Bopping her on the tip of her nose, I force a few inches between us. “Let’s get some food in your stomach.” Closing the cooler part of my bag, I open the pouch on the back and pull out the plates and cutlery.
“Seriously?” she asks again.
“Don’t ask,” Brendan adds his two cents, sitting down beside us. He grabs the plates and passes one to Asra. Popping the lids off the containers, he starts filling his plate. “Dig in, Little Girl, unless you want us feeding you, again.”
It came out as a joke. But the words are out there. The tension back. We both glance at her, waiting. She swallows, her eyes hidden behind those dark sunglasses.
Memories from a few days ago fill my mind. Her lips, her body pressed against mine, her soft moans, they all hit me in a rush. I’m hard. Fuck, I’m hard, that fast.
She stays completely still. The air surrounding us heats, the cool breeze from the ocean ceasing. She parts her lips. Beside me, Brendan balls both of his hands into fists at his sides. His neck pulses. Her head darts from side to side, watching us both. Brendan’s jaw ticks, clenched tight. Ready to pounce, he waits for her next move, for me to give the go ahead.
Her tongue darts out, licking her plump lips. My dick jolts against the seam of my pants. Still, I wait. Wait for her to make the first move.
She sucks in a breath. I can hear the soft intake of air over the quiet that has settled around us.
“So, these sandwiches . . .” She glances down at the open containers on the blanket.
Brendan’s groan drowns out my own as she picks a BLT up. He glances over at me, grabbing his own plate. I shake my head and scoop out some fruit onto my plate.
Not yet.
For now, we’ll wait until she gives us a solid, green light.
“Fuck,” Brendan mutters under his breath, grabbing a sandwich and biting off a huge chunk.
Oblivious, Asra glances around, then takes off her hat and sunglasses.
My heart beats faster, but I push all the thoughts out of my head that don’t need to be there. I can dream of running my fingers through her hair later, imagine slowly pumping in and out of her throbbing pussy as I stare into those gray eyes later.
Downing half my bottle of water, I clear my throat. I need to find a distraction, anything to stop my mind from imagining fucking her. “How long have you had –”
“Porphyria?” She takes a small bite of mostly bread and glances up at me.
“Yeah.” I offer a weak smile. “How long have you had it?”
She swallows, then sighs. She picks up her fork, taps the handle on her knee a few times. “Looking back, there were signs when I was as young as five. But, I first started having what my doctors consider real symptoms when I was seventeen. Nine years ago. I was only officially diagnosed two years ago.”
“What’d they think was wrong with you?” Brendan asks with a mouthful of sandwich.
“Everything.” Shaking her head, she stares off at the ocean. “At first, it was chronic migraines. Then, I was just a junkie looking for my next hit. That lasted for years. I couldn’t get any doctor to take me seriously or even listen to my symptoms. Then I had endometriosis. For a few years, they said I had IBS or just heartburn. Next came fibromyalgia, then lupus. That diagnosis sucked, but it never quite fit right and none of the medications they ever put me on ever helped.” She picks up a fork and taps it on her leg a few more times as a tear falls. “For a while, they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I was in and out of the hospital all the time. Every few weeks was a new appointment, a new specialist. It was Dr. Schultz who finally put everything together.”
“It took seven years to diagnose you?”
“Normally it takes ten, sometimes even twenty years, to get diagnosed. I’m lucky in a way, it only took seven, and I didn’t go through a coma or lose my liver to get there.”
“Does that happen?”
She nods. “Attacks can be really bad. And the strain of not being able to break down the toxins puts a lot of stress on your kidneys and liver.”
“Is that why you can’t drink?”
She shrugs, answering Brendan’s question. For the moment, I’m glad he’s the one asking. “I don’t know. I just know it causes attacks, and that’s enough for me to never drink again. It’s one small factor I can control . . . I don’t know everything there is to know about porphyria. After my diagnosis, I figured out what my triggers are and worked on eliminating them. That’s honestly about as much as I researched. Once I realized there was no cure, I stopped trying to find one. Looking only makes me sad or stressed, then I get sick.”
We’re all quiet for a bit. The food no longer looks as appealing. My dick is officially soft.
Asra takes another bite. She peels the top of the ciabatta off her sandwich and grabs a slice of bacon. Biting it in half, her eyes close as she moans.
And I’m hard, again.