Here, in their villa with its thatched roof and wooden shutters thrown wide to the morning, none of that could reachhim. Here there was Colin, and aloe vera, and the need to make sure his omega’s shoulders didn’t peel too much.
Over the past two days, with nothing to do but eat and swim and take each other apart in the wide white bed, Diwa had watched the last of Colin’s tension unspool. In Amanpulo he sprawled and ambled. He spent his days standing in the shallows with the water around his calves and looked at the horizon with no particular intention of doing anything.
He laughed more, too, a sound that arrived before Colin could catch it and came with a brightening of his whole face. Diwa had heard it three times yesterday alone; twice at dinner, once in bed, and each time the pleasure of hearing it had hit him harder than the sex, which was saying something, because the sex on this island had been extraordinary.
Ryland had been right about his stats on vacation sex.
Colin’s hand came up and caught Diwa’s wrist where it rested on his shoulder. He didn’t pull it away. He just held it there, his rough fingers circling Diwa’s wrist, his thumb resting against his pulse point.
“You done?”
“Almost.” Diwa smoothed the last of the gel across the top of Colin’s left shoulder, where the burn was fiercest, and wiped his hands on the sheet. “You’re going to need another coat in a couple of hours. And you’re wearing a shirt today, Colin. One with long sleeves.”
“It’s thirty-five degrees.”
“And you’re the colour of a postbox. You’re wearing long sleeves.”
Colin turned his head just enough to look at Diwa over his shoulder. “Fine,” he said. “But I’m having coconut for breakfast again.”
“You can have twelve coconuts, Colin. You can have every coconut on this fucking island if that’s what you really want.”
The corner of Colin’s mouth lifted. He released Diwa’s wrist, stood up carefully to avoid pulling the skin across his back, and headed for the bathroom, his whole body broadcasting satisfaction he’d have denied under oath.
Diwa watched him go, wiped the aloe from his palms, and went to order the coconuts.
Breakfast came with a split coconut to drink, as promised, with papaya and eggs scrambled with tomatoes and spring onions. Colin cleared the plate, drank his coffee black, and wandered out onto the deck with his second coconut of the day while Diwa trailed after him with the sunscreen.
“Arms,” Diwa said.
“No.”
“Colin, your shoulders look like they’ve been sous-vided. Give me your arms.”
Colin held out one arm without turning around, the coconut still in his other hand, and let Diwa work the SPF 50 down from his shoulder to his wrist. He submitted to the other arm, to the back of his neck, and to the tops of his ears, which Diwa had learnt were a separate erogenous zone for the omega when rubbed with sufficient attention, because Colin’s head tipped sideways into his palm and his eyes went half-lidded.
“Right,” Colin said, pulling away before anything could develop. “Pool.”
Their pool sat behind the villa in a rectangle of pale stone, screened by palms on three sides and open on the fourth to a view of the sea beyond. The sunlight hit it square-on, turning the surface into a sheet of white glare that made Diwa squint.
Colin stripped on the pool deck, dropping his clothing in a pile on the nearest lounger without ceremony. His body was two-toned, the angry pink of his shoulders and upper back giving way to the pale skin. His cock hung soft between his thighs as he stood at the edge and looked down at the water.
Diwa got his own clothes off and slid in first, because Colin wouldn’t go in without him there. The water was blood-warm and came up to his chest. He held both hands out.
Colin sat on the edge, lowered himself in with a grip on the stone coping, and reached out to hold onto Diwa’s shoulders before his feet had touched the bottom.
They’d done this yesterday, and the day before. Colin in the water was a specific version of his omega that Diwa had come to covet: his hands locked behind Diwa’s neck, his legs wrapping loosely around Diwa’s waist when the water got deep enough. The buoyancy did something to him. Took the work out of his joints, and kept him from bracing against the world.
Diwa walked them towards the centre of the pool, Colin’s thighs tightening around his hips as the water rose. Colin’s forehead fitted against the side of his neck, and his breath came warm against Diwa’s collarbone.
“Good?”
“Mm.”
They floated. Colin’s grip on his shoulders loosened as the water took his weight, his hips drifting forward until their cocks pressed together beneath the surface, both of them already half-hard from proximity alone. Then there was the warm water shifting against them, and the laziness of a morning that demanded nothing more of them than to enjoy it.
Colin rolled his hips. The movement was slow, unhurried, his cock sliding against Diwa’s in the glide of the water, and Diwa’s hands curled around the backs of his thighs and pulled him closer. Colin’s ankles crossed behind the small of Diwa’s back. The angle pressed them flush together, and the next roll of Colin’s hips was deliberate, grinding, the head of his cock dragging along the underside of Diwa’s with a pressure that made Diwa’s fingers dig into his thighs.
The water moved around them in small lapping shifts. Colin’s breathing had changed against his neck, gone shallow and focused, his hips finding a rhythm that was all instinct. Diwa wrapped one hand around both of them where they pressed together, the water making his grip loose and slippery, and Colin’s mouth opened against his throat.
