When I Learn To Fly free porn video

ONE

Rain is so much prettier in the summer.

As we drove, fat drops splattered against the car windows. The sun shot through their glossy skins and threw coloured lights inside—like riding in a kaleidoscope. Good job it was this pretty, too; to tolerate another hour in the car with Mom, I needed the distraction.

"Danni?" Esme, my girlfriend, traced the seam along the inner leg of my jeans. "You're quiet. It's weird."

"Just tired, baby." It wasn't weird. I'd been quiet with her a lot lately, but couldn't bear to tell her why.

"I'm sure she's just conserving her energy for the good times ahead." Mom nodded at us in the car mirror as she drove. "Ready to let loose on holibobs, girls?"

Holibobs. Eugh. Esme winced at me, and I rolled my eyes.

"Mom. Seriously."

"Don't pretend you'd rather be at home. I heard the pair of giggling while you packed your bikinis," she huffed.

Holy crap. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed she didn't hear what happened right after Esme tried on the purple stripy one with the string ties, because I swear we tried to stay quiet...

Esme squeezed my hand and shot me an impish smile. She was thinking about it too; the things we did in my bedroom last night. If I sucked my fingers hard enough, I could probably still taste her.

Two months on, and it was still easier to screw my girlfriend than just tell her the truth.

But no matter now. We were off on holiday--my family's annual gathering on Anglesey--and after that, Esme and I would separate to start our respective university courses. She was off to Portsmouth, me to Bath. I'd got it all planned: we'd grow apart. Our phone calls and emails would dwindle, and our relationship would feather at the edges. It might take a cruel word or two to tug the thread, but that would be easier when I didn't have to look into her big, beautiful blue eyes while I said them.

Because...yeah. I'm Danni Warren, and I'm a coward. I'm also a cheating cow. There's no support group for any of those things, and saying it out loud didn't make me feel any better. All I wanted to do now was tolerate a week with my family in those stupid eco lodges, and pray the wooden walls didn't remind me too much of a little cabin in Devon where I'd spent three intense, desperate nights with someone I could never really have.

I did try to have him, but he panicked and slipped away.

****

"This is our first bedroom, like, together." Esme dumped her rucksack on the double bed with its cheerful yellow sheets, and sank into the mattress. "That's kind of cool, right?"

I glanced around at our timber walls, pine furniture, and at the huge window where the distant view of the Snowdonia mountains spilled in. "It's awesome."

"I mean, it's not what I'd pick for us," she went on. "We'd totally have velvet. And lace. Like in Moulin Rouge."

"This is more like Ikea boudoir."

"But I kinda don't care." She tugged me down beside her on the crappy mattress, and her blond bob cupped her chin as she leaned over me. "'Cause I'm here with you."

"My mum's in the next room, remember."

"Still don't care."

No matter how I felt about her, I couldn't deny that Esme was a tantalising kisser. It was half the reason I'd fallen for her in the first place. Her lips were so soft and her tongue so delicate that I melted right into her mouth every time. This kiss was no exception, and before I even thought about it, I wrapped one arm around her neck and rubbed her buttocks with my free hand.

"Love you, pixie," she breathed.

"Love you too." I did. Kind of. God, it was just so complicated. Esme still turned me on, and I still longed for her company. I missed her when she got tied up at school or her job at the supermarket. But since that weekend two months ago, I'd realised she wasn't The One...and it all stopped being good enough. Now she just thought I was constantly stressed or tired, and I knew she hoped we'd make up for it on this holiday.

Maybe we would. Stranger things had happened, right?

"So." She pulled back to stroke the auburn hair from my face. "What's the plan of action? We checking out the beach, or what?"

"Yeah, can do. We usually all meet at this pub down the road, so we could do beach and then pub for tea."

Esme's nipple stood stiff beneath her t-shirt, and I pushed my thumb against it gently. She had gorgeous breasts—small, tipped with dark pink buds. Sensitive. When I petted them like this, she went all quiet and breathy.

"Well?" I giggled, nudging her. "Hello? Earth to Esme?"

"Yeah. Whatever, pixie." She pulled me in for another warm kiss. "I can't wait to meet your family. Finally."

"Oh yeah." I looked down. "That."

"They do know you're a lesbian, right?"

They knew, all right. Only one of them knew otherwise, but family gatherings had never been his thing. Fortunately. Or unfortunately. For a brief second, I imagined him shaking hands with Esme, and the three of us making awkward small talk as if nothing had ever happened and I'd never had him inside me. Crap. Crap. No, definitely fortunate that he was all black sheep-esque and wouldn't be there.

"Course they know. You moose." I finished teasing her nipple, and kissed along her collarbone instead. "Although we don't have to go anywhere. We could just stay here..."

"Danni!" She swatted my kisses away. "We've got all night for that. All week. Mmm." She gave my bottom lip a little tug. "I want to do it on the beach."

I'd already done it on the beach, but she could never know that.

"Yeah. Um. Awesome."

"In the dark, maybe. With all the stars twinkling, and the sound of the tide and stuff. So romantic." She sighed wistfully. "I'm so glad your mum let you bring me."

"Mom is very supportive of our girl-love. I think she feels all feminist and PC because ot it." And she did support us, in her own way (although I'd hardly dreaded telling her I had a girlfriend; she was just glad I wasn't pregnant, or on d**gs, or convinced I was a sparkly vampire or something).

If only she knew the truth, eh? (Ominous fade out).

"Cool. Shall we get going, then?"

"I don't want to get off this bed," I complained. "It's too comfy, and now I'm all frisky. You can't let me go out like this, Es. I'll hump a tree."

"Danni. Ew."

Ten minutes later, we'd swapped our trainers for flip flops, and were headed down the stony path to the beach. The breeze tempered the heat, whipped our hair against our cheeks, and our palms stuck together as we held hands.

The four cabins my family hired each year sat on the outskirts of a wood just outside Rhosneigr, a seaside village on the coast of the Welsh island. It was fifteen minutes to the pubs and shops, ten minutes to the beach itself, and less than five to the shade of the marshy forest. Not exactly Marbella or New York, but it was good to get away from our crummy little house in Bristol...especially since Mom and Malcolm the moron broke up. I swear, she needed this holiday far more than me.

"Woah." As we emerged from the woodlands and on to the beach, Esme shielded her eyes with a hand and stared out over the expanse of sapphire ocean. She was about to study oceanography at uni, and I knew the sea was kind of her sacred place. "I could stand here all day, you know."

"Well how's about you stand downwind, and I wait here so I can watch your skirt blow up?"

"You get more perverted every frickin' second." She rolled her eyes, although a smile crinkled their edges. "I promise you can look up my skirt later, okay?"

"I suppose I'll cope." How did this work, exactly? Esme felt like my best friend, but I still wanted to lick her, taste her, have her shudder through one of her sweet, cooing orgasms against my mouth. Yet I'd feel nothing but relief once we were over and I was free to chase a replacement...him. It wasn't that she was a girl, no, nothing to do with that. But I wanted things now that only he could give me, and maybe someone a similar shape could do the same?

Esme grabbed my hand again. "Wanna collect some shells?"

"What, like we're five?"

"Yeah. Like we're five. Then we can make daisy chains, and drink Orangina at the pub just because it's in the grown-up bottles."

I snorted. "It's in the textured sex toy bottles."

"Will you get your brain out of the gutter for a minute and come help me?"

But I'd done something dirty with a bottle more times than I should admit. It was still sealed, full of pear cider, and on the corner of the label, a scrawling hand had written for my tln xxx

I'm pretty sure he never meant for me to use it like that, but hey, like I once said: I can't fuck anything worse than my--

"Danni!" Esme waved from across the beach, her flip flops dangling from her free hand as the tide swept around her bare feet. The sun spilled in a yellow glow to frame her, and she was like a toffee apple in that moment, all yummy shades of gold and light brown. I'd break her heart in a few weeks...stupid, ungrateful Danni. I deserved everything I got.

"Yeah?" I called.

"Come look over here! I found a crab."

A crab. Riveting. "One sec, baby. I'm coming."

The sand was still wet from the afternoon rain shower, and I had to pull off my own flip flops in case I sank in. It swamped up between my toes as I squelched over to her.

"Reporting for the crustacean ecstasy tour." I did a little mock salute.

"Oh. You're such a meanie."

Half an hour later, the sun sank further towards the cupped hands of the clouds and we had enough shells to make Esme a new skirt (one that wouldn't blow up). We decided to drop them back off at the lodge before strolling down to the pub, where we'd meet my grandparents, great uncle, aunt and cousin. Somewhere between Esme's elation at finding a crab and me mashing her against a rock for wet kisses, I relaxed a bit. Maybe it was the salt-sweet stench of the ocean and its warm water taste in my mouth, or the hot air on my skin, or the tide song. Or laughing with Esme for the first time in weeks. I don't know...something in me cracked and crawled back inside its shell. Left me lighter.

Until we emerged from the stone path and saw the car in front of our lodge.

Parked next to Mom's waste-of-space Nissan was a muddy black Range Rover. I squeezed Esme's hand so hard, I nearly cut the circulation off.

"Jeez, Danni!" She yanked it away, shaking the blood back in. "You know I don't like all that rough stuff."

"I...that's not what I meant." His car. His car. HIS CAR, with a stripy surf board on the roof rack. Half of me wanted to bolt back down and throw myself into the sea, and the other half...crap. I couldn't even bring myself to say it, but it probably belonged in a dirty story. The one where the stupid girl got her heart ripped out and stuffed back down her throat, but she was too busy sucking something else to notice.

"You okay, pixie?"

"Course I am," I lied. With every step, we got closer to my big black hole of want and regret, and she didn't have a clue. Not that I wanted her to, of course--if anyone found out, it would be curtains for me (in the words of Captain Hammer: lacy, gently wafting curtains).

"So come on then. Help me get these shells back before they fossilise."

I followed Esme back up the creaking timber stairs and on to the veranda. She fumbled with her key for a second before realising the door was open, and before we even entered, I heard his laugh. It was so frickin' deep and silly, and...oh God. I was falling all over again, the taste of him surging in my mouth.

"Hey." Mom smiled from behind the kitchen counter as we filed in. "You girls been down to the beach? How's it looking?"

"Gorgeous." Esme held up a flat shell with a rainbow sheen. "We got bounty, too."

"Bounty, huh?" He folded his thick, tanned arms, his legs parted as he leaned back on the stool. He wore the same three quarter length shorts, the same surfy t-shirt in sun-bleached colours. His shaggy caramel hair was just a teensy bit longer and he'd tucked it behind his ears. Silver eyes widened at the sight of me, and he didn't even glance down to hide it--I know mine did the same. Every bit of me ached.

"Esme," I croaked, "this is my Uncle Gabe."

TWO

You have to understand that we never meant for it to happen.

We knew it was stupid. We knew it was "wrong." What with me, just eighteen and twelve years younger than him; I was meant to be all head-over-lesbian-heels in love with Esme, but one look at him and my hot guydar bust a fuse. Kind of shameful, when you think about it. And he might have been my estranged uncle, but he was still my uncle.

I gave him my virginity (the non-lesbo version. Esme was still the proud owner of my holy crap, I like girls! moment). Two intense days later, we confessed our love for each other, and for two glorious weeks, he hiked to get phone signal to call me every day, and sent me four beautiful letters. We planned to steal away together ASAP...but it stopped. I guess he panicked. And the fifth letter I received was only five words long: I'm sorry. We just can't. He never wanted me to leave Esme, and maybe he'd known it had to end. I was just a break from reality, a fantasy come alive for three wet, swollen days.

For these reasons, I bet he never thought he'd be sitting there in our holiday lodge...but there he was in all his buff, heart-breaking glory.

"Danni?" Mom put her coffee cup down, frowning. "Are you all right?"

"I...I'm g-good."

"That pleased to see me?" Gabe raised his eyebrows and attempted a smile. Badly feigned sarcasm was so not his strong point.

"I didn't think you came to these sorts of things," I managed to say.

"I don't. But I figured it was time to make good with everybody. Especially since..."

Since he made more than "good" with me?

"...I'm moving away," he finished.

Oh. No shit?

"Where are you moving to?" asked Esme, all perky and interested.

Gabe looked down. Bad sign. "Canada."

"He's got some big shot grant at a college over there," Mom announced. She looked almost proud.

I couldn't stop blinking. "You're moving to Canada?" Like, eleventy billion miles away Canada? Why would anyone do that? Look at the evidence: Celine Dion. Moose (half deer, half donkey. Plain stupid).

"That's right," he said.

"But—but Canada sucks!"

Gabe gave an apologetic shrug. "I have to go where the research takes me. It's part of my job."

Esme wandered over to the freshly-stocked fridge and pulled out a bottle of orange juice. "What do you research?"

"Palaeobiology. It's the--"

"OhmyGod!" Her face lit up; flushed cheeks, flashing white teeth. "I know about that. It'll be part of my course. Do you lecture?"

"I do indeed." He put his hand out to her. "You're Esme, right? Danni told me all about you."

I watched my girlfriend and my ex-lover shake hands and chit-chat, and numbness spread through my limbs. All this pretence, Gabe's casual fakery, this entire scenario—it was like a body drained of blood. Pale. Lifeless. Just like the first time I met grown-up him, a sparky ball of hate burned inside, but this time it was for a different reason: betrayal. Because that was what Canada was.

I was meant to be on holiday in Wales—not the frickin' Twilight Zone.

"Danni?" Esme ran cool fingers along my arm. "You ready to head up to the pub?"

"I s'pose, yeah. Just need to change my shoes." I shot Gabe a glance. I just wanted acknowledgement, a nod, anything...but he sat so still that he blurred in my vision.

****

After that, I thought sitting opposite Gabe in the pub would be painful.

I was wrong.

It was excruciating.

I'm not talking like, popping a big spot or stubbing your toe. I'm talking trying to make conversation with your grandma about school and your job and the books you last read, and trying to be all polite and happy, when all the while her son entertains the rest of the table with his surfing stories, and all you can think about is OHMYGODIHADSEXWITHHIM. And then, oh shit...he abandoned me.

Let me remind you, too, that I could not look at Gabe without seeing him naked, no matter how cool and clever his t-shirts were. Which was all his bloody fault; he made the first move. I might have been all hot for him, but I'd never been as brazen and fearless as when he leaned in to kiss me that first time.

There would never be another first time, or last time, or anything inbetween. As I sat there trying to be happy girlfriend Danni, the thought silently slaughtered me.

"Danni?"

I glanced up at Taylor, my preppy, Oxford-bound cousin, who performed the impressive feat of adjusting his glasses and smoothing his short hair at the same time. "Mmm?"

"You look how I feel," he said.

"What, bored and awkward?"

He blushed. Oopsie. "Well...yeah, I s'pose. But I meant on edge."

I rolled a bat mat between my fingers. "What have you got to be on edge about?"

"Um. Well." It was quick—I'd have missed it with a blink—but his watery eyes darted towards Esme, who sat chatting to Gabe. "I dunno. Just hate family holidays."

And you fancy my girlfriend, you jammy cock.

"You can't possibly hate them more than me."

"No, I do. Mom made me leave my laptop at home and everything."

At that moment, Esme plonked herself back next to me on the bench, and Taylor lowered his eyes.

"I like your uncle," Esme declared, slightly drunk. "He's all dry and funny. You told me he was a dickhead." She spoke just a bit too loudly, even over the buzz of the bar, and Gabe jerked up to eye me. The harder I blushed, the closer his lips twitched to a bemused smile. Bastard.

"That's not what I said."

"Yeah, it is." She grinned at Gabe, all conspiratorial. "You're such a meanie sometimes, Danni."

"Not all the time," Gabe called over, still wearing that strange almost-smile.

I couldn't bare it. I leapt up, ignoring Esme's squeaks, and hurried to the bar where I bought a wet, cold bottle of pear cider. The first mouthful hit my throat in sweet prickles. God...I needed that.

Back at the table, I placed the bottle firmly in the centre of the bar mat and tried to catch Gabe's eye again. Please let him notice that I'm drinking the same as him—our drink—that I'm peeling off the label in little spirals of damp paper, just like he's been doing for the past hour.

Yes, I watched his fingers. I'd been watching them all frickin' evening because I couldn't stop.

But Gabe didn't acknowledge my message in a bottle. That's if he noticed it. I'm not sure he did.

****

Esme knew something was up. I'd done well to fool her this long, I suppose, but now I was practically unravelling, throwing off ripples as I collapsed. When we got home that night, she closed the bedroom door, leaned back against it and folded her arms.

Here it comes, I thought. The serious face.

"You're a liar, Danni Warren," she said quietly.

I edged back, my legs touching the bed. "Um. What?"

"You keep telling me you're okay, but you're not, are you?"

"I...I guess not."

"So what is it? You going to tell me? I can help, you know." Her serious face melted into a concerned smile. The room was dark, just floodlights casting pearly shadows through the window, and it framed her in this inky, iridescent light. "Is it something to do with your uncle? You went all funny as soon as we met him."

Yes, yes it is, darling. He trashed my little heart like he was stubbing out a cigarette. Erm. "Sort of."

"Sort of? What d'you mean?"

"It's kind of hard to explain," I mumbled.

She strode over, took my hand and pulled me down to sit. Then she pressed it into her lap, her cool, soft fingers tracing soothing patterns. "I've got all night, pixie."

"Right. Well. When I visited, he was asking me all these questions about uni and stuff, because he's like, a lecturer."

"Okay," she said.

"And...he made me question stuff a bit. About what I wanted to study, why I was moving away when I'd save money staying at home and things. It made me a bit uncomfortable."

"Oh, Danni." She squeezed my hand. "And now seeing him has brought it back?"

"Yeah. Sorry, that sounds really lame." A really lame lie!

"No, it doesn't. Course not. But I wish you'd just told me, silly." She ran her hand up my arm and rested it on my thigh. Rubbed gently. "Are you really having second thoughts about studying architecture?"

"Yes. No. I don't know, Es." I couldn't look at her.

"It's a long course. And hard. But you've always seemed so sure about it."

"Yeah."

"Well." She inched closer and teased the hair from my face, her lips just inches away. "I wouldn't mind too much if you wanted to ditch and come to Portsmouth with me. There's always clearing. Just think, going to bed together every night..."

Her kiss was warm as ever, her lip gloss sweet and sticky. I'd already had four or five drinks by that point and felt dizzy, listless...horny. If she wanted to make me feel better like this, I wasn't about to say no.

Esme, out of the bedroom, was kind of passive. Girly and chirpy and cute, just like her choppy, chin-length hairstyle. When we took off our clothes though, she was always the leader. So when she nudged me on to my back, eased my dress up and straddled my thighs, I fell back with a pleased little sigh and smiled as she pressed her crotch to mine. There were two layers of knickers between us, but I could already feel the heat of her pussy. She always got so wet for me.

"Ahem." I tugged up the bottom of her t-shirt, and she giggled as she obeyed. Two dark little nipples spilled forth and I bent up to suck them.

"Ah, Danni..." She raked her fingernails through my hair, over the nerve endings hidden on my scalp. Her breasts were only small, but they were firm too, and perfect for circling with my thumbs as I sucked her. Plus it meant I never had to fiddle around, trying to get her bra off (no, not even lesbians manage that gracefully).

Soon, our clothes were heaped on the wooden floor and we lay in just our knickers, with her mouth on my belly. Esme was ever seduced by the flat expanse of skin there and liked to write pretty words with her tongue. Pixie, she licked, her fingers teasing my inner thighs. Love you. Gorgeous. In a few short minutes, she'd push her tongue into my pussy and I needed that pressure so much, I bucked up to chase it.

Until, that was, she slid my underwear down my legs, and lying there all exposed for Esme, I randomly thought of him.

The first time Gabe saw my bare pussy, he stared. Then he told me how open and ready I looked. Esme's pussy looked like that sometimes, but I never really understood it all until he had me. The swollen lips shaped like a surprised rosebud of a mouth; the plump, dark clit, her sticky sheen; this is how a girl's pussy looks when she's desperate to be fucked. And God help me, I was.

Esme breathed over my clit before she licked it. I usually loved the way she teased, but now I'd been flung miles away, and forgot the girl who pleasured me. The lines of his letters came floating back, and as I heard his deep voice say the words, I moaned.

"Danni," Esme mumbled into my flesh. "Your mum. Shh."

"I...ah...know...sorry..." I pushed my pussy back up to her mouth, and she laved me eagerly, pleased by the soft little sounds I made.

All I can think about is the way you made me feel. I was so in the moment, Danni. Every single fucking moment—we owned them, you and me.

Yes. Like that. I liked these moments with my clit in this wet, sucking mouth. Please--

I know we were supposed to feel connected, but it was different for us. Elevated. Special. The wrong kind of connection, the kind where I couldn't take my eyes off you...why did it have to feel so damn good?

I remembered the way he watched me. The prickles down my spine at the spread of his filthy grin. A connection, yes, like the orgasm beginning to work its way through the walls of my pussy.

"Please, baby." I panted as she eased her fingers in. Esme always stroked, never fucked. God, why couldn't she just fuck me? Why couldn't she be more forceful with her circling tongue, the way he was?

When I go to bed, I think about how we fucked here before we passed out. When I wake up, I think of how you wrapped yourself around me in the morning, and sighed and came on me while the sun rose in the window. Jesus, I miss you.

Esme took note of my bucking hips and worked her fingers harder. I contracted around them now, coated them in clear, slippery want.

I want to come see you. No, scrap that. I'm driving up on Tuesday. We'll book a hotel. I'll have you seven different ways and you have to promise to laugh lots, because I need to hear your dirty laugh.

Her cheek was wet as she rested it on my inner thigh, as she watched her fingers plunge into me. Esme always withdrew for a moment when she knew I was ready to come; then her mouth returned to work my clit again, and my breaths turned to gasps, aches turned to throbs and tugs and fires. I came with my hands fisted into her hair, my pussy tight around her fingers, my mouth full of badly-stifled yelps, and my brain...full of Gabe.

Miss Warren. Just shut up and let me fuck you.

The comedown hit. I sucked in the air, and Esme trailed little patterns over my thighs with her damp fingertips. Wordlessly, she inched up the bed until she straddled my face, and I bit her pussy lips gently through her knickers. She liked to keep them on in this position, loved the sweet friction of wet lace; I simply pushed them aside. A few months ago, I used to pull her down on to my mouth like this and get utterly lost in the swelling tide of her flesh. Immerse myself in the salt-sweet scent of her. Tonight, it just wasn't happening.

She rode the lies on my tongue anyway, oblivious in her grip on the headboard and the practised skill of her jaded girl.

****

Pale moonlight. Silver shadows on our pillows. Esme's hair thrown across like melted gold, her breasts rising and falling in the soft undulations of sleep.

I wasn't quite so lucky.

The knowledge that he lay a few rooms away was surreal, drunken, exhilarating and devastating. I wanted to burst through his door and clobber him over the head with a frickin' pear cider bottle. How dare he just show up after everything? How dare he?

An hour passed. Minutes and pixels melted away on my phone's time display. In the end, I couldn't stand it—I had to catch him while the house was quiet. Get some answers.

I pulled my dress pack on, closed the door behind me and padded down the little corridor to Gabe's bedroom. A soft knock didn't elicit a response.

"Gabe?" I stage-whispered. "You there?"

Still nothing. Gah, was I really going to do this? My fingers were already closing around the door handle, so yeah, I s'pose I was.

His bed was empty. I grew the balls to come find him, and he had the nerve to not be there.

I started at his neatly-made bed, and swallowed hard. We'd all returned from the pub hours ago. It was two o'clock in the morning. It occurred to me for a second that he might have skipped out on us, especially after the awkwardness at the bar, but before my pulse could break through the skin of my wrists, I spotted his battered old suitcase in a corner and his watch on the bedside table.

Well, thank God for that.

But I had to find him, had to talk to him. I hurried back to slip on my flip flops and cardigan, careful not to wake Esme (though the girl slept like a log. Anyone would think I came roofies). The floorboards creaked as I checked the living area: no luck. His car was still in the drive. Maybe he went back to the pub...?

Holy crap. Maybe he went back to go home with someone else. Acid stung in the back of my throat. Surely, he wasn't that crass. All those ours in his arms, in his bed, on the beach--

I knew exactly where he'd be. Of course I did. I knew Gabe better than anyone here.

As I hurried down the stone path, my steps made coarse grating sounds that panicked me after the quiet of the lodge. The night had turned chilly, and I wrapped my arms around my body, let my hair blow around my neck. All the while. I panicked that I was wrong, that he wouldn't be there, and that Esme would wake up and think I'd gone batshit; the low-slung moon and its eerie white spill didn't help, either. Just made the whole journey ominous and foreboding, like I was the unwitting victim in an episode of Buffy.

I blinked once, twice: no, I saw right. A shadow sat hunched on the rock where I'd kissed Esme earlier. It was probably even colder down by the rising tide, but he wore only his shorts and t-shirt. The wind blew his mop of hair about and his profile was startling and perfect against the inky backdrop: gorgeous man, deep in thought.

Bastard.

I sk**ded on a bit of seaweed, and he jerked up to see what the noise was. When he caught sight of me, that vague smile returned, as if he knew I'd come. Like he was just waiting.

"Hey," he said.

I stumbled over to him, still brushing the sand off my cold, bare legs. I stopped a foot away; seemed safest. "Hey."

"Fancy seeing you here."

"I could say the same to you." I wouldn't cry. No, no. Jesus, Danni—hold yourself together! I could barely keep the screeches in: you lying ball sack of a--

"Yeah." He shrugged, unusually robotic. "I'm sorry about that. I'm...I'm sorry about everything."

"Like, for abandoning me?"

"Oh God. Danni." He crumpled back in on himself, his arms around his torso and his eyes pinned to the sand. "Yes. But...no. I'm sorry for being selfish. For encouraging you, leading you on. For the phone calls and the letters. We can never have anything like that—it just wouldn't be right, would it?" His voice cracked. "I'm sorry I couldn't let you go."

Ah, it was no good. A tear escaped, already cold as it hit my cheek. "It doesn't matter, I don't care--"

"You don't care? God, do you have any idea what your mum would do if she found out? She'd fucking crucify the pair of us!"

He was right. With him here, this holiday was a cruel parody of what we might have: clandestine meetings, pretending to dislike each other in front of the family. Being separated by just a few inches that morphed into a roaring pit of despair, and all because we couldn't hold hands when we felt like it.

"She doesn't have to find out. Nobody does," I insisted. No matter how sharp these truths were, standing here beside him with the crash of waves in my ears, I felt better than I had for weeks. Better and crushed and worse.

"We can't go through life like that." He sighed, kicked a stone. Turned back to me. "I was cruel to come here and drop Canada on you like this, I know."

"You meant to be cruel," I said, coldly. "You think it's the best way to be kind to me. Like I'm a pet you put down."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm right. You're just here to make a point about how miserable we'd be."

"You're making it sound more twisted than it is."

"We are twisted!" I balled my fists. "But we were happy! I know it was only a few days and a few letters, but we were both so, so happy, Gabe."

Even now, when everything was going to crap, his features lifted when I said his name.

"Esme's something. You're lucky, trouble. You've got a bright, pretty girlfriend waiting in that bed for you—I'm your uncle. What the fuck are you doing down here?"

I sniffed. "Because I love you," I whispered. "And you can't blame me for saying that, you can't. You were the one who said it first."

"I know." He stood, still leaning against the rock, and beckoned with a finger. His brows lurched inward, and he bit his lip in defeat. "Come here."

One minute I shivered, and the next, I fell against his hard body and buried my face into his shoulder. He smelled like leaves and beer and the sea.

"You're going so far away, and we've got a whole week where we can meet up like this." I looked up at him. "Give me this week, Gabe. Please."

"Heh. I remember when it was me trying to coerce you."

"I told you. It's all your fault."

Gabe's hands worked their way along my back, and he shaped his palms around my buttocks to mash my belly against the erection suddenly straining his shorts.

"Did you really think I'd abandoned you?"

"You stopped calling and texting and writing. It was like suddenly, we never happened."

"I still thought about you every minute of every fucking day." He dropped his cool forehead to rest against mine. "I'm still in love with you. I haven't stopped. I just wised up and decided to do what was best for both of us."

Still in love with you. Without thinking, I moved my hips gently against his, rubbing his cock into my stomach.

"Baby," he murmured. "Don't."

"You're going to Canada because of me," I said, cautious. "You're just running away, like you did to Devon to get away from the family."

He squeezed my ass tighter. "Something like that."

"Well, stop it! Act your fucking age!"

His mouth fell on mine like smack, bang, crackle, pop. Pear cider kisses—I missed these, missed his curious tongue and the will of his forceful hands. His lips had been curved around bottles of the stuff all night long, and mine...mine had been on Esme.

"Were you with her?" he said, panting. "Tonight?"

"Yeah." Please don't hate me.

"You know, when you were staying with me, the thought of you fucking a girl was kind of hot," he confessed. "Now that I've met her, I...Christ. I never expected to be jealous."

"But you are?"

"Yeah." He kissed me again, ravenous. "I mean, don't get me wrong, she's a lovely girl...but I was sitting there in the kitchen and all I could think was, can't she tell?"

Despite everything, I beamed up at him. These horrible things I felt, he'd been feeling them too all along. I worried that we barely knew each other, that it hadn't been long enough, that everything we felt was somehow false—but no. He was right: we had an amazing connection.

"She doesn't know a thing," I whispered. "Well. She could tell I was upset about something, but I made up some stuff about you making me uncertain about my uni choices."

"Ah, Danni. I know I told you to stay with her, but you can't keep telling her lies."

"I know it's not fair. I'm just...I'm waiting until we go to uni. Until she sees this different life she could have. It'll soften the blow, right? So yeah. Waiting." I kissed his throat. "Unless somebody gives me a reason not to."

"I wish I could, but I can't."

"So how come you're still trying to push your cock into me?" I grinned. He was unbelievably hard, and though I'd only come a few hours ago, my clit throbbed in response. Got ready for him. "Maybe I should take care of you. On my knees."

I went to kneel, but he caught me. "No. Not here, trouble--"

"But I can? We can be together this week, really?"

"I..." He put a hand over his eyes. "I need to think about it."

"You don't want me?"

"Of course I do. But come on—we've already done all this once. You really want to go through it again?"

"Yeah." The word just crashed out. "Let me make some memories with you. Please. I need them." In a fit of lust and hope, I tried dragging his hand down between my thighs, but he groaned and tugged it away.

"Let me think about it. I'm not sure I can write that letter again, Danni."

He was already broken, really—he just needed a little push, and I could give him that. Seduce him. Back at his little cabin, he'd wanted me so badly that I'd barely needed to smile before he pinned me, defenceless.

My skin tingling with new-found bravery, I stood on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. "Then I guess I'll go back to get into bed with my girlfriend. My naked girlfriend."

"Good," he retorted.

"And if you hear any little sounds in the morning...you know the ones I'm talking about...it's probably because her fingers are inside me."

Gabe said nothing, but he took three gulps of sea air in very quick succession.

"Maybe you can come watch us rub sun lotion on each other tomorrow. We'll be down here, on the beach. In our little bikinis. You've never seen me in one of those, huh?"

"I'm warning you, Danni." He swallowed again and dropped his grasp of my ass. His hands lingered lightly on my hips. "Behave yourself."

"Oh? So now I'm not allowed to make love with my girlfriend and then tell you all about it?"

"Danni!" He laughed, but there was a sadness to it, like the undertow that sucks unwitting swimmers beneath the waves. "Please. You really don't need to do this. My balls are blue enough."

I pouted.

"And no, I don't need to hear about you and Esme." He brushed a little kiss to my lips. "The only people I know who make love are pensioners, and prissy vanilla girls with their sad sack boyfriends. We fuck, Danni." Another kiss, his mouth open this time. His tongue warm. "You get fucked. I fuck you."

I ran my palm down his erection, and he pushed right into it. "With this."

"Keep that up and I could come right now, you know," he murmured.

As much as I longed to let him, I snatched my hand away. Baha. Bastard. See how you like it.

"I need to think about whether that's a good idea," I teased.

He groaned again. "I've created a monster."

"So...so where do we go from here? What now?"

"Well." He tucked wind-whipped hair behind my ear. "Let me sleep on this--"

"Looks kinda painful."

"Not my cock, you retard. The decision."

"I love it when you get all ranty."

"Yeah. I noticed." He sighed. "Look, Danni. Tomorrow night, same time. If I'm here, I'm up for it, and if I'm not...well. I'm sorry."

He'll be here. I had a sinking feeling those three words were about to be my mantra for the next twenty-four hours.

"Okay. I can cope with that."

But I wasn't okay, and not even the slow depth of his goodnight kiss could soothe me. sleep wouldn't come since he stopped sending letters, and the night stretched before me, restless and bleak.

THREE

Excitement eviscerated everything (and turned me into an alliterative asshat).

Esme didn't know what the hell to do with me. Unable to sleep, I was out of bed at seven to make pancakes, dancing around the kitchen to the radio as I went. There may have been humming. Humming without shame. When she sloped through an hour later in her shortie pyjamas, the bemused look on her face was comical.

"Danni? Why aren't you, like, in bed?"

"Because I was hungry. Look." I used the fish slice to gesture to my golden heap of pancake awesome. "I'm amazing." Then I did a little shimmy, and pretended to fight off a hoard of ninjas with my utensil of doom.

"Um, pixie?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you...bi?"

What the very fuck? What? Did I have uncle fucker emblazoned across my forehead in ultraviolet sperm? A shiver of panic shot down my spine. I froze.

"You know." Esme frowned. "Like, bipolar."

"Oh." I laughed, way too hard. "No. I'm just...in a holiday mood."

"Well. For future reference: holidays are for lying in 'til lunchtime and lots of lazy sex. Okay?"

"Sounds like a plan," Gabe said from the doorway. The blue and black wetsuit, still damp, clung to every cut line of his body. His surf-flushed cheeks turned to apples as he smiled.

Esme blushed hard enough to burst a blood vessel. Yesterday, I would have winced over this; today, I burst out laughing.

"It's okay, Esme," Gabe said. "I promise not to tell Danni's mother."

"I think she knows what we get up to," I said. "Whether she'd admit it or not."

Esme just padded over and dropped her forehead against my shoulder with a whimper of mortification. I rubbed her back with the fish slice. From the doorway, Gabe shrugged and then shot me one of his naughty little half-smiles. I dropped my gaze to where his cock made a heap of taut flesh beneath his wetsuit, and silently pressed my thighs together.

"Do you want some pancakes?" I managed to say.

"In a bit, trouble. Best go get changed." He cleared his throat. "I'll leave you girls to it." The floorboards creaked as he strode down the hall in bare, sandy feet.

"Is he gone yet?" Esme whispered.

"The coast is clear." I ruffled her hair as she rose. "You're an idiot."

"I am not. That was completely cringeworthy."

"Why?" You want cringeworthy, Esme? Try fucking your uncle and then having to keep it a secret from your girlfri—or, er, something a little less far fetched. Ahem.

"Because I was talking about sex, and he's...a guy."

I ladled another load of batter into the hot pan. The oil fizzed with delight as it hit. "Is this one of those unwritten lesbian rules that I don't get?"

"No, but..." She chewed a strand of hair for a second, then tossed it back out of her mouth. "All they think when they hear lesbians talk about sex is, hot. We don't like boys—we're not supposed to get them off." She folded her arms. "It shouldn't be allowed."

"I'm pretty sure you can't dictate to people what should turn them on."

She stood behind me at the stove, dropping kisses on my bare shoulder. "I don't make love to you just so some dude can wank over it, pixie."

Make love. God. If she could only have heard Gabe last night—you get fucked. I fuck you—she'd be livid.

I coughed, batting the smoke away from the pan. "And that's why we close the door. Es." I reached around to pat her hip. "You're thinking about this too hard."

"Pfft. You just watch Taylor today. Last night, he practically twitched every time I touched you."

I was about to add that's because he fancies you, but it wouldn't have exactly supported my case.

"Es." I flipped a pancake with a jerk of my wrist. "Have breakfast. Have a shower. Put on something that shows off your arse for me. We're having a nice day, whether you like it or not."

"Ooh. I love it when you get all bossy."

****

Welsh beaches are underrated. People forgot that Anglesey was there until Prince William and his bit of stuff moved here for his RAF placement, and then everyone pretended to know it was cool. Cool, it was most definitely not. But there was soft sand, huge, old trees and sparkly waves, and for those reasons, I forgave the stripy old deckchairs and single shitty café.

To be honest, a few months ago, I probably wouldn't have noticed the trees, but since Gabe and his sickening enviro-enthusiasm took a hold of me, I couldn't escape the majesty of branches swept out against the sky. They reminded me of a warm afternoon in his cabin garden, lying naked on the grass while he--

"Hola." Taylor dumped his towel on the sand next to me and Esme. He had a dark lens clip over his glasses and wore short, sporty swimming trunks.

Esme glanced up from her thriller novel and I saw her brows dip. "Um...hi."

"You girls don't mind if I sit with you, right? 'Cause the alternative is hiking with my mom and your mom. And we all know that would suck."

"It would indeed." I glanced at Esme, who gave a tiny, annoyed shrug. "Sit away."

"Cool. Thanks." He shook out his Transformers towel and yanked a fat fantasy novel from his tatty rucksack. "Hey, we're like the book brigade."

"Danni's doesn't count as a book," Esme said. "It's too dull."

I pulled my beloved copy of Why Architecture Matters back into my chest. "It's not dull, Es. It's all about arranging neighbourhoods and sociology and stuff. Architecture isn't just about bricks, you know. And you love my sexy brain."

"I could play some music on my phone, if you girls want," he said. "I've got Kings of Leon, or Paolo Nutini, or the Foos."

"I like listening to the sea." Esme wriggled around, her belly flat against the sand and her chin resting in her palm.

"Oh. Okay then." Taylor nodded and fiddled with his glasses again. I knew he was checking out Esme's tits—they fell in little heaps to squash against the sand, but her purple string bikini pulled them up to a perfect angle. If he shifted around a little more, he'd probably get a hint of dark nipple.

We fell into semi-awkward silence. The sun baked us, the breeze teased our book pages, and Taylor cleared his throat loudly way too often. I shouldn't have been so annoyed by him, really—he came across as smug and nerdy, but he didn't mean to. We'd been best friends when we were little, both only c***dren of the same age. Mom and Aunt Lizzie still had photos of Taylor and I as chubby cherubs, playing in sandpits and sharing baths. There was one of us on the kitchen wall at home with our faces covered in chocolate at Easter. I don't know what happened, but we hit our early teens and kind of just grew apart. I mean, who wants to play World of frickin' Warcraft all afternoon when you can...well. Do anything else?

"Hey. Taylor." Esme hauled herself up. "There's Gabe—you should go join him."

Taylor's face fell. "I should?"

"Yeah. You can, like, do bloke stuff. Or something."

I heard the drag of his surf board over the sand, and I knew he'd arrived before Esme did. Ah, Gabe in a wetsuit: like somebody put muscle and tanned skin and cocky gorgeousness into a bowl, stirred, and stuffed it into the fabric. I loved the way the corners of his eyes crinkled in the sunshine; it lifted his whole face, and he looked just the right amount of older (I'm eighteen, so I'm probably the only one who knows what that means).

"Didn't he already go surfing today?" said Taylor.

"What, there's a limit?" I rolled my eyes at him.

"Get him to teach you." Esme pinned her book to the sand as the breeze ruffled the pages again. "If he can teach Danni to surf, he can teach anybody."

I leaned over her, my fingers toying with her bikini top ties. "I think what Es is trying to say, is that she wants some privacy to ravish me."

"Oh." He coughed, hauling himself up. "Oh. Sorry."

"I was joking, you twit." I grinned at him. "But yeah. Alone time. Girl time."

He shot me a thin-lipped, apologetic smile before trawling off towards Gabe, who'd already put his surfboard against the rocks and was checking out the waves.

"Nice save, pixie." Esme rolled over and rested on her elbows. "He creeps me out."

"He just thinks you're hot." I dropped a kiss on her arm. "Because you are."

She craned her neck to look back at Taylor and Gabe. "They're not allowed to think I'm hot."

I laughed. "We went over this earlier."

She tutted, but rolled on to her side to push up against me. Snuggled together, we carried on reading, pausing occasionally to sip water.

The best thing about sunglasses is that nobody knows what you're looking at. This meant I could stare at Gabe as long as I liked, and Esme didn't have to know about it. He stood propped up against his surfboard with his arms folded, chatting away to Taylor. Next to each other, it became apparent how similar their builds were; Gabe was thicker, sturdier, but when the hell did Taylor fill out like that?

Two soft, warm hands gripped my shoulders and dragged me down to lie on my side. Esme caught my bottom lip between her teeth and sucked gently. I mewed in surprise.

"Fuck it," she whispered. "I've had enough. Reverse psychology—let's just give them the show they're after, and then maybe they'll stop staring."

"Oh." Oh. We shed our sunglasses and with them, our inhibitions.

Esme ran a hand up my inner thigh and cupped my pussy through the spotty blue bikini bottoms. She loved to touch me there when we kissed—a gesture of ownership—though only in private. But if she was going to touch me like this, I'd let her think the guys stared because we were lesbians...not because Taylor just wanted to screw her and Gabe wanted to screw me.

Our kisses deepened. Esme's nipples grew stiff against mine, and she made soft little sighs of pleasure as I pushed my thigh up between her legs. I couldn't see, but I knew Gabe was watching. And jealous. Maybe I should've felt like I was betraying Esme, but I didn't. I felt like I betrayed him. I'm warning you, Danni. Behave yourself. Even then, with this cute girl's tongue in my mouth and her feathery strokes over my bikini-clad pussy, I heard the way his voice dropped to say that...and I whimpered.

"Pixie." She panted warm air against my collarbone. "I need to stop."

"Aww. And we were performing so well."

She stilled her bucking hips. "If I keep riding your thigh like this, I'm gonna come...and I'm not...I can't..."

"Not in front of them."

"No. It's too much."

I kissed her again. "I'll make it up to you later, you big attention whore."

"Shush, you."

"Oh, crap." I peeled myself away from her, sitting up. "They're coming over."

"What?" She glanced around and groaned. "They'd best not be after joining in!"

Turned out Gabe had a you're-in-trouble stare just like Mom's. Must've been genetic. To anyone else, he was just squinting under the bright sun, but I knew that look. God. How much had I pissed him off? He'd still be here waiting for me tonight, right...?

"Not surfing?" said Esme.

"Waves are a bit rubbish. We thought we'd come see what you were up to." Gabe glanced at me. "If that's okay." He plonked himself down on Taylor's towel, his carrier bag landing beside him in a crunch of glass-on-glass. "I brought goodies."

Taylor followed him down to the sand, grinning. "He brought beer."

"You were going to surf drunk?" I said, incredulous. And slightly worried. After last night, I knew he was unhappy, but...

"I was not." He pouted. "Well. One never hurts."

Taylor dug around in the bag and pulled out bottles of cider. "You girls want?"

Esme swallowed, as if to voice her disapproval. She was such a goody two-shoes sometimes. I knew I shouldn't, but the bottles were damp with cold, and it was so frickin' warm...

"Esme will have one," Gabe said, reaching for the bottle opener. "Won't you?"

"I—uh--" She didn't want to refuse him. Him and his annoyingly useful charm. "Why not?"

Taylor took the opener and twisted lids off for all of us. We sat in the sun with the cool glass bottles against our foreheads. The chilled fizz of the cider coated my tongue, sweet and fresh and heady. Taylor must have relaxed a bit because he only looked at Esme's chest once, and that was when I brushed the sand off her left breast. I didn't even think, it was just reflexive—but then Gabe's behave-yourself glare returned in a flash of jealous warning, and I recoiled into my towel.

"This is more like it, eh?" said Taylor.

"I suppose my book was getting a bit abusive of the third person narrative." Esme nudged the paperback now splayed on the sand. "Crappy plot, too."

Taylor choked on his cider. Esme purring third person narrative nearly melted him into a sticky, wasp-seducing puddle of boy fudge. Baha.

"You like that stuff?" he said, awed.

"You mean books?"

"I mean, English. Literature. Criticism, pulling things apart and getting the ideas and just--" He clasped his hands together as if trying to smother an invisible fairy.

"He means, he's a book geek. And apparently so are you," I said.

"Oh." Esme shrugged. "A bit, maybe." She wouldn't give him the pleasure of any more words than she had to. I'd have laughed if it didn't feel mean.

"Taylor would choose books over girlfriends," I teased. "In fact I think he did, once."

"I was eleven!" he protested.

Gabe laughed, deep and throaty. "Tell me it wasn't for a copy of The Hardy Boys."

"Like I'd read that steaming heap. We were here, actually. On holiday. I was talking to this girl I'd met, and were were--" He did quotation marks with his fingers, "going out. We were just chatting and stuff—"

"And holding hands," I supplied.

"And holding hands." Taylor half-smiled. "Anyway, we were on this rock, standing up to watch these birds make a pattern in the sky or something gay like that. We lost our balance and she went head-first into the sea."

Esme frowned. "Gosh. You got her out, right?"

"I dropped a****l Farm into the water at the same time. I had about five seconds to choose, and..." He paused, sighing with shame. "I went after the book."

We split into factions immediately: Esme with her open mouth, and her disgust that mirrored Taylor's; Gabe and I, trying to stem our dirty chuckles.

"That's legendary," said Gabe, clutching his wet-suited self.

"It's horrible!" Esme cried.

I shook my head. "You weren't there. It was hilarious. And the water wasn't deep or anything--she was okay."

Taylor took another gulp of beer to avoid Esme's accusing eyes. "She did cry. Only time I ever made a girl cry, and it was over a book."

"I've never made a girl cry," said Esme, sharing a secret little smile with me.

I'd done it to her. I stood her up not long ago, left her hanging on the end of an empty Facebook conversation because a certain someone called to say three painful, beautiful words. Someone like--

Gabe cleared his throat. "Oh, I've done it. Here as well. Just like Tay."

"Go on then," said Taylor. "Can't be worse than what I did."

"Well." He re-adjusted himself, sitting cross-legged, and the glare of the sun fused around his profile to cast a fuzzy glow. "Back then, mom and dad used to come up in the weeks before Easter because it was cheaper. Definitely wasn't beach weather, so they took us looking for crabs and plants and stuff—we'd be here in our wellies and knitted jumpers."

"Sexy," said Taylor.

"You bet. Anyway. Used to fall around Earth Day, and the local conservation group always had events on and things. I made friends with this Welsh girl—her dad ran the group—and every year, we'd have a kind of thing going on. Our parents teased us something rotten. I hit thirteen though and I'd never even kissed her, despite knowing her for years. One night, we all got together for this newt spotting thing--"

"Newt spotting?" I snorted. "How romantic."

Gabe winced. "Precisely."

"Oh, I don't know," Esme said. "Newts are kind of cute."

"The attractiveness of newts aside, we were all hunched up in sleeping bags, waiting for these newts to come out. Our parents were getting squiffy, and they'd let us have one beer each. She didn't even like it—she was just taking tiny sips, pretending. Our parents really ramped up the teasing. They were like, go on, just give her a kiss. Don't be scared. And be a man, go in for the kill. It seriously got to me. I should have just laughed it off, but I got so wound up about it that I ended up shouting I don't bloody want to kiss her!" Gabe put his face in his hands, and now Taylor was the only one tittering.

"I can see how that'd make someone cry," Esme said. "It's bad enough when you're older, but when you're thirteen..."

"Well. Yeah." Gabe sighed. "She was mortified. I was mortified. I did cry too, actually, but not until much later when we got back to the lodge—because I really did want to kiss her, but she'd never have believed it after that. And there was no way I was doing it in front of our parents, anyway."

I wrapped my arms around my knees. "That's the most cringe-worthy thing I've heard in a long time."

Gabe gave a bitter little laugh. "Yeah. Fucking Earth Day."

Taylor nodded. "Fucking newts."

"So was that the only time, Gabe?" Esme said, her eyes wide and curious. "Or have you repeatedly yelled obscene things at girls you fancied?"

"What, you mean, did I make any more girls cry? I was a moronic teenage boy. Of course I did."

"But not recently," she teased.

It was probably just me. Had to be. But in that moment, it felt like the clouds blotted out the sun and the wind turned cold.

"Recently?" Gabe's eyes narrowed, and just like last time, it wasn't because of the bright light. His silver-grey pupils focussed on me as they dilated, stretched by an oily gleam of guilt and desire. "Now that would be telling."

FOUR

I don't experience emotions in the same order as other people. I'm fucked that way, really. If I was a normal person, when Gabe went all possessive on my ass earlier and started making me feel bad for touching my girlfriend, my first reaction would have been anger—full on, hell-hath-no-fury, bitch please rage. He abandoned me. Blanked me. Cut me off. How dare he try to twist all that to his advantage?

But I didn't feel that way. It didn't even occur to me to be angry until we were making dinner; when I kissed Esme's shoulder, he cleared his throat so loudly, you'd think he was auditioning for a Listerine ad. No, instead, I spent the entire afternoon guilty for making him feel bad. All I knew was that if he'd turned up with someone else and put on that little peep show on the beach, I'd be glued together with nothing but snot and tears.

So while Esme sliced chicken and peppers and wittered on about the sex appeal of newts (I may have that wrong), my thought process went something like this:

oh god he looks miserable

chicken smells good. Smoked paprika?

No, he really does look miserable

WELL MAYBE THAT'S HIS OWN FUCKING FAULT

Can't stand it, need to touch him, even if he is a prick

I mean, I'm a prick too when you think abou--

ooh, is that Esme's nipple?

Who has better nipples, Esme or Gabe?

Esme's are more ethical, they would never leave me out for the wolves like a frickin' Chinese baby girl

Not like HIM

How dare he look at me like I'm murdering a puppy every time I touch my girlfriend?

And what the hell is up with all the cider he's drinking anyway?

Chicken DOES smell good. Needs garlic though

Oh god I've turned him into an alcoholic

And I love him I love him I love him

also I HATE HIM

ARGH

"Danni? Are you all right?" Mom peered at me over her glass of wine, from her perch at the kitchen island. "You've gone awfully quiet."

"I'm fine," I snapped.

"You caught the sun, pixie," said Esme, frowning at me in the avalanche of pink sunset that crashed through the kitchen window. "Let me go get the cocoa butter."

Behind her, Gabe, who sat in an easy chair with a surfing magazine, shook his head at me. No, he mouthed. He didn't want to see Esme touch me like that.

But what the hell did he expect me to do? He left for Canada in a week. I was supposed to throw the towel in with Esme here and now, was I? What a wonderful holibobs we'd all have then.

"I said, I'm fine." I sighed. "I'm off for a shower."

Esme gestured to the wok. "But dinner--"

"Not hungry. I'll have some later."

This was turning into my weekend with Gabe all over again—my only escape was the bathroom. Worse, I had even more shame and confusion to wash off than I did back then, and no amount of scrubbing and lemony soap would do it. I rinsed the nervous sweat from the back of my neck three times but I could still feel it there, prickling, goading. Make your mind up, it sneered. Like I even had a choice to make—I knew Esme wasn't The One, but Gabe would be on a plane this time next week. How was any of that fair?

I won't lie. Since my twilight tryst with Gabe, I'd been hot as hell. Aching for fingers, tongue, cock, something. Esme's little performance on the beach didn't help, but even then, it was just that—a performance. If Gabe had touched me like that down on the sand, every moan and stroke would have been real.

We had no plans tonight. Esme wanted to watch a film, which was basically her code phrase for sex. I couldn't take any more of her gentle pseudo fuckery, not when I knew Gabe would be sweating it out in the next room, wishing I came for him instead. And I wanted that, only that—to come for him. I was practically counting the minutes until I could sneak out and find him against the rocks, peel his shorts down, take him in my fist...

I did what bad girls do with the shower head. I teased my nipples with the liquid fingers, swirled over my belly, then brought it down to massage my swollen bulge of a clit. Then I fell back against the cool tiles, my skin sticking to the porcelain, and rocked my hips up to the spurting contraption of a lover. My pussy pulled in, out, in, preparing for later when I'd squeeze down on him the way he liked it, and I got closer...and closer...closer...and...what the fuck was wrong with me? The orgasm just wouldn't come. I couldn't come.

Nada. Zilch. Just as I reached the peak, every scrap of pleasure fell away and my clit turned raw and numb. Marvellous, really. Of all the places the karma bus decides to stop...my girl parts? Sob.

And then Esme banged on the door, all concerned because I'd been ages, all pissed because Taylor had turned up uninvited for dinner (bless the k**. He just wanted company of his own age). I pissed her off even more for inviting him to stay, but I didn't have the heart to kick him out, and besides—he was a good excuse to avoid the girl sex. Maybe by saving my orgasm for Gabe, I could make up for the discomfort I'd caused him all day.

You can probably guess how our little ménage a trois went that evening. Esme wanted to watch one of her subtitled foreign monstrosities; normally, I vetoed them straight away and she giggled and let me have my way, but tonight she was just plain difficult because of Taylor. He was civil—said he didn't mind what we watched—and it annoyed her no end. We settled on a terrible, tasteless comedy that made none of us laugh, and Esme made excuses for bed before the end.

"Come with me, pixie," she hissed, shoving her elbow into my ribs.

"I should see Taylor out."

She rolled her eyes. "He's been looking down my top all night."

"He's still my cousin." I shrugged. "You go ahead. I'll be there in ten, promise."

With a melodramatic sigh, Esme huffed down to our bedroom in little sweeps of socked feet. Taylor waited for the door to swing closed and then leaned forward on his elbows.

"She hates me, doesn't she?"

"Um." I gulped. "I wouldn't say that."

"She makes all these little comments like I'm beneath her, or something. Is...is it a lesbian thing? Am I allowed to say that? Does she have issues with guys?"

He looked so awkward that I wanted to laugh, but that would have been unfair. "I'm not sure what it is, exactly. I mean...yeah, she seems sensitive about men right now." I paused, pursing my lips. "And she thinks you perv on her all the time."

His cheeks flushed, and he slapped them with flat palms. "I do not! Well, not that much. I can't help it—she wears these little vests with no bra, and her boobs are just there."

Couldn't help it this time. I did laugh, and even though I tried to turn it into a cough, I failed miserably.

"So ladylike," said Taylor, trying not to lapse into g