“Thank you,” I said in a hurried tone, quickly pulling away from her. The discretion I had requested regarding my covertly alcohol-free beverages suddenly didn’t feel so discreet.
“What’s going on?” Damon asked, making me cringe.
“Oh, nothing. A food allergy,” I shrugged. “I just wanted to let them know about it, but it’s all taken care of.”
“What are you allergic to?” His brow raised.
“Uh...just...you know...a certain kind of…”
“Seafood!” the lady threw out, saving me as she realized her mistake.
“Yes,” I nodded. “A certain kind of seafood.”
“But no need to worry. We have it all taken care of.” She winked at me as we walked away, giving me the impression that I was not the first lady around here to ask for their help in hiding a pregnancy.
But my stomach still felt heavy. What was I doing hiding something so big from Damon? I cared about him more than I had ever cared about any guy. And the life growing inside of me belonged to both of us. Could I really keep hiding it from him? The bigger question was...if I decided I couldn’t take the risk of raising this baby with him, could I really run off without ever telling him about it?
We spent the evening walking up and down the beach until it was too dark to see. Then we settled into a table at a beachside restaurant, dining on sushi rolls and an expensive dish of beef that the area was famous for. It was all served with handcrafted sauces and grilled vegetables, topped off with fresh local fruit and ginger sorbet. It was the best meal I ever had, though that title seemed to ring true for a lot of things I was experiencing on the trip. “The best I ever had” was a theme that popped up with Damon a lot in all things.
A band played while we ate, and once we finished, Damon extended his hand out to pull me onto the dancefloor. I rested my head on his shoulder as we swayed. It felt like I was in a dream with the waning tropical heat all around us, the smell of fresh flowers mixed in with his cologne, and the feeling that came with being treated like royalty.
After a night of making love, he treated us both to a day at the spa. When we found ourselves on the beach again that afternoon, I had nearly forgotten about any worries that waited for us beyond that slice of heaven.
I heard Damon’s phone ding and once again, he looked at it with a flash of worry. I wanted to ask him about it, but I had too big a secret of my own to go prying into his business. It was a position I wasn’t used to being in. Normally, I couldn’t help but blurt the truth out whether I wanted to or not, and it gave me the freedom of being able to demand honesty from everyone else.
We stayed by the ocean until the moon and stars reappeared. We both seemed to have the yearning for it all to never end. But our chairs had been ditched for the sand now that it was cooling down outside. Damon spread out a blanket and laid next to me, staring into my eyes while he played with my salty hair.
“It could be like this one day, you know,” he said, his voice aching with sincerity. “More often I mean. When I’ve accomplished everything I want to, we could go places like this all over the world. For months at a time.”
I tried to ignore the blaring siren in my head that told me the only way it could be like this was with a nanny or the laughter of a child running around nearby. I swallowed hard and tried to focus on what I was trying to do by lying to him. I needed to know how he truly felt.
“Do you think that’s where this is headed? I thought you weren’t so sure.”
“I feel more sure as time goes on,” he confessed. “Lizzy, I...I have to…”
I took in a sharp breath, bracing myself for whatever was about to come. I knew it was big, My heart pounded as I watched his lips carefully.
“I love you.”
Everything inside of me swelled, and tears threatened with a burn in the corner of my eyes. I blinked to hold them in and quickly kissed him to keep my thoughts from ruining the moment. This was it. This was like every fantasy I had about Damon from the moment my crush on him first began, which was pretty much the moment I first saw him. It was all coming true, and the only thing ruining it was the big secret I was keeping. If he loved me, that should have given me the confidence I needed to tell him. That was the security I had been hoping for. But people fell in and out of love all the time. I knew I would probably love Damon for the rest of my life, but there was no way of knowing he would feel the same. Then another very big fear rushed in. The thing that could push him away...was the very thing I needed to tell him if this was going to go on.
“I love you too,” I whispered, trying to get it out before anything else could slip out instead. Even after I said it, I half wondered if I had blurted the words “I’m pregnant” by accident.
He made sure there was no space for talking after that. His body rolled over mine as our fingers interlaced. The kiss deepened and I could feel the strain in his pants pushing against me. I opened my legs to feel more of it. That was exactly what I needed. To forget about everything else and just lose myself in his body.
His hands reached to untie the string of my wrap dress, and then flattened across my body. I reveled in the feeling of those hands running over me. All it took was one touch or one look and I was putty in his hands, ready to do anything and everything he wanted. I reached down into his pants and could feel that he obviously wanted to have sex on the beach. Another thing to cross off my list of things I had never done before.
The soft skin was stretched over his hardness, and he softly groaned into my mouth as I pulled it up and down. We were both growing more desperate, as if we hadn’t been making love constantly from the moment we stepped on the plane. His hips rocked back and forth against my hand, reminding me of the motions I was so close to feeling inside.
The tide rose, bringing the warm water rushing up around us as he discreetly pulled down his pants just far enough. He didn’t bother taking off my panties. He just slipped the fabric to the side and worked himself in around it. I dug my fingernails into his back, feeling him hiss against my ear as he filled me.
“Oh god, Damon,” I whimpered. “How do you always feel so good?” It was an earnest question. One thrust and I was always mad with pleasure. Every time I thought it couldn’t feel any better, it did.
He smirked and trailed his fingers down, circling them over my clit as he moved inside of me. His mouth dropped down to my hardened and exposed nipples. The feeling of him inside went up to my bellybutton and coursed out through the rest of my body, only intensified by his expert touch across my tingling bundle of nerves. The flick of his tongue across my breasts made me writhe with pleasure, while doing my best to suppress my primal cries against the muscles of his arm.
The resort was right behind us and was well lit. Not to mention, other guests frequently walked by on the beach. We had been alone for a while, but there was no guarantee it would last. It called for discretion, but I couldn’t stop myself from spreading wider. I laid back, surrendering myself to him, and angled up in such a way that his hand was no longer needed on my most sensitive spots. The flat area above his shaft glistened with sweat, and slid across me so that every thrust forward pushed me closer to climax.
My face wrinkled as I tried to hold it all in. I couldn’t squirm out of my dress or let my voice cry out into the night as it was threatening to do. As it got to be too much, he placed a hand across my mouth and pushed in and out harder, deeper. The stars around me swirled, and the waves picked up just enough to cover the final sounds of our orgasms.