Chapter 6: Chapter 6
The raw, electric shame lasted only a second before it curdled into something harder, something furious.
“Who the fuck was that?” James snarled, but the guy had vanished into the seething mass of bodies near the bonfire, phone held aloft like a trophy.
Lisa’s hands were shaking. She smoothed her dress down, the gesture futile. She felt wide open, everything she’d just done—everything she’d just felt—potentially digitized, broadcast, mocked. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, her voice low and surprisingly sharp. “He’s gone.”
James grabbed her arm, his fingers tight. “The hell it doesn’t. He could be sending that to everyone right now.”
She wrenched her arm free. The tenderness from moments ago was gone, incinerated by the flash. “And what? You’ll chase him? Start a fight? Then everyone definitely knows.” She looked up at him, her dark eyes glittering in the neon-striped shadows. “You wanted raw. You got it. This is the other part of raw.”
He stared at her, breathing hard, the party crashing around them in waves of meaningless noise. The possessiveness in his gaze warred with a flicker of what might have been respect.
“Come on,” he said, the fight leaving his shoulders. He didn’t touch her again. He just turned and walked, not toward the party heart, but away from it, down the beach where the lights faded and the sound of the ocean grew louder than the bass.
She followed, the cool sand shifting under her bare feet. They walked in silence for a long time, past other scattered groups and couples, until the world narrowed to the moonlit strip of wet sand and the hulking shadows of dunes. They reached a hollow formed by the wind, a private bowl of sand surrounded by tall, sawgrass-crowned dunes. The distant speaker was just a muffled thump here, a ghost of the frenzy they’d left behind.
He sat down heavily in the sand, looking out at the black water. She stood for a moment, watching him, then sat beside him, leaving a foot of space between them. The air was cold on her exposed skin.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally, the words scraped out. “For that. Back there.”
“You didn’t take the picture.”
“I put you in the position.”
She dug her fingers into the cool sand. The aching tenderness between her legs was a blunt reminder. “I put myself there.” She glanced at him. “The video on your phone… is it safe?”
He met her look, holding it. “It’s password locked. Face ID. Only me.” A pause. “You want me to delete it?”
Did she? The memory of seeing it, the power of that witnessing, coiled in her stomach. “No,” she said, the decision clear as soon as he asked. “Not yet.”
A long, slow breath escaped him. He lay back in the sand, staring at the stars. “Come here.”
It wasn’t a command this time. It was an invitation. She lay back next to him, the sand molding to her shape. Their shoulders touched. The vast, star-splattered sky pressed down on them, making their problems feel microscopic and eternal all at once.
He rolled onto his side, propping his head on his hand. His other hand came up, fingertips barely tracing the line of her jaw, then down the column of her throat, over the frantic pulse. “You’re still shaking.”
“Adrenaline,” she whispered.
His touch trailed lower, over the thin fabric of her dress, circling a nipple that hardened instantly under his palm. He watched his own hand, his expression unreadable. “That guy… the picture… it pissed me off. But it also fucking turned me on.” He said it like a confession, ashamed and defiant. “That someone else saw what’s mine.”
The crude claim should have repulsed her. Instead, a fresh, liquid heat pooled low in her belly. The danger of it, the exposure, was now a part of the fuel. She didn’t answer. She just arched her back, pressing her breast more firmly into his hand.
He swore under his breath, his gentlemanly attentions shredding. His mouth came down on hers, hot and hungry, and she kissed him back with equal fervor, biting his lip, tasting copper. His hands pushed the straps of her dress down, baring her to the waist. The night air pebbled her skin.
“Turn over,” he rasped against her mouth.
She did, onto her stomach. He yanked the short dress up around her hips. There was no thong left to remove. He groaned at the sight, running a hand over the bare curves of her ass. “So fucking perfect. And all mine.”
She felt him fumbling with his shorts, heard the tear of another packet. He wasn’t gentle. He kneaded the globes of her ass, spreading her, his thumb circling her asshole again, still loose and sensitive from before. It twitched under his touch.
“Not there,” she said into the sand, the words muffled. “I’m too sore.”
“I know,” he said, his voice thick. He shifted, the blunt, rubber-sheathed head of his cock nudging instead at her soaked, tender entrance from behind. He pushed in with one slow, devastating stroke, filling the swollen, aching channel completely. They both cried out, the sound swallowed by the dunes.
He set a relentless, deep rhythm, each thrust grinding her pelvis into the sand. One hand anchored on her hip, the other fisted in her auburn hair, pulling her head back to arch her spine. “You see the ocean, Lisa?” he grunted, his breath coming in hot gusts against her ear. “You see how fucking endless it is? That’s how much I want this cunt. Endless.”
His words were filthy, degrading, and they lit her up inside. She pushed back against him, meeting every drive, the friction building a familiar, terrifying pressure. The sand was in her hands, her knees, gritty and real.
“You like being fucked like this?” he demanded, his pace turning brutal, slamming into her. “Out in the open where anyone could see?”
“Yes!” The admission was torn from her.
“Who do you belong to?”
“You!” she gasped.
“Say my name.”
“James! Fuck… James…”
It was the permission he needed. His control shattered. His thrusts lost all rhythm, becoming a frantic, pounding pursuit of his own end. The slapping sounds of their coupling were obscenely loud in the hollow. She felt the coil within her snap, her climax ripping through her with a silent, shuddering intensity, her internal muscles clamping and fluttering around his driving length.
He followed with a raw, guttural shout, burying himself to the hilt as he came, his hips stuttering against her. He collapsed half on top of her, his weight pinning her to the sand, both of them slick with sweat and breathing like they’d drowned.
Minutes passed, marked only by the retreating tide. He softened inside her, slipped out. He rolled off, lying on his back beside her again. Her dress was ruined, sand ingrained in the fabric, in her skin. She didn’t care.
His phone, discarded beside his shorts, buzzed. Then buzzed again. A fluorescent glow in the moonlight.
James sat up, grabbed it. His face, slack with spent pleasure, went rigid. Then cold.
“What?” Lisa asked, pushing herself up, a new dread seeping into her bones.
Wordlessly, he handed her the phone.
It was a group text. A thread she wasn’t in. The preview showed a blurry, dark photo—two figures against a cooler, unmistakably them. The messages below scrolled up.
Dude, is that James?
HOLY SHIT HE’S GOING TO TOWN
Who’s the girl?
Someone find her friends.
Fuckin’ legend, bro.
The last message was from the unknown number that had sent the photo. More where that came from. She’s a wild one.
Lisa’s blood turned to ice. She looked from the phone to James’s stark face, then out to the vast, uncaring ocean. The hollow didn’t feel private anymore. It felt like the eye of a storm that was just beginning to spin.