Rowan carried me out of the pool like I was a feather, cradling me against him as he waded to shore and up the sloping, soft and mossy bank that served as a beach. Once more we reclined on our warm flat stone, my hair spread out to dry in the sun, and we finished our picnic with me sitting on his lap while he fed me morsels and I gave him kisses in return.
When we were done eating, and had repacked the picnic basket with the debris of our meal, Rowan stretched out lazily in the warm sunlight, his muscles flexing and writhing as he stretched and yawned happily. I smiled at him so uninhibited, and so perfect, my ideal man. He glanced at me and held his arms out, and when I moved closer, he wrapped his arms around me and rolled so I was now lying on top of him..
“Hello, pretty girl!” he murmured in my ear, gently poking his tongue in my ear and making me giggle.
“Hello big horny man!” I responded, wriggling on top of him, and oh yes, feeling things stirring down below.
“I could stay like this with you forever, Nim,” he murmured, slipping his hands down my back to cup and squeeze my bottom. “I wish this is where we lived, right here, far away from uni, from Surrey, from jobs and careers, and everything the world says we should be doing. This is what life should be like. Omar Khayyam was right, you know:
‘a loaf of bread,
a jug of wine,
and thou beside me,
singing in the wilderness’
“That’s all I’ll ever need from you, Nim; you and I, we’re all we’ll ever need. All we need to do is find us a place like this for our own, somewhere we can truly be just us.”
I’d never realised Rowan had even heard of Omar Khayyam, let alone be able to quote from his ‘Rubaiyat’, and my eyes welled-up at how apt and romantic his quotation was; a man doesn’t say that kind of thing to a girl for no reason. It’s what a man says to the woman he loves, and I loved him even more for that. With that came the understanding of what we were saying and doing, and the full realisation of why it could never be, and that’s when the impending loss hit me, and the tears started.
Rowan
Naomi was crying, my precious girl was hurting, and all I could do was hold her until the storm had passed and she could tell me what had happened, what had brought this on, although I sort of had an inkling. So I held her against me and rocked her the way I had when she was a little girl, and crooned in her ear, and stroked her beautiful hair.
While I rocked her, I reflected that even with her face creased-up in tears, and her eyes red and puffy, and her nose in need of a good blow, she was still just about the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. I still couldn’t believe that someone as downright fucking gorgeous as my sister could ever want me, when there was a whole world of eligible men out there ready to fall at her feet.
I dug a couple of paper napkins out of the picnic basket and dabbed her eyes dry, and let her blow her nose, and when she was a little more composed, I kissed her lightly and pinched her bottom, making her grin.
“Do you want to tell me about it, Nim-Nim?” I prompted, and she nodded, then suddenly kissed me, hard, her hands clamped around my head as she probed my mouth with her tongue, her kiss feeling almost desperate in its intensity.
“Wow, what was that for, Nim?” I asked when I got my breath back.
Nimmy moved to kneel astride me, her hands on my shoulders, so she could look into my eyes. I could still see she was troubled; that glint of fun and wickedness in her eyes was gone, and her expression was sombre.
“I’m saving up all the memories I can of how it feels to kiss you, baby, because I know that’s all I’ll ever have of you. This is all just a fantasy, isn’t it Ro? Forty-eight hours from now we’ll be back home and it will be like this all never happened, and where does that leave us?”
I cast around for a way to tell her that it didn’t have to end, that we’d find a way, but she looked away.
“See, even you know I’m right. We did all this, we made all those promises, and we can’t keep any of them, and we can never be anything, can we Ro? How in God’s name can I ever go back to being just ‘little sister Naomi’ after what we had here? I’d rather die than give you up, but I can’t have you Ro, I can never have you, so all I can do is collect kisses and save them up so I have something of you when this dream is over and I have to give you up, because everyone says it’s wrong, because the whole fucking world says it’s wrong!”
She was crying even harder than before, her body shaking with the force of her sobs, so I held her close and rubbed her back, keeping her in close contact with me until her fit of the blues had passed. I guess my soothing helped, because after a while I realised she’d cried herself to sleep. I couldn’t stay in the position we were in. I could already feel my legs going to sleep, so I slowly reclined, and eased her on top of me, rather than let her sleep on that mossy rock.
While we lay like that I pondered what she’d said; there was a lot of truth in what she’d said, I couldn’t deny it, but I knew we’d somehow find a way; there was no way on this God’s earth I was giving her up, not now, not after what we’d been to each other. By hook or by crook, we were going to have a life together: that was my silent promise to my Nimmie, and to myself.
*
Nimmie stirring popped me awake from the pleasant doze I’d slipped into, my hands full of her delicious bottom cheeks, and her clean, subtle, girl-scent filling my nostrils.
“Hello, Rowleee…’ she drawled languorously, and even though I couldn’t see her face, I could hear the smile in her voice, so I patted her bottom as I kissed the top of her head.
“You’re the world’s best pillow, did you know that, Roly-poly?” she yawned, while wriggling slowly and sensuously on top of me, stretching luxuriously even as she did so.
I didn’t reply, being far too busy with running my hands over the wealth of plush, satiny warmth her buttocks offered me, content instead to squeeze and knead those firm, juicy little treats as they flexed and quivered in my hands.
“Ro…?” she murmured, and I smiled at the wheedling tone in her voice.
“Yes, Angel-May, how can I help you?” I murmured back, still preoccupied with squeezing and enjoying her springy little bottom.
“Are we done here now? What I mean is…” but I cut her short.
“What you mean, little Nimmie, is that someone’s been dreaming of Hawaiian Barbecue, yes?” I grinned, and she popped her head up to grin impishly at me.
“Oh yes, please, I’m starving! Some roast pork and pineapple right now sounds wonderful, please, can we go and get some?”
I was feeling pretty good right then, with a blonde hottie lying on me with her delectable bum firmly clenched in my hands, but I could also see the pleading in her eyes, so I let go, reluctantly, and led her back to the grotto behind the waterfall so we could retrieve our clothes, get dressed, and tidy-up a little.
Nimmie looked enticing as hell in her little tennis-girl get-up, and I was tempted to grab her, strip her, sling her on the bed, and fuck hell out of her all over again, but she was hearing a different call right then, so I reluctantly grabbed our picnic basket and took her hand as she led me back to the entrance to that amazing place.
When we stepped out of the elevator, a girl appeared from nowhere, relieved me of the picnic basket, and told us lunch would be served in the pool in a few minutes, and to follow Nimmie’s bracelet.
When we walked through the double doors to the pool area, I was dumbfounded once again; was there no end to the wonders this place had to offer? The pool was absolutely huge, easily the same size as some of the water parks I’d been to when I was younger. It was laid out like a tropical beach, curved and sandy, with the walls of the huge space cleverly obscured with thick vegetation and small palm trees, while Frangipani bushes and sprays of Hibiscus, Bougainvillea, and other bright, tropical flowers added their scent to the air, and a wave machine kept a light surf lapping the shoreline.
The pool was an infinity pool, the far end lost in a blue haze, and the ‘beach’ was laid out with rows of loungers, with a row of cabanas with palm-frond roofs and woven matting walls lined up along one wall; even over the sound of the surf and the couples chattering and laughing on the loungers we could hear the moans and entreaties from the huts as female voices begged someone to ‘ do it harder, harder, yess, oh God, yes, like that yes, yes…’
Nimmie caught my eye, and I saw the devilish glint in her eyes; something told me I was going to allow her to decoy me into one of those huts before too much time had passed…
But now here came lunch; a massive wheeled barbecue, with a whole pig roasted brown and glistening, followed by other smaller barbecues pushed by girls in bikini tops and hip-hugging sarongs, grilling bread, fruits, whole ears of corn, and what looked like real breadfruit, filling the air with delicious smells.
Nimmie led me over to an unoccupied lounger, and a girl brought us a tray piled with slabs of crispy barbecued pork, bowls of salad and condiments, and steaming hot slices of roasted pineapple, grilled breadfruit and other exotic roasted vegetables, steaming, buttery corn on the cob, and hot, seared, crispy bread.
Nimmie’s eyes lit up as she eyed all the delicacies, followed by an expression of pure happiness on her face as she dug into it with a will.