Jilted (Love Hurts #2)

It’s simple. Black. Four triangles of material held together with strings that barely cover her breasts, pussy, and luscious ass. The sun spilled golden light over that body and I felt amazed and awed to be looking at it. Eden caught me looking at her and told me to pick my jaw up off the sand.

Right now her eyes are closed behind her sunglasses and I have free access to just look. Not sure why I need to, because over the last twenty-four hours I’ve touched and stared at her body up close and personal. I’ve seen parts of her body I bet she’s never seen so clearly.

But it’s different right now because I can take the time to appreciate the differences between the eighteen-year-old Eden I’d loved intimately and the more mature but still stunningly beautiful Eden who’s here right now.

Her breasts are fuller, soft, perfectly rounded. One hundred percent Eden. I’ve found out her nipples are very sensitive, something I don’t think I knew all those years ago.

Her muscles are more toned, sleek. She obviously works out.

Her skin is velvety soft, not a change from when she was younger, but the fragrance of her lotion is different. It’s more mature. I think back then she smelled like peaches and cream. Now she smells like sin and spice.

“You’re staring at me,” Eden murmurs without opening her eyes.

“How do you know that?” I ask her in disbelief. I can see her eyes are still closed from the side of her sunglasses, long lashes laying against the delicate skin below.

She shrugs and turns to face me. Now the glasses prevent me from seeing her eyes, but I can tell by the smile she’s wearing that she’s got them open and they’re smiling too. “I think it’s a ‘famous’ thing. People stare at me a lot. I can feel it.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” I commiserate.

“You get used to it,” she says nonchalantly, but then my dick jerks in my board shorts when she says, “but you staring at me is really disconcerting. Makes me think all kinds of dirty things.”

I groan and roll my head back, looking out at the ocean. “Don’t start that here, Eden. I don’t want to be sporting a hard-on with every person here on the beach looking at you.”

“Now that’s an exaggeration,” she says with a laugh.

Maybe so, but I know every dude within eyesight is staring at her. As well as those with their girlfriends or wives who could never rock that bikini Eden’s wearing. The caveman in me wants to pound my chest and roar to all of them that she was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and the other part of me wants to throw a blanket over her and cover her from head to foot so no one can see what’s mine.

Wait! What?

I did not just go there.

Eden is not mine. Not for the long term, anyway.

“I’m going to go get in the water,” she says as she stands up from her chair. “Wanna come?”

“Sure,” I say, pushing myself up. She holds her hand out and I take it without hesitation or awkwardness.

It feels right.

It’s midsummer and the water is warm. The ocean is relatively calm today with small waves no more than a few feet high. We walk out into the water, letting them crash against our legs until we get deeper and can dive under them. Finally we find a place where we can just tread water and float, letting the salt water buoy us.

“Tell me about what you’re doing now,” Eden asks as we face each other while we tread water. “Obviously you took over the business from your dad.”

I nod. Eden’s known from the time we started dating that I was going to make my career in landscape maintenance. The difference was I went to college and got a design degree to add a new element to the business.

“The business has definitely grown over the last ten years or so,” I tell her as I move my arms back and forth in the water and kick my feet slowly. We’re out enough the waves don’t break on us and I feel a million miles from the rest of the world. “Dad kept the maintenance part growing, and I branched out with the design, but it was slow growing that service.”

“Why’s that?” she asks.

“Not a lot of people around Newberry that need design services. It’s more of a niche market for the well to do. Even the most basic designs for just new plantings run around ten thousand dollars. Add in man-made structuires or water features, and, well…not everyone can afford it.”

“So you went outside of Newberry?” she guesses.

“I’ve been all over Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina with the work I’ve done. But now it’s pretty much word of mouth and I can pick and choose which projects I want to take on.”

“I’m really impressed, Coop,” she says softly. “You followed your dreams and really made your mark on the world.”

“I should say the same to you.” I pull my arms hard through the water and swim the few feet toward her. My arms go around her waist and hers loop up over my shoulders to clasp behind my neck. Our legs brush against each other as we kick to tread water. Her hair is slicked back and her face is a study of perfection with her high cheekbones, full-as-fuck lips, and emerald-green eyes. There’s a reason she was a supermodel. “You’re the one who’s made her mark on the world, Eden. But then again, I always knew you would. You’re an impactful woman.”

Her lips curve up hesitantly, as if she’s afraid to accept the compliment. “I’m not sure anyone has said something so nice to me before.”

I smirk and give her a small eye roll.

“No, I’m serious,” she says with a laugh. “I mean, sure…people call me beautiful, and a great actress. But no one has ever said I was impactful. I’d rather make a tiny difference to someone than be held to a beauty standard.”

I don’t respond, because I can’t admit to her out loud how impactful she was to me. I can diminish what we had by saying it was young love and it was short lived, so really what did it matter in the grand scheme of things? But the truth is, the younger Eden I’d fallen in love with changed my world in such a way that no one else could ever measure up to her. People in town think me a man whore, and I probably am, but when it comes down to it, I’ve been ruined for anything but Eden. Losing her hurt in a way that I was never able to fully recognize until right this moment as I’m holding her in my arms and floating in the Atlantic Ocean.

So because I can’t tell her those words, because we agreed this was rebound sex and we each have our own lives apart from one another, I do the next best thing. Actually, it’s the better thing.

It always will be.

I kiss her.

Eden opens up to me without hesitation, angling her head to accept my tongue from the start. It’s a deep, claiming, and thoroughly unapologetic kiss expressing the desire I have for her. She responds by rolling her tongue against mine and moaning into my mouth. My dick responds, swelling thickly as her legs come around my waist.

My legs scrabble and kick, propelling us a little closer to the shore as we kiss. I need balance, and we’re still well beyond the break when I can finally punch my feet down into the sand for some stability.