35: Beachside Encounter

Quincy St. Martin

He has brought out a small blanket, a pair of jeans, and a white button-down shirt from the trunk of his car. We are both dripping wet from our swim, and the wind has turned somewhat chilly for me. It doesn’t seem to bother him, though.

“Do you always carry around extra clothing in your car?” I ask him as he tosses the shirt to me.

“Yes,” he simply replies as he tugs the back of his wet shirt and peels it off his magnificent body. What a work of art.

The sight of his broad shoulders, muscled chest, and the eight-pack, which leads down to the deep V that disappears underneath his jeans, is already making me blush.

Why did I ask him to promise me that there will be no kissing and making out today? I try to avert my gaze just as his hands move to undo his jeans.

“What are you doing?” I ask him as he unzips his jeans.

“Taking my wet pants off,” he says, watching me with that devious smirk on his face.

Then he tugs the wet material off his hips and pulls it all the way down, never taking his eyes off me. Oh, my God! He’s not even wearing underwear, and he’s…big.

~Oh, my God! Oh, my God!~

I try to look away, and he laughs as he casually uses the blanket to dry himself off, not even bothering to cover himself up. “You can look all you want, princess. I don’t mind.”

I get an eyeful of his tight sexy butt as he bends down to dry his legs. Oh, God!

“Really.” I huff as I turn around, and he laughs harder. Okay, so he’s beautiful. Everywhere, but ugghhh, he’s so full of himself.

“Some of you ~humans~”—he emphasizes the word humans as if he’s making fun of me—“are such prudes.”

I know he’s needling me, but I can’t help snapping back, “Better than you! You have no shame!”

What the hell! Now I sound like a prudish grandma. Not my Nana obviously.

In fact, growing up among werewolves who change their forms regularly hasn’t made me shy of naked human bodies, exactly. Only with him. Because his body makes me feel something I’ve never felt before just by looking.

“What? There’s no one else around but you, princess. Look all you want, you own me.”

I roll my eyes. Why oh why did I use that marker on him? Quincy’s property indeed. The writing is still visible even after our swim in the ocean.

Swimming with him was fun, too, once I got over my fear of the great white sharks.

“You don’t need to be shy. I know you want to look. I don’t blame you. I know I’m gorgeous.” There’s laughter in his voice.

Oh my God, grant me patience! He’s so big-headed, big… Ughh, my cheeks burn. Oh, the things you can’t unsee once you see them. Not that I want to unsee…things.

“Aren’t you going to change?” he whispers in my ear from behind, and I yelp, jumping back.

I turn around to see that he’s already wearing a dry pair of jeans. “Or are you too, uh, decent to get out of your wet clothing?” He chuckles mockingly.

His smug, taunting, handsome face is annoying me. I feel like bashing his head with something to wipe that smirk off his lips. Decent? I’ll show him decent.

I undo the buttons of my denim top and mentally pat myself on the back as the smile drops from his lips.

I silently congratulate myself when his mouth falls open as I shirk my wet top off.

I start to have doubts about the brilliance of my plan when fierce lust and hunger enter his eyes as he stares at me unblinkingly after I peel my pants off.

I’m wearing simple white cotton panties and a purple bra, but I might as well be naked by the way his intense eyes are raking my body.

I start to burn with delicious heat, and my heart starts to drum faster when his eyes smolder and his nostrils flare. I grab the blanket he dropped on the sand and furiously wipe myself dry with it, sand and all.

I can hear him breathing deep and fast as he slowly stalks toward me like he’s stalking prey. Okay, now I’m freaking out a bit...and thrilled. I quickly pull the white shirt on and button it up with shaky hands. I look up to find him still staring at me with that hunger on his face.

I give him a wide grin and say, “I know, I know. I’m gorgeous.”

That seems to bring him out of his daze. He shakes his head and closes his eyes for a second before he looks away. Then he bends down to pick up our wet shirts and jeans.

I hear him muttering and grumbling about stupid promises to wait, about no making out, and about taking another swim with the sharks in the ocean. After he puts away our wet clothes in a bag and stows it away in the small trunk of his car, he comes back and spreads the blanket on the sand.

I sit on it next to him, and when I glance up, he’s already watching me.

His eyes are warm and vivid, mesmerizing green, electric almost. His silky golden hair, now dry, glitters in the bright sunlight. My heart aches at how beautiful he is. I could just watch him all day and be happy.

“You could’ve asked anything of me. I could’ve taken you anywhere, but you asked to be taken to the beach.”

He gazes at me in wonder. “And you look so happy, like I’ve just given you the sun.”

“I’m just a simple girl. I am very easy to please,” I say.

Nana said the same thing about me. She said I was easy to please.

I almost peed my pants when she gave me a twenty-five-dollar gift card to a bookstore on my birthday one time. When I inhaled her fresh-out-of-the-oven gâteau au yaourt, and patted my belly happily after I ate it.

“There’s nothing simple about you, Quincy St. Martin. You look so sweet and soft, sometimes even child-like and innocent, yet you’re intelligent, all steel and strength inside.”

He pushes a few strands of my hair behind my ear. It’s such a simple gesture, but warmth spreads in my chest.

“I see you, princess.”

“I see you too, Prince Caspian. There are layers and layers of you. You act like nothing bothers you, but you think deeply. You may act childishly sometimes…” I can’t help but lean into his warm hand. “A lot of times, actually,” I amend, “but every action is done with forethought. I feel sorry for whoever is stupid enough to underestimate you.”

A strange watchful, almost wary look enters his eyes as he studies my face. A tiny smile is playing on his lips. His hand slides across my cheek to grip the back of my neck.

“You could be a very dangerous woman, my princess.”

“Not to you, Your Highness,” I whisper as he holds me immobile and leans down to bring his face closer to mine. His eyes focus on my lips.

“Oh, yes, especially to me,” he says quietly.

I feel his warm breath on my face. Our lips are just inches apart. The yearning to lean in and brush my lips to his is overwhelming. I know he feels it, too, when his grip tightens around the back of my neck. His thumb presses gently but firmly at the base of my throat.

But he only presses our foreheads together. The only thing that’s stopping him now is probably that stupid promise I asked him to make earlier before we came here.

“Do you know how beautiful you are?” His voice is husky, and every word drawls out lazily. “You have the most amazing eyes.”

I gulp and take a deep breath before I ask him, “Do you realize that our eyes are almost the same color?”

“Exactly what I meant to say,” is his serious response.

That seems to ease my lust or whatever magical hold he has on me, and I laugh. This man.

We spend hours talking. I tell him about my Nana, and he tells me about his traveling and his life at the palace. I gloss over my life at the pack house.

I skip over the really bad stuff, but he’s clenching his jaw and fists tight by the time I finish telling him about how I took off from the pack’s territory.

He’s too intelligent to miss the things that I avoid telling, reading between the lines. He’s very quiet and looks pissed off for a while after that. I manage to make him smile and laugh again with the story of how my Nana scared off one of her suitors with her scones.

Nana was very good at baking things, but for some reason, not scones. She made batches and batches of scones and forced them down our throats because she was convinced that they were really amazing and that they were an acquired taste. My Nana’s scones were really bad. There was nothing to acquire but a stiff jaw because they were hard as rocks.

“I had fun. I’m glad to have lost my ocean virginity with you. Thank you for today,” I say when we’re sitting in his car in front of Jonah’s house.

He’s holding my hand tight, and I’m unwilling to let go. Despite the no-kissing and no-making-out agreements, he hasn’t stopped touching me.

We’re both reluctant to end our day together.

It has been one of the happiest days of my life, despite him being annoying. Everything else disappears when he’s with me. No troubles and no worries. Just him and me.

“I wish I didn’t have to go home yet, but I have a meeting with my pack mates in half an hour,” he tells me. “Remember today. That’s just a little glimpse of what our lives could be together if you let me in. Let me in, princess.”

“I’ll see you when you get back,” I reply instead. “Promise me you’ll stay safe?”

“Would it matter whether or not I make it back to you, princess?”

“Yes,” I tell him. “Yes, it matters.”