Chapter 2: Shopping for the holiday
The goat herder’s cottage was more perfect than the photos. Whitewashed stone, thick wooden beams, and a terrace that hung over the edge of the world. The only sounds were the distant sigh of the sea, the chatter of cicadas, and the wind in the gnarled olive trees. For three days, they did nothing but sleep, swim in the empty cove, and cook simple meals with local tomatoes and feta. The silence here was different from home—it was vast and ancient, a silence that filled you up instead of making you listen for what was missing.
On the fourth morning, they drove the rented Fiat into the island’s main port town, a labyrinth of whitewashed steps and blazing bougainvillea. The market was a riot of colour and smell, but Caleb guided her past the stalls of spices and leather, his hand firm on the small of her back.
“We need proper supplies,” he said, his eyes scanning the narrow street.
“We have wine, cheese, bread. What more is there?” Sandi laughed, her sundress fluttering around her calves.
“Swimwear.”
He stopped in front of a small boutique, its window displaying a single, artfully draped item. It was a bikini, if it could be called that. Two minuscule triangles of a deep emerald green connected by thin gold rings. The bottom was a high-cut affair, a scrap of fabric meant to highlight, not cover.
Sandi snorted. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not.” He pushed the door open, a bell tinkling softly. “Try it on.”
Inside, the air was cool and smelled of jasmine. The elderly shopkeeper nodded and retreated behind a curtain. Sandi ran a finger over the silk-like material. “Caleb, I’m thirty-seven. I’m a mother of twins. I can’t wear this. I’d be arrested.”
He took the hanger from her. “Why not?”
“Because!” she whispered, heat rising to her cheeks. “It’s practically dental floss. I’d be exposing… everything.”
“And?” He stepped closer, his voice dropping. “You have the body for it. A body you’ve earned. Every damn curve of it.”
She looked up at him, surprised. He wasn’t just being kind; his gaze was intense, analytical, hungry. “You really think so?”
“Sandi.” He said her name like a sigh. “I’m stunned you don’t know. You move through the world like you’re unaware of it. It’s not the body of a girl. It’s better. You have confidence you didn’t have at twenty. A quiet composure. You know exactly what you like, what you’ll do, what you won’t. You could wear a bin bag and own a room. This?” He held up the emerald fabric. “This is just for us. For that cove. For me. Please.”
His words unspooled something tight within her. He saw her. Not just the mother, the administrator, the wife. He saw the woman underneath, the one who’d studied late into the night for her MBA, the one who could run ten kilometres before dawn, the one who’d surprised them both on the couch back home. She took the hanger back, her fingers brushing his.
“Okay.”
In the changing room, under the unforgiving fluorescent light, she faced herself. The mirror showed the story: the faint silver lines on her hips from the twins, the muscles in her thighs from a thousand laps in the pool, the sun-kissed skin on her shoulders. She tied the tiny triangles behind her neck and back, fastened the bottoms. The fabric cupped her, lifted her, the green a shocking contrast against her skin. She looked powerful. She looked desired.
She stepped out.
Caleb was leaning against a wall, examining a spool of linen thread. He glanced up.
He didn’t speak. The air left his lungs in a silent rush. His eyes darkened, travelling over her with a slow, possessive thoroughness that made her skin prickle. He pushed off the wall and closed the distance between them in two strides. His calloused hand came up, but didn’t touch her. He hovered his palm over the flat of her stomach, the heat radiating from his skin onto hers.
“Fuck,” he breathed, the word rough and full of awe.
He bought it without asking the price.
The drive back to the cottage was charged, a thick, silent energy humming between them. He drove one-handed, the other resting on her bare thigh, his thumb making slow, sweeping circles. Every nerve in her body was tuned to that point of contact. The bikini, nestled in tissue paper in the bag at her feet, felt like a promise.
They reached the cottage as the sun began its slow bleed into the horizon. He didn’t let her carry the groceries. He took the bags inside, his movements efficient, deliberate. Sandi walked to the edge of the terrace, gripping the warm stone rail, looking down at the cove. The water was turning indigo.
She heard his footsteps behind her. Felt his body heat before he touched her. His hands settled on her hips, his mouth at the nape of her neck.
“I want to see you in it,” he murmured, his lips moving against her skin. “Now.”
She turned in his arms. His expression was stripped bare, all the steady reliability gone, replaced by a raw want that mirrored the coil of heat in her own belly. She went inside, to the cool, dim bedroom. She could feel his gaze through the open doorway as she undressed. She pulled the emerald triangles from the bag, put them on. The evening air raised goosebumps on her flesh.
When she walked back onto the terrace, he was waiting. He’d taken off his shirt. The last of the sun gilded the planes of his chest, the dusting of silver hair.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, the words torn from him.
He closed the space and his mouth was on hers, not searching now but claiming, hot and desperate. His hands were everywhere, sliding over the slick fabric, underneath it, pulling at the thin ties. The back of her bikini top loosened, then fell away. He broke the kiss to look down, to take one nipple into his mouth, his tongue rough and perfect. She cried out, her fingers tangling in his hair.
“Caleb…”
He backed her against the stone wall of the cottage, the roughness scratching her bare shoulders. He yanked the bikini bottoms down her thighs, the material catching at her knees before she kicked it free. His own shorts were shoved down, and then he was there, hard and thick and pressing against her. The vulnerability was absolute—exposed to the darkening sky, the empty sea, the ancient hills.
“Look at me,” he growled, his breath hot on her cheek.
She forced her eyes open, locked onto his. He hooked one of her legs over his hip, his hand gripping her thigh, and with one brutal, perfect thrust, he was inside her.
It was a shock, a glorious, blinding invasion. She gasped, her head knocking back against the stone. He didn’t wait, didn’t gentle. The dam had broken. He fucked her against the wall with a ferocity that was entirely new, a raw piston drive that stole the breath from her lungs. Each snap of his hips drove a choked sound from her throat. The vulgar, wet slap of their joining was loud in the twilight.
“This is what you do to me,” he gritted out, his face a mask of strained pleasure. “This is what you’ve always done. My wife. My fucking gorgeous wife.”
His words, filthy and reverent, tipped her over the edge. The orgasm ripped through her, violent and unchecked, her body clamping around him in rhythmic waves that made him shout, a raw sound torn from his chest. He followed her, his own release pumping into her with a final, shuddering thrust, his forehead dropping to her shoulder as he swore again and again into her skin.
They slid down the wall together onto the sun-warmed tiles of the terrace, a tangle of limbs and spent breath. The first stars pricked the violet sky above.
After a long time, his hand found hers, their fingers lacing together. He brought her knuckles to his lips.
“Quiet composure, huh?” she managed, her voice hoarse.
He let out a shaky laugh, his chest vibrating against her side. “I said you could own a room. I didn’t say you couldn’t also wreck a man on a terrace.”
She turned her face into his shoulder, breathing him in—salt, sex, and him. The quiet uncertainty was gone, burned away in the Aegean dark. What remained was a profound, thrilling certainty: the adventure had well and truly begun.