How to Honeymoon Alone

“I’m going for a swim,” I say, “in this lovely, conveniently located little pool of yours.”

I let my dress drop to the chair. I’ve started wearing bikinis all day round here, and I’m grateful for that now. I’m also grateful for the shadows as I stand before him. “Want to join me?”

Phillip starts to undo the buttons on his shirt, one at a time. “You want to swim laps,” he says. “Now?”

“I think laps would be pretty difficult here.” I slip my legs beneath the lukewarm surface of the water. “But maybe cooling down is a good idea.”

He looks at me. “Yeah. All right.”

I slip into the water and swim across the pool. It only takes three strokes to cross the distance. The water is like a warm embrace, and I lean against the pool’s edge, watching as he gets in at the other end. The muscles of his shoulders ripple with his motions across his tanned skin.

“Well,” he says. Across the water, his voice sounds deeper. “You didn’t drink once. I should’ve asked harder questions.”

“Did you have any harder ones to ask?”

“There’s more I want to know, yeah.”

“Ask me now, then.”

He leans against the side of the pool and rests his arms on the edge. “I’ll ask the one you avoided earlier. Tell me the plot of one of your books.”

I swim toward him. His hair is pushed back off his forehead. I know what it feels like now, from running it between my fingers while we kissed. Thick strands that are surprisingly soft. “I’ll have to drink,” I say, “for that question. When I get out of the pool.”

“Eden,” he murmurs. “Tell me.”

I shake my head. “My turn. I want you to tell me the answer to the question you avoided by taking a drink.”

“What I’d do,” he says slowly, “if you were interested in me, too? Hypothetically.”

“Yes.”

“Eden, you told us to cool off.”

“Well, we’re doing it together.” I reach through the water and put my hands on his shoulders. His skin is warm above the surface, and firm, and my fingers curve over the slope of his muscles.

“Thanks for kissing me yesterday. In front of Kaelie.”

“Happy to help,” he says. His eyes have turned molten, the blue is as liquid as the water around us. His hands slide around my waist. Bare skin on bare skin, pulling me closer, his movements effortless in the water. “So,” he says. “Are you avoiding men? Was I right?”

“If I am, I’m doing a terrible job of it right now.”

His lips twist into a half smile. The sight of it sends a jolt of heat through me, like a shot of fire whiskey in the middle of Washington winter.

“You sure are,” he says.

My hands tighten around his neck, and his breath ghosts across my lips. The waiting is excruciatingly delicious.

“This is my favorite part,” I whisper.

He pauses, lips an inch from mine. “The seconds right before?”

“Yes.” I slide my fingers into his hair, curling them at his nape.

The world starts and ends in this tiny pool, and with him. It has collapsed into this warm and real place, with Phillip holding me beneath the surface.

He closes the distance between us.

Soft lips against mine, tasting faintly of alcohol and then of nothing else but him, insistent and steady at the same time. He was a good kisser on the beach and in the forest. Here, pressed close together, he’s excellent. Shivers race across my skin.

His long fingers curve over my hips and dig into my skin. I nip at his lower lip, and he groans, the sound reverberating into me. Our bodies align. My chest against his, our hips pushed together. The kisses are so much headier in our almost-nakedness.

Making out in a bikini is like skipping directly to go and collecting the two hundred dollars on the way. Unearned, but very enjoyable.

“Eden,” he murmurs and tips my head back to reach my neck. The brush of kisses across the sensitive skin is my undoing.

Neck kisses always are.

Above us, the night sky is alight with stars. I’m so far away from home, I think. So far away from the real Eden. Or maybe I am the real one, here, embracing adventure and the unknown.

Phillip’s hands return to my waist and squeeze into a tight grip. Almost like he’s forcing them to stay put.

But I don’t have the same qualms. I slide mine down his shoulders, over the muscles honed by all the laps he swims, and down his chest. There’s a smattering of dark hair here. I trace it with my fingernail.

He groans softly.

I smile. “Didn’t know guys had sensitive pecs.”

“We don’t,” he says. “Well, I don’t. But the way you’re looking at me…”

I kiss him again. This time, I press myself against him, my breasts flattening to his chest. He moves immediately. Like a switch has been flipped, his hands lose their statue-like grip and slide down over my hips. Settle on my thighs and lift me up.Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

I wrap them around his waist and kiss him again, molding our lips together. With Phillip holding me, I feel weightless in the water.

I notice the water moving around us, but not what it means. Not until my back softly hits the opposite wall of the pool.

His arms settle against the edge on either side of me, and he devotes himself to kissing me like it’s a career, a job, a vocation. Like I’m an altar. It’s slow, and yet there’s no mistaking the fervor behind it, his lips taunting mine, his tongue there in occasional slow strokes.

It takes my breath away.

There’s fire spreading through my limbs. It’s unhurried and heady, but it burns all the same, battling with the nerves in my stomach.

I’m the one who takes his hand and moves it to my waist, and then higher up, to the left cup of my bikini top.

Phillip groans and steps in closer, our hips molding together beneath the water. His hand closes around my breast, but it’s not the salvation I was looking for. It just makes me need him more.

“Eden,” he says, but I don’t wait to hear what else he has to say. I reach up to undo the halter top. The straps fall to the water’s surface, and then his hand is there, behind my back, tugging at the second strap.

My bikini top floats away, a strip of blue fabric.