Page 113 of The Bronze Garza

Minutes pass, and nothing but our heavy breaths fill the salty air.

Once I’m able to breathe normally again, I right myself up to a sitting position and lock my arms around his neck. I lick the sweat from is skin, then press myself tightly against him, wishing I could melt into him as I pant out, “One.”

He laughs.

~

“Can you fly?”

Splayed on my back in a two-piece bikini, the sun warming my skin, I peer up at a shirtless Torin through my sunglasses. He twists the cap off a bottle of beer and leans against the railing of the luxury yacht he sailed us out on.

I don’t know who’s yacht this is or who’s beach house we’re staying in, but I’m not sure I care so I haven’t asked. Not when the last two days have been nothing but sheer freaking bliss. I’ve been all over him like a rash and he’s not complaining; he enables me, feeding my insatiable desires.

And the sex—oh wow—each time is better than the last.Number six was this morning, bent over the counter in the kitchen when I was trying to make a fruit salad. But now I’m dreading number seven, because I don’t want it to be over.

When he told me we’d be going sailing for the day, I squealed. Not that I haven’t been sailing plenty of times, but everything with him feels brand new. Like I’m experiencing it all for the first time.

“You asking if I have wings?” he replies.

I don’t roll my eyes like I want to. Instead, I let them roam over his hard, cut abs and broad, hairless chest. His bronze skin damn near glistens under the sun. On his inner left arm, close to his armpit, is an ace of diamonds tattoo that I only recently discovered. It’s the only ink on him though, and it’s small and hidden, so it must mean something. “I meant planes.”

From what I’m gathering, there doesn’t seem to be much that hecan’tdo. His nautical skills surprised me, so now I’m wondering if he has aviation skills as well.

Like a caressing touch, his gaze drags leisurely along my body as he takes a swig of beer. “You’ll get tan lines. Ditch those pieces of fabric.”

“Perv,” I mutter with a grin. “Why did you bother to buy me clothes if you knew you wanted me naked the entire time?”

“So I can rip them off.”

And he has been. Half the things he bought me are now in shreds. “You can fly, can you?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I’m just trying to find a flaw in you, is all.”

“There are many.”

“Like?”

“You’ll find them if you look hard enough.”

He straightens from the railing and comes to where I am. He lays on his side next to me, head propped up in one hand.

With his other hand, he pours some of his beer in my belly button. Under the heat of the sun, its coldness is very much welcome.

“I’m not delusional enough to think you’ll keep me around long enough to find those flaws.”

Apathy cloaks his voice when he replies, “True. We’re one fuck away from ‘completion’.”

Don’t remind me. “Can I ask you something?”

He spills a trickle of beer between my breasts, the cold liquid splitting into multiple rivulets down my body. “Go ahead.”

“Where do I fall on the scale?”

“Scale?”

“The sex scale,” I clarify. “Remember you said it’s anywhere between ‘bad, meh, good, great, and mind-blowing’?”