Credence

My nipples pebble, the hard, little points poking through my swimsuit top, and I rub my middle finger over my clit in small, slow circles. Gripping the rock by my head, I imagine him at my back, and I shake my head, trying to picture anyone else.

It could be anyone.

But it’s the same hard, sun-kissed body pressing into me, his rough fingers against my soft flesh, and I’m so wet and hot, and so…

Empty.

I rub faster, gasping and whimpering, all alone in the cave, but I need something more. Something I can’t give myself.

Something solid inside me and my mouth on him and his eyes looking down at a body he wants to touch but can’t and taking me in his possessive hands with his lustful eyes and making my heart pound in my chest.

He hates my father but wants me.

My clit pulses as I feel the orgasm crest, and I want him to make me scream and come and feel everything I’m tired of not feeling. I want to be breathless.

Fuck me.

Fuck me.

“No!” someone suddenly shouts. “Stop!”

I pop my eyes open, pulling my hand out of my bottoms. The pulse between my thighs rages as the orgasm aches and fades away.

“No, I said…” But her voice lowers to a mumble, and I dart my eyes around, looking for anyone.

Who is that?

God, if anyone saw…

I twist my neck, taking in the empty cavern and no other bodies in the pool or by the waterfall.

“Ugh!” a woman cries out, and I hear a shuffle as I back away.

No one else was on the beach when we came, and I didn’t notice anyone else show up. Who…?

But just as I push myself back in the water, getting ready to bolt, a figure emerges from the darkness, and I freeze as a young woman steps out of some tunnel or adjoining cave.

She sees me and stops.

Cici Diggins. The woman from the pharmacy who was a little too interested in who I was. She must’ve arrived while I was fishing. She wears a blue bikini, her long, dark hair wet and spilling around her, and I spot a trickle of blood coming out of one of her nostrils.

I narrow my eyes. Why is she bleed—

She walks past me, above on the ledge, and dives back into the water, disappearing beyond the waterfall.

/> What the hell? Who hit her?

Just then, I hear pebbles shuffle, and I turn back around in time to see Kaleb walk out of the same tunnel she just came from.

The water shimmers across his dark eyes as they meet mine, and he steps forward, dropping into the water and sinking waist deep, dressed only his jeans.

He stalks toward me, and I back up toward the waterfall, unblinking.

Did he hit her? I scan his face and body, seeing no marks of self-defense.

The room is dark, and it’s just us, his hard eyes zoning in on me the closer he gets, and my heart leaps into my throat.

But then… he just walks right past me. Diving under the waterfall, he disappears, too, and the fear of what I’d been doing to myself under the water with them right in here is thankfully overshadowed by what the hell was just going on in that tunnel.