My breathing intensifies as Roman licks along his top lip. Lifting one hand to grip the nape of my neck while the other takes my waist, he guides me to straddle his lap.
The beach is mostly empty, with a few couples scattered around, having their own intimate moments. No one from the pier is watching us, seeing as we’re hiding underneath them, as Roman lets his hands travel up my top.
Goosebumps pebble my skin as the wind licks over my ribcage. Or maybe it’s because his fingers begin to tease the swell of my breasts spilling out from the edge of my bra. Either way, my skin is vibrating with want, but my mind is telling him tostop.
I feel the heat of Roman’s lips as he presses them against my collarbone, my nerve endings screaming,I’m ready, while their fiery warmth shocks my system.
But no, I can’t. Not right now.
I’m not ready...
Taking his biceps in my hand, I push back, creating a slight distance between us so I can breathe again. “Roman. I—no.”
“You’re right. Sorry,” he says, giving my skin one last kiss before letting me go and leaning back in the sand. “I just… fuck. All this shit is clouding my head right now, and you’re too fucking hot to resist….”
Roman doesn’t take me off his lap, and I don’t want to lose the warmth of his body by removing myself.
I understand the fog surrounding his brain. The sun is minutes away from setting, the beach will close soon, and now the only thing left is to find a place to sleep before tomorrow comes, and we’re right back in the middle of a nightmare. So, I understand the haziness of his thoughts, pushing him to look for any distraction. The only difference between him and me is that I don’t allow for distractions.
I can’t.
Distractions are dangerous when the devil plagues your mind.
Splaying his fingers along the sides of my neck, Roman stares into my eyes in the looming darkness. “Let’s stay here tonight… sleep on the beach, underneath the stars.”
There’s pleading in his tone, a begging I’m so familiar with because I hear it in my dreams every night.
“As long as you’re there when I wake up, then we can sleep wherever you want.”
So we do.
Roman and I fall asleep in each other’s arms, underneath the glimmering night sky. The white noise of waves crashing against the shore as the sand crabs beneath us tickle our feet. At some point in the night, the weather drops below fifty degrees, but our conjoined heat keeps the shivers away.
It isn’t a comfortable sleep. The wind lashes sand against our skin, and the rocks underneath the surface dig into our bones, but being out here, wrapped in Roman’s embrace with the roaring ocean as my view makes it tranquil enough to help us forget what’s in store for us tomorrow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
AMIRA
Saturday
March 27, 2021
Ican't get out the tangles the salty sea wind created in my hair, and the breeze from the rolled-down window isn’t helping. Not only is a heap of sand falling from my curls all over myself and the interior of the car, but my ankle is hammering in pain.
All that walking yesterday made my sprain double in size, turning my faintly bruised olive skin into a mottled red and purple work of art.
“Thirty minutes out,” Roman says tightly, eyes hard as he stares out at the isolated road. His hands clench into fists around the steering wheel while he drives around a bend, trees lining all sides of us, closing us in, preparing us for home.
Ever since our eyes opened at nine forty-three in the morning, tension has been high between Roman and me. We woke up to the sound of crashing waves and the screams of hungry seagulls as they dove into the water for their food.
The sky was the clearest shade of blue, with the barest hint of fog as the morning washed away. Boats sailed in the distance, drifting to faraway places.
I can see Roman gazing out at those ships, same as me. Both of us wishing we were aboard, coasting somewhere far away from here.
But now we’re in the car, and we’re barely uttering a word.
We can’t. A snake is coiled around our tracheas, stealing our breaths, depriving us of voicing the fears that are speaking so loudly in the silence.
