Chapter Text
There’s a sharpness to his lower back that gnaws and teethes, aggravated by the bumps along the half-paved road that lead him here. The rental bike was probably a bad idea, but with air this soothing — dry and warm, arid from the drought despite the vast Pacific surrounding the island on all sides — Simon finds little else besides the disc aggravation to complain about.
Damned payload. Tweaked something pulling it up over the edge of the dinghy, monster waves crashing against the atoll as he grunted and poured sweat. Salt seemed to still fall from his every pore, pitted into his skin like rust on an anchor chain. It was the L5-S1 disc again if he had to guess — a spindling hip-deep pain that radiates into his legs when he sits for too long. The medic will check him out when he’s back on the mainland, wherever and whenever that happens to be. There are worse places than this to wait out orders.
He opts to stand at the very end of the bar, propped up against the wall covered in hammered tin beer signs and foreign license plates. He can’t drink if he takes a muscle relaxer for his back, but figures alcohol will serve him better anyway.
It’s Thursday, very early afternoon, which means every telly crammed along the far wall plays the same damned American football match. Seattle versus Jacksonville — both rubbish — and the sky above the Florida stadium is onyx black. A tourist escaping some nearby family resort comments offhand to the bartender that it is odd to him to watch prime time games so early in the day. She shrugs and smiles in that passive way that pretty girls do when they don’t want to engage.
And, yeah, he recognizes it. She’s pretty. The most his type he’s seen in months, and certainly since he’s found himself out in Polynesia. There’s a little edge to her, with a muss of choppy fringe that grazes over her brows and a patchwork of tattoos down each arm. Her tongue peeks out between her lips as she swiftly wipes down the bar in front of Simon and motions to the empty barstool.
“Welcome in,” she says almost clinically, still not making eye contact. Busy thing. She keeps flicking her head to the barstool as she readies more drinks at the well, tossing an empty bottle of rum into the bin and uncapping its replacement. “What can I get you?”
She still hasn’t looked at him. She slips the pour spout into the fresh bottle of rum and lets loose a hearty stream of booze into a few glasses of ice.
“Bourbon,” he says simply, still watching her. She has long acrylic fingernails, their tips painted in a bright shock of electric pink with white hibiscus flowers. He feels daft for noticing the details of a manicure, but her hands are as pretty as the rest of her. She dispenses cola from the bar gun with one as the other stuffs a straw into the ice and squeezes in a wedge of lime.
Busy hands — flying everywhere like the little tropical birds in the trees outside.
“You gonna sit or just hover there?” she deadpans, and before he can answer, she’s slipping off to the other end of the bar like a gazelle, sliding the finished drinks in front of a group of old bikers.
He may be the only bloke in here watching anything other than their phone, or the seven tellies all playing the same damned thing. She’s entertainment enough. Loose brown pants slung low on her hips — a Misfits t-shirt cropped up to the bottom of her ribcage. The strip of skin is a treat.
“Gonna stand, if tha’s alright,” he says when she returns, and it finally gets her to look at him. Her eyes flick down to his folded arms so fast he almost misses it.
“A Brit ordering bourbon in this heat,” she chuffs as she pivots toward the bottle shelf. “That’s a new one.”
He smirks, chewing the inside of his cheek as she picks up the only suitable thing worth sipping neat in a place like this. A second later, a short glass is deposited in front of him, and she looks at him again as she pours.
“I like the heat,” he adds, understanding what she’s getting at. “Doesn’t bother me.”
“Well,” she smirks back, dropping her gaze to the glass as she stops off the pour of liquid. “You’re in the right place at the right time. Hottest September on record and an eruption coming this week.”
“Pardon?”
She turns away, replacing the bottle with a clank. “Kilauea. Gonna blow again tomorrow. Or the next. Who knows.”
The volcano. It looms inland from them, collecting rain clouds that don’t seem to break open and give any relief.
“That dangerous?”
“Hardly,” she laughs under her breath. “Been happening often over the past few months. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it. Tourists eat that shit up.”
“Not a tourist, luv.”
She slips away again, and he settles into the bitterness of her ignoring his little pet name. She continues to flit around, restless, even though the smattering of patrons have their drinks and need nothing of her for the moment. He feels a tug in his gut, a wish for her to float back this way like a petal on the surf and start chirping at him again. He finishes his drink quicker than he’d like to speed along an interaction.
When she notices the empty glass, she points to the bourbon bottle with a questioning lift of her brows. Simon answers with a nod and pushes the glass closer to her.
“Not a tourist, huh?” she asks as she pours another round. So she did hear him. “You’re here on business I presume?”
“Somethin’ like that.”
He would say more if he could, but he never can. Besides — no need for a cute thing like her to know about what’s going on a few hundred kilometers west.
“That’s vague as hell,” she smirks, finally leaning closer. He’s hyperaware of her. He swears he can pick up the scent of her shampoo over the stench of stale beer and sweating bar fruit. Her nails clink against the glass as she passes it his way. “Didn’t take you for much of a lei-and-luau type anyway.”
She lingers as he takes a sip, watching his posture loosen as the tightness in his lumbar spine begins to dissipate. He feels warmer. Sweat beads beneath his t-shirt.
“So what’s with the standing?” she asks as he swallows. “Too good for barstools, or are you really that committed to not relaxing on your business trip?”
She’s funny. It makes his stomach squeeze pleasantly.
“Bad back. Stools don’t do me any favors.”
She arches her brow and leans against the heels of her hands, pressed up against the lip of the bar. “You fishing for a sympathy drink or something?”
He shrugs — returns the smirk. Leans in a little closer himself.
“Not lookin’ for a handout. Wouldn’t say no to company, though.”
Her smirk cracks into a lopsided grin. “That’s bold of you.”
“What time are you off?”
He can see the question, the audacity of it, knock her off-balance. She grabs the bottle and backs up from the bar, crossing her arms.
“You know how many tourists have tried that line with me?”
He exhales through his nose, unwilling to get shot down just yet. He craves the fight — salivates over it as much as the peek of her hipbones above the waistband of her pants. She moves away to slot the bourbon bottle into its place on the shelf.
“Told you, I’m not a—”
“Double shift. After midnight.” She blinks at him, as if surprised she’s said it herself. A beat passes between them, and she holds stock still by the wall of liquor, waiting to see how much he’ll press — maybe waiting to see how she herself will respond.
He chuckles down into his drink. “Afraid I won’t last that long, as much as I’d like to.”
He peeks up at her, and she’s still staring — appraising him from beneath her fringe with her hip cocked against the counter. He fidgets with the glass between his middle finger and thumb, twisting it like a number lock on the bartop.
“Tomorrow morning then,” he says. “I’ll meet you here, and bring coffee for us.”
She laughs, readying to turn away.
“I’m off tomorrow.”
“Said what I said,” he affirms, pinning her in place with his eyes — with his words. “Tomorrow morning. Here, then wherever you’d like.”
Her incredulous brow softens beneath her hair, and she shuffles forward to him again.
“You’re serious.”
He nods and takes another sip. Of course he is. Isn’t he always?
“Fine,” she breathes, rolling her neck. “Ten AM. Cold brew, extra ice, with oat milk and caramel,” she instructs him, her eyes now roaming more than just that initial cursory glance of his arms. He flexes a bit subconsciously — puffs his chest out. “Gotta tell me your name first, though.”
He smiles — a mission accomplished.
“Simon.”
“Simon what?” she squints at him, grinning.
He shakes his head with a smirk. “Simon’s enough.”
——
The caramel oat milk monstrosity sweats in his fist as he waits in the empty bar parking lot. He’s thankful there was a shop within walking distance from here with what she wanted. Balancing two coffees on a motorbike is a tall order, even for someone like him.
Birds sing in the flowering trees on the edge of the lot, twittering away as her car rolls up onto the pavement. Five minutes early, he notes. She pulls in to the spot beside him and throws him a cute little smirk as she gathers her bag and hops out of the vehicle. She’s in a pair of shorts and a tiny tank top that show the straps of her bikini. He allows himself to check her out, eyes roaming new expanses of skin.
“Mornin’,” he says with a half-smile, offering out his bribe. Condensation beads and falls onto the pavement between them, soaking into the parched surface.
“Good morning,” she says breezily, accepting the cup and swirling her wrist to redistribute the watery milk and coffee floating at the top. “Wasn’t sure you’d show. Or that you’d remember this.”
He blinks at her, slow and silent like a docile street cat.
“How was the rest of your shift?”
She sighs, takes a sip. “Fine, same as always. How’s your back?”
He warms just barely at the thought of her remembering.
“Fine as well. Slept off the worst of it.” Though he does feel a bit better, it’s mostly a lie. He hardly slept. Up too late, fantasizing about running his thumb over those hipbones, about that Misfits shirt somewhere on the floor of his rented efficiency by the beach.
She squints up at him through the sunlight, chewing on the end of the coffee straw. “The bike was probably a bad idea.”
He chuffs a laugh, peeking down at the bike he leans against. Battered old thing, much like her old white Jeep. The cloth top has a sun-worn tear down the side, haphazardly stitched back together with silver construction tape.
“Can’t say your tax dollars do much for road maintenance, tha’s for sure.”
She chuckles and leans against her own vehicle. “No. But the beaches are really something.”
He hums, nodding out towards the shore just a few blocks away. He’d walked down to the nearest one to watch the sunset each night. A glorious sight. Huge golden orb hanging over navy blue ocean, spilling pink and purple over wisps of clouds like watercolors on thin paper.
“Wanna show me one?” he asks, taking note of her bathing suit again. He’d had the forethought to put some trunks and sun cream in his backpack, and with a heat this oppressive and a bird this beautiful, the allure of taking a dip in the cool Pacific is a siren call he’d be insane not to answer.
“Yeah,” she nods through a widening smile. “Gotta take my car, though.”
“Why’s that?”
“First,” she starts, rounding over to the driver’s seat, “I don’t know you. Second, I don’t think the bike’ll hold up for the off-road portion.”
He laughs as he opens the door and settles into the passenger side, tossing his bag over his shoulder into the open back of the Jeep. The seats are lowered down, accommodating a yoga mat and a bin full of odds and ends like a snorkel and mask, mismatched beach slippers, and a few towels. There is a distinct, layered smell in here, like mildew and mango and sweat. The interior is sandy and stained, likely from sea water and the tropical rain that seeps inside from the tear in the Jeep’s cloth.
He clocks it all, cataloguing it in the same way he sweeps a safehouse. This is different, though. Thrilling in a new way.
“Assuming you’ve got something more appropriate to wear in there?” she asks as she turns over the engine and buckles up.
He nods, peeking down at her manicured hand as she throws the shifter into reverse.
“Good,” she remarks. “You can change when we get there. Unless you’re one of those Brits who swims in his jeans.”
——
The drive had rattled him more than he’d like to admit. Jeep suspension over the jagged black lava fields was a different kind of punishment, each jolt a sharp reminder that his back wasn’t anywhere near right. She’d handled the wheel with one hand, sunglasses sliding down her nose, the other drumming a frenetic punk rhythm against the shifter like she could drive this as easily as she could tend bar.
The bathroom at the entrance to the beach was even less forgiving than the drive — a concrete box with a pit toilet that smelled like something had died in a pile of its own shit, all left to bake in the Hawaiian sun. He’d changed in worse, out in the field. But still, pulling his shirt over his head in there, he swore the rotten stench of excrement had clung to him like smoke.
He emerges squinting into the sun, tugging his trunks into place, jaw ticking as he wonders if he reeks. A soldier worried about smelling like shit — not exactly the posture he’d like to take on a first outing, or any outing with a pretty bird for that matter.
She giggles at him from across the gravel car park like she just knows.
“Thought maybe the toilet swallowed you whole,” she calls, watching him with a hand cupped over her eyes to shield the sun.
“Nearly did.” He feels like a knob in his flip flop sandals, smelling like horse shit and blinding everyone in a five kilometer radius with his ghost-white bare legs.
“You burn easily?” she asks as he clods closer, ridiculous sandals smacking his heels with each step. He sees her eye his pale lower half, the tattoos there that the world hardly ever sees.
“Not willing to find out.”
“Let’s get you some shade, then. C’mon.”
He follows her out onto the sand as she makes a sharp right along the tree line, leading them far from the few families near the main stretch. Her massive metal water bottle swings in her grip, and she’s got two towels slung over her shoulder. When they reach a quiet spot beneath a low hanging bough of a mesquite tree, she spreads the towels down and plops onto one with a contented huff. Simon busies himself pulling out his tube of sun cream as she strips out of her top and shorts.
“Ah, good,” she quips, nodding towards his hands as he unscrews the cap and squirts some lotion onto his fingers. “You came prepared.”
“Always, luv.”
She chuckles through her nose as she looks out at the horizon. The lava flows they’d driven through extend out into the shallows, creating mirrored tide pools and swirling currents where tiny yellow fish play. Simon smears the sunscreen across his face and neck before reaching for his shirt, tugging it up over his head. She’s watching him out of the corner of her eye as he dispenses more sun cream into his palms — as he spreads it over his shoulders, his chest, the tattoos down his arms.
“Want to get my back?” he asks, as nonchalant as he can.
She smirks and beckons him down onto the towel. “Sure. I get yours, you get mine.”
His hips crackle and pop as he lowers, the lumbar curve tightening sharply as he grimaces through the motion of sitting.
“Gonna make it?” she teases as she shuffles behind him, accepting the tube into her outstretched hand.
He grunts as she gets to work, stomach pulling as tight as his back, but in a different way — pleasant, like his muscle and skin wait for the direction of the next pass of her fingers, calling for it, wanting to hold onto it as long as possible.
She’s delicate with him, especially above the waistband of his trunks. Fingers like feathers on the wing of an island bird.
“Okay, I think you’re decent,” she hums, slathering the excess lotion on her hands across her face. “My turn.”
She repositions in front of him, slinking down onto her knees between his spread legs. She gathers her hair over one shoulder, the nape of her neck bared, skin slick with salt and morning sweat. He has to flex his jaw against the urge to bend and put his mouth there. Simon swallows on nothing as he works the lotion into the expanse of her back, her shoulders. He is less gentle than she was, pushing and molding her as he likes. She leans back into his hands like she wants more of it. He wrestles back a wide grin at the thought.
He lets himself take some of what he wants when his fingertips dip beneath the back waistband of her bottoms. He sweeps lotion there, testing the curve of her buttocks under his touch, stalling only when she throws a look over her shoulder.
“Careful,” she warns, but it’s toothless — breathy, just barely. “You’re enjoying yourself a little too much.”
“Hard not to.”
She slides her gaze forward and slithers from his grasp, returning to her towel.
“Let’s let that soak in before we swim,” she suggests, leaning back onto her elbows and peeking over at him. The look on his face must be amusing to her, because she puffs out a little bashful laugh. “You stare a lot.”
“Again,” he says, stealing a look at her breasts before retreating, landing out somewhere on the water. “Hard not to.”
A beat passes, filled only with the sounds of gently crashing waves and the call of birds overhead. She breaks the silence with a question.
“So what is it you do, Simon?”
He sighs through his nose. “Little of this, little of that.”
“You’re unemployed then?”
He darts his head to her and sees her teasing, wry smirk.
“What? No,” he says firmly, while trying to figure out a way to answer without saying too much. “It’s — it depends who’s asking, and what they’re asking for.”
She makes some sound of disbelief, maybe of disapproval, and sits back upright.
“Sounds sketchy.”
“Maybe. Sometimes.” She slides her eyes towards his, brow furrowed. She doesn’t like that answer, either, and frankly, she shouldn’t. Smart girl.
“You know, you’re allowed to say it if you’re in the military.”
He’s a little dumbstruck by her forwardness, but recovers well enough. “What gave that away?”
She shrugs and motions toward his far leg. “Tattoo on the back of your calf. Looks like something I’ve seen before. We get a lot of vets at the bar.”
Simon twists his knee outward and looks. He sometimes forgets he even has it. The 141 insignia stares back at him, faded and blotchy at the edges from age and patchy leg hair. He doesn’t take the bait of asking if she’s seen this exact marking on anyone else. Too much of a risk.
She doesn’t know him — she’s said that. But he doesn’t know her either.
“Right,” he says, an edge of relent in his voice. He does not do well with being unmasked like this — with showing this much to someone so new. His bare feet and legs in public are strange enough to him. “Well. Now you know.”
“Come on,” she says, popping up onto her feet and stretching out a hand to help him hoist himself upright. “We’re both sweating like animals out here.”
She leads him into the water, blessedly cool and refreshing at first, until it hits the scar tissue along his midsection and sends needles through his nervous system. The water seems a little chilled for her liking, too, evidenced by the stiff peaks of her nipples showing through the fabric of her bikini top. His mouth feels magnetized again when he notices — blood rushing into his gums, making him salivate.
They bob through the water, hopping over low waves until they reach a sandy flat bottom past the lava rock. The clear water is nearly to her shoulders, wetting the last few inches of her hair.
Suddenly, she gasps and plants her hand smack in the center of his abdomen.
“Wait—” she breathes, tugging him back a step.
He stiffens, scanning the water automatically, until she tilts her chin toward the darker shadow gliding just beneath the surface. A broad, domed shell, green-brown and ancient-looking, passes with the slow grace of a ghost.
A sea turtle.
It moves between them and the break, riding the push and pull of the surf as though it were born from it.
Simon stills, hand hovering near her waist though he doesn’t touch. The creature surfaces once, long enough to show its blunt head and glistening eyes, then dips again, flippers stroking slow as oars.
“Christ,” he mutters low, the word carried off by the wind.
She’s beaming, eyes following its path like it’s a miracle and not a regular guest in these waters. “Never gets old,” she says softly. “I’ve lived here a long time, and it still feels… magic. Every time.”
He looks at her then, not the turtle — the curve of her smile, the way the sun gilds the ocean droplets stuck to her cheek. Something in his chest shifts, warm and heavy, like the tide pulling him deeper.
The turtle drifts past them, unbothered, a relic of the sea. When it vanishes into the next swell, they’re left in the hush of water slapping gently around their skin, the air between them humming louder than the ocean. She slides her hand from him reluctantly, almost as if she’s forgotten she put it there and grew accustomed to his weight beneath her palm.
“You know how to float?” she asks, then kicks herself perpendicular to him, letting the peaks of her body emerge from the water. He watches a rivulet of salty water roll from the well of her belly button down off her flank. Again he swallows on nothing. “Or are you too heavy for that?”
“Too heavy?” he deadpans, still watching the water trail along her soft middle, pool and flow wherever gravity wills it to.
“Yeah, like—” she tucks herself into a ball and stands back up, facing him, taking in the breadth of his shoulders, his thick waist. “I imagine you’d just sink? Like a rock. Or a refrigerator.”
“A refrigerator?” he deadpans again, his mouth a teasing, hard line.
She giggles. “Try it. Might make your back feel better. Take the pressure off.”
He sighs and relents, easing backwards into the water and allowing himself to float as best he can. The waves gently rock him side-to-side as he views the clouds overhead, growing heavier and fuller, swelling with shades of bruised purple and grey.
Her voice is muffled in his water-logged ears. “Might wanna hold your breath,” she says with some urgency, and just as he tips his head up to ask why, she dips beneath a much larger wave that must’ve snuck its way up from the horizon.
The breaker smacks against him, sprays up his nose and mouth, and he’s sputtering, jerking upright. The salt burns down his throat, into his chest. His vision whites for a flash, a memory crowding in uninvited — sand grinding his spine raw beneath his soaked kit, boots filling with water, instructors barking over the roar of surf as he dragged breath through his teeth. A thousand sit-ups on the shore with the tide choking him alive.
He drags in a breath now, forcing it deep. She’s watching him, brow cocked, one corner of her mouth tugging in amusement. “Not much of a floater,” she quips.
“No,” he mutters, shaking off the sting in his nose — the memory. His voice comes out rougher than he means. “Think I’d rather be up on the sand.”
She doesn’t press, just grins and tips her head toward the shore. “Fair enough. Shade’s still ours.”
He follows her out of the surf, water streaming from his hair, from the dip of her spine, their footprints swallowed quickly by the waves behind them.
Simon drags the rough towel over his hair, over his chest and arms, though it does little more than smear the salt and sand around. Still, it gives him something to do with his hands while he watches her.
She wrings her hair out with both fists, head tipped backward, the rivulets running down the slope of her body. Then she drops forward onto her towel in one languid sprawl, stretching long into the sand. Her hips sink, her shoulders roll back, and her lower spine curves in a way that makes heat coil low in his stomach. She sighs as if boneless, as if the ocean has emptied her.
She knows he’s looking. She must know. She looks too fucking good not to.
He clenches the towel tighter in his hands, wills himself to ignore the press of blood thickening in his shorts. His throat feels dry as grit.
When he finally lowers himself onto his own towel, he’s close enough to catch the faint floral scent of her shampoo. He stretches out flat on his back, arms folded behind his head, eyes pinned on the rapidly darkening sky as though it might keep him in check.
Beside him, she props her chin on her folded arms, lying on her stomach. Sand clings to the backs of her thighs, glittering in the weak sun as clouds slide in from all angles.
For a long moment, neither speaks. Just the wind through the trees, the hiss of waves chewing the shore, the sound of two bodies very aware of each other and the hush between them.
“So where’s home?” she asks finally, breaking the spell. “England, obviously, but where?”
“Manchester,” he grits out, short and clipped.
“Makes sense,” she breathes, wriggling her hips to burrow more comfortably into the sand beneath her towel. “You’ve got that whole storm cloud thing about you.”
He peeks up at the sky, still darkening by the minute. “Seems I brought it with me today.”
“It’s good though,” she says airily — fully relaxed, content to watch him and chat idly with her head cradled by her forearms. “We needed it. Think it’ll actually rain?”
He hums indecisively and turns the conversation back to her. “What about you? You said you’ve lived here a long time. What about before?”
“Nowhere exciting,” she says with a breezy sigh. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Wanted some adventure, yeah?” he teases, rolling onto his side to face her fully.
“Yeah,” she giggles softly, letting her smile widen. She rolls onto her side as well, mirroring him, allowing the distance to close just a bit more. “Sea turtles and volcanoes and flirty tourists.”
She scrunches up her nose, all cheek and lightness, as she pokes his side playfully.
“Already told you, I’m—”
“I get it, I get it,” she laughs, rolling her eyes in jest, only stopping herself when his fingers brush a wet clump of her fringe out of the way. He hears her gentle inhale — sees her shoulders go taut in anticipation. Her mouth looks delicious — a ripe, berry red fruit, heavy and sweet, and when he leans down to taste it, he’s interrupted by a sudden deluge of thick, engorged rain drops.
“Shit!” she shrieks, scrambling to her feet and grabbing their things before bounding back towards the Jeep with Simon. She wraps the towel over her head like a hood, ducking to keep the rain out of her eyes, and throws all their belongings into the back of the car the moment it’s unlocked.
They laugh as they catch their breath inside the car, and for a moment, Simon thinks about trying to kiss her again. She starts the engine and throws it in reverse before he gets the chance.
“You hungry?” she asks, peeking in the rear view to make a clean getaway.
He swallows back what he really wants to say. “Starving.”
“Cool,” she nods, launching them back on top of the unpaved pathway through the lava field. “Hope you like tacos.”
——
It’s a little shack a short drive up the main highway, open on most sides with tarp overhangs that collect the rain and dump it in thick sheets down onto brick pavers. They sit at the picnic table with a singular numbered flag between them, waiting for their food, sipping beer from cold cans and debating about everything and nothing.
“I refuse to believe that,” she scoffs, leveling him with a flat look as she rests her chin in her palm. Her shirt is wet around her chest, where it’s soaked in the salty water from their brief dip into the Pacific. Simon still has sand between his bare toes. The conversation is doing a lot to distract him from the growing aggravation in his lower back.
“Why not? I can prove it.”
“I don’t mean to generalize, but your people aren’t exactly known for tolerating spice.”
“Hot, final answer,” he reaffirms. “As hot as it will go.”
“Even with Thai food?” she challenges, reaching for a caddy at the end of the table stuffed with paper napkins and non-perishable condiments.
“‘Course not, m’not a bloody masochist.”
“Then that’s not as hot as it will go!” she balks, laughing heartily at him as she rifles through the little bottles in the caddy and pulls one out. She turns the label out to him, which reads FURIOUS VOLCANO GHOST PEPPER HOT SAUCE in all capital letters, flanked by flames and rivers of magma. “This looks like a promising barometer.”
He smirks and takes another sip of his beer as she untwists the squirt cap and deposits a healthy drizzle of sauce onto her index finger. She extends it out to him with an expectant, challenging quirk to her brow, as she waits for him to wrap his lips around her finger and taste it. His neck flashes hot before the peppers even hit his tongue.
“You’ve lost your bloody mind,” he says, shaking his head despite his easy smile. “You hit your head on a rock earlier?”
“Man up,” she deadpans, mock-seriousness radiating off her lopsided smirk. “Eat the sauce or die a bland British pussy.”
He rolls his eyes and snatches her by the wrist, firm but not forceful, and slips her finger into his mouth. He doesn’t lose the opportunity to roll the flat of his tongue against her skin, just to give her a glimpse of what he could’ve done had the rain held off another moment longer.
She’s blushing as she pulls her hand away, and doesn’t move to clean up with a napkin — just holds it there, between them on the picnic table, and waits patiently for some big reaction to the spice that will never come.
To be honest — the sauce isn’t hot at all. The label is all bark.
“So?” she urges, leaning forward to punctuate her impatience.
He shrugs a shoulder, all cool indifference. “I’ve had hotter.”
“Jesus,” she groans. “Impossible. You should be excommunicated. Have your passport revoked.”
An older woman, the waitress, appears and drops off two baskets of tacos — simple barbacoa beef and cilantro for Simon, and some oozing wet mess for the girl, loaded with every topping on offer — plus a tray of seasoned chips to share.
“I just have to say,” the server starts, eyes passing between both of them with a big grin. “You two have not stopped smiling at each other since you walked in. Such a cute couple.”
As quickly as she drops the compliment she’s gone, not hearing the girl call after her, “Oh, we’re not—”
When her eyes slide back to Simon, he’s laughing into his food.
“What?” she scoffs, turning beet red. “Not gonna deny that?”
“Not sayin’ a word.”
When they finish up their meals, the ride back to the bar is just as lively, conversation flowing as easily as the post-rain breeze passes through the palms. He is reluctant to leave the Jeep, still thinking about that kiss that was interrupted on the beach, but she bounds out of the vehicle so quickly it makes him wonder if he’s come on too strong.
The worry isn’t enough to stop him, though.
“That was fun,” she says a little shyly as they stand between their vehicles. She fidgets with her car keys, jingling them between her fingers.
“It was,” he says lowly, shifting forward to begin a glacially slow closing of the space between them. “Good company.”
She nods silently, inching backward until her shoulder blades thud against the side of the Jeep. He keeps advancing, gaze dipping to her mouth, to her neck, where her pulse thrums visibly beneath thin skin.
“Yeah,” she says under her breath, inhaling almost imperceptibly when his arm comes up to lean against the window beside her head, caging her. His free hand reaches out for her hip, sliding his thumb up over the point of bone there, digging into the muscle stretching over it. She shivers — licks her lips.
“Simon—” she starts, cutting herself off when his nose brushes against hers.
“Yeah, luv?” he breathes, soft, quiet, holding there until she can’t take it anymore.
She tips forward. Grips him by the center of his t-shirt as their lips connect in a gentle press — one he deepens upon meeting. He tilts his head, slots against her more insistently — swallows up the small, soft sound that chokes itself short at the back of her throat. The hand not holding her keys releases his shirt, sweeps up past the back of his neck, scrapes her acrylic fingernails into the sweaty hair at the base of his skull. He shivers, flattening his body against hers, gasping when she tugs at the roots.
When he pulls away, she sighs nearly silently, slivering her eyes open to look at him again — flushed, pupils wide.
“Follow me back to mine,” he insists in a whisper, dipping his head down to kiss the underside of her jaw. “Please.”
She chuckles, a dark huff of air that trembles against his open mouth.
“I don’t make a habit of fucking tourists,” she purrs — a sentiment he’s heard from her too often already. “Told you that.”
She doesn’t move away. Her back arches to accommodate the wrap of his arm around it, to press herself closer to him as he pulls her from the closed Jeep door.
“Not a tourist, luv. Told you that, too,” he tells her, steady and quietly adamant. He searches her eyes, flitting between them and still finding a reluctance, a hesitation he wishes wasn’t there. “Tomorrow. You finish early, yeah?”
She nods, sighing when his thumb leaves her hip to drag slow across her mouth, testing the softness he’s already tasted.
“We’ll go up the mountain. Try to see it burn.”
The corner of her mouth ticks up in a smile. “Think it’ll happen tomorrow?”
He shrugs, kissing her softly one more time.
“We can hope.”
He disentangles himself from her, smiling softly when he sees her unsteady on her feet.
“Tomorrow,” he says again, throwing his leg over the bike. His eyes stay on hers, unblinking. “I’ll find you here.”
Notes:
I threw my back out in Hawaii last week ask me anything 🤪
(Part 2 should be up quick as I decompress from such a beautiful and hard-earned vacation)
Chapter Text
The drive is long from Kailua-Kona to the top of the volcano. They dig into bags of sweet Maui onion crisps and share a bottle of pop on the way up, taking turns showing each other songs they like. It’s as easy as yesterday, and he still thinks of the sweet kiss she planted on his cheek before he climbed into her Jeep. He contemplates holding her hand from time to time, but when he sees the state of his crumb-laden, oily fingers he decides otherwise.
It’s dumb luck that the ranger at the entrance tells them with great excitement that the first signs of lava are blooming in the western crater. When he asks if anyone in the vehicle is military to take advantage of the free entry, the girl says nothing and hands over her state ID instead for the discount. He’s silently grateful. Didn’t want to pull out his papers — didn’t think to bring anything anyway, just a jacket and a hope that she’d finally agree to go home with him after this.
The sun makes its final descent just as they crest the summit of the mountain, and a fair few cars already line the caldera to watch the imminent eruption.
It’s cold outside the car, so they both suit up — Simon in his jacket and her in an oversized hoodie with the bar’s logo on the back. She’s in shorts again, and he can tell immediately that she’ll feel the chill sooner than he will.
At the edge, an orange glow paints low hanging clouds. It reminds him, almost, of a warzone — fire turning everything red, moody. This is different though. No danger, not even close, not when the park staff set the perimeter out this far. A rumble and a hiss blast loud around them, and with great cheers from the gathering crowd, an arc of lava spits high, soon splitting into a mirrored pair that shoot out in opposite directions.
“Unreal,” she breathes, beaming wide at him when she turns away to see his reaction.
They stand and watch, silent, until the cold seeps into her bones and she starts to shiver. He pulls her close, her back to his front, and imparts warmth into her with slow, firm passes of his palms up and down her covered arms. She tips her head backwards against the center of his chest, still grinning.
“You want to see something else?”
He chuckles out his nose, ruffling the fringe atop her head.
“Sure. Think you could auction off our parking space.”
“I bet,” she laughs, peeling off of him to head back to the lot. “Did you hear anything about the big eruption we had back in 2018?”
He pauses, trying to remember. Turns the heat on in the car and places a wide, dry palm against her thigh, eager to warm her further.
“It was pretty bad,” she continues. “Lots of damage. But there’s a whole new stretch of land now, all the way out to the ocean.”
They keep listening to her music as they descend the opposite side of the mountain, watching as the blackened sea blends into the horizon. In about ten minutes, they’re at the edge of the world — no one around. All too distracted by the fresh magma.
The wind is calmer here. Outside the car, he breathes deep, looks up at a sky full of so many stars it makes him dizzy.
“You can see every single one,” she says, barely audible over the crash of waves against the newly formed cliff. She’d told him on the drive down it’s the newest piece of land in the entire world.
He can feel that. The newness. Possibility.
“Yeah,” he says, though he looks at her starlit silhouette instead. A beat passes, just her gazing at the heavens — him gazing at her. When she finally drops her head and looks his way, he feels a part of him crack open.
“Come ‘ere,” he pleads lowly, opening the hatch of the Jeep. He rolls up the back of the soft top and perches on the bumper, spreading his legs wide to welcome her in the cradle of them, her back to his front again.
He buries himself in her neck. Kisses her there.
“Think we’ll see a shooting star?” she asks, tilting her head back as he unhinges his jaw, mouths at her. She melts into it, pressing back against him. Loose lava rock crunches under her feet.
“Maybe,” he breathes against her. “Gonna make a wish if you do?”
She hums contemplatively, shivering when his right palm slides from its place on her waist to her bare thigh, weighing the flesh in his grip.
“Would you?” she asks in return, swallowing a gasp when he drags his stubbled jaw up the line of her neck and takes her earlobe between his front teeth.
“Got what I wanted already,” he gruffs, digging his blunt nails into the thick fabric that covers her stomach. “Nothin’ else to wish for.”
She makes some soft, sweet sound and turns her chin, trapping his lips in a kiss. Her fingers twine with his over her middle, squeezing tight when he slips his tongue into her mouth — swirling, searching. The hand in her leg slides inward, teasing the bottom of her shorts, and she rocks her hips back against him gently. He’s hard — knows she feels it — and when she doesn’t back away, his fingers pass higher, grazing over the seam between her open legs.
She makes a pleasant sound against his mouth, opening herself wider, so he takes the invitation and presses more insistently, drawing a firm semi-circle up and over her clothed clit. They stay like that — Simon with his hand circling slow and steady, the girl gasping quietly into his mouth — until she stops him with a sudden protest.
“Hm, wait,” she mutters. He backs off her.
She climbs past him into the open trunk, pulling her stash of towels and yoga mat out and spreading them all along the floor of the Jeep’s rear bed. She pivots to sit, beckoning him inside with a wave of her hand.
“Get in here,” she demands, laying back as he stretches out long beside her. The suspension groans under his weight, bobbing the car in a rocking dip.
He props himself up on his elbow, just looking — feeling the press of the sky overhead, the rumble of the ocean crashing against rough-hewn rock just outside. For a second he thinks maybe this is enough. That he can go back to whatever fucked up corner of the world he’s called to next, think of this fondly, move on with a part of his heart a little more tender. Calmer.
Until she hooks him by the collar of his jacket and reels him in.
It’s hot — teeth and tongue, a battleground between their wide open mouths of who can take more. When he sucks her lip between his teeth and bites, she gasps, pawing at his zipper and yanking, pushing the sleeves down his shoulders before she’s got it all the way undone.
She whines in frustration when the fabric bunches and gets stuck, and he stills her with a hand pressed firm to her shoulder, flattening her to the bed of the truck.
“Easy, luv,” he tuts, shushing her with a kiss to the corner of her lips. “Let me look at you first.”
He looms over her, planting his knees outside of hers. He begins with her hoodie, peeling it up and off to be cast back into the front seat. She curls upwards, chasing his mouth with her own, while he slots his fingers beneath her thin tank.
“Want you,” she murmurs into his open mouth.
“Thought you said you don’t mess around with tourists,” he teases lowly, slipping off her shirt and laying her back down. She heaves for breath as his mouth descends, grazing and nipping at the swell of her covered chest.
“Told me you’re not,” she huffs, voice breathless and raw at the edges. He smiles from between her breasts, peeking up at her.
And fuck, what a sight. Hair mussed, lips bitten and sucked into a swollen, pink part.
“Finally get it now, hm?” he asks, scraping his nails up her side and wedging his hand beneath her back, fumbling for the clasp of her bra. When he gets it undone, she helps him — shuffles back upward and chucks the thing clean off, throwing it off to the side with the rest.
“Pretty,” he murmurs, sweeping a thumb up over her nipple, circling it, watching it pebble. Her tan lines make him even harder than he is — moonlit pale skin that the world never sees. Just him, for now.
He stretches back upward and kisses her again, hungrier this time, eating the noises she makes when he slips his hand beneath the front of her shorts and panties and cups her where she’s hottest.
“Oh, fuck,” she whines, canting her hips to catch more contact on her clit. It jumps against the pads of his fingers when he draws magma-hot slick with him — makes her gasp when he draws a slow circle. “Please—”
She’s begging, beautiful little hands trembling where she holds him by the jaw, where she reaches down to palm him over his jeans.
He grunts into her open mouth, hips jerking once fast against her hand, enough to make the suspension groan again in protest.
“Please, let me have it,” she whispers against his lips, dropping her hand at his face to meet the other, to undo his buckle and button and fly with a bit more precision than the jacket. He unzips it as she begins, peeling it down his shoulders and tossing it past her head into the front of the Jeep.
He peeks down their bodies to watch as he continues his work between her legs. Simon knows he is big — knows it, every part of him — so when he hears her choked gasp once she’s pulled him free, he immediately starts to reassure her.
“S’okay, luvie,” he murmurs soothingly, kissing the underside of her jaw. He shudders when she wraps her manicured fingers around him, tugging in an exploratory stroke. “You’ll take what you can, yeah?”
She whimpers, letting her head thud back when he slips his hand from her again to tear down her shorts — to pull her shoes off with them. He tugs off his shirt in the meantime, letting the sweat along his upper back cool in the ocean breeze.
He’s got to get her all boneless for him, like she was on the beach yesterday after their swim. Messy and wet — leaking. Cracked open like the earth up the mountain, spilling like a hot river from the core. An orgasm or two should do it, and he’s happy to draw those out of her — content to slither down on his stomach and hoist her legs up by the backs of her knees, eager to bite at the stretched meat of her ass before he feasts on her.
She tries to buckle in half when he makes contact, but he’s got her pressed so tightly to the towels beneath her that she has nowhere to go. He flitters his tongue over her, learning what she likes — what makes her fight his hold to arch, what gets her panting in sharp breaths, what makes her clamp down on the fingers that he eventually slips up inside, pressed hot against the source of all that sweetness she’s been weeping for him.
She swears up a storm before she comes, muscles in her entire lower half constricting and relaxing before they go rock solid — spooling up all the tension for that split second before they release all at once. She crashes, shaking and singing like those pretty island birds, and he grunts into her, holding her down, shoving his fingers deep until he swears he feels the beat of her heart against the pads.
He lets her catch her breath. Holds still inside the fluttering clutch of her cunt, holds his mouth just above where she jumps and spasms through the aftershocks.
He doesn’t give her long though.
“One more,” he says, licking at her again, softer this time, denying himself the urge to devour, to bite at her clit and make her scream.
She screams anyway.
“Simon—” she moans, scrambling to get away, protesting that it’s too much, pulling at his hair — and yet he continues, laving at her with petal-soft passes of his tongue, wet from saliva and the slick that still pours slow and syrupy from between her thighs. The gentleness rewards them both in time. Her protests die inside her throat as she rocks her hips, her moans tipping from a frantic desperation to interest, to want.
“There you go,” he encourages, letting go of the back of her knee to pet at her lower stomach, to pull up the hood of her and draw out another eruption.
“Oh God oh God,” she chants, watching him from between her spread legs. “Gonna come again — fuck—!”
She bows backwards, crying out on a gust of breath, as if she’s surprised by how quickly he got her there. Her legs clamp tight around his head, trapping him, making his lungs fill with the salt-scent of her pussy.
He’s got a big dumb grin on his face when he straightens up, and does nothing to hide it. She’s still out of breath on the floor of the Jeep, blinking up at him and wiping the sweat that’s collected beneath her fringe.
She props up onto an elbow and reaches for him, clasping him by the back of the neck and licking what she’s given him from his mouth, pressing it back onto his waiting tongue as they kiss, heated as ever. He allows her to maneuver him between her open legs, lets her shove him down in the cradle of them. He shivers when she hikes up her hips, running his cock through the mess he’s left there, grunting when she wraps a fist around him to slick him to the base.
“You’re not gonna hurt me,” she says, almost pleadingly, against the top of his chest. She guides his head to the soft, swollen cup of her entrance, notching him there. “You’re not — I know you’re not — right?”
There is an edge to her words. A different kind of desperation. The rule suddenly makes more sense.
“No, sweetheart,” he coos into her temple, kissing the hair that slicks to the side of her head. She bucks her hips, accepting the first bit of him, barely enough to hold inside her. “Won’t hurt ya.”
“Good,” she groans, gasping when he pushes forward an inch. “Don’t — please. You’d better—”
She chokes on the rest of it as he slides forward, her body yielding for him, taking him deeper than he thought she would.
“Promise,” he grunts, drawing back to push forward again, taking more. Giving more. “I promise.”
The Jeep groans in unison as he continues to feed himself to her — deep strokes that urge her body to swallow up more of him — that carve him into her, that burn and destroy and make new.
She trembles when he’s fully seated, shaking as she reaches up to cradle his face, sighing through a cracked, sweet sound as he begins to fuck her in earnest, sawing his hips back and forth, nagging pain be damned. He feels like fire this close to her — like he himself has been melted down, solid metal into molten rock, pouring and running wherever she guides him.
He doesn’t want to come yet. Thinks he might.
“Will you ride me?” he asks, a murmured request against her neck.
“Fuck, yes, just—” she clambers away from him, groaning when he pulls out, and makes room for him to roll onto his back. She tears his jeans and shoes off, leaving him as bare as she is in the soft light of this perfect night, tucked away from the world, sitting on the very edge of it.
And Christ, she’s so eager — so dizzy for it, dripping onto him when she swings her leg over his hips to straddle him. He feels mad with it too, especially now, with her hair haloed by the starlight, the faint glow of the ongoing eruption illuminating the far corner of the sky in an orange-red glow.
She’s lava hot on top of him. Searing heat enveloping his cock as she sinks down, snaking up the back of his neck when she digs those pink-and-white flowered nails into his pectorals.
“God, you’re so big,” she whines, easing up an inch or two to chase some relief.
Simon soothes small circles into her hipbones, not to guide her but to ground her.
“Take your time,” he says warmly. “Want you to feel good.”
She leans down, burying her face in the dip of his collarbone, allowing him to slide out a bit further. She rocks herself there — a steady roll, back and forth, that sends the Jeep swaying where it sits on the lava cliff.
“That feel okay?” he coos, stroking down the midline of her back. She shivers, nodding against him, losing some rhythm that he makes up for quickly. He grips her by the bottom of her arse, rolling and bouncing her just as she was. She allows herself to go boneless for a moment — flattening her chest to his, whining in his ear as he uses his strength to maneuver her how they both like.
“Feels so good,” she whispers, making him groan under his breath. “Didn’t think it would be like this.”
Her words make his gut twist up, make him spear himself deeper just to hear her mewl. She takes it — gorgeous girl, of course she does — so he continues, thrusting his hips up as much as he pulls her down onto him.
She comes up onto her hands again, planting them on his shoulders, staring straight into his eyes. They’re wild — narrowed, demanding, hungrier than he’s ever seen from her. She pushes herself back down onto him, meeting his thrusts, and Simon takes the opportunity to let go of her hips to instead grip her by the jaw with one hand, the other slipping down to her clit.
“Fuck, there you go,” he urges, sweeping his thumb up to her parted lips. She sucks it into her mouth, biting on the calloused flesh, walls tightening around the swell of his cock.
Her brows knit and she sputters, nodding down at him, and he knows what is about to happen.
“Gonna come on it, yeah?” he teases in a rough grunt, flexing his abdomen to get a firmer handle on her clit. “Burn me up?”
She breaks then, mouth popping open around his thumb as she cries out once more, with nothing but himself, the ocean wind, and the cresting waves to hear her. He feels himself losing his grip — his balls drawing tight up against his body, the base of his skull buzzing as he rides the brink, and the second she stops coming it’s his turn to explode — pulsing hot and violent, spilling unfathomably deep, shaking apart like weak earth under the weight of molten ore.
He feels her lips on his open mouth, her tongue twisting its way past his teeth — her breath pouring wet and warm into his raw throat.
It’s quiet after that — after the rush of blood in his ears dissipates to a lower roar. He cradles her spent body to his chest, feeling her thrumming heartbeat match his. They’re silent for a while. Just looking at each other. Sharing breath.
The cool ocean breeze wafts into the open cab, drawing goose flesh across her skin.
“Cold?” he asks, slipping from her with a hiss when she nods. He reaches into the front seat for his jacket and wraps it around her shoulders, tucking her tightly to his side. “There. Better.”
He sweeps the damp hair from her eyes and blinks down at her, allowing a contented smile to melt its way across his lips. It’s all new. New earth, new experience, new girl. It’s as if the ground beneath them was made just for this moment.
“I can’t believe I broke my rule,” she jokes, chuckling alongside him. “Kinda worth it, though.”
“We’ve been through this, luvie,” he murmurs, nudging her nose with his own. “I’m no tourist.”
“You’re not sticking around, though,” she says, a sadness tinging her words.
It could happen any day. Shit, he might look at his phone and see that it’s happening now, tonight, while he’s still got her wrapped around him.
“I’ll stay until I get my orders,” he promises, but stops short of a date. Can’t give that, even though he wants to. “As long as I can.”
She sighs — a heavy sound — and settles herself deeper against him.
“And even then,” he continues, kissing her brow, “doesn’t mean I can’t find my way back to you.”
He feels something here. A lightness. A peace. Something new.
He does not want to give that up just yet — her warmth against him, the salt still on their skin, the hush of the ocean holding them both. Not yet.
—
He gets the call in the middle of the night, three days later. Back to HQ, then on to Russia. At least two months away this time, toes freezing in his boots on the tundra. The girl is working late — another closing shift.
Her Misfits shirt is in his hamper, along with a bikini and a pair of shorts. He washes them all in the sink, running his fingers along the seams of the fabric as if he’s tracing the tattoos in her skin.
He packs as they dry. Writes a thank you note for the efficiency hosts. Writes another for her.
It’s 0500 when he arrives to the bar on his bike. The sun hasn’t come up yet. He never did catch a proper sunrise while he was out here — not unless you count two nights ago when he and the girl fucked, relentless and insatiable, from the end of her shift until morning. He hadn’t changed the sheets since then. Liked the smell of her. Swears he can still feel the ghost of her hair between his fingers.
He leaves her things in a neat stack at the bar door and reads his note one last time before tucking it in the neck of her t-shirt.
Got my orders. Hate to leave like this, but it’s not goodbye. You’ll get a text from a secure number in the next 24 hours. Don’t send anything you wouldn’t want the DOD to read.
(Bloody shame, since those are my favorite texts to receive.)
Flying back to you the moment I can. Promise. I meant everything I said.
Let’s stay at yours next time. Never did see it. And I want to.
If you’ll have me.
xx Simon
——
Two months later, past midnight. She wipes down bottles and hums the melody spilling out of the speakers, finally free to play the music she likes instead of the island reggae the owners force her to. She tugs the front of her favorite tee down after she reaches high to place a bottle of flavored vodka back in its spot — her Misfits one, the one she’s had since she moved here. The one Simon left for her out front the day he left, with his sweet little note tucked in the folds. It’s taped to her mirror at her apartment.
Over her shoulder, she hears the front door open and the bamboo windchime knock against the frame. She groans, tossing her bar rag down in frustration. She forgot to lock that in her hurry to close up and go home.
“We’re closed!” she hollers, huffing as she spins around to fight whichever drunk stumbled their way in here none the wiser.
Her heart skips three beats when she sees him.
Simon. Still in his fatigues, bigger than life, travel-weary based off the dark rings beneath his eyes — but his entire face lights up the moment he looks at her.
“You —” she gasps, nearly vaulting the bar. “You said—”
“Told you I’d come back,” he murmurs, catching her when she rushes him, arms full of her. He smells like jet fuel and leather and the faint ghost of the salty air outside.
Her laugh breaks on a sob as she fists his collar and kisses him like she’ll never let him leave again. And maybe, just maybe, he won’t.
Chapter 3
Notes:
can’t keep this story out of my head, so here’s a third chapter. fourth one will be the last FOR REAL this time 🙃
Chapter Text
Water pours down the line of his back, through his lashes, into their joined mouths. She’s as starved as he is — eating each other whole, panting in broken, cracked sighs as their hands go wherever they please in her tiny shower.
Damn near 24 hours of travel. He’s earned this. Waited for it for two full months. Fisted his cock in some safehouse bathing stall until it was red and angry, jumping beneath his fingers, thinking about seeing her again.
And he’s here. Made it alive, unbroken. By some chance, some far-flung miracle, he gets to push the sodden hair from her eyes and grip it tight as she sinks to her knees and rolls her tongue along the underside of him.
He exhales, slow and steady, a futile attempt to calm his racing heart, to keep from spilling the moment she presses the head of him against her soft palate.
He fucking made it. He’s not planning to go anytime soon, though command may have other plans for him. He asked for some time off, a full month of leave, the request so rare it made Price raise his brows in incredulity.
She gags on him and his chest caves, desperate for things he’s already getting — for more, for it never to end.
He knows he will keep her in her bed, tangled in thin blankets and heavy limbs, until their bones ache for daylight.
———
“Missed you a lot,” she mutters against his side, voice trapped somewhere between waking and sleep. They’d drifted off quickly — faster than he wanted to — too content, too relieved to fight being dragged under.
The comfort. It is foreign to him and yet so familiar, a tender fruit hanging between his ribs. Softness — sweet enough to rot him.
He’d told her little things about his mission, things that wouldn’t get him into trouble. The morning sunlight bouncing off the icy terrain. The bagged slop he would tear open and eat quickly, fast enough to allow his tastebuds to bypass the flavor. His healing back. Little status updates, delivered to her via an encrypted line, always answered with a witty bite — and sometimes, with a tenderness that made his brain turn to mush inside his skull.
He learned more about her that way — about her family that never visits, despite the fact they could afford to anytime they’d like. About the regulars at the bar, especially the one she’d pet sit for over on the Hilo side of the island. From that house, she’d sent a picture of the sunrise, round and brilliant over the eastern sea.
Golden and warm even as pixels on a touch screen, it matched the hope in his chest — the promise he’d made in the back of her car, whispered under the watching stars. Scrawled onto scrap paper and tucked into her laundry.
He felt mad, in the best way.
“You think of me while I was gone?” he murmurs, though he knows the answer — had it confirmed to him, constantly, through her little notes. The desire to hear her say it out loud outweighs everything else.
She nods. He feels her tangled hair rub against the skin of his side, tucked up under his arm.
“Yeah. All the time.” She’s too spent for her usual bite.
He hoists her up onto his chest, letting her leg fall heavy between his. Still naked, both of them. She shivers when he skims the pads of his fingers down her back, arches her arse up when he moves lower, tracing the curve.
“Yeah?” he says lowly, goading her on — head still thick with lust, with want, unsatisfied. His fingers dip inward, seeking heat. They circle her opening, still sticky with them both. “You touch yourself when you did?”
She shudders, burying her face into his chest. The tips of her ears are red where they peek out from her shaggy hair.
“Sometimes,” she answers meekly, all shy and sweet. His cock reacts instantly at the vision — her with those pretty manicured fingers rubbing at her clit, or maybe a toy pressed deep, buzzing — her head thrown back on the very pillow where he rests, mouth agape and empty.
Before he can tease her further, she takes in a shaky breath to speak. “Did you?”
He hums. Dips his fingers into her to hear her sleep-worn, needy sigh. Feels the corner of his mouth twitch up when she pushes back onto his hand, seeking pressure.
“When I could,” he admits in a low tone. “Wasn’t enough, though.”
She shakes her head like she gets it. Like she understands.
“Kept thinking if I made it back, I’d get to stop running. Find you again,” he breathes, settling his free hand warm and wide over the back of her neck — a steady weight, placed to keep her close.
She lets out a small, broken sound — a sob or a laugh, he can’t tell which — and stretches up long to kiss him. The moment their lips press together, his mouth feels angry, like it’s a different part of him entirely — its rage spills out from between his teeth like blood, sucker-punched, furious at the distance that existed between them for so long. It bites at her in retaliation.
He rolls her onto her back — wraps her tired legs around his waist. Pushes into her in one single-minded motion, claiming what he’s wanted all this time.
The closeness. So close her breath becomes his.
“Mine,” he rumbles into her neck, hips rolling, squeezing wet sounds out of her. His hands curl around the backs of her shoulders, vehement in his need to keep her speared on him. “You’re mine.”
———
The day stretches slow and golden. She called out just to spend more time with him, to properly savor the reunion.
He remembers flashes of the afternoon now, as he watches her rifle through cupboards — her laughing in the surf, the sun catching the curve of her neck, the salt drying on their skin. The way she kept reaching for him, limbs holding tight underwater, as if she still didn’t believe he was really there, like if she let go of him for one second he’d disappear on the tide.
Now, the smell of butter hits him first. Then garlic. Then her voice humming some song he vaguely recognizes, something she must’ve shown him on that drive up the volcano. She’s barefoot in the kitchen, hair still damp from their shower, moving around like she did the day he saw her at the bar. Busy hands, flitting everywhere at once.
Dinner is ready so quickly he thinks she may have conjured some strange domestic magic to make it happen. He takes two plates — his piled higher than hers with mashed potatoes, roast chicken, and air fried broccoli florets with bits of crispy Italian cheese, toasted golden brown at the edges — and follows her out to the screened lanai. A thicket of tropical trees shade the space, like a private corner of the jungle, though he can still hear the hum of traffic pass by.
He cannot recall the last time someone cooked for him outside of a restaurant or the mess hall on base. Been years.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she chides as she settles into the chair across from him.
“Like what?”
“Like you’ve never seen dinner before.”
It is baffling to him how she seems to read his every thought. He spoons up a forkful of potatoes and studies them. Steam curls upward, filling his nose with warmth.
“Been a while since I had something that didn’t come out of a foil pouch.”
The first bite almost undoes him. It’s delicious — of course it is. How could it not be, made by her? By those beautiful hands?
“Any good?” she asks, hiding her amused giggle as she cuts into her chicken.
“Brilliant,” he says, diving in for more.
“Guess I’ll keep you fed, then.”
“M’serious,” he says, mumbled over a bite of broccoli. “You have no idea how good this is.”
She scoffs. “It’s chicken and potatoes, Simon.”
“Exactly,” he nods, cutting into the meat. “If you’d done this for me before I left, I’d likely have starved.”
She rolls her eyes over a chuckle. “And why’s that?”
“You made it,” he says earnestly, before falling back into a sugar-sweetened snark. “Can’t go back to anything else once you’ve had perfection,” he says smoothly, smirking at her across the table.
“Jesus,” she mock-groans. “Dramatic. I’m gonna fuck you anyways, you know. Don’t have to butter me up.”
He chuckles and pops a bite of chicken into his mouth. “Just shootin’ straight, luv.”
“You should cook next time.”
He grunts affectionately as he chews his food, hardly taking a breath between big bites that balloon his cheeks. “Dangerous idea.”
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
“House fire,” he deadpans. “Or you’d have to eat it.”
She laughs, a bright sound. “I’ve had worse bar food, I’m sure. Besides — I’d like to see you try.”
He files that away, already thinking of what he can manage. Something simple. Maybe breakfast. He made bacon over a campstove once.
“You always eat this fast?” she asks, eyes sliding between his nearly-empty plate and hers.
“Habit.”
She goes quiet for a beat, then softly offers the sweetest thing he’s ever heard.
“You don’t have to rush here.”
He looks up at her, fork paused somewhere between the food and his gluttonous mouth. The way she says it — here — sounds like a vow.
He watches her for a long moment after that, fork still in hand, the air between them humid, thick with something quiet and steady.
Later, when the dishes are forgotten in the sink and the night presses in around the house, he shows her what he meant, what was unsaid — that he can slow down, that he can touch her without the fear of running out of time.
He lays her out, soft instead of desperate, and leaves warmth instead of marks. Worships her, thanks her with his tongue, with a slow, building pleasure that makes her shake.
And when she finally drifts to sleep, his hand draped easy over her hip, he lies awake and thinks about how it felt to be fed, to be full, to be still. About how he might repay that.
He drives her to work the next day. Borrows her car. Makes a list, a plan as thorough as his last op, and heads for the market.
Pancakes. Bacon. Roast tomato with flaky salt and olive oil. There are plastic tubs of tropical flowers by the registers, calling to him, as pretty as she is. He selects a pink shock of heliconia — wouldn’t know what it was called without the printed label — because it reminds him of her. Of little birds. Of her pink fingernails from when he first saw her.
He’s an ogre in her kitchen — big meaty hands fumbling with the whisk, the tongs. Foreign, a tad anxiety-inducing, but he thinks of her the whole time he cooks. It’s nearly time to make the drive and pick her up from her closing shift, and by some fucked up miracle he finishes cooking right on schedule.
He cleans what he can, though the sink still looks like a battlefield — batter splattered up the walls, grease streaked across the stovetop, tomato juice where it shouldn’t be. The flowers sit awkwardly in a water glass beside the plates, petals catching the light like tiny flames.
He stands back and studies the scene the way he’d check a finished op — scanning for weak points, anticipating what could go wrong. He can’t help the small huff of laughter that escapes him. Bloody Christ, he’s nervous. Over pancakes.
By the time the oven’s set low to keep the food warm, the clock’s ticking past midnight. He grabs her keys from the counter, locks up behind him, and drives the few minutes through the quiet streets toward the bar.
The parking lot’s mostly empty when he pulls in — a few stragglers finishing their smokes, the neon sign turned off above the door. He leans against her car, arms folded, the warm air settling heavy on his skin despite it being early December.
When she spots him through the glass, her whole face lights up. She jogs out, hair swishing with the movement, smelling faintly of citrus and beer.
“What a treat. A chauffeur, and he’s hot,” she says, breathless, tossing her bag in the back seat.
“At your service,” he answers easily, sliding into the driver’s seat.
She launches into a retelling of her shift before he’s even out of the lot — some tourist who tried to pay with a Home Depot gift card, the person who ordered Rumple Minze and Sprite in a tall glass, the “service” dog that shit on the floor and stared at her the whole time in challenge.
He lets her talk, content just to listen. The sound of her voice fills the car, spilling into all the quiet corners of him. Every now and then he hums an acknowledgment, keeps his eyes forward, his secret tucked tight behind a calm face.
When she reaches over to squeeze his knee at a stoplight — an absent, loving little gesture — he almost blurts it out, itching to tell her what’s waiting at home. But he doesn’t. Not yet. He keeps it close, savoring the surprise.
By the time they pull into the drive, he’s bursting with it, half-shoving her through the door the moment it’s unlocked.
“Hm,” she says, sniffing the air. “Smells good in here.”
He feels her routine steps falter when she spots the flowers on the counter.
“Aw,” she coos, pacing over to inspect them. Simon continues to the oven, wordlessly plating up their bounty.
“Hope you’re hungry,” he says, voice a little more unsure sounding than he would’ve liked it to be. “Nearly lost an eye frying up the tomatoes.”
She makes a cute sound of delight behind him, snaking around his middle to watch. Though the pancakes are a little misshapen, the bacon a touch too crispy, he feels relief that nothing burned in the oven while he was away. He shuts it off and butters her pancakes before slathering them with a generous pour of maple syrup.
“I know you like it sweet,” he says, letting the liquid ooze and drip until it forms in a puddle beneath everything. He worries about the texture and the taste, but hopes the syrup masks any glaring transgressions.
“I think that’s enough,” she says with a chuckle. “Trying to give me a heart attack. Or a cavity.”
He smiles, and takes their plates out to the lanai. When she’s settled, he returns inside and fixes her a mimosa in an old jam jar she’s repurposed as a cup.
She’s thrilled by that.
“Cocktails, too? My God,” she beams, accepting it with eager hands. “Spoiling me.”
“Just breakfast for dinner, luvie.”
“Yeah,” she says, settling back into her chair and taking a sip. “You made it, though.”
She echoes his words to him. Makes his heart squeeze fist tight.
“Eat,” he nods, hiding the warmth in his cheeks as he tucks into his own plate.
When she’s done, she pushes her plate away, blinking heavily. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”
“Maybe,” he says. “But you ate every bite.”
“That’s ‘cause it was perfect.”
He cleans up while she drifts toward the bedroom. By the time he follows, she’s curled under the covers, hair fanned across the pillow, flipping sleepily through her phone. He sets her water on the nightstand, then sinks onto the edge of the bed beside her.
“What’re you putting on?” she mumbles, eyes half-closed. The phone is cast off onto her nightstand to join that big ridiculous water bottle she totes everywhere.
“Whatever’s on,” he says, flipping through channels until some cooking competition program fills the room with the sound of frying oil and judges’ commentary. Might as well learn something if he plans to keep doing things like this for her.
She hums approval and tugs at his hand until he lies down beside her. He does, careful not to jostle her too much, one arm draped loosely around her waist.
The blue light flickers against the ceiling. Outside, the palm trees shift in the breeze.
It becomes easier as time goes by — to allow himself to relax, to lower the guard he’s wrapped tightly around himself like a shield. He lets himself breathe with her — slow, matched, steady — until the sound of her gentle snore makes him smile into the pillow.
This is what it’s supposed to feel like.
The thought reverberates. Lulls him like a soft song into slumber.
———
Two plus weeks slide by like a warm current. He learns the shape of her mornings — late usually, and he allows himself to remain in bed beside her for most. He memorizes the details — the way she pads barefoot across tile, sometimes in his t-shirt, sometimes in nothing but her tan-lined skin, and prepares her morning coffee. Iced, always. Lots of sugar. Cinnamon on top sometimes, because she says it reminds her of Christmas. The holiday is not far off. He’s always hated it — spent it alone. With her though… he allows himself to daydream about it, just a bit.
He helps where he can. Carries the groceries, fixes the clicking sound in her old ceiling fan, replaces a bulb she can’t reach.
He’s still hers, only less the Manchester storm cloud she saw him as at first — more like the calm after it.
When he gets word that the looming end of his leave will see him promptly shipped off to Iran, he doesn’t tell her right away. He wants a few more days untouched by the clock. So he books two round-trip Hawaiian Airlines tickets to Honolulu — first class, because why the hell not — and a room in a hotel that overlooks the length of Waikiki.
“You did what?” she shrieks when he tells her, standing in the bathroom with her mascara half-on.
“For Christmas,” he says. “Bar’s closed anyway. And you work too damned much.”
He feels like a bloody buffoon saying that last bit. A hypocritical slag. Should take his own advice. Hell, he’s trying for now. But what about after? The thought nags at him, festering in his mind like a splinter, like trench foot.
She narrows her eyes at him, still grinning. “You’re being suspiciously romantic. I don’t know if I like it.”
And there she goes again. Seeing through it all, seeing through him.
“It’ll be fun,” he says, watching as she returns to applying her makeup, how she teeters up onto her toes to lean closer to the mirror. Cute little thing. If it wouldn’t make her late to work, he’d pull her down onto the bed with him — pull those boyshorts to the side and bury himself there.
“We’ll play tourist,” he adds, chuckling when she barks a laugh his way.
———
The flight is easy, though at the terminal, he works hard to stuff down the knowledge that he’ll be there again soon without her — back in his fatigues, following his orders, boarding a final commercial flight or two before he’s back on a military plane, stuffed inside the back alongside cargo. Meat on its way to deliver another slaughter.
For the longest time he’s believed that’s all he’s good at — the violence, the compartmentalization.
He looks at her, readying to deboard, winding the cord of her headphones up into a neat series of loops. He looks around at the other civilians on the plane as well, in their Santa hats and flower leis — and knows he’s been telling himself a lie.
He can do this, too. Care about something — someone — enough to reconsider everything he knows.
When they arrive to the hotel, the lobby is decorated with driftwood draped in fairy lights, a big Christmas tree right in the middle bedecked with silver-painted seashells, dried coral, starfish. The whole space smells like fresh-cut flowers and expensive linens. The girl clings to his side as he checks in, letting him handle everything, rubbing small circles into his lower back with those acrylic fingernails — festive now, red and gold. The concierge gives him a knowing look and makes sure to tuck the room service menu in with his key cards.
“Mele Kalikimaka to you both,” he says. “Elevators are down the hall on the right.”
Simon tugs the girl along, her overstuffed bag rolling smoothly over polished floors. She giggles into his side, already giddy and handsy, and gives him a sweet kiss when they board the empty elevator.
“This is fancy,” she beams, smiling into another one, slipping her tongue past his lips as they ascend the floors.
“Easy,” he murmurs, patting her on the hip. “Not even in the room yet, luv.”
She turns just slightly pink and returns to his side, chewing on her lip impatiently until the cabin dings and opens out to their hallway. The room itself is beautiful — big glass doors with linen drapes and a balcony, a king bed piled high with fluffed pillows, a shower large enough for extracurriculars.
“Fuck,” she breathes as she kicks her shoes off, heading straight for the balcony. “Wow.”
A plate of Christmas cookies is wrapped in plastic for them on the desk. The included note welcomes them, wishes them a relaxing Christmas Eve, reminds them of the free hot cocoa bar that’ll be set in the lobby tomorrow.
He joins her on the balcony. Wraps his arms around her from behind as she points out Diamond Head, the children learning to surf on the beach, the patio down below with pink umbrellas and a lively bar.
He hums, appreciating all of it, but not as much as how it feels to have her in his arms, to feel her shift in his hold to kiss him breathless. He draws her back inside and leaves the windows open, allowing the crash of the ocean to drift along with them.
He knows he needs to tell her about what’s to come for him. He will.
Just not right now.
Chapter Text
The Mai Tais from the bar downstairs have gone to his head a tad. Everything is tinged pink — the sky, the umbrella he sits under, the tops of her shoulders where they peek out from her dress. The live musician plays Christmas songs on ukulele, crooning into his microphone in a way that makes Simon feel like he’s in one of those old timey films.
The walk down the beach after their cocktails, barefoot with their hands tangled for balance and something more, is pleasantly wobbly.
She tips her head toward him, eyes glassy with drink and laughter. “You realize we’re the only ones here without matching shirts? It’s a crisis.”
“Might survive it,” he says, watching her weave a little in the sand.
“I’m serious. We could at least get the reindeer ears from the lobby.”
He’s horrified at that, but when he looks at her, he remembers she can be as much of a sarcastic arsehole as he is.
“Don’t push it.”
She grins, swinging their joined hands. “Grinch.”
“Says the one who made me watch Elf while she got ready.”
“You liked it.”
He scoffs. “No.”
“Liar.”
He shakes his head, smiling despite himself. They pass a family building a sand snowman — three lopsided mounds stacked and decorated with the dad’s sunglasses and a bit of seaweed. The girl gasps like it’s the most incredible thing she’s ever seen.
“We’re doing that tomorrow,” she says.
He’s not sure if this is the sort of declaration that falls from a tongue too loose from liquor. He’d do it anyway, if she asked. “A sand snowman?”
“You can be in charge of engineering. You’ve got the structural mind.”
“That what you call it?”
“I’m drunk,” she laughs. “I’ll call it what I want.”
He squeezes her hand, the sound of the surf swallowing neighboring conversations on the crowded beach.
“What did you do for Christmas when you were a kid?” she asks after a while, softer now, the edge of teasing fading.
“Snow. Cold. Mum’d make a roast. Dad’d get…” he drifts off, unsure of how much to say, “quiet.” He pauses, shoulders lifting. Probably best not to tell her that quiet often led to violent. “Stopped celebrating after a bit.”
She squeezes his hand and blinks up at him. He expects to find a look of pity — usually does when he talks about his family — but only finds a gentle understanding.
“I used to get up before sunrise,” she says softly. “Couldn’t wait. Still can’t really sleep in on Christmas morning. Feels wrong, like I’ll miss it.”
“Miss what?”
“The start of something. Doesn’t even matter what. Just… that feeling that something good might happen.”
He looks down at her, at the way the moonlight glosses her hair. “You still think like that?”
“Have to,” she says, half a smile. “Otherwise what’s the point?”
He hums, tucks a strand behind her ear as their steps slow to a halt. She leans into the touch, and for a moment he wants to tell her everything — that he’s leaving, that even with a timeline he can never be sure for how long, that even if he does make it back he might return different, somehow — but the words stay put. Not tonight. Not with the lights wound up the trunks of the palms and her laughing about sand snowmen.
She is sparkling, full of this effervescent wonder he never sees out of the people around him; he feels like the reaper himself in contrast — about to tear this all down for her the moment he shares his news.
It’s all he understands, really. Destruction.
He blinks and returns to himself. To her.
He won’t do it tonight, and shouldn’t do it tomorrow, either. Maybe he won’t tell her here at all. Why does he feel the urge to scar something so perfect?
“Tomorrow,” she says, bumping his shoulder. “Let's go hike the lookout and order in breakfast. Then we can be cheesy tourists all day. And I’ll give you your gift.”
His brow folds downward. He hadn’t gotten her anything — she told him not to, that the trip alone was enough.
“Thought we said we weren’t doing that.”
Her smirk is an oily-slick thing, sliding across her face. “Yeah, well,” she says lowly, full of a subdued mischief that makes him nervous in a nice way. “You said that.”
He sighs affectionately in defeat and pulls her into his side, doubling back towards the hotel.
———
She’s awake before the sun is, just as she predicted. He can sense it — the shift in her breathing, how she grows timid, stills in a different way, probably wondering if he’s awake too. Simon keeps his eyes closed as he reaches for her under the pillowy duvet. Drags her to him with a heavy arm around her middle that makes the blankets crinkle softly.
“Merry Christmas, luvie,” he murmurs, raspy with sleep, tucked into her hair. Kisses her there.
“Merry Christmas,” she coos, cinnamon-sugar sweet, kissing him on the back of his hand that she drags up to her lips.
He cups her by the jaw, tilts her chin to look at her. She’s gorgeous, always, but especially like this — laid out and lazy, bare-faced, blinking up at him.
“How you feelin’?” he asks in a hushed tone. “Need anything?”
“Mmm,” she hums. “Coffee. And a water or three.”
He pats her on the side and slips from the bed to get the machine started. Pulls a t-shirt over his head to walk barefoot to the ice and filtered water machine down the hall to fill her metal bottle. She’d lent him a spare one — behemoth of a thing, enough to kill someone if you swung it hard enough. When he returns to the room, she’s spiking two mugs of coffee with the bottle of amaretto she picked up from the liquor shop down the street. Told him to trust her — that it would make the coffee delicious. A little sweet and boozy.
He takes a slow sip, blinking at her, and is surprised to find she’s right.
“It’s good,” he says, climbing back into bed with her to caffeinate, to hydrate, to nurse themselves with a little hair of the dog that bit them.
“Yeah,” she says wistfully, tucking up against his side. “My dad showed this to me the first Christmas I was old enough to drink.”
He hums. Traditions.
Maybe this will be one — just for them.
“You miss your family?” he asks after a moment.
She sighs a bit. Shuffles beside him.
“Sure,” she says quietly. “Always do on days like this.” She grabs her phone off the nightstand. “It’s almost noon where they are. I should call them before we head out for the day.”
He isn’t sure what to do when she unlocks her phone and taps to connect a video call. Does she want him in the room? Surely she hasn’t mentioned him to her parents…
“Hey, sweetie!” her dad greets warmly through the screen. He looks like her — same creases around his eyes, though his are deeper. Same chin and nose.
“Hey,” she says, still a little sleepy. Her smile is different in a way. Not like one she’s given him. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too,” he says, dipping to the side to allow a woman to join the frame with him.
“We miss you!” she says brightly, her giggle so familiar. Just like the girl’s.
“Miss you, too, Mom.”
“Where are you?!” she says. “Isn’t it like, five AM out there? Are you sick?! What’s—”
“I’m fine,” she laughs, rolling her eyes. “Just decided to wake up early.”
Simon slips from bed then — gives her some privacy. Retreats to the balcony to look out at the dark pre-dawn sky and finish his loaded coffee.
Images run through his mind. A little house in Manchester with a little boy, scared and angry. Counting down the days until he could run. Trying to enlist early just to get the hell out of there. He thinks of Christmas gifts — the bow and arrow he got at eight, the squirrel he killed with it, the first thing he ever watched die.
He shakes his head. Squeezes the mug in his gnarled fist.
She joins him outside a few minutes later, wrapping her arm around his middle. “You okay?” she asks, nudging his chest with her nose.
“Fine,” he answers, reaching up to squeeze her shoulder affectionately. No need for storm clouds today. “Let’s go on that hike.”
———
“You call that a hike?” he clips out, smirk teasing the edge of his mouth. Though it sounds like it, he’s not exactly complaining — no time like today to catch that sunrise he never got the chance to.
She beams at him, swinging that damned water bottle after she takes a sip. “It’s a holiday. What, you had survival camping in mind?”
“Not exactly. Maybe something unpaved.” His eyes scan the platform around them, thick with other couples, young families, retirees. “Less busy.”
Simon should’ve known that Waikiki is a hotspot this time of year. He couldn’t find a Christmas dinner reservation for the life of him.
“I’m not as hardcore as you,” she hums, turning towards the lookout. It’s whale season. Off in the distance, spouts of water puff up from the flat surface of the ocean, revealing their locations.
“Look,” she points, spotting two twin plumes of aerated spray. “Think they’re in love?”
He smiles despite himself. “They do that?”
“No idea,” she shrugs. Then after a beat, “Would you still be with me if I were a humpback whale?”
“Ridiculous question.”
She shoves playfully at him — takes her phone out to snap a selfie, one he has to duck to her height to get into frame.
“Send that to me.”
He should do that more while he can — take photos of her, of the two of them, together. Something to treasure for when he’s gone, buried in a password-protected folder on his personal phone while he’s out in the desert.
“Gonna answer?” she chides, her smirk giving her away.
He kisses her — a soft press of their lips that smells like coconut sunscreen.
“F’course, luv,” he smiles against her, slipping his hand lower to pinch the side of her arse. “Like you more this way, though.”
———
She’s been in the bathroom for ages with strict orders for him not to bother her. He has half a mind to think the mish-mash of pupus they ate for dinner didn’t sit right with her.
He sips a bourbon, taken up with him from the bar downstairs, and tries to listen for any sounds of distress over the drone of the telly.
She’d insisted he leave a massive tip for the server who took care of them tonight. Flipped open the cheque presenter and scoffed, dug into her purse for two more twenty dollar bills, scrawled “merry xmas!!!” onto the crinkled receipt.
She got a little quiet when they got back to the room — a little flighty and jittery — dug around in her bag for some supplies before locking herself away in the loo.
After five more long minutes he can’t take sitting still anymore and worrying. He knocks on the door.
“Y’alright?”
“Fine,” she mutters, a little frantic, from behind the door. “I’m fine, one more sec—”
The door opens inward and reveals her — hair done in fresh waves, makeup that makes her eyes look dark and sultry, and when his eyes go lower…
“Your gift,” she says, all sass with a devious smirk.
She wrapped in red silk — a bra that ties over her breasts in a big bow, ready for unwrapping, and a matching set of underwear that sit high over her hips.
“Fuckin’ hell,” he mumbles, tongue heavy in his mouth, as his sweeps his palm across his jaw — hiding the way it hangs agape at what he sees.
“You like it?” she asks sweetly, giving a little spin — letting him see the open gusset, a peek of the cleft of her showing through the split fabric.
He answers by throwing her over his shoulder — laughing darkly at her shocked yelp. Places a firm smack across her rear just to hear another. She’s tossed across the bed, knees knocking astride, showing him how she glistens, swollen and slick already. Sweet thing — must’ve gotten herself all worked up just thinking about surprising him — just watching herself in the mirror.
“What happened here, hm?” he presses, crawling into the space she’s created between her legs. Magnetized. His thumb traces the line of the silk — pulls her apart. “Picked out something naughty just for me?”
She nods, cheeks already flushed beneath those dangerous eyes. She lets them fall shut when he twists two fingers into her.
“Look at that,” he murmurs, cooing at her when she whines. “Swallowing me up already.”
Needy cunt — gripping him tight with every thrust of his fingers. He withdraws, circling her clit a few times before pulling away — backing off the bed to take off his clothes.
She draws up onto her knees, kissing his abdomen, the scar tissue that criss-crosses and puckers his flesh. He’s barely got his bottoms off before she’s gripping him at the root, lowering onto all fours and wrapping her mouth around him from where she’s perched at the edge of the bed — sucking at him audibly, gripping him by the hips to keep him pressed tight against her tongue.
“Christ,” he swears, dragging in a ragged breath when she swallows around him, her throat constricting. He pulls away — fishes through the back pocket of his jeans for his phone.
“Come on,” he urges, guiding himself back to her eager lips. His other hand unlocks the device, taps open the camera app. “There you go.”
She blinks up at him, mouth stretched wide over his cock, and he snaps a photo. Another. One with her brows knit together over those big, dark eyes. Him resting on the plush of her lower lip.
“Look at you,” he purrs, moving his hand down to feel the swell of him on the underside of her jaw when he presses back inside. “Beautiful.”
She takes his cues — runs the tip of her tongue in a line up the length of him, swirls it over the end. Looks right into the camera. Shameless.
He tosses the phone onto the blanket and stretches out over her, mouthing at her chest — pinching the end of one satin ribbon and tugging until it unties, spilling her breasts into his mouth.
He’s hungry. Something feral claws at the lining of his stomach. He sucks one of her nipples, clamps his teeth down. Feels his ears twitch in interest at her high moan.
“Fuck,” she whines, clamping her hands down over his ears, dragging her palms up into his hair. Pulling and scratching at his head — shoving him lower.
He rolls his tongue out when he reaches her cunt. Groans at the taste of her. Fumbles for his phone beside him, still unlocked, camera on — shoves it into one of her hands.
He nods between her legs — keeps going. Lets her take photos on his phone, lens aimed down the line of her body. Something for him to keep, to remember. It falls from her grasp when he plunges two fingers inside, reaching deep, driving against something so raw she sobs.
“Wait,” she gasps, scrambling away — tearing at the drawer of the nightstand behind her, its metal pull rattling as she reaches inside it. She pulls out a toy — a bright pink vibrator, something he noticed was shoved in a bin beneath her bed back at home.
He takes it from her without words — thumbs at the power button and presses it to her, firm and unyielding, as his fingers shove back into place. She convulses — belly contracting and shaking as he moves his wrist, his entire forearm. She’s a sight all wound tight like this, holding her legs open wide for him, and when she comes he dives for her open mouth, trapping her sounds in the cavern of his own.
She kisses him like she’s trying to pull his heart out of his throat.
“Turn over,” he demands, watching her doe eyes grow wider, watching as she moves onto all fours and arches back towards him, waiting — peeking over her shoulder.
He picks up the phone again. Flips to the video capture. Pushes in slowly — watching through the screen how she parts around him, pussy framed by her lingerie, darker now from where she’s leaked into the fabric.
He shudders a sigh. Bites his tongue when she bounces back against him, her plump flesh rippling on impact.
“Fuck, there y’go,” he whispers, settling his free hand down the dip of her spine. She keeps moving on him — pushing her hips back against his, stretching her hands long in front of her for leverage. “Take what you want, luvie. Use that toy.”
She shudders, reaching for the vibrator, still buzzing where it was tossed amongst the heavy blanket. He can feel it the moment she presses it to her clit — the sensation traveling up his cock, the tight squeeze of her walls around him.
“Oh God,” she slurs, cockdrunk beneath him, losing rhythm while her body gets lost to pleasure.
Simon tangles his fist in her hair, right at the nape of her neck, and takes over. The phone shakes in his hand as he thrusts — as he starts breathing more heavily, as the room fills with the muted smack of flesh-on-flesh.
She whines and writhes, changing the angle so that he punches right up against that spot that makes her eyes go unfocused, her jaw hang.
There’s no warning before she comes — just a strangled yelp and a vise-tight clamp around his cock, locking down so hard he can scarcely move. He murmurs little coos of praise and encouragement as she peaks, trembling on her shaky arm before flattening herself to the mattress and pulling the toy away.
He stops recording. Tosses the phone to the side to get both hands on her arse, kneading both cheeks between his palms — soothing, reverent, a bit greedy. Watching her twitch. Tugging her bottoms up until he can see her other hole — tracing his thumb around it.
He knows she can come again and again, all night long, especially with that toy of hers — with his fingers, his cock, his tongue. He lets her settle. Allows her to catch her breath. Offers her a sip of water from his borrowed bottle when he slips from her, guiding her to turn and sit.
He smooths his hand over her thigh as she drinks. Cleans up the drop that escaped her mouth to run down her chin.
“Again,” he says, tipping her onto her back, pulling her spread legs up over his hips. He teases at her, circling, swiping his head across the mess she’s made. “Need more.”
———
His phone is full of her by morning. He swipes through the pictures as she showers. He’s hard again just from looking. Thinks it would be good to join her in the shower, so he does.
Check-out is in a couple hours. The flight a couple hours after that.
He still hasn’t told her. Can’t bear to.
At home. He’ll do it at home.
He pauses outside the shower glass, steamed and revealing her long silhouette.
Home. The word keeps entering his mind, unbidden, whenever he thinks of where she lives.
He strips bare and steps in beside her.
Home. A circle of her arms.
It echoes behind his sternum — cacophonous, ringing, a grenade that stuns him, knocks him sideways. Home.
———
There’s no more delaying it. He can’t. He leaves in two days.
It’s not enough time. He feels frantic — frenzied as he battles a clock that ticks, the sound maddening, driving him to insomnia.
What a bitter, blood-tinged irony, to have to leave her on New Year’s Eve.
Of course she’s noticed he hasn’t slept much since returning from O’ahu. She notices everything.
It’s why he’s hardly surprised when she seems quietly prepared, her jaw a hard line when he sits her down at home to talk. She reads him — always.
“You know I’m leaving soon,” he says somberly, facing her on her cramped couch.
Her eyes flit between his, unblinking. She nods wordlessly. Clenches her teeth so tight he swears he can hear it — the bone on bone.
“Two days from now.” He lets the news settle. Wants to reach for her but won’t allow it yet — doesn’t feel right. “Iran this time. For at least three months.”
Her chin quivers as she finally looks away — some point on the ceiling behind him. Her lower lids soon join, trying with all their might to hold back tears.
He moves closer to her. Slips his hand around the back of her neck — hot, already sweating.
“O-okay,” she breathes, a cracked, broken sound. She’s still looking up, not blinking. Probably afraid that the second she does the tears will fall.
“I’ll come back again,” he promises. “Have to.”
Her face crumples. She tucks it into his neck, lets the tears fall. He holds her body as she shakes with sobs, fights an urge in himself to call Price and tell him he won’t do it.
“I know,” she croaks, nodding against him. “I know. Just — Is it dangerous?”
He’s told her nearly nothing of the details of what it is he does. Every time she asked, he’d deflect — change the subject or share just enough to sate her curiosity. She never pushed. Perhaps it’s why this is so much harder than it should be.
Still, he debates how much to share. How much appetite she might have for concern. She is so carefree — tough in equal measure, but he feels sick every time he thinks of her up late, pacing, counting hours or days between his messages.
He already knows that if his fate is to come back in a wooden box, he will still return to her. Let her do with him what she wants — perhaps cast him into the sea, if she’s merciful — if she’s not too furious with him for having the gall to die on her, to break his promise.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, placing the word gently between them, setting it down as if it’s so fragile it could break with one ill-timed breath.
She is wracked by another sob. It makes his skull feel like it’s being pounded with an ice pick — a pressure at his temples that throbs, that screams at him to stop this, to shut the fuck up.
“Nothing I haven’t done before,” he adds, as if it will help anything.
He remains quiet after that. Holds her until she hiccups herself calm.
“You fucking asshole,” she sniffles, drawing back to look at him. She swipes her face roughly, smearing the tears off her cheeks, her chin, her neck. “You sit there talking about how much you need me — about pancakes and-and Christmas and you knew this was coming.”
He can’t meet her eyes. “Didn’t know how to say it.”
“You should’ve just said it,” she spits.
“And ruin all that?” He feels himself matching her anger — his composure stretched taut, thin. He takes a breath. Runs the heel of his hand over his throbbing brow. “Didn’t want our last weeks to be about a countdown.”
She lets out a shaky laugh, half a sob. “You make everything sound like it’s already ending.”
He finally looks at her. The sight makes his ribs crack, splintering — shrapnel in his heart. “It’s not. Not yet.”
She stares at him for a long moment, then leans forward until her forehead thuds against the center of his chest. “I hate you.”
It’s muffled into his hoodie.
He knows what she means. Doesn’t he always?
“I know.”
And they sit like that — silent, sharing air, letting what’s unsaid hang inside it.
He loves her. And he knows — always does — that she loves him, too.
———
The drive is too quiet. He notices her nails digging crescent shapes into the leather steering wheel once she makes the final turn off the coastal highway.
The airport is dead. Nobody around, though it’s never too busy. He appreciates how calm this place is — open air terminals with trees and flowers, no traffic cops hurrying people along in the drop-off lane, mostly empty unless there’s a redeye back to the mainland States.
She parks at the curb and kills the engine. “Guess this is the last stop,” she says, trying for lightness and missing the target.
“For now,” he answers. The words taste thin behind his teeth.
Around the back of the Jeep, he pulls his bag from the trunk. The sight of her yoga mat and beach towels makes something shift behind his ribs.
She joins him there, arms folded. “Got everything?”
“Yeah.” He nods toward the bag. “I promise. I’ll take more time after this.”
She looks up sharply at that. “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it.”
“Didn’t say I didn’t.”
She huffs out a laugh that trembles. “You and your riddles.”
He hums warmly and lifts a hand, meaning to brush her cheek, but she steps closer first — presses a quick, hard kiss to his mouth. The kind meant to hold a person in place.
When she pulls back, her eyes shine. “Text me when you land, okay? Every stop.”
“Soon as I can.”
She swallows, tries a smile. “Happy New Year.”
He grins faintly. “Yeah. See you next year.”
She groans through a tearful laugh. “That’s terrible.”
“Terribly true,” he says, and kisses her again — slower this time, a memorizing kiss, the kind meant to last. He hopes he can still taste it by the time he’s airborne.
Then he shoulders his bag and turns toward the terminal.
When he looks back once, she’s wiping her cheeks with the heel of her hand, laughing at herself. The sound follows him through security, through boarding, all the way into the sky, passing the birds.
And somewhere above the Pacific, as the lights of the cabin dim and the other passengers drift off to sleep, he feels it settle clear and quiet inside his chest.
This is the last one.
He pulls his laptop from his bag and writes up the paperwork.
———
The fire pit smokes more than it should. Simon mutters to no one but the birds about damp kindling and his bloody useless spine while he prods at the logs with a stick. His back’s been tight since sunrise — chopping wood for the fire, hauling chairs from the shed, rattling around in the passenger seat of the Jeep with the boys shoved in the back, his girl at the wheel. He’d like to pretend he’s not nearly forty, held together by sinew and stubbornness.
Inside, the house smells like butter and sage. She’s moving around the kitchen in that way she has, a frenetic yet controlled rhythm and motion — hands like small birds, light and sure. At least she’s got more space to move around. The new place is treating them well, situated at a higher elevation — a little cooler, with the occasional storm cloud that clears by the early afternoon. They can still be at the bar, or at her favorite beach, in less than half an hour.
He can hear her humming over the clatter of pans and steel utensils. Every now and then she yells through the open windows to ask if he’s remembered to set out yet another thing — the special plates, the ice chest, the bug spray — and he yells back an affirmative while he massages his lower back and curses under his breath.
Price is the first to show, carrying a bottle of scotch and a bouquet of flowers. He’s polite — goes right into the kitchen to check in, to put them in water and compliment her culinary skills. Johnny and Gaz arrive next, loud enough to scare off the mynas nesting in the bushes, and round straight to the backyard — matching grins and no manners, with a case of beer each.
“Steamin’ Jesus,” Johnny says, eyeing the spread through the open sliding doors as he cracks a can. “You sure we’re not intruding on a royal banquet?”
“It’s Thanksgiving,” she calls back cheerily. “Go wash your hands before you touch anything.”
Gaz snorts. “She’s got you trained, Ghost. Never thought I’d see the day.”
Simon grumbles something about rank and respect, then winces as his back protests when he bends for the cooler. Price smirks on his way out of the house. “Old habits finally catching up with you, mate?”
“Still move faster than you lot,” Simon fires back, though he’s not entirely sure it’s true anymore.
They eat outside once the sun dips — turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, all the fixings, plus a bowl of lomi salmon she insisted on making. The fire crackles, the drinks disappear too quickly, and Johnny tells some story so embellished it borders on warranting a court-martial. Laughter rolls across the yard, warm and easy.
They all agree they like American holidays, thanks to her.
Later, when everyone’s half-dozing in their chairs and the pumpkin pie’s been neutralized, Simon leans back. Takes it all in.
Price raises his bottle in a lazy toast. “To retirement,” he says, smiling to Simon. “Looks good on ya.”
Simon nods — chooses not to add his typical snark. Just clinks his beer to the others and lets the moment settle deep in his bones. Looks over at his girl — gorgeous in the firelight, flames casting her skin in golden hues that remind him of that night up on Kilauea, of what she showed him at the edge of the world.
Eventually, the laughter dies down to embers. Gaz and Johnny argue over who gets shotgun, both too gone to drive and relying on Price to chauffeur them to their hotels. The girl chuckles to herself — cheeks pink from wine and good company — and starts to collect the dishes from the table.
“Leave it,” Simon tells her, stretching with a grimace as he rises from his seat.
She laughs, low and warm. “Okay, Grandpa, let’s get you to bed before you break a hip.”
He shoots her a look. “Grandpa?”
“Mm-hmm.”
He slinks an arm around her waist. Leans in a little closer. “You’d have to make me a daddy first for that,” he says lowly — a tease, trying to get her cheeks even redder.
“Fucking sicko,” she mutters over an aghast giggle, swatting at him with a cloth napkin as she wriggles out of his grasp. “Don’t get any weird ideas.”
Johnny nearly chokes on his last beer. “Heard that one clear as day!”
Price groans. “For the love of God, MacTavish, don’t encourage him.”
Simon just smirks, slow and content, following her back inside with a stack of plates. His back hurts, sure — but the stars are brilliant, he’s fed and sated, and his family — the whole, improbable lot of them — are all here.
everytimeari on Chapter 2 Fri 03 Oct 2025 10:43PM UTC
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via_hiptop on Chapter 2 Fri 03 Oct 2025 11:23PM UTC
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witchgoblins (Im_Josh_Dun_With_You) on Chapter 2 Sat 04 Oct 2025 03:57AM UTC
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via_hiptop on Chapter 2 Sat 04 Oct 2025 03:29PM UTC
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Social_Anxiety_Ahoy on Chapter 2 Mon 06 Oct 2025 04:35AM UTC
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via_hiptop on Chapter 2 Mon 06 Oct 2025 02:54PM UTC
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Bellatrixed on Chapter 3 Wed 08 Oct 2025 09:57PM UTC
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via_hiptop on Chapter 3 Thu 09 Oct 2025 12:56AM UTC
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Bellatrixed on Chapter 4 Sat 11 Oct 2025 03:44AM UTC
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AyyoFish on Chapter 4 Sat 11 Oct 2025 12:36PM UTC
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