I look at the high hedges surrounding us on both sides. “I suspect I could be naked for all of it if you’d like.”
He nuzzles my neck, his large hands palming my ass. Beneath me, he is already hard. “Let’s start now.”
"Should we go upstairs?” I suggest, turning to straddle him. His cock is pressed between my legs, so engorged it must be painful.
"Or," he says, slipping his fingers between my legs, pulling my panties to the side, "I could just fuck you right here. Jesus, you're so wet already."
I glance over my shoulder. The hedges block most of the view but not from the beach. "Someone could see."
His hand slides up the front of my blouse and he groans as his palm covers one breast. “I’ll risk it if you will.”
He unbuttons my shirt and tugs the bra low, and when his mouth tightens around one nipple, then the other, I no longer care who sees. They can film it and play it on a Jumbotron at local games for all I care.
He lifts his hips as I drag his pants and boxers down.
I grasp his cock and slip it between my legs, letting it press to my entrance, drawing out the delicious tension.
“You’re killing me,” he grunts, and I lower myself onto him, burrowing into his neck to muffle my groan.
His hands go to my hips, a silent plea for more, and I begin to move, clenching each time I rise up. Clench, release, clench, release. The breeze blows cool against my bare back, while inside me he is hot and slick and perfect.
His head falls back against the chair. "I can't get enough of this," he says, almost to himself, looking up at me through hazy eyes. The sun dances lazily over my forehead, my cheekbones. The world grows Technicolor, like a child's drawing—the hedges the most verdant green, the pool the deepest blue.
His lips pull fiercely on my nipple, too rough, his abandon the surest sign that he is losing control. He dwarfs me in size, he commands the respect of hundreds, but right here he is all mine—this man who takes orders from no one, a slave to my slow, drawn-out movements.
I sink down again, squeezing as I reach his base. My nerves fire a warning.
"I'm close," I whisper. I can feel it coming, with the clamor of a freight train, and I chase it, no longer worried about slowing down for him. "Oh God, I'm so close."
When it hits me, I clench one last time, like a fist, and he lets go at last.
"Oh fuck," he hisses, his head thrown back, the tendons of his neck taut.
I slide over him a few more times for good measure, and his eyes open heavily, as if drugged. "Jesus." His voice is slurred.
I climb off him at last, resting my head against his chest as we both catch our breath.
“I have no words, Lucie,” he says. “It’s going to be hard to top that this weekend.”
"It was okay," I tell him, smiling.
"You think I can't tell how hard you came?” he asks, standing and lifting me with him, tugging his pants up as he walks us toward the house. “I’m happy to try again if you insist, though.”
He carries me to a bedroom, where he does, indeed, show me one more time. We fall asleep and he shows me again and then we swim and start the process anew.
And as I doze off against him just as night begins to fall—naked, damp, sandy—I realize that I wound up with a better version of the fairy tale than I ever could have dreamed of as a child. One with my twins and him, and a future that now appears endlessly bright.
It took two decades, but I wouldn’t change a single thing.
ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON WE LEAVE, both of us rosy-cheeked and sated and suspiciously free of tan lines, and I’m so relaxed that I’m melting as I curl up beside him in the car...until Jeremy calls.
My hands fumble in my panic as I hit speaker on the phone.
“Mommy?” asks Sophie. “The password isn’t working. To buy stuff on the iPad.”
Caleb and I exchange a glance, and I groan in relief. “Sophie, I already told you no more games and no more gems this week.”
“I know,” she says. “Daddy made me call.”
I stiffen. So does Caleb. I’m not even sure what’s triggered us here, but…something’s amiss.
“He made you call?” I repeat.
“He said the passcode wouldn’t work and I should ask you.”
When I hang up, Caleb slaps a hand over his face. “Jesus, I’m an idiot. How did it not occur to me you’d be sharing your password with them?”
“Is that how he’s been tracking me?”
“He’s been able to see anything that goes to the cloud from via your Apple ID if you don’t have multi-factor authentication set up—your location, your texts. All he had to do was download it onto a new phone.”
We call Harrison, and once he’s done gloating over the fact that we’re back together, we tell him about the phone issue and he gives us the reply I expected: there’s nothing to be done unless we can prove Jeremy was tracking me, which we probably can’t.
“But,” he adds, “you’ve won the battle that matters.”
“We have?” I ask.
“You’re together, right? As long as you’ve got that, you can wait for everything else to sort itself out.”
Caleb’s fingers twine with mine, and he gives me a small smile.
Yeah, Harrison’s right.
This won’t be my last fight with Jeremy. There will be plenty more ahead.
But we’ve won the battle that matters, and whatever happens in the future—I won’t be facing it alone.
40
LUCIE
The air is mild, the skies are cloudless—a perfect day to learn to surf, if we can just get out of the house.
“You’ve got enough sunscreen, right?” Caleb asks, leaning over to peek into my tote. He worries about the twins as if they’re newborns. “And snacks? There won’t be much there. Goldfish and apples aren’t gonna cut it if the kids want to stay.”
I laugh. “For the third time, yes. They’ll be fine. I promise. Isn’t it a forty-minute drive? We’d better get going.”
“Henry can’t find his flip-flops,” Sophie announces, heading toward the door. “But that’s on him.”
Caleb and I exchange a grin over her head. I’ve got no idea where she gets this stuff.
“I think we should install tracking devices in the soles of your shoes, bud,” Caleb says, ruffling my son’s hair.
“Can we?” Henry asks. “Can we do that instead of surfing?” The idea of balancing on a board atop a moving wall of water terrifies him. I get that—it terrifies me too.
“You’re going to love it, Henry,” Caleb says, and I restrain a wince. Today is not only about teaching the twins to surf. It’s also about saying goodbye to a major part of Caleb’s childhood. Harrison’s dad’s place just went under contract, and today he’ll be meeting his friends there for the last time. In typical fashion, he’s acting like it doesn’t bother him when it must, and is entirely focused on how surfing will change the twins’ lives.
He hasn’t parented long enough to understand that basing your happiness on that of your kids is a recipe for disaster—even the most fun day has a fifty percent chance of ending in tears or tantrums.
And trying a new, difficult sport doesn’t sound all that fun in the first place. As we climb in the car and begin our journey, Caleb’s the only one of the four of us who’s even vaguely enthusiastic. It’s only when we get to the beach and turn onto Harrison’s street that his serenity takes a hit. “It’s so weird to be back here.”
This isn’t simply the last visit. It’s also the first visit since their friend Danny jumped off a nearby cliff eight years prior, the event Audrey described to me at the bar…one that sent all of their lives in a downward spin for varying reasons. Beck suggested today’s outing, jokingly, as an attempt to ‘break the curse,’ but I think a small piece of them actually hopes it will work.
I squeeze his hand. “It’s okay to be sad, you know. You’re saying goodbye to a part of your childhood.”
He shakes his head. “It’s the beginning of something life-changing for the kids, which is even better.”
“We’ll be lucky if one of them is willing to try it,” I warn. “It’s definitely not going to be ‘the beginning of something life-changing.’”