Page 104 of That Last Summer

I hold him tightly, enjoying the moment of having him like this, a moment for myself, until he wakes up and I feel his body tense immediately. I don’t even have time to register his movement—he’s already fled to the other end of the bed with a frightened look on his face.

So... back to square one.

“What are you doing, Alex?” I ask, getting up. I don’t feel so comfortable anymore. And on top of that I have tremendous stiffness in my thighs and arms from the jet ski. “I’m not the bubonic plague. Do you want me to remind you what happened yesterday? Because you proposed a non-binding, no strings attached sex truce and invited me to sleep here. Not in that order, but it means the same. And surprise! We can’t have sex and sleep in the same bed without touching each other.”

“Yes, I remember, and I know we can’t—”

“Great,” I cut him. “Because you’re an idiot.”

I snatch up one of the pillows, throw it energetically, and watch as it falls next to him. It didn’t even graze him.

“Fuck, you’re a terrible shot,” he says, laughing.

“It was on purpose, you dumb ass. I didn’t mean to hit you.”

“Don’t call me dumb ass, dumb ass.”

Then he does the exact same thing I did seconds before: he picks up his pillow and throws it at me. It lands with a thud on the floor.

I throw it at him again, softly this time, and it hits him on the side. He laughs and keeps going, throwing the pillow my way. He hits me on my right leg. We climb on the bed and pillow fight for real until feathers start coming out. It’s not like in the movies, flying all over the place; we’re talking about four feathers falling directly onto the mattress. Until the fabric of one of the pillows—mine—tears apart and the feathers just fall out. Still no flying around.

Alex is laughing so hard that I hit him in the face, but since there are no feathers left, the effect is not what I was after. So I try to throw the bedsheet, but it doesn’t even come close to him. He does, however, come close to me. He lays me down on the mattress, crawls up my body and kisses me. A kiss I return. By the time I realize what’s happening, we’re naked, surrounded by feathers, both moaning, him inside me.

And because I have fabulous timing and I need to know, right now, I detach myself from his lips and ask, “Are you sleeping with anyone else?”

“Fuck, Pris, you’re asking that now?” he returns, panting.

“Yes.”

“Would it matter?”

“Yes, it would. If we’re going to do the whole no-strings-attached-sex thing, I want it to be exclusive.”

And I’m certainly not going to share him with the redhead.

“Okay, I agree,” he says decisively, still moving inside me.

Seconds later, we hear the doorbell, but we ignore it. We don’t care who it is. But whoever’s outside keeps ringing the bell and since we’re not opening up someone starts calling Alex’s name.

“Alex? Alex!”

“Shit,” Alex exclaims, stopping abruptly. “It’s your brother.”

“My brother? Which one? Oh!” I scream at Alex’s deep thrust.

“Shhh.” He puts a hand over my mouth to muffle my gasps. “Don’t you recognize your own brother’s voice?”

“I’m kind of distracted right now, I’m only paying attention to your moans.”

“Me too, but I still recognize Marc’s voice.”

“How did get through the gate?”

“He knows the code, but he doesn’t have a house key. We’ll wait until he gets bored and leaves.”

“Sounds good.”

I don’t want to keep talking about my brother, or rather, I don’t want to keep talking. Period. We’re about to climax and, indeed, we do that mere seconds later. After a combined last moan, our bodies collapse against each other, lax, motionless.