Chapter 24
And then there were just two days left. Sinclair sat at the Breckenridges' kitchen island on a bar stool, watching Nikki cook the evening meal.
"For old people, they have a lot of parties up here," Nikki said. "At least once a month. That's when I have to get at least two other people to help me with the cooking."
"Do they ever invite you?"
Nikki looked horrified. "No. Why should they?"
A knock sounded on the back door. "Who could that be? Nobody makes deliveries this late."
"Afternoon, ladies," Hunter called out. Despite her cheerful greeting she looked tense.
"What are you doing here?"
"Coming to see you." She leaned on the kitchen island next to Sinclair. Up close her body was tension itself, coiled and waiting for something.
Sinclair touched her arm. "Is anything wrong?"
"Not really, but I'd love for you to come home with me now.
Sinclair and Nikki exchanged a look. "OK. Let me just get my bag. I'll meet you outside."
At the Jeep, Sinclair looked at Hunter's tense face again. "Are you sure that you're all right?" she asked.
"I'm not. But I will be." Her hand curled around Sinclair's. "You have at least two days before you have to go. You can spend the last day with your family. Today is mine. Yes?"
When Sinclair nodded, Hunter drove them down the hill to her house. Once there, she pulled Sinclair into her bedroom. "I love you." She kissed her. "No. Don't say anything."
Her tongue stroked Sinclair to life, pressing her body's need into hers until Sinclair clung as viciously as Hunter did to her. She dragged the straps of the tank top down Sinclair's arms, baring her breasts. Heat slid under Sinclair's skin as Hunter's mouth claimed her nipples. She pushed Sinclair against the wall.
"Will you stay?"
Sinclair's body panted and wept yes but it couldn't speak. Hunter's fingers moved inside her, loving, fucking, shoving her against the wall and all Sinclair could do was say Hunter's name as she took what she wanted, what Sinclair wanted her to take. Her name tumbled from Sinclair's mouth when her body started to shake, thighs trembling, fingers twisting in the snaking hair, sweat weeping behind her knees and under her breasts, down her back, rubbing into the skin over her taut muscles. Hunter followed her as she slid down the wall, still pumping her fingers as Sinclair shuddered and came and screamed her dark goddess's name.
But Hunter wasn't finished. She peeled Sinclair off the floor and took her to bed, covering Sinclair's body with hers, washing her with her sweat, her cum, her tongue. Hunter plunged deep for more milk from her lover's body, squeezing until Sinclair thought that she had nothing left. She was a supernova, rawness and pain pushed aside for the rapture that Hunter's hands brought.
The dark woman pushed into her and Sinclair pushed back, thighs straining apart so Hunter could take more of her.
"I need you to stay."
Limp. Sinclair was limp when Hunter tied her arms to the headboard, spread her legs wide and tied them down too. Her teeth nipped Sinclair's ankles and toes, and the flesh of her legs and thighs. "But if you want to leave me, I'll let go. I won't make a scene." But she lied. Sinclair was helpless to the press of Hunter's tongue and fingers inside her, pulling the trembling out until she flexed taut as a bow.
Sweat bathed her skin, stinging her eyes, salting her lips and tongue. She wanted to beg, for what, she wasn't quite sure. But the words kept escaping her, slipping away in the tides of sensation that buffeted her body.
Hunter's teeth closed on her clit and her slim fingers slid even deeper into Sinclair's pussy. The whimper caught them both by surprise. Tingles scuttled under her hair, traveling down her neck and shoulders, into her hips. The cum shattered her, shrieking through her like pain. Sinclair sobbed. She fell back to earth, dimly aware of the throbbing ache of her entire body and her tireless lover licking the sweat from it. Her eyes closed. An after-shudder rippled through her as she tried to push Hunter away. But her hand sagged back to the bed and she fell heavily asleep.
"There's nothing for you in America." Sinclair lay trapped in an exhausted slumber when she heard Hunter's voice from far away, she felt the steam of her seducer's breath on her neck. Like a fish diving into water, Hunter slid into her and Sinclair rose up from sleep. Her belly pressed against Sinclair's back, dark hips cupped her ass, a new part of her, hard and firm, buried inside her. Sinclair clawed at the sheets and arched her back. Hunter's name left her throat in a long, ragged moan.
She was wet. An ocean, swallowing her, moving beneath her, with her. "Hunter. . ."
"Stay, Sinclair."
Hunter slid deeper inside, taking her body to a place of fire and ice. The wave of heat left Sinclair gasping, the cold clenched her and she sobbed Hunter's name again.
"Stay." Her hand spread under Sinclair's belly, lifting her up to her knees, until her face was against the pussy-smelling sheets, her fingers curled into the soft cotton under her. Hunter folded herself over Sinclair's body and pushed into her. When she touched Sinclair's clit, the flesh beneath hers shuddered.
"Tell me you'll stay," she groaned into the back of Sinclair's neck. "I'll do anything you want."
"I-I can't-oh, sh-oh!" Sinclair's world fell to pieces.
When her body quieted, after the shivers of sensation had bled away, leaving her limp and sated, she opened her eyes to see Hunter propped up on her elbow watching her.
"I've waited a long time for you," Hunter said. "Some days I look at you and feel that you're the reason I left England. It wasn't to find some idealized dream of an island that I knew less than nothing about. It wasn't even to reconnect with my family. It was to meet and love you." Hunter traced a pattern in the drying sweat on Sinclair's belly. "Don't say anything. I just wanted to tell you that before you left."
Sinclair couldn't speak. Tears leaked from her eyes and ran down into her hair. No one except her Gran had ever made her feel this special, this essential to happiness. She needed Hunter, too, more than even she could understand. Her bones ached for the dark woman. And she was terrified. Sinclair had trusted Regina and even started to love her. That betrayal had been as painful as it was unexpected. What she felt for Regina then was like a pebble compared to this avalanche of emotion roiling through her. Sinclair knew that she would break if Hunter abandoned her. And because that made no sense, she cried.
Hunter brought her breakfast in bed. "I'm sorry about last night. I wasn't quite thinking." She saw the look on Sinclair's face. "Not about the sex, I loved fucking you. I loved the way you called my name." A rueful smile shaped her mouth. "I am sorry about asking you to stay. That was out of line. I won't do it again."
She fed Sinclair sliced mangoes from her hand, and eggs and toast and cherries. "After your shower I'll take you back home."
Sinclair didn't know quite what to say. Her body was exhausted. She hadn't gotten more than two hours of sleep and her thoughts were sluggish. Yet she was alert enough to realize that today was her last day on the island and she needed to spend it with her family. "All right. Let me ... let me get started." Sinclair stood up. "Come. Shower with me."
They undressed and climbed into the tub together, shrouded in silence and the heavy sadness of Sinclair's leaving. The shower spit and hissed as Hunter turned it on. She soaped her washrag and bathed Sinclair's body, taking every opportunity to show how much she would miss her. Only after the lukewarm water sluiced the suds from Sinclair's body did Hunter speak.
"You already know how I feel about you," she said. "If it's that real for you, too, then come back to me. If it's not, then don't fuck with me. Don't call or promise to write, and please don't send me any of those insipid `wish you were here' postcards."
Beneath the rain from the shower's nozzle, Sinclair promised, kissed her lover, blessed Hunter's skin with her hands, and promised.