My face went hot. It wasn’t as if guys hadn’t told me I was good looking. I’d had my share of trysts in high school and college. Nothing had ever panned out, mainly because I was too busy working and taking care of Nana. But guys had told me I was beautiful before, so I didn’t understand why it was so difficult to accept the words coming from Devon’s mouth.
Maybe it was because he came from somewhere I had difficulty understanding. Celebrities—they’re nothing like us. They come from practically another universe.
And yet here was one of the inhabitants of that universe, alone in a forest with me, standing beneath a waterfall, telling me I was beautiful.
I chalked it up to shock and stress, a culmination of everything I’d been through. Whatever it was, I grabbed Devon by his biceps, stood up on the tips of my toes, and kissed him.
He didn’t fight me, didn’t so much as make a grunt. He opened his arms to me and kissed me back, his tongue gently probing mine, responding in kind when I demanded more and more. The waterfall became a roar in my ears, my pulse fast, as I pulled at his shirt, tugging at the waistband of his pants until he helped me with them.
Devon stood in front of me, fully nude, while I still had all my clothes on, and it was one of the most erotic things I’d ever experienced. The lush greenery around us perfectly offset his bronzed, toned body, and he watched me patiently, the light in those brown eyes dancing, his hands at his sides, waiting.
I realized he’d put me completely in control of this encounter, even though I hardly knew what I was doing, what emotions I was responding to. There were too many feelings swirling inside of me, fighting for control, to know precisely which one had inspired me to strip Devon naked in front of me.
It was probably the same one that made me rip off my own shirt, step out of my own pants, approach him on the mossy ground, press my skin against his, feeling his cock stir against my belly.
I kissed his hard torso, leaving a hot, wet trail across his pecs, smiling to myself as I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down at the contact. He was holding himself back—or trying to—and I was bound and determined to see just how far I could push him until he forgot himself, forgot what he was attempting to do.
The kisses went lower and lower, crisscrossing his abs, until I found myself kneeling on the moss, nuzzling his muscular thighs, faced with evidence of just how beautiful he thought I was.
It was a single kiss to the very tip of his cock that pushed him beyond himself. He simultaneously pulled away and bent forward, taking me by the shoulders, drawing me forward until he was seated and I was perched on his lap, sharing it with his ramrod erection. A few breathless adjustments and I was poised just above it, sinking down inch by inch, whatever capacity I had for thought and planning leaving me as I was filled up completely.
Then I became a being of pure feeling—a pair of hands on my waist, guiding my movements, another pair of hands clutching a strong set of shoulders, bodies rocking over the surface of soft moss, falling water drowning out any sounds that escaped from us.
Climax was almost painful in its sweetness, sharpening my reality, blinding, emptying me entirely. My cries of ecstasy ended in a sob. Devon wrapped his arms around me again, and we stayed like that, connected, until we were in danger of sticking together.
The pool beneath the waterfall was warmer than it looked, and we swam until our limbs were loose and relaxed.
“June.”
I rolled on my back to look at Devon, who was treading water in a deeper portion of the pool.
“Stay with me,” he said.
“I’m here,” I said. There wasn’t another place in the entire world I would’ve rather been than in that water with him in this moment.
Chapter 2
Hawaii was a beautiful place, especially the portion we were in, more wild than civilization, a tangle of forest and lava rock and beach. But it had also become a very sad place. I had to avoid the beautiful patch of sand that Nana had loved so much, because it reminded me too much of her, too much of what I’d lost. If I could just avoid that spit of sand, that jewel-colored water that lapped ashore, maybe I could avoid the fact that Nana was gone.
Devon and I went on long walks, shopped, ate fruit for breakfast, spent time with his friends on the island—did everything we could to stay in this sad but enchanted state, together, away from the things that irked us.
Reality came calling, literally, soon after in the form of concerned home healthcare providers and doctors and bill collectors. It wasn’t something that could be escaped. There were real things that needed to be dealt with, and I was the only person who could do it.
I walked out to the back porch to find Devon sighing as he pushed a button on his phone to ignore an incoming call.