“What’s your name?”
“Kenny.”
“I’m Kat.”
“Like a kitty cat?”
“Well, it’s spelled with a K, and I’m not quite as hairy.”
Kenny giggles, and I stand transfixed, my hands in my pockets, watching as Kat charms this little boy.
And she says she’s not fond of kids.
“You’re having trouble with your castle?”
“Yeah, it just falls when I turn the bucket upside down.”
“That’s not good. Can I show you a trick?”
“Okay.”
She takes one of his buckets and walks down to the water, fills it up, then walks back to Kenny. “Watch this. If you get the sand wet, it will get hard, and it’s easier to build stuff.”
She packs the sand into a smaller bucket and shows him how to make it firm, making it easier to build the castle.
“That’s so cool!” Kenny exclaims. “You’re really smart.”
“Well, I’ve built a sand castle or two,” she says with a nod. “Do you think you can take it from here?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
And with that, Kenny gets to work on his castle, his tongue sticking out as he concentrates on the task at hand, and Kat joins me, wiping the sand off her hands.
“He’s cute,” she says. “But his mom needs to pay closer attention to him.”
“We live in the electronic age,” I reply, and wrap my arm around her shoulders, tucking her against my side. “It seems everyone has their nose stuck in their phone.”
“It’s true. Did you know that before cell phones, the average length of stay in a restaurant by customers was about forty-five minutes? And guess what it is now?”
“I have no idea.”
“More than an hour and a half! Double what it used to be because people are too busy on their phones. We’ve had people tell our waitstaff to leave and come back to take their order because they’re too busy texting to look at the menu. And then they’ll sit and not even look at the person they’re with. They both just stare at their phones. It drives me up the wall.
“I mean,” she continues as she kicks at the water, “whatever happened to the art of communication? If I’m spending time with friends or someone special, I want to speak with them, I don’t want to hang out on social media.”
“You rarely answer your phone,” I remind her with a smile.
“I know, I’m sorry. I turn it on vibrate when I’m at work, and forget to switch the ringer back on. I’m not one to carry it in my pocket all day.”
“It’s okay, I don’t mind. I know you’ll call me back when you see it.”
She grins up at me and splashes my leg. “So I’m a sure thing, huh?”
I laugh, then tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. “No. That you’re not, Kat, and I like it very much.”
“Well, that’s good.” She walks quietly beside me for a moment, then with a mischievous smile on her beautiful lips, she jogs ahead of me, splashing in the water, and turns to spatter water up at me, getting me wet.
“You didn’t even try to get out of the way.” She shakes her head and turns away, her arms spread wide, face tilted up toward the sun and a wide smile on her face. “This is so great.”
You’re so great.
But she’s better than great. She makes me feel things that I never felt before, and honestly never thought I would feel.
And I have to tell her.
Right now.
I wade to her and cup her face in my hands. She’s smiling up at me and she grips my biceps.
“I love your arms.”
I smirk and kiss her soundly, nibbling the corner of her mouth, then crossing to the other side to do the same. She’s soft and so fucking sweet, I feel like I’m drowning in her.
“I’m falling for you, Katrina,” I murmur against her lips. Her eyes open in surprise, and just when I expect her to say something along the lines of this is moving so fast, she does what she always does.
She surprises me.
“It’s about time you caught up,” she replies, and jumps into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist and kissing me for all she’s worth.
“So, you’re an arsonist,” Kat says as I arrange the logs in the fire pit and work at setting them on fire.
“Or, I’m just starting a fire so you don’t freeze to death. I’m a man, keeping my woman alive.”
“Well, there’s a warm condo right over there,” she says reasonably.
“Don’t rain on my parade,” I reply, and satisfied that the fire isn’t going to fizzle out, begin spreading blankets and pillows over the sand.
“I’m just teasing. This is nice.” She sits next to me on the blanket and watches the fire grow. “The stars here are amazing.”
“No light noise from the city,” I reply, following her gaze to the heavens. “There’s Orion.”
“And the Big Dipper,” she says with a grin. “When I was eight, my parents gave me an assignment to map out the constellations.”
“At eight?” I ask, surprised.
“It was fun,” she replies with a nod. “I had to map it from scratch, using this really cool telescope and books that they bought me to study.”
“At eight.”
“It wasn’t that hard,” she replies, a bit defensively, and I lean over to kiss her cheek.
“You really are a genius.”
“According to my IQ, that’s what they say. But honestly, I think a big part of it was my parents. They expected a lot from me, academically speaking, and they began teaching me when I was only a few months old.”
“Wow.”
“I went to work with them, and listened to conversations between literal rocket scientists. I was around some of the most prolific minds of the twenty-first century from the time I was in the womb. So, I don’t know how much of it is nature versus nurture, but my guess would be some of both.”
“And what about when you have kids?” I ask, surprised when she starts shaking her head furiously.
“I’m not having children.”
“Why not?”
She pulls her knees up to her chest and hugs them tight, still gazing up into the stars. “Because I don’t want to do that to them. I don’t want to put so much pressure on a child to learn quickly, to get it right all the time.”
“To get what right?”
“Everything. My parents are awesome, and they’re smart, but they are intense. Failure was never an option for me, in anything that I chose to do. When I was a teenager, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at something normal. So I signed up for volleyball through the high school.”
“You can do that?”
“Yeah, I was homeschooled, but it had to be affiliated with a local school, and we had the option of participating in their elective classes and sports. So I thought it would be fun to join a sport and be around other kids my age.”
“Seems reasonable. How did it go?”
“It was a fiasco.” She laughs and turns to me. The glow from the fire lights up her face, making her hair look even redder than it is. “I was horrible at it.”
“That’s okay. You can’t be good at everything.”
“But that’s just it: my parents thought I should be.” She shakes her head and looks down at her hands. “It was humiliating just how bad I was. I wanted to quit, but they wouldn’t let me. ‘We finish what we start,’ they said. So I had to spend the entire season on the bench, and the other girls were not friendly. It was the first time I’d ever experienced bullying or just plain meanness from other kids.”
“I’m sorry.”
“All I’m saying is, I don’t want to have kids just to make them feel like they have to excel at every little thing.”
“You’re not your parents,” I remind her gently. “I don’t believe that you’d parent that way.”
“Not on purpose,” she replies. “But my parents would expect certain things from my children, and I’d feel obligated to make
sure those expectations were met.”
“Like?”
“Like putting them in the right schools, having them tested for IQ levels, which I don’t give two shits about.”
“Well, here’s a news flash for you: any children you have are yours, Kat. Not theirs. So while they are free to voice their opinions whenever they want, that’s all it is. Their opinion. You’re not obligated to do what they say.”
“I know, it’s just tough. I like to please my parents.”
“I think that’s pretty normal. Is that the only reason you don’t want kids?”
“I don’t really like kids,” she replies, wrinkling her nose. “I mean, they’re not horrible, but they annoy the shit out of me after a while.”
“I’m going to call bullshit on that. You were great with Kenny today.”
“I only had to talk to him for like six minutes.” She chews her lip, thinking it over. “Although, he wasn’t so bad. His mom annoyed me more than he did.”
“Okay, no more kid talk.”
“Oh, good.” She grins and starts rooting around in the bag I brought down with the blankets and pillows.
“What are you looking for?”
“Marshmallows. Please tell me you didn’t bring me out here to sit by a gorgeous fire without marshmallows.”
“I’m not cruel,” I reply, and pull out a bag of them, holding them in the air. “What will you give me for them?”
“The best blow job of your life.”
“Done.” I immediately pass them to her, making her giggle. “And don’t think I won’t collect.”
“Well, I would be disappointed if you didn’t,” she replies, batting her eyelashes at me.
“You have the longest eyelashes.”
“They’re fake,” she says, and spears a marshmallow on a stick.
“Excuse me?”
“Fake,” she repeats. “I get them done every couple of weeks.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I don’t kid about eyelashes,” she says, and tosses me a sassy smile. “Oh, shit, it’s on fire.”
She pulls the stick out of the fire and blows out the flame, then tugs the gooey mess off the stick.
“This looks so good.” She takes a bite, then holds the rest up for me, which I take, sucking on her fingers in the process. Her eyes widen, and suddenly she straddles me, kissing me with sticky lips, not that I care.
But this kiss isn’t hurried and crazy, it’s lazy. Erotic as fuck. She’s grinding herself on me, making my breath catch, and her hands are cupping my face as she has her way with me.
I want her. I never stop wanting her.
But I refuse to have sex with her out here, where anyone from the condos behind us could watch. I’m not an exhibitionist, and I sure as fuck won’t be showing Kat off to anyone.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun with her.
I roll us on the blanket, tucking her under me and shielding her from prying eyes. Her hands are under my shirt, her nails dragging up and down my back, sending goose bumps up and down my body.
“I’ve never had sex on the beach before,” she murmurs.
“You’re not going to now either,” I reply, and chuckle when she sticks her lower lip out in a pout. I bite it. “Don’t worry, I’m going to make you come, but you won’t be getting naked.”
“You’re no fun.”
I cock a brow. “No?”
She smiles. “Well, you’re a little fun.”
I kiss her neck, licking from her collarbone to her ear, and feel her squirm beneath me. I know that her neck is her sweet spot.
“Oh, that’s nice,” she whispers, and buries her fingers in my hair, keeping me close. “You give good neck.”
I grin and give the other side the same attention, then rest my lips on hers.
“I’m going to unbutton your blouse, but I will not expose your breasts. It’ll be your job to keep them covered.”
“I can’t be put to work right now,” she replies breathlessly. “My boyfriend is making me hot. I have no blood flow to my brain.”
“Open your eyes.”
She complies.
“It’s dark down here, and I don’t think anyone could see much anyway, but your body is just for me to enjoy. Just me.”
“I can live with that.”
“Excellent. So keep these amazing breasts covered so I don’t have to kill anyone for gawking at them.”
“We could go inside.”
I smile and kiss her nose. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“Good point.”
I unfasten the buttons on her shirt and leave wet kisses down her chest to her belly.
“Oh God,” she moans. “Wait; do I have to be quiet?”
“No. The waves will drown you out.”
“Thank goodness,” she says with a sigh. “You know, I might have been wrong. You might be a little fun.”
“Let’s see if we can do better than a little.”
I unzip her pants and slide them down her hips. I want to spread her wide and eat her until we’re both writhing in the pure joy of it, but I can’t do that here. So instead, I keep my head over her torso, sure to keep her pussy covered by my shoulders and chest, and reach down to pet her smooth pubis.
“Fucking hell, you have good hands,” she moans, her head thrashing side to side. I bite her navel and grin when she cries out, gripping the blanket at her hips.
“Hold on to your shirt,” I remind her, and insert two fingers deep into her. “I’m going to make you come, and I don’t want you to drop the shirt.”
“We could have left it buttoned.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” I ask, and begin to work her over, mercilessly. Her pussy clenches around my fingers, wanting more. Needing more.
And I need to give it to her.
I nudge the shirt aside with my nose and suck on her nipple. Gently at first, then building in intensity until she’s mewling softly, her body completely taking over now. She’s mindless. She’s completely at my mercy.
And I fucking can’t get enough of her.
With my fingers completely buried in her, I press my thumb to her clit. Not too hard, because she’s especially sensitive there during sex, but enough to make her back arch up off the blanket and her hips circle.
“Mac!”
“That’s right, sweetheart. God, you’re sweet.” Her pussy tightens again around my fingers. “You’re so fucking tight. Do you have any idea how you turn me on?”
“Yes,” she gasps. “Oh my God, I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
But she can’t answer; all she can do is shake her head side to side. She’s holding on to the shirt with all her might, her fingers white where she holds it together just beneath her breasts.
“I think you can,” I say, and pull my fingers out to tease her folds, up to her clit and back down again. She’s sopping wet, dripping over my hand and down her ass.
I want inside her so badly my teeth ache with it.
“This is insane,” she whispers just as her whole body seizes and she cries out with her climax. I continue to pet her pussy, kiss her belly and her cleavage, as she rides it out beautifully. Her body is cast in firelight, a light sweat covering her face.
She’s absolutely breathtaking.
“Hot damn,” she mutters as her body calms. “You’re definitely a lot of fun.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet, sweetheart.”
Chapter Thirteen
~Kat~
“Hey girl,” I say as I answer my phone. “Do you need me to pick something up?”
Addie covers the phone to talk to someone else, then comes back. “No, I think we’re good. I was just wondering when you’d be here.”
We’re all meeting at our friend Cici’s house for girls’ day. Cici has known Addie since back in the day when Addie was a model. Cici did her hair and makeup, and they’ve been friends ever since.
Which works out well for the rest of u
s too because Cici loves it when we all invade her salon to get pampered.
“I’m on my way now,” I reply. “Be there shortly.”
“Okay, good. Hurry.”
She hangs up and I shake my head. Addie’s always been a little bossy, but she’s gotten even more so since she’s been pregnant.
My phone rings again, and I answer without looking at the caller ID. “So, you do need me to pick something up?”
“I can’t think of anything,” Mac says with a chuckle.
“Sorry, I thought you were Addie.”
“You’re on your way to gossip with the girls?” he asks. One of the things I love about Mac is, he calls it like he sees it.
“Yep, I just left your mom a few minutes ago.”
“Thanks for working with her,” he says. “I wish you’d let me pay you.”
“It’s all about ethics,” I reply. “Technically, I should tell her to go to someone who isn’t banging her son, but I don’t think she’d go talk to someone else.”
“Do you talk about us banging often?” I can hear the smile in his voice, and I wish I could see him.
“Har har,” I reply.
“How is she?”
“She’s good.” I check my mirrors and switch lanes.
“What did she talk about?”
“I can’t tell you that,” I reply, rolling my eyes. We have the same conversation after every session with his mom. “But I can tell you that she’s going to be just fine.”
He exhales loudly. “I hope so.”
“You don’t give her enough credit. She’s stronger than she looks, and with time, things will improve.”
“I heard from Dad this morning.”
“Really?” I frown and pull into Cici’s parking lot and kill the engine. “That surprises me. He hasn’t even tried to call your mom.”
“I know. He just realized she wasn’t home.”
“She’s been gone for two weeks.” I stare blindly at Cici’s window. Cami is waving at me to come inside, so I hold a finger up to say “give me a minute.”
“He’s been gone most of that time, at the casino.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Anyway, he asked me for more money, said some loan sharks are after him, but I told him no.”