But I hear voices getting closer.
Dammit.
This is the wrong time. Soon, everyone will line up for the shower. I don’t want her to feel embarrassed when she leaves it with me.
And before someone kills us for wasting all the water, I tear my lips from her reluctantly.
“We’d better hurry up,” I say.
She smiles awkwardly as she nods. But I can see it in her eyes—she wants this again as badly as I do.
I can feel my scars tingle under the water. They are a reminder. I should stay away. But I can’t. Because once I let go of the hurtful past, I want Callie more than anything.
37
CALLIE
I can barely containmy excitement.
The first blowjob is not an achievement, right? Then why does it feel like I took one more step to something called intimacy?
I want more of Kai. More of what is happening, because something is. I want to tell myself that it’s desperation. That he just needs a good lay.
But that’s not how it is for me. Being with him stitches together everything I felt for him before that was broken, ruined, but now becoming whole again.
I am silly.
Gah!
What am I thinking?
But when he is around, I don’t want to be anywhere else. I don’t see anyone, lose focus, and the world shrinks down to my heart fluttering like a little hummingbird, and the butterflies in my stomach, a hundred of them, and my treacherous body that swirls with want like I am a cat in heat.
At dinner, I try to avoid looking at him. But when I am filling my bowl with the salad from the buffet, inked arms appear on each side of me.
“Excuse me,” he says softly, takes my plate from my hands, fills it up, and gives it back to me.
His big form presses onto me from behind, and I grin.
“You guys gonna get it on right here, or can I get some salad?” Ty’s voice is laced with a soft chuckle.
Kai’s hands disappear, and without looking, I go to my seat, trying to hold back a grin and blushing like a fool.
His glances at me at dinner are too short but way too charged with the knowledge of the shower episode. I fumble more than an awkward girl in front of a room full of men.
I want to ask Kai if he wants to hang out but don’t want to sound too needy. And then Ty and Guff and the whole gang of guys are gathering at the workshop, and it is too late to talk to Kai alone.
That night, I lie next to Katura on our mattress and I can’t help thinking about what happened. I want to tell her, but she won’t care. She’s done it many times, I’m sure.
So I contain my thoughts as much as I can, because when I let them run free, my panties get soaked, and I feel shame, lying next to Katura with my pussy wet for Kai Droga.
I lie in darkness, eyes wide open, for the longest time. The breeze from the open window caresses my skin. I listen to the purring of the ocean outside. And that’s how I fall asleep, looking forward to tomorrow when I will see Kai again.
I wake up the next morning to an empty bed. Katura is gone, which is weird because I am usually the first one to wake up.
The air outside is humid. The birds are wild. There is no one around as I walk through the morning village, rubbing my eyes.
Katura sits on the beach, watching the waves.