Julia swung one leg over him so she was lying on top of him, her hips straddling his, her dress cinching up toward her waist as she felt the front of his shorts press between her legs. “There are good thing about growing up.” She kissed him like she’d been wanting to all night, as though they were alone in the world, the only two souls on the beach.

“Is Liz okay?” Blake’s voice was pained.

Julia thought for a minute. “Liz is busy getting back the years she lost. She calls it her ‘second adolescence.’ Really it’s her new college years. I think she’s making up for the fun she didn’t have, the sex she never experimented with, the dates she didn’t go on when she was young.” Julia laughed. “She’s having more fun than anyone else I know, that’s for sure.”

Blake’s hands were sliding down her back now, getting progressively lower as she spoke. “When did you start making up for lost time?”

“I think I just started this week.”

“I hope you’re having fun.”

She inhaled the scent of him, the salt on his skin. “Maybe this is what you do all the time, but I guess it’s okay to admit to you that it’s a little new for me.”

“Mmm, which part?” he asked, teasing the fabric up her skirt to expose her thighs to the moonlight.

“Let’s see…fucking a stranger, fucking a stranger in Brazil, no wait—fucking an Australian stranger in Brazil. Fucking in a pool. Fucking under a waterfall. Hopping a bus to an incredible city and wandering around with no set itinerary and—oh yes—fucking some more.” She lowered her voice, loving how delicious it sounded to say everything they’d been doing. Loving even more how much Blake seemed to obviously delight in her saying it.

“Are we about to fuck some more?” he whispered, sliding his hand under her skirt to feel—yes, she’d put on thin lace panties, black this time, and it made her pulse quicken to feel his fingers pause at the fabric and then hook under the band, groaning and pulling her toward him.

“God, I hope so,” she whimpered, not sure how she could go from pouring her heart out to unspeakably horny in a matter of minutes. Was that, too, what intimacy was? Not just being without clothes but being without boundaries, moving fluidly from one state of openness to another, following the conversation wherever it turned?

“I’m not sure this counts as new anymore—I’m not a stranger, am I?”

“Not since I Googled you,” she teased, and he yanked on her panties in response.

“I still want to be a little new,” he breathed. “I still want to excite you.”

“Let’s admit that fucking is new, and so everything you do to me is exciting.”

In one swift motion he flipped her over so she was on her back in the sand and he was pressing his weight into her, making sure she could feel his cock through his shorts.

“You didn’t fuck Danny?” he said, his face in the shadows but his eyes alight.

“Danny didn’t fuck.” She looped her fingers through Blake’s empty belt loops and pulled his hips to her. “Poor Danny.”

“What did Poor Danny do?”

Julia bit her lip. “Poor Danny made love. He was always so sweet. He would never, ever fuck me.” She pressed her lips to his ear and whispered, “No matter how badly I begged him to.”

“You begged for it?” he asked, his voice catching, his cock rock hard against her hip.

She shook her head. “You’re the only one I beg to fuck me.”

That did it. His hand was up her skirt in a matter of seconds, his thumb pressing against the crotch of her panties to feel her wetness seeping through.

“Inside,” he said. “Now.”

When they were back in their hotel room, their clothes were off so fast Julia couldn’t believe nothing ripped. Blake paused for a moment to enjoy her in her panties, but even those were off before she knew it as she lay back to take him in, feeling his mouth hot and searching where his cock soon followed.

He fucked her like she’d always wanted, hard and fast and slow and sweet and dangerous all at once. He fucked her until the sweat poured off their bodies. He fucked her until she was completely gone, her body a fire that knew nothing but how to consume.

When it was done, she slept as though she’d forgotten everything—who she was, where she’d been, even her own name.

She slept like she was ready to wake up new.

Chapter Fifteen

Friday

Blake felt Julia stirring and rolled over to see her sleepy eyes blinking at the sun streaming through the thin curtain covering the window.

“Sleep okay?” he asked.

“God yes.” Her smile was heaven, everything glowing. He could tell how much she’d enjoyed last night. He’d hardly been able to keep his hands off her in the elevator. As soon as they’d reached the hotel room he’d slammed the door behind her and thrown her up against the wall, lifting her up so her legs wrapped around him. Lifting her up so he could get at that tiny, lacy nothing under her skirt.

Her hair tousled and streaming, sand everywhere from where they had lain on the beach. Her neck arched back, her lips parted, her mouth whimpering as he fumbled with his belt. Her nipples so hard between his teeth.

Just the thought of how hot he’d been for her last night was getting him aroused again. Julia noted it appreciatively as she turned in the tangle of sheets to reach for him.

“What do you want to do today?” he asked. It was December thirty-first. They had a long night ahead of them ringing in the new year on the beach. But it was hard to stay sleeping when the whole city was beckoning them.

Hard to stay in bed but for the fact that Julia, instead of answering him, was wrapping those sweet, swollen lips around the head of his cock once again.

“Mmm,” she groaned as he slid farther in. Her pleasure and the eagerness with which she sucked him drove him insane. Last night when he’d carried her from the doorway and dropped her back on the bed, she’d taken over yanking off his shorts so fast he was powerless to stop her. She’d slid to her knees with her shirt half off, letting him pull her hair up to feel it cascading through his fingers while she took him deep down her throat.

He had understood at last what she was giving to him: all of herself. That was what existed beneath the mask she wore. That was what she’d withheld from other men. Her passion, her pleasure, her joy. What made him so special he couldn’t say, but she seemed to have decided she could trust him. Whether it was despite the fact that they wouldn’t see each other again or because of it, he didn’t know and didn’t ask. All he could tell was that her frenzy made him want her more and more. He turned her around on the bed so he could lick her wetness while she worked his cock.

She ground her pelvis over his mouth, working her clit against his tongue while his fingers found the places she wanted to be touched. At the same time, she swirled her tongue over his tip and then plunged her mouth over his shaft, up and down, up and down, as he felt the orgasm build.

“I can’t believe I still have anything left in me,” he groaned as she cupped his balls. He could feel her smiling with her mouth around his dick.

“What? You only came twice last night. I’m trying to even the score.”

Blake laughed as she locked her lips around him once again. It was true. He couldn’t believe how much she’d come. In his mouth, on his fingers, clenched around his dick, and then again as his tongue lapped her up. He had felt every single one and the force with which they shook her. When he finally lost control himself, he was sure it was the hardest he’d ever come, first in her mouth and then, when she’d worked him back up with her tongue, deep inside her, holding her legs up while she grasped the headboard with both hands, hips bucking up to meet him, everything begging him to give it to her deeper, harder, faster until he was gone.