After they’d both slathered up in sunscreen, Jason invited Tessa to a swim. “The water here is wonderful. Come on.”
Tessa waded waist high into the blue with Jason right behind her.
“This is great,” she said, taking in the view. “Your country is beautiful.”
Instead of an answer, she felt Jason’s arms slide around her waist. He pulled her gently against him and rested his chin on top of her head. “It’s not the only thing of beauty here. This morning was getting-to-know-you. This afternoon is about taking it the next step. Why do you think I took you to a nude beach, Tessa?”
“Because you want to get me naked?”
Jason squeezed her a little tighter. “Getting naked or not is totally up to you. That wasn’t my reason. Try again.”
Tessa turned her head back toward the beach. Old. Young. Men. Women. Skinny. Not so skinny. All kinds and colors and genders and, from the looks of it, sexual orientations. The only thing that was common to all of them was that they seemed relaxed just as they were; naked and no big deal.
“You want me to see that normal people can be comfortable in their own skin.”
“Bravo. You get an A. Tessa, you are at a free beach with a man who will not judge you, who will do whatever you tell him you need, as long as it doesn’t endanger life and limb or get me tossed in jail.” He slid one of his hands into the water. A moment later, it came to rest on Tessa’s belly. A finger wiggled underneath the top of Tessa’s bikini bottom. He tickled the skin just below her belly button. “Ask for what you need.”
Tessa felt everything at once. The cool ocean water that lapped above her waist. The tease of Jason’s finger, under the water and skimming just under the top of her bikini bottoms. The growing heat in what she’d begun to think of as her sweet spot. The feel of Jason’s growing physical response to her, hard against her bottom. Ask for what I need, she thought.
“I’m not ready to show my naked self to the world,” Tessa said, “but I’d like to feel the ocean on my bottom.”
“Be more specific in your request.”
Tessa stepped on Jason’s foot.
“Ouch!” He playfully pulled on her hair.
“I want you to slide my bikini bottoms off.”
“Just so you can feel the ocean? Or is there something else you’d like to feel?”
He was going to make her ask. Damn it.
“The ocean, yes. But not just the ocean.”
“Tess-Ah…ask for what you need.”
“What you did this morning was really great. I want more of that. But I also want to know what it feels like if you go inside. With your fingers!”
“You’ve not experienced that before?”
Mark had done a little of that, but when Tessa failed to become excited by it, he gave it up. For the majority of their marriage, he simply got hard, got in, came and got out. Tessa wanted more than that now.
“My husband didn’t get a great response from me in the first year we were married. So he stopped trying.”