else in the vicinity. But as a mother, I’m doing my best to be more levelheaded, trying to set better examples for Chloe. I’m pretty sure sex on a blanket on a public beach in broad daylight is not the action of a discerning mom.
“No, I don’t want you to stop.” His I’m-going-to-devour-you-grin is back, tipping up one side of his mouth. “But I have a better idea,” I add before he has a chance to start touching me again. One more stroke of his hand and I won’t be able to stop myself from tearing off his shorts to do some stroking of my own.
“You have a better idea than letting me push deep inside you while you’re riding me until we both can’t see straight?”
“Oh God,” I groan and roll off him onto my back. My pussy clenches in protest, desperate for me to get right back to the splendor of being pressed against Dalt.
Dalt rolls onto his side facing me, props his arm under him, and rests his head on the palm of his hand. “I can’t wait to hear this idea if it’s better than that.” He runs his fingers over the hint of skin peeking out from the bottom of my tank top. My skin pebbles in a needy response. When he skims over the elastic waist of my gym shorts, I place my hand on top of his to keep him from going any further. If he feels how wet and hot I am for him, there will be no stopping either one of us.
“I think we should have some lunch and then go for a swim,” I suggest, pushing myself up into a seated position.
“That’s it?” Dalt flops onto his back and lets out a huge breath. “That’s your better idea? I think you’ve been away from me too long, sweetheart. You’ve lost all concept of the great things we do together.”
“Oh, you think so?” I tug my tank top over my head and throw it across his face. When Dalt drags my discarded top off his face, I’ve already wriggled out of my nylon athletic shorts and I’m standing in front of him in my teeny black string bikini. My breasts have gotten a bit larger since having Chloe. The tiny strips of fabric making up the sliding triangles of the top are providing very little coverage and a whole lot of cleavage. The bottom is pretty much exactly what the style suggests, two strings tied on either side of my hips. Okay, I suppose this little number isn’t exactly the type of example a sensible mom would wear, but this particular mom is only twenty-one and her baby daddy, who is hotter than a gamma ray burst, is drilling her with such intensity with his laser blue eyes, sensible be damned.
Dalt bolts up and reaches out for me, but I’m already running toward the water. I can almost feel the heat of his fiery glare scorching me. The shock of the cold water helps bring down the blazing rise in my body temperature.
My breath catches when I turn and see Dalt tug his t-shirt over his head and throw it across the blanket. I stop mid-giggle. Chee-sus, he’s gorgeous. How is it possible for a man to have been put together like that? Not one damn flaw. If I hadn’t already met his horribly flawed human father, I’d swear he was the offspring of immortal gods. The way the sun glistens off his tanned, ripped chest and abs is enough to put any woman in a mind-numbing stupor. Then there’s those blessed-by-the-hockey-gods thighs. And don’t even get me started on what he’s got going on underneath his swim trunks between those thighs. Someone should make a plaster cast of that thing and put it in a museum as one of the wonders of the world. Seriously. How the hell is a normal, warm-blooded girl supposed to hold out when faced with all that? Lost in my distracted thought, I let out a huge sigh just as Dalt runs into the water and grabs me around the waist.
“You want to go for a swim, huh, soccer girl?” He laughs, lifting me off my feet and spinning me around.
“No! Dalt! Don’t you dare!” The feel of his arms around me and his threat of dunking me into the icy water has me giggling in breathy protests. I try wiggling out of his grasp. When I realize my attempt to fight my way out of his powerful grip is a losing battle, I attempt a different, more peaceful tactic.
For just a moment I stop struggling, lean into him and tease my overflowing tits across his chest. I drop my head just enough to let my nose and lips brush along his neck. That’s all it takes for every bit of Dalt’s focus to take a nosedive straight to his cock. When it does, I take the opportunity to push myself out of his grasp and run backward away from him, laughing and splashing him with sprays of water.
“Oh, so you want to play like that, Bud? Game on!”
Dalt rushes toward me. I try to step from side to side to fake him out and outmaneuver him, but I can’t get my footing while running in the soggy sand along the shoreline. Every time a wave crashes on shore, the squelchy sand washes out from under my feet. Dalt dives and grabs me around the legs. The next thing I know I’m sprawled on my back and Dalt’s stretched out on top of me. An icy cold wave washes over us, pushing us further up onto the beach. We’re both laughing in gasps, unable to catch our breath. When our eyes lock, the carnal longing in Dalt’s eyes sends a jolt rippling through my body. Even in the cold water my body temperature skyrockets. The chilly water is having no effect on the thick, hard shaft straining his swim trunks. It’s rubbing the perfect spot between my legs. The throbbing ache between my legs demands release with such intensity, I’m sure he must be able to feel it.
“I’m hungry,” Dalt whispers, breaking the lust-filled silence.
“You’re…you’re hungry?” Not exactly what I was expecting him to say.
“Uh huh. And as soon as I get you off this damn beach I’m going to devour you. Let’s have our picnic and get back to the boat.”
“Good idea. I’m famished.”