All the Pretty Lies (8 page)

“Okay, what now?” Sloane asks from behind me.
I turn to find her standing at my left shoulder, looking up at me,
her eyes hidden by sunglasses. But I don’t need to see them to know
that interest is there. Attraction. Fascination. I don’t know
whether she doesn’t try to hide it or if she thinks she
is
hiding it. Either way, it’s there for me to see. Plain as the cute
little nose on her face. And it’s driving me crazy.

“Let’s walk,” I say, turning to head up the
beach. I set a lazy pace as we kick through the surf. She keeps up
easily. When the wind blows, I get a hint of her perfume mixed with
sunscreen—the scent of innocence. It’s mouthwatering.

“What are we looking for?”

“Just look around. Look at all the exposed
skin. Look at the way it moves when people walk. Look at the way it
stretches tight when they bend over or run. Look at the way it
hangs when they’re relaxed. When you’re drawing a picture on skin,
when you’re making art that will live and breathe with the person
wearing it, you need to consider everything. Wrinkles, fat, bone,
muscle, age. It can all affect your work. And they’ll have to live
with it. For a long, long time.”

As we walk along, I point out tattoos on
different people, explaining why I would or wouldn’t have done it
that way. I ask Sloane questions, trying to get a feel for her
innate abilities. I ask her things like how she would work around a
skin fold or what she’d tell someone who wanted a tattoo in a place
that wouldn’t turn out the way they envision.

I suspected her to be fairly intuitive about
art. After seeing her sketch, I had no doubt she has talent. But
now I’m beginning to think she might really have an aptitude for
tattoo work. And that just makes her even more appealing to me.
It’s not something that’s common—doing tattoos—therefore it’s not
something easily shared with others. I can feel it forming a bond
between us, one I didn’t foresee and probably should’ve avoided
like the plague.

But right now, it serves my purpose. I don’t
like the thought of anyone getting hurt, but I can’t be responsible
for everyone else. I have my own shit in life to worry about. And
some of it is more important to me than anything else. It has to
be. Until I see it through, it has to take precedence. End of
story.

After nearly two hours of strolling along the
beach, looking at bodies with the eye of a tattoo artist, I finally
notice the heat.

“Do you swim?”

Sloane smiles broadly. “Yeah, I love to
swim.”

“Then you have two choices. Run or I’ll pick
you up and throw you in.”

Her smile dies as she processes my words. It
only takes two, maybe three seconds for her to turn away from me
and run, squealing toward the water. I give her a very small lead
and then I swoop in, scooping her up into my arms and running into
the salt water waves. I hit thigh level just as a swell comes in. I
wait until it’s ready to break and I throw Sloane right in the
highest part. I hear her squeal again, but it’s quickly drowned by
the crash of water over her head.

I see her sunglasses fly out and hit the
water a couple feet away. I reach for them as I watch her, making
sure she finds her feet. Her head pops up in an instant. I smile
when I hear her sputtering. She straightens, pushing long, inky
strands of hair out of her eyes.

“You…you…” she stammers. I might feel bad if
she was really mad, but she’s not. I can see her curved lips, and I
know it’s just bluster.

“Me…me…what? Me fast and you slow?”

Sloane comes stomping out of the deeper water
toward me. “You’re going down, mister.”

“Ooo, promises promises.” I start backing
away, laughing at her bravado. She speeds up, I speed up. She
lunges, I evade. “Don’t hurt yourself, little girl,” I mock as she
leaps to try and get a hold on my arm.

“I’m
not
a little girl,” she demands,
hurling herself at me. I sidestep her and she splashes into the
water.

“Prove it,” I tease playfully.

Sloane stops. Just stops. She stops and
watches me. Through her spiky eyelashes, I can see flecks of gold
in the chocolate of her eyes. I can see that her suckable lips are
parted slightly and I can see that her chest is heaving as a result
of our play.

She raises her hands to smooth her hair away
from her face. It stretches her bathing suit top tight across her
tits, plainly displaying her hard little nipples. For a second, it
feels like I’m watching a
Sports Illustrated
shoot.

I let my eyes roam her curves. Droplets ease
their way down her throat and into the valley between her breasts.
Her stomach contracts with each breath. Her thighs move
rhythmically through the swirling water as she walks toward me.

When I raise my gaze back to her face, I see
that her eyes are fixed on mine. She holds me there until she
reaches me and stops again.

She tilts her face up toward mine. Other than
that, she doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. She’s close enough that I
can feel her body heat despite the cool water bathing my skin.

I see her reach out. I feel her warm hands
when she grips my sides. I watch her pull herself up onto her
tiptoes. I hold my breath as her lips get closer and closer.

And then they’re touching mine.

The kiss is soft and innocent and fleeting.
And when she leans back, I see that there
is,
in fact, a
woman behind the guileless eyes that I see every time I close mine.
There’s a woman in there, and she knows what she wants. Maybe I’ve
not given her enough credit. Maybe I missed seeing it at first,
when I got lost in her sweet smile and blushing cheeks. Maybe she’s
more like the women I’ve known than what I suspected.

Yes, this girl knows what she wants. And,
while she may not be as deliberate in getting it as the others I’ve
bedded, she still knows how to use what she’s got.

And she’s using it.

Right now.

On me.

When she leans into me again, I go into the
kiss with the intention of leading Sloane out into the deeper water
and showing her just what she’s asking of me. And showing her a
little taste of just what she’ll get.

But before any of that can happen, she
flinches, pulling away from me with a gasp.

“Ouch!” At first it seems like she stepped on
something. But then I hear the air hiss between her teeth again and
she cries out. “Oh shit! Something just bit me.”

She darts away from me, swishing the water
around her like she’s trying to scare something away. She screeches
and grabs her right leg.

“Ohmigod, Hemi, something bit me!”

I can see that she’s not kidding. And that
she’s getting more upset by the second. I kick into action.

Moving as quickly as I can through the
churning water, I sweep Sloane up into my arms and I run her to the
shore. I drop to my knees in the wet sand, laying her gently in
front of me. I see the cringe marring her beautiful features, her
expression one of pain. She’s paler than usual, too.

“Show me where,” I command.

Sloane indicates the outside of her right
thigh. That’s when I see the angry red slashes filled with angry
red dots.

A jellyfish sting.

“You’ve been stung by a jellyfish,” I say by
way of explanation. “Hold still.”

I check her skin to make sure there are no
tentacles attached. When I confirm that there aren’t, I stand.

“You’re not gonna pee on me, are you?” she
asks, her eyes slightly horrified despite the pain she’s in.

I can’t help but grin. “No, I just need to go
get something. Stay put. I’ll be right back.”

I run up the beach to where our stuff is.
Luckily we’d almost made our way back to where we started. I grab
the tube of sunscreen from Sloane’s bag and retrace my steps. It
only takes me a few seconds to get back to her.

Holding the tube by the fat part, I scrape
the sharply folded end over Sloane’s skin.

She yelps in pain. “Don’t do that!”

She flinches away from me.

“Hold still. I have to get the stingers out.”
Once more, I carefully scrape the site with the flat edge of the
lotion tube until I’m fairly confident there are no remaining
stingers. I can tell she’s in pain, but Sloane doesn’t make another
sound. Finally, I scoop her back up again and take her into the
surf.

“What are you doing?” she asks, clinging to
my neck and curling her body tighter against mine so that I don’t
put her into the water.

I set her down in the shallows, in just
enough depth that I can bathe her leg. “Here, this will help. Just
trust me. I need to wash it out with salt water. It’ll help it to
not burn as bad.”

I cup my hands and ladle water onto her
thigh, gently rubbing the area. Over and over, I force water onto
the sting, hopefully rinsing away any residual stingers and
neutralizing the toxins.

“Is it feeling any better?” I ask, checking
her color again. She still looks pale, but she doesn’t look like
her distress is
as
acute.

“A little.”

“You’re not feeling short of breath or
anything, are you?”

She pauses to assess herself then she shakes
her head and answers, “No. I feel fine otherwise.”

“Come on. Let’s find an emergency room or an
urgent care to get you to.”

I bend to pick her up again, but she
struggles a little. “No! That’s not necessary, is it? Just for a
jellyfish sting?”

I glance down at her face. She looks
alarmed.

“Well, it’s not
mandatory,
but I’d
feel better if you got some medical attention.” I see her worrying
her lip. “Why? Do you have an aversion to hospitals or
something?”

“It’s not that. It’s just that…that…”

“What? Spit it out.”

She leans her head against my chest for a
second, as if her instinct is to hide her face.

“It’s just that I’d hate for my family to
find out about this.”

“Why? It’s not like you did it on
purpose.”

“I know that. They’re just…it’s just…it’s
complicated.”

“Complicated,” I repeat.

“Yeah. Complicated.” I slow my walk as we
approach Sloane’s towel. I set her down on it and crouch at her
side.

“Do they not know you’re here?”

“Uhhh,” she hedges, “not so much.”

“Is it because of last night? Because I’m not
afraid of your brother, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No, no, it’s not that. It’s just that…”

“You can tell me. Whatever it is. I don’t
judge. And I won’t get mad, if that’s what you’re worried
about.”

She makes a growling sound. “Grrr, it’s not
that. It’s just…it’s embarrassing.”

I sit over onto my hip beside her. “All
right, tell me what’s going on.”

“Look, my family is just very…protective.
It’s been a big struggle for me to make them see that I’m all grown
up, that they need to let me live my life. Turning twenty-one was
huge for me. They’ll go into orbit if they find out I took off to
the beach with some random guy, got stung by a jellyfish and then
ended up in the hospital. They’ll give me shit every time I want to
leave the house for months if they find out.”

“No offense, but why don’t you just move
out?”

Sloane sighs. “It’s not that easy. There are
things…well, it’s just not that easy. Trust me.”

Everyone has a right to their secrets and
their privacy. I, of all people, believe that wholeheartedly, so I
don’t press her.

“Okay, well how about this. Let’s find a
hotel and at least get you someplace where you can rest and I can
get some vinegar on this thing. That way you won’t have a miserable
car ride
and
an unsavory family run-in today. You can tell
your family that you’re with a friend, and that you’ll be home
tomorrow. Sound plausible?”

I see as much as feel her exhale. Her smile
is relieved. “That sounds great.”

I exhale, too. “Okay, first things first.
Let’s get off the beach and go across to Savannah and find a place
to hole up for the night. Then we’ll go from there. Cool?”

“Cool,” she repeats.

I throw all our stuff in her bag—clothes,
shoes, sunscreen, my sunglasses.

“Shit! I must’ve dropped your glasses. I
don’t have ‘em.”

“That’s fine. They were cheap. And I guess I
can let you off the hook since you were trying to rescue me and
all.”

“How kind of you,” I reply drolly. “I’ll buy
you another pair before we leave.”

“That’s really not necessary.”

“Maybe not, but I will anyway.”

I throw her bag over my shoulder and start to
reach for her.

“I can walk,” she says, rolling to her feet
and dusting sand off her butt. She turns around and grabs her towel
to shake it out, but I notice the frown she’s wearing.

“What? Something else is wrong. What is
it?”

She shrugs and shakes her head, a clear
indication that I’m right.

“It’s just that…I don’t really have…”

“Just tell me,” I prompt when she keeps
stammering.

“I wasn’t expecting to be getting a room, so
I didn’t really bring that much money with me. And my card—”

“Hey, this was my idea. You wouldn’t even be
here if I hadn’t suggested we come to the beach.”

“But you wouldn’t have suggested it if I
hadn’t asked you to teach me about tattooing.”

I can see that she’s genuinely bothered by
having to admit the money thing.

“Do you
know
how many other ways we
could’ve done this? I wanted to get you in a bikini. So sue
me.”

I see the smile play at the corners of her
sexy mouth. Makes me want to rewind to when I was just about to
taste them again in the water.

“You’re just—”

“I’m a guy. I like looking at your body. This
is my penance. Let’s just leave it at that, okay?” She doesn’t look
convinced. “
God!
Stop beating me over the head with it! I
said I was sorry! What do I have to do to make it up to you? Put
you up for the night? Tend your wounds? Help you get ready for bed?
Make sure you get all the important places washed in the shower?” I
sigh dramatically. “Fine. Damn! I’ll do it. Just stop talking about
it already. Shit, woman!”