John "6 ft on tinder" Mactavish who has always gotten the short end of the stick from the rest of the 141 for being 5'11". who has seen and heard beautiful women excuse all kinds of behavior just because they have to look up at Ghost or Price. who has had Gaz pat his shoulder one too many times and tell the bird he's chatting up, "man's lying about his height." and who is frankly, fucking tired of it. watching with barely disguised malice as Gaz (who is barely over 6'!! the nerve of that man!!) hits on you at the bar, strikes out. and is immediately replaced by Price, then Ghost, each man taller than the last. each one gauranteed the lay if only because of his height, sulking back to their seat after less than a minutes conversation with you.
"the height not workin' out fer ya, ya deciduous bastards?" Soap grumbles.
"bird doesnt date horses," Ghost grunts.
"they what?" Soap's mouth twitches.
"don't date horses," Price grumbles, his lighter sparking pathetically as he tries to light his cigar.
"and that means?"
"Anyone over 6 foot," Gaz slumps, tipping the last dregs of his pint back and forth in the glass.
Soap nearly vaults the table, scrambling to spin you from the bar and announce,
"Ahm 5' 11"!"
you bite your lip hard against your grin, its the sweetest thing he's ever seen.
"could wear tall heels around me and ah won't complain," he jabs a thumb over his shoulder, "the horses have me well trained lookin' up."
"how about from your knees?" you laugh, reaching to hook a finger in his belt loops.
you must always think about a mentor figure exploiting the power imbalance with their mentee. and you must sexualise it as well. otherwise a gazillion hungry angels are going to hell
For days now, you’ve been seeing the same broad-shouldered man lounging around the resort.Or: the knocked up on vacation au
Part 2
masterlist
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For all your zoning out, you still know how to make the most of your vacation.
Grains of white sand scratch the skin between your toes on the walk back from the beach, sun-fatigued and pruny-fingered. Synapses firing slower than usual. You nearly doze off on the shuttle ride back to the hotel until someone jostles you awake, the embarrassing snort you let out entirely unintentional.
It’s not your fault. Several hours in the sun and sea will do that to a person.
You can’t put John entirely out of your head though. The intent in his gaze still sizzles under your skin like a bad burn. It takes everything in you not to tell your friends that you’ll see them around and take the shuttle right back to the hotel to meet up with him. Knowing him, you’d probably find him in one of his usual haunts—lounging around poolside or still seated at the swim-up bar—pleased as punch to see you come crawling back.
You pinch your arm to snap yourself out of it. You’re better than that. You can take your mind off John long enough to focus on spending time with your friends and making the most of your vacation. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of activities going on around the resort to help take your mind off him.
The silent disco is held on a small patch of sand in the atrium of the hotel, surrounded by couches and corridors leading to the other wings on all sides. There’s a DJ booth off to the side that’s mostly for show since the only music playing is what’s blaring from your headphones.
Three hours spent dancing and drinking and you’ve practically sweated out all the alcohol in your system, which you’re more than happy to replace with another drink. You stumble over to the bar twice for a top up on your margarita before your head begins to spin something fierce and the sand somehow poses more of a risk than the ground given that it keeps slipping out from under you.
You slip the earphones off your ears and turn to your friends, two of them still dancing together. The other is sitting on one of the couches nearby, hands folded over her belly and eyes pinched shut like she might throw up.
One of your friends dances a bit too close to you and you reach out to tap her shoulder.
“D’you guys mind if I go upstairs?” you ask, slurring your words only a little.
“Yeah,” one yells, only one headphone pushed to the side.
You point over to where your other friend is still sitting on the couch. “Are you guys gonna—”
“Yeah, we’ll take her up, don’t worry. I only had one drink.”
Reassured, you say your goodbyes and dust the sand off your feet before putting your sandals back on.
You barely make it a couple yards from the atrium dance floor when the exhaustion finally starts to catch up to you. Your feet catch on the grout line of the tile floor when you can’t seem to muster up the energy to fully lift your feet with each step, making you stumble forward a couple steps.
A hand catches you under your elbow when you nearly stumble right into a wall, reeling you in firmly.
“Hey, hey, hey—think you might’ve had a bit too much,” a gruff voice says, lightly scolding you, and you blame the way you instantly go liquid at the sound of his voice on the alcohol still clouding your head.
“I’m gettin’ water,” you insist and he snorts, less amused than indignant.
“You damn sure are.”
He herds you over to a couch and makes you sit down, growling at you when you try to get back up, insisting that you wait until he comes back. Alcohol might make you more petulant than usual, but the warning note in his voice doesn’t escape you, so you sit there with your hands in your lap, head spinning, until he returns a few minutes later, sitting down beside you and handing you an unopened bottle of water.
It says something about the state of your fixation that you recognize exactly who came to your rescue by voice alone, despite having only spoken to each other the one time. It registers in the lizard part of your brain that makes you go almost servile, letting him put you exactly where he wants you and take what’s given to you.
“Drink up—there we go,” John instructs when you take a long drink, nudging your chin up with his knuckle and nearly making you choke. “That’s a good girl.”
You drink your water with gusto, the plastic bottle crinkling under your fingers, condensation making the plastic label slide all over the place with your thumb. A bead of water dribbles down your chin and drips onto the floor. Your face burns from his touch and his words.
It’s not the first time that you’ve seen him in something other than his swim trunks—that wouldn’t be appropriate to wear at the breakfast buffet—but the patterned Hawaiian shirt and board shorts combo is doing something unholy to your libido. His shirt is mostly unbuttoned save for the two in the middle, hiding his midsection but exposing his pecs at the top and the treasure trail of dark hair leading down into his shorts.
“Where’d you come from?” you ask dumbly.
He laughs softly and your stomach flips at the sound. “The bar over there.” He points someways off and you squint until you can make out the shape of the bartender moving back and forth between the people sitting in front of him, submerged in cindery darkness. “You know, I’m on vacation too.”
“Oh. Yeah. I know.”
It’s healthy that you remember that every once in a while—that a whole world exists outside of your experience of it. John isn’t here as a manifestation of your libido, but as a real person on vacation too, one that just so happens to make your heart beat twice as fast when you see him.
But a better time for introspection might be when you’re upstairs in your bed and not drunk off your feet.
“You need any help getting back up to your room?” John asks.
You grunt, shaking your head and regretting that action almost immediately when the room starts to spin all the more violently and your stomach lurches.
“That’s a yes then,” he says, shushing you when you start to protest. “Don’t argue. Drink your water.”
Exhaustion leaves you boneless, no fight left in you to object to his words. Besides, he’s not wrong. With the way your head is spinning, you’ll be flat on your ass tomorrow if you don’t drink water now.
You guzzle the rest down with both hands until there’s nothing left, blindly handing the empty bottle back to the man sitting beside you who leaves for not more than a second to toss it. He comes back to find you slumped over, your elbows braced on your thighs and your breath coming out short and shaky.
“You gonna be sick, hun?” John asks, kneeling beside you and holding a new, ice cold water bottle to your cheek, an instant balm to your suffering.
“…No,” you sigh, suppressing the urge to shake your head. “Just need to lie down.”
He nods. “Okay. Wanna give me your key and we’ll get you up to your room?”
Your eyes crack open a hair to stare suspiciously at him. “…You’re not coming to my room with me.”
John shakes his head. “Didn’t mean it like that, honey. Just not sure you can make it up on your own right now.”
Though he isn’t exactly off in his judgement, you’re still not sure how you feel about a strange man walking you back to your hotel room in this state. You’re tempted to go back to your friends instead, and maybe he sees that in your gaze because he reaches into his back pocket to pull out his wallet and then hands you his driver’s license.
“Take a picture and send it to your friends—anything happens to you and they can hold me responsible.”
You don’t know why that statement of all things nearly leaves you breathless. You listen though, snapping a quick picture of his license before sending it to one of your friends with a quick little message to keep her from worrying.
“Good?” John asks, lifting an eyebrow. You nod, mouth still dry from drinking too much.
The ease with which he hoists you up onto your feet briefly renders you speechless. Wide-bodied man that he is, he seems twice as large stood beside you, the arm linked with yours one big slab of muscle. He keeps you braced to his side as he starts towards the elevators.
True to his word, after the long journey back upstairs with your arm hooked through his to keep you on the straight and narrow, John lets you go at the door, though not before handing you the unopened bottle of water still in his other hand.
“For tomorrow morning,” he says.
“Oh,” you reply, all raspy and unsure. “Thank you.”
For a second, you almost think he’s going to follow you in. You’re not sure what you’d do or how you’d feel about it. There’s not much you’d be able to do if he really wanted to force his way in—even sober, you’d have a hard time putting up much of a fight.
So when he takes a step forward into the room, your heart skips a beat and your stomach drops, only for John to grab the handle and pull the door shut behind him, leaving you in the empty room alone.
The girls are piled together on the other bed when you wake up the next day, still out for the count despite the alarm going off on one of their phones. They must have gotten in not long after you, but they look twice as knackered, makeup smeared around their eyes and still in their clothes from the night before. No one must have bothered to sit them down and forced them to drink a bottle of water before passing out for the night.
Your head buzzes at the thought. Instead of focusing on it, you turn your head to look down at your bedside table where the extra water bottle and Advil are waiting. Heat flickers briefly into your cheeks when you remember who was responsible for making sure you’d be alright in the morning.
The day slows to a crawl when you’re by yourself. It’s quieter somehow, late enough that most of the families have already left for the beach or the more kid-friendly pool on the other side of the resort. The girls only crack open their jaws and yawn good morning around noon, long after you already went downstairs for coffee and breakfast, enjoying the morning to yourself for once.
“I think my head’s going to explode,” one complains, collapsing into a chair.
Despite your own mild hangover, you’re not void of sympathy. “Want me to get you guys some food?” you ask.
All three look over at you with big, pleading eyes. You take that as a yes.
The breakfast service from earlier in the morning has already been swapped for the lunch service. Too late to grab something from the omelette station or a full English breakfast. From the state of your friends, you don’t think they’d turn down anything carb-heavy though, so you head to the pasta station with a tray big enough for two or three plates.
Head in the clouds, you don’t see him coming until he’s suddenly there. All it takes is the slightest tilt of your head to catch him from the corner of your eye, John all the way at the front of the line, big and imposing as ever. Even more so in the light of day.
When he feels your stare on him, he looks over, winking when he meets your eyes.
There’s nothing to bury your face in and hide what wink does to you. All you can do is smile at him awkwardly and turn to the cook when she hands you back three plates, which you pile on your tray one by one.
Your friends are in various states of collapse when you return to their table, heads resting on folded arms. There’s a round of drinks in front of them from a passing server, though only one of them has the wherewithal to pop the straw into the corner of her mouth and drink.
“Hot guy’s over there,” one of your friends grumbles, pointing as discretely as possible. You follow her finger to find John at a nearby table, minding his own business. If he feels your stare on him, he doesn’t acknowledge it this time.
“Yeah…I saw him in line,” you admit.
“He’s good eye candy…” another muses. “But…we should make some kind of pact.”
“What kind?”
“No one tries to fuck him. We’re supposed to be on vacation together—it won’t be any fun if one of us leaves the group to shack up with the only hot guy on the resort when we’re supposed to be spending the rest of the week together.”
Not a chance in hell, you almost blurt out, swallowing your words at the last second. You’re more offended at the thought that any of them would try than at the idea of you not being allowed.
Another one of your friends snorts. “He’s not the only hot guy around.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Seriously—there’s a group of frat bros that checked in the other day. I saw them at dinner the other night.”
“I saw them too and please be so fucking for real. They were nowhere near as hot as the other guy.”
A medley of snorts breaks the slight tension. “Okay, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Are we all in agreement?”
“Why bother making a pact?” you ask, annoyance flickering in you like a lizard scuttling up the wall.
The one who brought it up turns to you, unimpressed. “You texted me his ID last night, dude.”
You cringe, just now remembering that you did in fact send her the picture of his ID the night before. “Oh, that’s just—he walked me back up to our hotel room last night after I left. He didn’t, uh…come in or anything.”
“Yeah, sure,” she says, not buying a word of it.
“He made me do it actually. Just to be safe.”
“Well, that was nice of him,” another snorts, fork clinking against the plate as she starts digging into her food. “Guess that means he only wants to fuck one of us.”
“Oh my god, stop,” you beg, hands covering your face so you don’t have to look at any of them. You do take some pleasure in her saying that though, however guilty that pleasure may be.
The only thing that brings you back to Earth is glancing over at John’s table again to find him still oblivious to your staring, too preoccupied with his breakfast to pay you any attention. That stings a bit. It’s as good a reminder as any that despite him wanting to fuck you or not, he won’t be sitting beside you on the plane at the end of the trip. It’s your friends that you’ll have to face back home if you sideline them on your group trip.
You turn back to them, pinky finger out for them to take. “Okay. Promise.”
And you almost believe it when you say it.
But promises made in peacetime aren’t easily kept in times of strife. Days of unbuttoned Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses sitting low on the bridge of John’s nose prove that to you.
Your resolve wavers like a bear shaking fruit from a tree—standing up on its hind legs with both paws braced against the tree trunk and giving it a few powerful shakes before checking around to see what came loose.
His complexion deepens as the days go on, tan setting in and sunburn fading away. When you see him through the glass walls of the fitness centre on the way to the pool in the early morning, it’s all you can do to keep walking.
Now that you’ve broken the ice, John isn’t shy to track you down around the resort. Not that he ever was. Maybe before he was just biding his time, waiting to see if his advances would be reciprocated, and now that you’ve given him the greenlight, so to speak, his reservations have vanished into thin air.
The attention feeds your ego to the point of critical mass. You can’t stop imagining yourself from an outside perspective, obsessed with the thought of what you might look like to John from afar, in the throes of a perpetual out of body experience.
It’s just addicting to think about a man like John being interested in little old you. Makes you look at yourself in a whole new way. In the morning, you put on your sunscreen in front of the bathroom mirror and take an extra few minutes to appreciate all of your features, turning this way and that to admire your form, insecurities plucked out one by one, his desire refracted in the prism of your chest and reflected back out.
The frustrating part is that you know you’re doing the wrong thing by indulging him when you shouldn’t be even entertaining his flirtatious overtures. You came all this way to spend time with your friends, not follow a hot man back to his hotel room. If it were any of your friends and not you toying with the idea, your anger would come swift and righteous. It’s hypocritical to not think they’d ask the same of you.
But—you chew your lip when he makes eye contact with you from across the restaurant at dinner—like everyone else, you have a breaking point. You’re only human at the end of the day.
“Ah, ah, ah, there we go,” John rumbles right in your ear, hot breath panting down the side of your neck.
You don’t know how you wind up back in his hotel room hours later with your knees draped over his shoulders and his voice low in your ear telling you to count to ten while he pushes in, gasping every time his hips punch forward, cockhead nearly nudging your cervix and filling you all the way up, close to overspilling.
Too much, too big; even though he stretched you out on two thick fingers for what felt like hours, it still forces all the oxygen out of your lungs when he bottoms out.
“Gonna have to pry you open, huh,” he chuckles in your ear. You don't get what's so funny about that, but in fairness you can barely wrangle enough sense together to form a thought.
One big hand effortlessly pins your wrists over your head. His grip isn't even that tight and you can't wriggle out of it. Your heart quickens when you realize that.
He worships your breasts like a man that prefers tits over ass and he tells you that too: got a lovely set on you, honey, and then sucks a nipple into his mouth.
You shouldn’t be here. Your friends are all down by the pool soaking up the sun and getting their feet wet while you’re in John’s room on the other end of the hotel getting railed within an inch of your life. You should’ve known that it would end up here. You should’ve known that you were always going to end up in his bed.
Nothing but experiencing his broad body suspended over yours and rutting between your thighs could’ve prepared you for the reality of it. Smothering, oppressive; tacky skin sliding against yours, friction making your skin burn, the hair on his pecs and belly all sweat-slicked and dragging against your chest. Broader and heavier than you could’ve imagined.
One time, you tell yourself. One time and then never again, just to know what it would be like. Just to know what fucking a man like John would do to you. One time and then you can go back to your friends and act like it never happened, like a man didn’t just fold you in half and drive his dick to the root into your pussy.
The hand holding your wrists together disappears and reappears at your waist. Both of them this time, snug on either side of you, scooping under your low back and lifting it up to get more leverage before driving his hips down, plunging his shaft deeper into your hole, the tip of his cock nudging against something that makes your leg spasm and your breathing go choppy.
“Oh—f—fuck,” you grit out, squeezing your eyes tight.
It’s deeper now. Deep enough in you that his cock might well be butting up against your cervix. You’ll have to waddle back to your friends after this or ice your pussy until it stops aching from having too many inches of dick shoved inside it.
“There we go,” John says. “That feel good?”
He asks that like he doesn’t see your eyes rolling back into your head, like there isn’t a line of drool leaking down your cheek.
There's a condom wrapper on the bedside table that you don't remember him putting on. He must have though, you think blearily and then he repositions his knees and drives forward hard enough to make your teeth clack together and whoops, there goes any chance at forming a coherent thought again. He must have because what man would forego a condom before turning you over onto your belly and slipping a hand under you to palm the flesh there, hips flexing forward and groaning when you squeeze him a bit too tight. What man would run the risk?
“Careful,” John laughs into your hair. You don't understand. “Gonna take a little souvenir home with you if you keep that up, sweetheart.”
Your stomach swoops at that. His meaning, as always, comes clear as day, but this time the shock of it ripples through you like an electric current, mind wiped clean of anything apart from the sound of his voice.
He pumps into you with a single-minded intensity, not giving you an inch to breathe. Smooth, measured strokes, an intent to his fuck instead of a mindless, frantic search for his end. It’s a treat to be with someone who knows what he’s doing—and fuck, does John know what he’s doing.
“John—hgn, ah—fuck—” you gasp, so close to the edge that your voice almost gives out altogether. Taut as a tightrope. Charged as a live wire. “Wait, wait, wait—”
He thrusts one last time to the hilt before stilling, petting a hand down your spine to reassure you of his attention. “You alright, love?”
“You—ah, um—c-condom?”
It must come out too soft, too breathy, because he doesn’t catch your words at first, ducking his head to hear you better. “What’s that?”
“D’you have a condom on?”
It’s the wrong time to ask the question, far too late for it to matter, but you ask it anyway. You should’ve confirmed it earlier when he didn’t have you flat on your belly with your hips canted up, pussy soaking wet and throbbing, so desperate to cum that you’d accept any answer so long as it meant he wouldn’t stop fucking you.
His fingers dig into the flesh of your belly. “Saw me take one out, didn’t ya?”
“Uh huh,” you slur. When you turn your head, you see the foil wrapper on the bedside table, ripped only halfway open. Maybe just enough to stick a finger inside and fish the condom out.
Your cunt clenches around his dick involuntarily and you swear you can feel the thin rubber against your walls. You swear you can.
“Then quit askin’ stupid questions,” John growls into the crown of your head and drives his hips forward again.
Cold air from the AC wafts over your sweaty body as you lay stretched out on the mattress, cum drying between your thighs and chest still heaving with every breath. Goosebumps ripple across your flesh like tall grass swaying with a gentle breeze.
John’s somewhere else in the hotel room. Probably in the bathroom from the faucet you can hear running in the background. He’ll probably gently coax you out in a few minutes. Give you just enough time to come back to yourself before helping you get dressed and seeing you to the door. It’s the kind of dalliance that you’d expect from a man like him—a good fuck, a solid effort to make you come, and then a gentle but firm hand on your back leading you to the door. You won’t be surprised when it comes.
That’s good though. Now that you’ve gotten it out of your system, he won’t be as much of a distraction anymore. You’ll finally be able to leave behind any guilt that you felt before and devote yourself and your attention entirely to your friends, your little tryst a careful secret shared just between you and him.
Catching your breath, you slowly lift yourself up, throwing your legs over the side of the bed and drawing your body to the edge. Allow yourself one last glance around, intrigued by the sight of his suitcase tucked away in the corner of the room, open face on the luggage rack. It says something about him, but you’re not sure what. Like he’s always ready to leave at a moment’s notice.
“In a hurry, sweetheart?” John asks from the doorway, startling you. A glass of water dangles precariously from between his fingers.
You figured he might come out in a robe or towel, but he’s as naked as when he left the bed, flaccid cock resting against his thigh and the dark thatch of hair at the base of his shaft still damp with your cum. He leans against the doorframe like he’s got nowhere to be and no one to answer to, all lazy confidence and assumed authority.
“Well, I figured…” You gesture towards the door with your thumb, lip caught between your teeth.
“Figured what?” John asks, prompting you to keep going.
He takes a step forward, heavy cock swaying with the movement of his hips. It’s big, even soft, flushed and spent against his thigh. The dull ache between your legs reminds you of where that shaft was buried not too long ago. It looks almost brutish in the light of day, heavy like a hammer and marbled with veins.
“Figured that you’d—” Your voice trembles into nonexistence the closer he gets. “Figured that you’d maybe…want me out of your hair…”
The thunk that the glass makes when he sets it down on the bedside table makes your pulse jump. Muscled thighs covered in a thick dusting of hair fill your vision, his cock unavoidable this close to your face.
A big hand wraps around his cock while the other braces itself on the back of your head, drawing you in. “You at least gonna clean up your mess before you leave?”
There’s no point in pretending like you don’t understand what he means, not when the evidence is right in front of your face, so close that you nearly go cross-eyed staring at it. Wrapping one hand around his shaft, he guides the soft, blunt head of his cock to your lips and pries your lips apart with his thumb, hips guiding it the rest of the way in.
“There we go,” John sighs, eyes dark and heavy-lidded. His breath comes out heavy. “Y’can leave after. Won’t be more than—ah—a minute.”
Throat stuffed with his cock, your moan comes out muffled, eyes already watering from the strain. Your thoughts go soft and fuzzy when he drags his thumb over the bulge of your cheek, stroking the skin there tenderly. Almost affectionately.
One time, you tell yourself as he draws his hips back and thrusts forward again. One more time and then never again.
For days now, you’ve been seeing the same broad-shouldered man lounging around the resort.
Or: the knocked up on vacation au
Part 1
masterlist
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A familiar voice rouses you from a daydream that was just getting good. “Are you going to spend our entire vacation by the pool?”
“…Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing?”
You lift your sunglasses to meet your friend’s eyes, no need to squint against the sun because the way she’d stood in front of you blocks it from blinding you with your sunglasses off, inadvertently blocking the one thing you’d been hoping to keep your eyes on.
Irritation prickles at the base of your spine, but you resist the urge to snap no matter how tempting it is. You’ve been getting away with murder these past couple days and throwing a fit won’t get you anywhere but in more hot water.
“You’re supposed to be spending time with your friends,” she says, emphasizing the last word to communicate that you’ve been slipping in your duties.
“Oh, sorry,” you apologize begrudgingly, leaning up on your elbows. “Were you, um…do we have plans that I’m forgetting about?”
“We’re taking the shuttle down to the beach,” she says, gesturing over her shoulder to where the rest of your friends are waiting with their flip flops and tote bags by the archway leading into the resort, the shuttle just through the double doors at the other end of the main building. “Are you coming?”
If you give yourself any time to deliberate, you’re worried that you’ll end up saying no, so instead you sigh, pushing yourself up from your elbows onto your hands. “Alright, give me a sec. I’ll catch up in a minute.”
She nods, appeased, heading back to the rest of the group with a thumbs up.
Leaning over the side of the chair, you gather up your belongings, stuffing everything into your tote apart from the greasy, half-finished bottle of sunscreen that you keep in your hand, conscious of how it keeps leaking from where the lid broke the other day.
It takes you a second to muster up the willpower to stand up and join them, your id screaming at you to turn around and plant yourself back in that pool chair to keep admiring the view. You have to be strong though. No breaking now after you just gave her your word that you’d come.
One last surreptitious glance over your shoulder is all you allow yourself, biting your lower lip when you catch him stretching his arms over his head to grab the back of his pool chair, hairy pits on full display and lats stretching with the movement of his arms.
Fuck, you nearly whimper, teeth pressing deeper into your lip. He slings one leg over the edge of the chair so his foot is planted on the floor, making his shorts pull tight across the thick bulge of his crotch.
Fuck.
For days now, you’ve been seeing the same broad-shouldered man lounging around the resort in various states of undress, your stomach a mess of both butterflies and knots every time you see him on the treadmill when you pass by the fitness centre or getting breakfast at the buffet in the morning.
Typically though, you can find him lounging on one of the poolside canopy beds with his boonie hat pulled down over his eyes, hands folded just under his pecs, clearly using his vacation to actually relax instead of running all over the resort like you and your friends. It affords you ample opportunity to stare unabashedly, eyelids going heavy the longer you stare at his strong chest and legs, thigh muscles making his swim trunks seem almost a size too small.
Your friend wasn’t wrong to call you out for being less than attentive. You’ve been a lost cause since you first laid eyes on him, your thoughts a thick slurry of pent up horniness, tongue all but swollen in your mouth from how little you’ve been using it this trip.
(if only you could pull down those shorts of his and use your tongue on him instead—)
In your defence, you haven’t been making an active effort to pick him up because you know that you're supposed to be enjoying your vacation with your friends. You’re well aware of how shitty it would be of you to try and hook up with another guest when you’re supposed to be spending time with them.
But you also can’t help but linger when you realize that the same man (the one that has to be a decade your senior—the one that's built like a man, hirsute and tall, always a head above anyone else in the room) is nearby. It’s like he has some kind of magnetic pull on you.
You’re not proud of it, but at least part of your attention has gone towards figuring out whether he’s on vacation alone or with someone. No ring on his finger could mean anything. Lots of people commit without the ring; he could have a girlfriend and two kids back in his hotel room and you’d be none the wiser.
Then two days become three and you’re almost positive that he hasn’t come with anyone else. He eats alone and poolsides alone and you’ve never seen him so much as smile at someone who wasn’t wearing a resort uniform. The false hope that thought imbues you with is downright delusional.
Your daydreams become increasingly oriented around following him back to his hotel room and slipping inside after him. You’ve never had a vacation fling before, but you think he’d make it good. Something about the way he walks like it’s heavy between his legs makes you think that he’d treat you right.
You sit up and wipe the corner of your mouth, catching yourself drooling again.
There are plenty of other things to do besides ogling the hot guy trying to enjoy his vacation alone though, so you force yourself to do things with your friends before one of them finally lays into you for zoning out the whole trip. Beach excursions and karaoke after dinner; you spend two hours dancing with two of your friends at the silent disco while your other friend goes upstairs for a shower and nap. Anything to show up and be present with your friends instead of languishingly in daydreamsville.
Despite your best efforts though, you’re clearly not as subtle as you’d tricked yourself into believing.
Rain is coming down in buckets outside. The four of you play Uno in the hotel room to wait it out when one of your friends asks if you’d be down to go on a snorkeling tour with the rest of them when the weather clears up.
You open your mouth, about to respond, when your other friend cuts you off. “No, she’ll be busy making moon eyes at that guy with the weird hat.”
Your other friends cackle. Your cheeks flood with heat, so caught off guard that you can barely defend yourself, sputtering out something that only confirms her words.
One of the others shrugs, putting a +2 down. “I get it. He’s really hot.”
“He’s like forty.”
“So what?” you sputter.
“You two want to fuck an old man?”
The friend that supported you rolls her eyes. “Oh my god, grow up. Forty’s not that old. Also I only said that he’s hot. No one’s getting married to him.”
The four of you share a laugh at that. If your laughter happens to come out strained, borderline forced, no one calls you out on it.
The ribbing gets under your skin more than you’d like to admit, but instead of throwing a fit, you tap your nails impatiently against the back of your cards and roll your eyes, stacking the +2 with one of your own. “I can’t wait to get rid of you bitches and get home to the package that I’m waiting on.”
“I know what package you’d like to wait on,” someone mumbles.
“Shut up!” you shriek, mortified, snatching a pillow from the couch behind you to launch at her head and sending the others into hysterics.
The problem is that he’s just always there.
It’s a small resort—of course you’d cross paths with him every now and then, but somehow it feels like no matter where you go, he’s somehow nearby, either already there before you arrived or not long after. You’ve come to almost expect him because of that, meaning that on the rare occasion where an hour goes by without him pulling up a chair across the pool from you, your thoughts start to spiral and your mood goes sour.
Glancing around the pool for the umpteenth time elicits no new sign of him though, much to your frustration. Not that you’ve made a habit of keeping tabs on his movements or knowing where he might be at any hour of the day (your conscience whispers staaaaalker under her breath and looks pointedly away), but it’s unusual not to see him sleeping in one of the free cabanas or sitting in the pool with both arms braced behind him on the coping.
Greedy. You’ve grown so used to him always being around that it’s made you spoiled.
“I’m gonna go get a drink,” you announce to the group, already toying off your flip flops and getting ready to slip into the pool. “Anyone wanna come?”
A couple of them let you know that they’ve heard you, but no one offers to join. Makes sense; it’s somewhere between two and three in the afternoon and the sun is at its highest, the air so hot that it’s an effort to not doze off in your chair, the heat making you lethargic. Your skin reminds you when to reapply sunscreen, the last layer sloughing off with the sweat constantly dripping down your body, ever in need of replenishment. You smooth a little more into your legs and arms before throwing the bottle back onto the floor next to your sandals, skin nice and sheeny again.
The only swim-up bar is on the other side of the pool, so you float over slowly, wading through deeper and deeper waters until you almost have to cling to the side of the pool. It’s slow going, giving you ample opportunity to scan the poolside for your mystery man’s telltale red pinstripe swim trunks.
No dice. Just chairs and cabanas filled with people that you swear you’ve never seen in your life (not like you’ve been paying attention to any of the other guests).
At the bar, you order a margarita and sit on the stool welded into the bottom of your pool with your elbows planted on the damp counter, your lower half still submerged. Frustration ebbs only for a dejected mopishness to flow back in.
It might’ve been easier to push your disappointment down if any of your friends had bothered to join you for a drink, but you can’t blame them for taking advantage of the beautiful weather.
The resort is nothing short of heaven. Thick palm fronds dangle over the pool chairs and sway back and forth with the gentle breeze. Light chatter from the people on the other end of the swim-up bar is just barely discernable over the sound of the music playing from the speaker overhead.
The clientele at this resort is a mixed bag: some small groups of folks roughly your age and a multitude of families, the buffet practically a warzone with kids chasing each other around tables and through the halls, excited screeches following you all over the resort. There’s another pool a short shuttle ride away more geared towards kids though, thankfully, so this pool is relatively quiet apart from the music blaring from speakers placed strategically throughout the property, a mix of acoustic covers and lounge beats in the morning, and upbeat pop in the mid-afternoon to liven things up.
It’s nice. Definitely worth the fifteen hundred dollars and definitely worth coming back next year if your friends don’t boot you from the group chat the second you touch down back home.
That’s what you’re thinking about when you casually glance around the pool again and feel your heart nearly jump out of your chest when you spot him.
He appears from around a palm tree like the red sea parting, so sudden that all you can do is stare wide-eyed, discretion the last thing on your mind. It’s not that you don’t care if he sees you staring unabashedly, it’s just that you physically can’t look away from him.
He must have set down his stuff on one of the pool chairs nearby because he walks over barefoot, slipping into the water almost gracefully for a man his size, biceps bulging when he lowers himself from the edge into the pool. You spend so long staring at the faint pink sunburn on his shoulders and the undulating muscles of his chest that it takes a second for your eyes to meet his, a jolt going through your body when you find him staring right back at you, his gaze even heavier.
You go stock-still when he wades over to the swim-up bar where you're waiting on your drink and takes the seat directly beside you. The seats are arranged close together to fit as many as possible in front of the bar, so it’s not totally his fault that his thigh presses against yours.
But you also can’t help but notice the three empty stools beside him. All that space, free for the taking, and yet he sits so close to you that anyone swimming by would naturally assume you were here together.
The smell of his skin is like sun and salt; if you inhale too deeply, you know it'll just make you dizzy. This close, you can make out every mind-numbing detail: the dense brush of hair on his forearms, the old school anchor tattoo on his shoulder, the thick band of a watch on his right wrist. The drawstrings of his trunks floating in the water, aglet the most buoyant.
Your hands shake in your lap when he turns to the bartender and orders a drink too, the sound of his voice rolling over you, gruff in a way that almost makes you melt.
A voice that makes you look up at him all doe-eyed and dumb when he finally looks down and says something to you for the first time.
“Haven’t I seen you around?”
The shudder you manage to suppress, but the way your skin goes tight with goosebumps is out of your control. In all of your daydreams, he’d been more of the silent, grunting type—the type to huff and puff through every thrust, no appetite for sweet, sugary words. You never thought to imagine a voice to go along with his face.
He’s handsome in the way that some men are—almost effortlessly. Sea blue eyes and strong nose; thick neck and bristly jaw. He wears his age well.
And then his question registers, the gears in your brain slow to start chugging along again, overwhelmed by his proximity and attention, neither of which you ever expected to be on the receiving end.
“Um…” you start, tripping over your words and swallowing them back up. “Maybe. Have you?”
His lips stretch into a fond, crooked grin, cheeks dimpling with his smile. “Yeah. Pretty sure I have.”
“Probably. I mean, I’m, um—I’m staying here. At the resort, I mean.”
“Here alone?” he asks.
“No, I’m with them—” You turn and point over your shoulder towards your group still lounging in the cabana. “My friends. We got here a few days ago.”
“Right,” he says, not bothering to look over to where you’re pointing, eyes not shifting from your face. “Liking it so far?”
You’ll have to check later for burns because your face feels like it's on fire. The shock of the cold glass in your hand when the bartender passes you your drink helps to ground you at least.
“It’s been nice,” you croak, smile feeble when you finally coax your slack lips into working again. “…How about you?”
You wish your conversation would come out less stilted. Hard to play it cool in a hundred degree heat.
“Getting better every day,” he replies, as smooth a line as you’ve ever heard.
You take a sip of your drink, hoping the alcohol helps settle your nerves. You’re conscious of the way his eyes follow your tongue as you lick the salt off the rim of your glass. Someone off in the distance shrieks and there’s a splash from the other side of the pool, but it barely registers as background noise, all of your attention focused on the blue of his eyes.
“That any good?” he asks, voice gruff.
“You want some?” you ask, instantly mortified when you hear what just came out of your mouth.
“Kind of you, love, but I can’t take what doesn’t belong to me.”
You don’t know what he means by that until the bartender puts a beer down in front of him, a lime garnishing the rim. The man thanks him, big hand wrapping around the bottle and fingers easily overlapping. The mental image of that goes straight into your spank bank for later.
The lime gets dropped somewhere on the countertop and he takes a long pull from the neck, eyes locked on you the whole time.
You’re not so naive as to not know what this is, but—
Someone calls your name from the other end of the pool and you turn instinctively at the sound, grasping onto the edge of the countertop and leaning back until you see one of your friends standing at the edge of the pool, waving you towards her.
“Friends want you back?” he asks, sounding vaguely disappointed. You’re not sure if that’s just in your head or not.
“Uh…I’m not sure—” you answer uncertainly.
The same friend calls your name again, louder this time, garnering the attention of some of the other people sitting around the pool, and a surge of annoyance rushes up your chest. Weren’t they dozing off just a few minutes ago? Now all three stand at attention, sandals on and tote bags slung over their shoulders, the brims of their hats shading them from the sun as they gesture for you to join them. You nearly groan out loud. Of all times to call you back.
You made a promise though, at least to yourself. The possibility of good dick, while tempting, is not enough to get you to switch your allegiances.
(just yet, something in you whispers)
(give it enough time)
The smile you give him is rueful, almost apologetic. “I’m sorry—I should get going. They probably planned something at the beach. It was nice to meet you though…” There’s room at the end of your sentence for him to wedge his name in, a little dangling participle of pleasantry.
A chuckle flows out of him like the chuff of a bear. “John.” He gives his name like a gift, offers his hand the same.
You think it’s an offer anyway, until John just takes your hand, his damp, warm palm practically swallowing yours. Doesn’t wait for you to give him what he wants—just takes it like he’s owed it. The thought makes your head spin. Coarse, callused fingers wrap around the underside of your hand, long enough to nearly engulf your wrist as well. The hair on his knuckles is as dark as the pelt on his chest, and you wonder what it would feel like for him to drag a knuckle down the line of your jaw.
Your throat pulls with a swallow, breath shaky on the way out.
“Nice to meet you, John,” you say, all raspy-voiced, giving him your name as well like he pulled that from you too.
It takes him a beat to let go of your hand, the intent in his hold so clear that he might as well say it right to your face. You have to leave before your resolve crumbles like papier-maché.
“Since you’re not sticking around,” John says, finally letting go of your hand, “think I will have a taste.”
A taste. The word makes you clench up but you don’t register what he means until he curls his fingers around your margarita and brings it to his mouth, taking a sip from where you last had your lips.
Oh god. You’re smart enough to get it. You’re smart enough to see that gesture for what it is.
You send him one last thin, watery smile before beating a hasty retreat, his invitation still at the swim-up bar with him. Water sloughs off your body as you take the stairs out of the pool instead of swimming back to your friends, swimsuit damp in more ways than one, and you swear you can feel the heat of his gaze on your back as you walk over to where your friends stand.
One of your friends peeks over your shoulder while handing you your stuff, eyes going wide when she notices him sitting where you just left. “Oh, did you see the hot guy was sitting at the bar too?”
“Yeah,” you reply, shaky hands slipping your sunglasses on. “I noticed.”
2087
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