POST-TATTOOS, WHETHER DUE TO THE ENTERTAINMENT WE ARE providing or his general lack of responsibilities for the afternoon, Andres decides to take us on an impromptu tour of the island. We stop at the Cheshire Hall Plantation, now mostly in ruins, where Andres regales us with its Loyalist history. We meet his friend Alec, the beer maker at Turk’s Head Brewery, who leads us through a tour of the facility, showing us the steel casks that are nearly two stories tall. We even stop in at a storefront in the Saltmills Plaza, which turns out to be a non-profit rescue organization for potcakes, a unique breed of island dog.
Watching Charlie roll around on the ground with playfully nipping puppies, I try to commit the moment to memory. Charlie, without realizing it, has given me a gift. He has helped take that first meeting with Zane and push it out of its lodged spot in my brain, replaced by this one.
As we stumble off the shuttle back at the resort, we are in a post-tattoo, mid-intoxication euphoria. We laugh when Charlie catches the front edge of his flip-flop on the rug in the lobby and nearly falls on his face. We find Mr. and Mrs. Mustache exiting the elevator and run over to hug them. And we nearly miss our floor because we’re doubled over in laughter when we see our reflections in the mirrored elevator wall, our hair ratted and matted (mostly mine), the waist of my shorts rolled down to allow my tattoo to breathe. His wrist is covered in plastic wrap.
When we are alone in the suite, he leans against the back of the door, lips parted, chest rising and falling from the exertion of breathing after so many cocktails and so much laughter. From a few feet away, next to the couch, I stare at him, my bliss quickly morphing into something else. It’s as though there’s a wasp trapped in my rib cage. The whole scene is entirely reminiscent of two nights ago. Of him rushing the room service delivery so we could be alone again. I can practically smell the burnt sugar of the soufflé, feel the crackly condom wrapper pressed between my thumb and forefinger. My face must give me away, because the playful smile that has adorned his face for the last several hours has dulled, replaced with a clenched jaw and hands he’s rubbing in small circles in front of him. Back in our suite, alone for the first time since this morning, it’s as though anything is possible. And the excitement of that anythingness is surging through my veins.
I told myself just one night.
Just one.
But why? Why, when we still have today, what remains of it? How does one more time change anything? Either way, we leave tomorrow and this beautiful bubble of time with Charlie ends. This little world of our creation—this period of fun and joy, indulgence and ease, all the complications of life so very far off—I feel it slipping away. And I desperately want to hold on to it for just a little while longer.
Fuck it, I think, shutting all opposing thoughts behind a mental door. We are still here, on this island, the fantasy of us still very much in play.
Fuck it.
I thought I only said those words in my head, but he heard them, because just like the other night, he is pushing himself off the door and is against me in an instant. I’m not sure where we connect first, his arm pressed around my back or our lips meshed urgently together. He lifts me from the waist with one wrapped arm, the other hand to the back of my head, ensuring our mouths remain connected. He lifts me so easily, barely off the ground so that my toes still sweep the floor as he walks us out to the terrace in two, maybe three long steps. There, he lowers me onto one of the chaises—the one that still carries the slight scent of cherry lube—and flattens the chair, then stands, towering over me, removing his shirt with one hand. God, it’s sexy when he does things with one arm, one hand, as if there are so few things that require two-handed effort for a man built like him. I take in the bulge below his jeans and I’m instantly wet, knowing how satisfyingly he can maneuver it.
I scurry to undress, my jean shorts rubbing against the tender skin of my right hip as I slide them down, pain searing through me in a way I find rousing. When I’m down to my underwear (a matching black set this time, because my subconscious had my back this morning), he is already naked, pulling a condom from his discarded jeans pocket. “I hoped,” he says in response to my pleased but questioning look.
He stands above me and I watch his cock rise, as though I’m the magnet it’s charged to. He grins, his hair falling forward, cheeks and nose rosy from arousal and rum punch. He looks like a sculpture of what a man should be. Long and lean, built for use. Hands meant for grabbing and massaging, thighs built for stamina, eyes made to see all of me.
This time, he doesn’t await my orders. He lowers himself to me. His arm presses on my lower back, lifting me slightly from the chaise so he can unclasp my bra, then tosses it to the ground. The light breeze catches us and my goosebumps are immediate.
There is no foreplay and I’m so very happy about it—I don’t need any more buildup, the want is already there, bursting from me like the flickers of a sparkler. This whole magnificent day has been more than enough to escalate my need for him. He enters me and it’s not necessarily pure pleasure I feel, rather it’s a long-grown discomfort finally ended. Relief. The first itch of an arm freshly out of a cast. The initial gulp of breath above the waterline after a deep dive.
While we are blocked from the sight of neighboring suites, there is indeed the added thrill of fucking outside like animals, and the intensity inside me grows more quickly than it ever has.
He slides into me again and again, relentless. He’s not holding back and I don’t want him to. The chaise creaks and rasps beneath us as it rocks with our unyielding motion.
There’s an urgency, a need, that surpasses any need I’ve ever felt, an added intensity because I’m fucking him for what has to be the last time. There’s pleasure, yes. So much of it. But also the agony of a fast-approaching, unmerciful end. He feels it now too. I know from the change in his movements. His full-force, unsparing thrusts change to slow and methodical slides, as if to memorize each millimeter of movement and the sensation it creates. He doesn’t want it to end, but also desperately wants to feel the escalation. We are united in the same torturous dilemma.
“Charlie,” I whisper into his neck, then run my tongue along his skin. He is salty and damp. I savor the taste of him, the sturdiness of his neck under my tongue. He stops, rises slightly, looks down at me. He brings his hand to the side of my face, then pins his lips to mine. It’s the only soft thing about this interaction. It’s the kiss of more than a lover, it’s that of a boyfriend, a partner. Of someone who cares so much it scares them. It breaks me, that kiss. He doesn’t see the single tear slide from the outer corner of my eye and disappear into my hairline, just above my ear.
He comes first, my fingertips pressed into his flexing backside. When it’s my turn, he pays close attention as I close my eyes, tilt my chin in the balmy air toward the sky. When I come, just a moment later, his eyes are open, glued to mine as though he can’t bear to miss it.