I came outside because I need some air.
I had to get away from the charged energy that being in the villa with Lyric is having on my body. Sucking in a deep breath, I finish off the rest of the champagne in my flute and wish I had some more. This attraction to my housemate for the next week is surprising but not unwanted.
I came to Aruba to get away from my life in Memphis. Lyric is as far removed from my life and responsibilities as I can get.
My sister, Chantel Dixon, urged me to take this solo vacation. She told me I need to get away from the difficulties of the last three years—the disaster of my marriage, my ex-wife’s untimely death in a car accident, learning to be a single parent to my daughter. Chantel says I should “hop back in the saddle.”
It’s not that simple.
The failure of my marriage broke something in me. And the only way I could heal was to build impenetrable walls around my heart to protect myself from getting hurt again. Chantel knows this. But still, she hasn’t let up. Kianna needs a mother, Chantel is always saying, but I don’t think so. We’ve done just fine by ourselves. I’ve even learned how to do Kianna’s hair. I make a mean ponytail.
This trip is supposed to help me let go of past hurts and move forward, maybe even have another committed relationship someday.
For three years, I haven’t been ready to jump back into the dating world.
But today has me rethinking that.
Lyric Taylor is naturally beautiful. Her almond-shaped eyes are chestnut brown and clear, her lashes long and thick, accentuating her delicate femininity. She has elegant bone structure and full sensual lips that look as though they are ready for a kiss—my kiss. The rest of her is graceful and willowy with a hint of curves in all the right places.
She appeals to me. And the fire she lit inside me from the first moment I saw her on the plane is why I made the impromptu offer to share the villa. Completely out of character for me.
As was my inability to hide my attraction when we touched. I know she saw that spark. Felt it. The sexual tension in the room was palpable.
She seems reserved, even shy. I see the way she glances at me from underneath her eyelashes and the pulse beating at her neck when I’m close. Because of those responses, she doesn’t strike me as the type of woman to have casual affairs, but I’m hoping she might consider one with me.
I came here to focus on me and what I want for a change.
And what I want is Lyric Taylor.
*
When I return indoors, Lyric has made herself scarce. It’s probably for the best. I’m not sure what I might have done next if she was still waiting there with those fuck-me eyes. I might have had to sample a taste…
Hunger has gripped me since I saw her. Even the lingering scent of her soft, feminine smell, like rose-scented soap, is making me hot and bothered. I’m always in complete control of my emotions, my reactions. Yet tonight, I’m restless, hot and hungry. It’s all because of her.
I need to cool off.
Quickly, I grab my suitcase and roll it into the other bedroom, which is farther down the hall and on the same side as Lyric’s. I wonder what she’s doing on the other side of the wall, but I don’t act on my curiosity. Instead, I start unpacking my clothes. Once I find my swim trunks, I undress and slide them on.
Oh yes, a refreshing dip in the sea is exactly what I need. I grab a towel from the en suite bathroom along with my swim shoes and head back to the terrace. However, I’m stopped dead as I open the French doors.
Lyric stands on the terrace wearing the ittiest bittiest bikini I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s practically indecent. I could easily loosen the ties along the sides of her waist and clutch her round yet petite derriere, bring her closer to my straining dick. Her hair is down, revealing a mane of luxurious brown waves streaked with auburn and honey highlights. The affect is that of a sunset. I want to run my hands through it when I bring her mouth to mine.
I cough, and Lyric turns to face me. Sweet Jesus, the front of her is even better than the back. She’s wearing a triangle halter top that pushes her breasts into the shape of delicious melons I want to bite into.
“Devon!” She says my name with a start.
I swallow the giant lump in my throat. “I—I didn’t mean to scare you.” I was just admiring your amazing body and thinking of all things I would like to do to you.
“Doesn’t it look amazing?” She sweeps her hair into a messy topknot, making her look even more adorable. “I was about to go for a dip.” She glances at my swim trunks. “I guess you had the same idea.”
“Yeah, let’s go. I’ll race you.” Without waiting for her, I rush for the sand and into the sea. I don’t want her to spend too much time staring at me or she will see my reaction to her in my shorts.
The ocean is neither hot nor cold. It’s just the right temperature to cool me down. Unfortunately, when I emerge from a rather brisk swim out, I find I have a company.
Lyric.
“The water feels amazing.” She lifts her legs from underneath her and floats in the water. She’s looking up at the sky with her sunglasses on while I tread and admire the beautiful buffet in front of me. “I’m so glad my friends gave me this trip. I really needed it.”
“Working too hard at home?” I inquire.
She glances over at me. “Yeah, something like that.”
I don’t push for more. From the outset, when she agreed to share the villa, I promised to give her space, and that’s what I’ll do. We are both on vacation. We’re supposed to leave our worries and stressors from home at the door. I determine to do that, live in the moment. I join her by floating on my back, too.
“This really is paradise,” she says dreamily.
“The kind I can get used to,” I respond.
“I thought Barbados was amazing,” Lyric said, “but this is a close second.”
“How was Barbados? I’ve never been.”
“The beaches are much like here, pristine, soft sand and water so clear you can see your feet. I went there on a girls’ trip.”
“But you came here by yourself?”
She tucks her feet under her and looks at me. “Yeah, I did. As did you. Guess we both needed to get away from our lives back home.”
“You have no idea.”
I love Kianna and totally miss her. As a parent, I always put her first. But when Chantel suggested this trip, I knew she was right. I needed some time to myself, to consider my own needs. My desires. Especially since this is the anniversary of my divorce. I can’t help but remember the hopes I had for the future, when we first got engaged, or our failure to live up to the promises we made.
Maybe Chantel is right. Maybe it’s time to bury the past and start anew. Maybe even forgive myself.
“Care to tell me about it?” she inquires. Her eyes search mine and when I don’t expound, she adds, “If it’s too personal, you don’t have to talk about it.”
“Suffice it to say, I have some demons I need to deal with and I’m hoping to bury them so I can move on with my life.”
Lyric nods. “I understand. I have a lot on my plate when I get back home to Memphis, too. This week is all about allowing myself some fun and letting go. Perhaps you could do the same?”
“With you?”
Her gaze is drawn to my mouth and she flicks out the tip of her tongue and dampens her lips. “Maybe.” I follow her movements, and when she glances up, there’s a flash of heat in her eyes as she realizes I’m watching her.
A flame of excitement shoots through me. The pure, unadulterated chemistry zigzagging between us is potent. It does something strange to my senses.
And it isn’t one-sided. Her expression is confirmation of that.
“Do you want me to kiss you?” My voice rumbles in my chest, and I can feel my heart thumping loudly as I wait for her to reply.
Her answer is to swim closer. Her word is a whisper, but it’s all I need.
“Yes.”
My arms wrap around her slender waist, and I dip my head to settle my lips over hers. Her lips part beneath mine and a sense of triumph fills me because she kisses me back with a hunger that matches my own. I tangle one hand in her hair and pull her slick body against mine so her pelvis is pressed against my aching dick.
Is she shaking or is that me?
I can’t tell because I’m lost in her response. So I kiss her again, and again.
Any control I’ve ever had is gone. In its stead is a desperate need to have her.
Three
Lyric
Am I really kissing a stranger I just met hours ago as if my life depends on it?
Yes, I am.
My arms wrap around his neck as he kisses me slow and deep, with bone-shaking eroticism. I know he had to feel me shake.
I’ve never experienced this kind of attraction to anyone. It must be the same for him, because he’s thrusting his tongue between my lips and boldly exploring my mouth like he can’t get enough. I can feel a solid ridge between the thin barrier of swimsuits between us.
I want to be closer so I press my body to his. He groans.
“Damn it, Lyric.”
Then his hands are down my back. He’s drawing the straps of my bikini top down, baring my breasts. I feel the cool air against my wet skin.
“You are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,” he says hoarsely before bending his head to close his lips around one of my dark brown nipples.
My cry echoes across the waves as he sucks me into the warm cavern of his mouth. With each pull, I gasp at the sharp sensation.
“Devon,” I sob.
I never knew my small breasts could be so acutely sensitive. His attention is already on the other breast as he swoops it into his mouth. I circle my legs around his waist, pressing his dick against where I ache.
He senses what I need and one of his hands goes lower in the water. I feel him push aside the wet fabric of my bikini bottoms. I’m tipped off-balance yet again when he explores the seam of my vulva, parting my folds, his fingers thrusting inside me.
A low, keening cry releases from my chest as he invades me with his fingers. “I want to kiss you again,” I whisper, and he obliges, kissing his way up from my breasts to my throat to my mouth.
I tighten my arms around his neck and thrust my tongue into his mouth, trying to tell him without words how badly I need this.
His fingers grow insistent. “Do you like that?” he asks, his voice thick as he pushes a third finger into me, swirling them in an erotic dance.
My answer is to arch my hips and move against his hand. When the flutters of my orgasm strike, my internal muscles clench around his fingers. Another sob of abandon escapes. He crushes my lips to his as I break and fly apart.
My orgasm is so powerful I don’t realize Devon is carrying me back to the beach with my legs still wrapped tightly around his waist. When he reaches the steps of the villa, he sits down on the one of the recliners, with me still straddling him, until I finally come back to myself. I’m trembling and weak and vaguely aware of Devon tying the knot at the nape of my neck to put my bikini back in place.
Suddenly, I feel embarrassed. I’m sitting on a stranger’s lap after allowing him to bring me to climax. But my embarrassment somehow only makes me want to get closer. I lower my head and nuzzle his neck.
In my everyday life, I keep men at a distance because I’ve always felt awkward, unsure. The few times I’ve been intimate, I held back and couldn’t always orgasm. Sometimes, I faked it.
I’ve never felt as if I was particularly sexy. My body has always been a vessel for ballet. I honed it to fit that ideal. Small hips and breasts are common in the industry, so I’ve always been self-conscious about my curves. Yet in this moment, Devon has made me feel sexier and wilder than I’ve ever felt. He seems to like my body just as it is.
His hands rub my back slowly. “It’s okay, Lyric,” he murmurs, “there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. We’re two grown-ass adults.”
I sigh and force myself to lift my head and look into his light brown eyes. He isn’t looking at me with censure. In fact, he appears to be as astonished as I am by what just happened.
“I—that doesn’t normally happen with me.”
He frowns. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just…I’ve never had such a powerful orgasm before.”
“And I wasn’t even inside you,” Devon says. “Imagine how great that could be.”
I blush yet again. I’m not used to talking about sex so openly. “I’ve had very limited experience in the bedroom.”
“I see.” Devon rubs his beard. “The passion we shared out there—it’s unusual for me, too.”
I’m relieved it’s not just me.
“I think we need a moment to, uh, cool off. I damn near made love to you out in the ocean and I didn’t even have protection with me,” Devon says.
Protection.
I was so caught up in the moment, I would have let him fuck me out there without a condom, where anyone could have seen us. No wonder he’s pulling away. He’s using common sense while the intensity of what we shared has gotten me carried away.
I need to get my head straight. This trip is about a fresh start, about discovering who I am outside of professional ballet. About the risks I’m willing to take to start a new career, to finally welcome my future…and my past. And if my fresh start is going to include exploring my sexuality, then I’m going to have to be an adult and practice safe sex.
Slowly, I climb off his lap. Thought I want to rush to my room, he grasps my hips, not allowing me to move.
“Lyric, how about we go out for dinner at one of the resort restaurants? We can, uh, talk about what comes next.”
I’m certain he’s thinking about me in his bed, but I need time to collect myself. “Yes, that’s fine.”
“I’ll meet you in the living room at 7:00 p.m.”
“Okay.”
I rush off to the primary bedroom Devon was kind enough to allow me to take, and I lock the door after me. I don’t think he’s going to come in. It’s more to keep me away from him. I’m the one who acted on impulse.
How could I have behaved so completely out of character? I don’t do random hookups. Of my last two relationships, one man was a white male dancer with whom I partnered. It seemed like a natural progression because we had the same passion for dance. The sex was good, but we didn’t have much else in common. He didn’t understand what it was like to be a Black woman in ballet.
He moved on to another ballerina after I broke up with him. To get back at me, he labeled me cold and the description stuck, hurting my self-confidence.
My other lover was one of the choreographers at a show I was doing. He was older than me, and I was completely infatuated with him. The sex was pleasant enough, but I often didn’t feel relaxed enough to orgasm and faked it.
With Devon, however—he made feel beautiful and sexy and desired. He made me feel like I could own my sexuality, like the other Gems. Egypt is bold and proud to be a tall, sexy, full-figured woman. Asia has always had a style all her own that’s audacious and sassy, just like the spitfire she is. Wynter is stacked like a brick house with curves for days and easily snagged Riley, Shay’s brother.
Speaking of Shay, she’s been messing around with an old classmate of ours and getting her swerve on. And Lord knows what Teagan is up to. That woman has always known what she wants so I doubt she has any trouble telling a man exactly how to serve it up. That leaves me, Lyric, the quiet and reserved one in our group.
I‘ve never really owned my femininity any more than I’ve owned being a Black woman. Being raised by two Caucasian parents—bless their hearts, they didn’t know how to help me accept my ethnicity. They never denied that my heritage was different than theirs, but they didn’t help me embrace it, either. They couldn’t understand that what made me different wasn’t just the color of my skin.
In school, I was the Black girl with nappy hair whose mother didn’t know how to comb it. The best Mama could do was brush my curly strands and put them into a ponytail. However, as I grew older, I noticed other Black girls had straight hair. I wanted to look like them and like the blondes and brunettes in my class with silky hair down their backs. I had to explain it to Mama, who researched online and eventually began taking me to a Black hair salon. Once my hair was relaxed, I felt somewhat accepted by other kids in my class, but I was still the strange one with white parents.
When we moved to San Antonio for several years for my father’s work, I begged my parents to put me into a public high school where more people looked like me. They agreed, and that’s when I met the Gems. I loved my friends, but I rarely dated. The Black boys in high school didn’t think I was Black enough even though I was surrounded by the Gems. They told me I talked white. What does that mean? I speak good English? Or they thought I dressed too preppy, like a white girl. I didn’t understand how I couldn’t be Black enough when my experience in ballet showed otherwise. Had they seen my skin in the summertime? My normal café au lait skin turns the color of chestnut.
My past makes me feel woefully out of my depth in this situation with Devon. My lack of sexual experience, coupled with my lack of knowledge about dating Black men, is a recipe for disaster. Maybe I should cut my losses and ask the manager to put me in another room…
I glance at the clock.
Is it really six o’clock?
Shit!
If I don’t meet him in the living room, he’ll think I’m afraid to face him and that’s more humiliating than Devon knowing of my sexual inadequacies.
Rushing into the bathroom, I turn on the taps and climb inside the shower. It’s blessedly hot and it washes away some of the salt water and sand leftover from my heated moment. Afterward I moisturize my skin with my favorite perfumed lotion, straighten my shoulder-length auburn hair and add a bit of makeup to give me some color. I walk into the living room with just minutes to spare.
Devon is already there, looking devilishly handsome in a pair of linen pants and a white button-down shirt. Why does he have to look so damn hot?
He smiles as I walk down the corridor, and it gives me a bolt of confidence. I’m wearing a plunging maxi dress with a knot in the center of the bust that gives me the look of cleavage. I’ve never been more than an A cup. In ballet it’s all about being thin. Most of the women are flat-chested with not a hint of body fat. Once, my dance company informed me that my breasts, small as they are, would be considered a distraction to members of the audience. They told me to lose weight. I did, but the breasts remained.
“You look stunning,” Devon says when I reach him. He takes my hand and brings it to his lips.
I smile. “Thank you.”
“I took the liberty of calling us a ride.” Devon opens the villa’s double doors.
Sure enough, a golf cart is waiting and whisks us off to the resort’s popular seafood restaurant. It’s right on the beach, so I take off my shoes and walk in the sand. It’s soft and powdery. The hostess seats us at a table with an ocean view and leaves us with the wine selection.
“I can’t believe I’m here,” I say.
“The view is one of the reasons I chose this resort. I wanted someplace with a killer beach and a restaurant with an extensive array of foods,” Devon responds. He’s not looking at the menu, but instead he stares at me as if I’m on the menu.
“What looks good?”
I’m determined to get back on an even keel, but he’s not making it easy. I’m appreciative when the waiter comes over and makes a production out of the wine list. After Devon and I taste our selections, we eventually settle on a sauvignon blanc. It’s crisp and delicious with a slight taste of apple. I take a sip and wait for what’s coming next. Devon wastes no time getting right down to business.
“I thought it was good idea to get away from the villa. Things got pretty intense out there in the ocean.”
I nod. Afraid to speak, I let him continue.
“I want you to know I didn’t suggest us sharing the villa as a way to get into your pants.”
His unexpected comment makes me laugh. “I never thought that.”
An audible sigh of relief escapes his lips. His bottom lip is slightly fuller than the top and it makes me want to suck it into my mouth.
Focus, Lyric. Focus.
“Good, I’m glad,” Devon said, “but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t attracted to you from the start, Lyric. I noticed you on the plane earlier today. Are you from Memphis, too?”
“I am. And I didn’t pick up on your interest.” A total lie, but I’m not ready to admit it yet. I like flirting.
He cocks his head as if he doesn’t believe me. “I was checking you out and you were doing the same thing to me.” When I start to open my mouth, he interrupts, “Don’t even try to deny it.”
I shrug. “Okay, I admit I thought you were hot.”
A broad smile lights up his face. “You did?”
“Don’t go getting a big head or anything. You know you’re good-looking.”
“And you’re not?”
I shrug. “I’ve been told I’m too skinny or—” I use quotation marks “—‘too slender,’ nothing for a man to hold on to.”
“Oh, I held on,” Devon said with a smirk.
My mind recalls him cradling my ass against his rock-hard erection. Color rises and blooms in my cheeks.
“I like how in this day and age, there’s a woman like you who can still blush at something a little naughty.”
I laugh wryly. “Yes, I believe we were a bit naughty today.”
“We were, and I’d like a lot more,” Devon responds. “Just not with any audience.”
“You would?”
I’m surprised. I thought I might be too inexperienced for a man like Devon, who I’m certain has had a lot more sex than I have. He was married, after all. My couple of intimate relationships didn’t last very long because I was wary of getting involved. I had my career to look forward to, but now that I’m no longer onstage I don’t want to be afraid of exploring new things.
“Don’t act so surprised, Lyric. I know the attraction is mutual. The connection we shared today was off the charts. I would like to explore that for long as we’re here.”
“You mean what happens in Aruba, stays in Aruba?”
He points to me. “Exactly! What do you say?”