One Good Man

“Here, Janey,” I say, almost a groan. “I have to have you right now.”

Her glance darts to the other people further down the shore; distant figures that aren’t paying us the slightest bit of attention, and then back to me.

She nods. “Yes. Yes, me too. So much…”

Without another word, I lift Janey up and she wraps her legs around my waist. I trudge back up the beach to our little base, her long, damp hair like soft seaweed draping my arms as I hold her.

I lay her on the lounge chair that had once been a stretcher, and reach up to pull the

palm umbrella between us and the people down the shore. But as soon as my body lays over hers, the rest of the world vanishes.

Janey reaches for me, kisses me hard and spreads her legs so that I fit between them perfectly. We fall into each other immediately; kissing that is almost biting, her nails raking down my back… I’m so hard, and it’s maddening that we’re separated by thin scraps of nylon. Janey lifts her hips to meet my mindless grinding.

“Adrien,” she breathes. “Now… Please. I need…”

Her words break off as I slip my hand between us, cupping her. Her eyes fall shut under the golden sun, droplets of the sea and sweat beading over her skin like diamonds as she arches her back into my touch.

My fingers slip beneath her suit, and into her wet heat. My head drops to the crook of her neck to feel her like this.

“Ah, God, Janey…” I grind out as she undulates beneath me, already in the throes of ecstasy. I want more, but force myself to wait, to curl my fingers inside her, to bring her to a crashing orgasm first.

She arches off the stretcher, cries out, her hands making painful fists in my hair, and then she shudders beneath me.

“How…?” she breathes, her eyes hooded. “Every time. So good, Adrien. God, you make me feel so good.”

Even as she’s talking, she’s slipping out of her bikini bottom entirely, while I push my suit down just far enough. In seconds, I’m where my fingers had been and a groan slips out of me to feel her body take me inside her, tight and wet and perfect.

“Yes,” she hisses in English, slipping into her native tongue as she so often does when I have her like this, beneath me.

I thrust quickly, hard, over and over; experience telling me it’s the best way to build another orgasm off of her first. Re-stoking the fires that had already been lit.

The stretcher creaks and I wonder vaguely if it can withstand us.

I don’t care; I take her harder.

Janey wraps her legs around my waist and cinches tight. The heat of sun blazes over my back, and the heat of her beneath me envelopes and consumes. I’m delirious, feverish with her. Janey is everything I want, in mind, body and soul, and I realize in these moments—in these frantic moments of need and want, of give and take—that there can only be her. Now and forever.

The crescendo hits, like a wave crashing over us, and we come within seconds of each other; my guttural moan following on the heels of her crying out my name. I slump over her, and for a little while, we’re a tangled mess of sweat-slicked arms and legs; our breaths coming hard and fast. Eventually, I lift off of her and from inside her, and we lay side by side, our foreheads touching.

“Janey…”

She smiles at me, a peaceful smile that is my oasis in all the blood and war we have seen, and I’m so overwhelmed with her I can hardly think but to blurt out the truth.

“I’m happy,” I say. “I’ve never felt so damn happy in my life, despite everything.”

“Me too,” she says, her fingers toying with my beard.

“Are you happy?” I ask. “It seems impossible some days, but in the quiet times, like now, it comes to the surface, how happy I am. With you.”

Her smile is brilliant and soft. “I am happy, Adrien. I promise you, I’ve never been more happy.”

I kiss her gently, then harder, and when we break apart, the words fall out. “Marry me. Marry me, Janey. I have nothing to give you. No ring, no fancy proposal…I have nothing. But…”

Her fingertips touch my lips silent.

“I told you a long time ago,” she says, her lips trembling and her eyes shining. My girl was tough, but for me, she gave everything. “What I want from you can’t be bought.” She leans close to kiss me. “Just you, Adrien.”

“Just you, Janey,” I say. “Will you?”