Darius moves his hip again, his eyes closing as his hands tighten on my shoulder. I’m frozen on the spot and not because of the cold, but because I’m afraid I’ll ruin whatever this moment is if I move or speak.
His lips part, his eyes opening, and then he’s looking at me. His face is inches from mine and it would be so easy to lean in and snap the restraint we both seem to be holding on to. Darius fiddles with the strand of hair next to my ear as his body shivers in my hold, the chilly air brushing his skin.
“It’s really fucking cold,” he says, teeth chattering. I move my hand up his spine, only then noticing the goosebumps on his skin. And as much as I would have loved the moment to stretch on longer, I can’t deny that he really is cold and needs to get out of the water.
“Let’s get you dry.” I put him down in the water, and we make our way back up the beach. The sun is still up, but the air has cooled. We don’t have towels, so I wrap my shirt around Darius.
“What about you?”
I jump on the spot, shaking my arms out. “I’ll air dry. I’m good.” My lips quiver and I hold the bottom one between my teeth so he doesn’t see how cold I am.
But Darius notices everything. He uses my shirt to rub himself dry, then does the same to me before we slide our now sandy trousers back on.
“Ready to go?” Darius asks once he’s buttoned up his shirt. I’ve pulled my vest on and while I’m dry, I am starting to feel the cold. Taking one final look around the cove, I nod.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
As Darius and I make our way back over the rocks, a ray of sunlight catches on a small pebble in the shallow of a rock pool. I scoop down and pick it up. It’s oval and smooth, grey with wavy blue and green swirls wrapping around it. I slide it into my pocket as we walk the rest of the way back through the dunes to Darius’s car.
“I need food,” Darius exclaims as he slides into his seat. My stomach grumbles. The toast and fruit I ate this morning, a distant memory. We didn’t go back to my mother’s place for the after funeral lunch and I didn’t want anything when we pulled up outside a convenience store on our way to the beach so that Darius could get a snack. “What do you fancy?”
He’s looking at me expectantly, and I run through the options in my mind. Everything I think of leaves my stomach churning. It’s easier to eat in front of Darius when his focus is on the TV. Less so when he’s sitting opposite, his eyes scanning the little bits of food that pass my lips. That’s a lesson I learnt as a child trying to hide my struggles with food – it’s easier when no one is watching.
Thankfully, we never ate meals at the table when I was a kid and my parents paid little attention to what I ate. I worked out what I could stomach and how much I needed to eat to stay healthy, and they never noticed if I skipped a meal or said I atewhen I hadn’t. But Darius notices things – he sees me, and it’s only a matter of time before he asks about it.
“You decide,” I finally say, when I can’t settle on anything. He starts the car and drives us through the town, heading back towards our accommodation.
Darius pulls up outside a kebab shop and we buy halloumi and salad wraps, eating them side by side on a picnic bench on the village green. He’s quiet as he eats and I use all my willpower to eat most of my meal, hating the way it sits like a brick in my stomach.
I scratch at a spot on my leg, an old habit I’d broken a long time ago, but one that seems to have found me again since we arrived back here. Darius eases my hand away, linking our fingers together.
“Do you want to leave tonight? I know we’d planned to stay till tomorrow but – ”
“Yes.” The word is out of my mouth before he can finish his sentence. I’m done here, ready to put this place behind me.
Chapter 14
Darius
“Fuck.” I rest my forehead against the tiles, my hand working my cock, as hot water cascades down my shoulders. There’s an image behind my closed lids – Oliver, his brown eyes shining, his cheeks flushed, his cock in his hand as he looks at me with a piercing gaze. I feel it like a caress over my entire body. My chest heaves on an inhale, pleasure coursing through my veins as my orgasm crests, my cock pulsing, cum coating the shower wall and leaving me weak at the knees. Leaning against the wall to steady myself, I open my eyes, turning to let the spray wash over my face.
This isn’t the first morning I’ve woken up hard with thoughts of Oliver running through my mind. It’s been over a month since that day at the beach and ever since, the spark of attraction I’d felt towards him has done nothing but grow into a continual current of need in my blood.
I’ve known I was demisexual since I first heard the term and read what it meant. Like a lightbulb moment, I knew instantlythat it suited me. I’d seen friends overcome with attraction to someone the moment they met, but that never happened to me, and for so long, I wondered why. I still engaged in random hookups occasionally, taken strangers home to my bed, and while the act itself was enjoyable enough – I liked the closeness and the intimacy – I often left the encounter feeling like something was missing. The only time that was ever different was with the guy I’d dated in high school. We’d been friends for years before we were boyfriends and I’d loved him. He was my first, and sex with him had been better than all the randoms I was with as I got older. I’d desired him in a way I hadn’t felt since.
Not until now. Until Oliver.
We haven’t seen each other in nearly three weeks, and the distance causes a physical ache in my chest, one that only lessens when I hear his voice. Shortly after we returned from Devon, Oliver’s boss, Zander, offered him a job assisting him with an installation at a villa in the south of France. Zander recently bought the place to renovate and wanted Oliver to help with the carpentry. The excitement on Oliver’s face when he told me is something I won’t forget – it was the first time since I met him that he looked genuinely free of all the shit he’d been carrying for so long. I know as well as he does, it’s not as simple as closing the door on years long abuse, but doing this, choosing himself again, is a start.
But fuck do I miss him.
Once I’m out of the shower, I trudge through to my lounge, startling when I find Darcey on my sofa, her legs up on the coffee table and a bowl of cereal in her hand. She’s had a key and all the access codes to my place since I bought it four years ago, and regularly makes unannounced visits.
“Finished jacking off?” she jokes, and heat floods my cheeks. There’s no way she knew what I was doing in the shower, but my blush certainly gives me away.
“I wasn’t…fuck off, Dars, what are you doing here?”
She chuckles, popping a spoon of cereal in her mouth. “You have the good stuff.”
