Embracing Ellie: Chapter 21

They had so much fun for the next hour. Cheesecake shots, pouting shots, cutesy stuff. She'd show off her naked body for Hemi and the camera, but she would cover up—fold an arm over naked breasts, or make sure the bubbling water hid her butt crack if she stood up. Hemi saw her nipples, but she didn't show them to him plain-as-day. It was an effort to tease Danny. They bugged Danny about the champagne. Only one bottle? And what about the food? Were they supposed to starve here? What did you plan for our dinner, Danny? Ha, ha, ha. She did that one on video, her shoulders up high, leaning forward, asking Hemi if Danny would see her cleavage. Hemi said she looked beautiful and Danny was going crazy.

"What did he say this time?"

Hemi told her he said nothing, just like the other times.

"Doesn't want us to know we're winning," she said.

Hemi told her, "I don't know about that, love. He says nothing about what we send but keeps asking to see more."

She swished her pouted mouth side-to-side. "Do you think we're overplaying it?"

"How's that?"

"I think it's too bold. Boldness is too playful."

"You think we should be more discreet."

"Yeah, I do. Radio silence for an hour at least and then we take it up a notch."

Hemi nodded and smiled. He played with his phone for a second then passed it to her. "One more before we go silent."

She took the phone, turned it around so the screen faced her, the screen showing her tanned legs under the warbled hot tub water.

Hemi crouched like he would stand, and her eyes shot straight to where they shouldn't, her brain aiming the vision between Hemi's legs without her permission. There was nothing to see, anyway—the sun was behind Hemi and all she could make out was the dark shape of his muscular body.

He said, "We're sending him ones he likes to see. Send him one he won't want to see?"

Like a dumb kid, sitting there with a dumb face and another man's phone in her hands, she goes, "Your penis?"

Hemi laughed, then laughed so more. she laughed too. "No, you something. You're not taking a picture of me penis, I can tell you that." He reached over and ruffled her hair like the dumb kid she was, then getting up, shielding his manhood from her view and striding past her and out of the tub.

But she did once again catch a glimpse where she shouldn't be looking. Saw how this man had a lot of meat down there and sagging skin, stuff that swung around like it might be heavy.

Then Hemi was up on the deck behind her, slapping his ass as he walked. "Get the old behind, El."

She aimed the camera, looked at Hemi's gorgeous body as he walked wearing nothing. Her mouth hung open and her hands shook. She snapped a picture of Hemi's round rump, paler than his tanned thighs and broad back. She saw meat swinging in the glass doors, Hemi's reflection eclipsed by his naked body, but his equipment swinging side-to-side enough she saw it reflected.

Then she thumbed the phone screen, looking to get the texts up so she could read them.

Hemi turned, came back her way, and she almost dropped his phone in the tub.

The phone was locked, only the camera app opened.

She looked up again and now she saw Hemi's huge penis. Saw it for real.

The heat had reddened his skin. Pinked his paler parts. His penis was darker than the rest of him. His huge testicles swung in a low-hanging sack. His penis was long and thick, the head a large and flared bulb much bigger than she even thought it might be. Her eyes widened and she stared. It hung down his thighs, heavy and meaty in a way so foreign from her husband's familiar penis. It was a brutish, club-like weapon clad in wrinkled skin. It was the sexiest thing she'd ever seen. Her stomach tightened and her pelvic floor bounced.

Hemi squatted and hid it away from her, putting his hand out to receive his phone.

She passed it over, looking at him dumbstruck. She said, "Are you hard?"

It wasn't sticking upright, El. It was hanging down. Boy parts went up when they were hard. Didn't they?

Hemi took back his phone. "Hard?" He looked shy now, kind of scrunching up that handsome mug, almost wincing. "Kind of halfway there, I'd say, yeah. Sorry, but you've been performing for the camera. Kinda can't help myself, now, can I?"

She giggled softly, like a timid teen when the hottest guy in school spent a few seconds giving her attention.

Hemi stood and turned, went into the cabin, this time making a better effort to keep her from seeing his genitals. But she watched for them the whole time.

Then when Hemi was inside and the connection severed, she groaned and sunk into the water up to her cheekbones. You're such an idiot.

Are you hard?

Really, Ellie? Act like you've been around and you haven't only been with one man in your whole life.

But what was wrong with that?

Nothing! Nothing was wrong with that.

She emerged from the water and turned her back to the cabin, vowing not to ogle Hemi's massive swinging dong when he returned, running her wet hair back from her face. Somehow, Danny won this round, too, it would seem.

Her stomach ached. Two tight points at her hips sent shivers of sexual need through her core. She wanted sex so bad it hurt.

"Danny, Danny," she whispered, looking over both shoulders and in her periphery, one hand coming up between her thighs. She passed her fingers over her sex and felt the skin glide like it was oiled. The feathery pass sent lighting to her brain, a million watts of sweet taste to her hungriest parts. She was wet. More than wet, she was teeming.

*

Hemi returned with two cans of Coke he'd found in the cupboard and two glasses with ice. She let him reenter the tub with her head turned up and away with the kind of properness they'd both shown an hour ago or so.

He popped the tops and poured. Ellie asked him what Danny thought of his bare ass.

"All he said was, 'How'd she get your phone?'"

She laughed and sipped her icy Coke. "That sounds like my Danny. Always wondering about the more offbeat things. Things I wouldn't think of."

"Yeah, I think you'd ask him why he was taking photos of another girl's bare ass if the shoes were swapped."

"Exactly." Yeah, but she would never want sweet Danny in a hot tub with some other woman. Danny wanted her here and wanted all that was happening. "Where's your phone?"

"Left it on the counter. Me hands were full."

"Not enough pockets when you're naked."

"Yeah. Anyway, it's just you and me now. No Danny."

"Danny's in the kitchen," she said.

"For an hour at least," Hemi said. "We're gonna make him sweat."

"Serves him right," she muttered, smiling, mocking some sort of vengeance storyline. Truth was, Danny had set up the funnest day she would ever remember. Danny was kind and caring and devoted. But he was also adventurous. And bold. And apparently not even jealous. Hemi was right: she would flip her lid and shake herself into pieces if the tables were turned, and Danny was in a hot tub with some Kiwi supermodel with long legs and a beautiful jawline.

She said, "Danny and I… We've never, ever done something like this before, you know."

"Like what?"

"Pranked around with each other like this. Well, we have, but not to this kind of extreme."

"You haven't?"

"Does it seem like we have?"

Hemi chuckled. "No. I don't suppose you do."

She scrunched up her nose and scratched at her wet scalp, water trickling through her sodden mane. "We've never done anything like this before. Never even thought of it."

"What is it you're doing?"

"You tell me, Hemi. I thought we're on the same page. How do you see what's happening?"

Hemi shrugged, a little perplexed now. "I don't know. Danny wants us to spend the day together and he's set it up so we're like this. What am I supposed to think?"

"Did Danny say anything?"

Another innocent shrug.

She said, "Danny and I were high school sweethearts. All through our teens and into college and after college… We were meant for each other. I've never been with another man in my life." She looked at her diamond ring, her wedding band.

Hemi smiled a warm and ingratiating smile. "It's the sweetest thing I've heard."

"Right? But I don't know what's happened since we came to New Zealand. Something's got into him."

"But not you?"

She scrunched her mouth, grunted, shook her head. "No. Me too."

Hemi nodded. "'Cause of me?"

Oof. She scrunched her nose again and smiled. "I guess."

"Me? What did I do?" He was joking, acting like an unlikely and wrongly accused troublemaker.

"You being all handsome and rugged and kind."

"I am that," he said wearily. "Mother warned me."

They both laughed lightly.

Hemi said, "You want to play around?"

The question and the change in tone startled her, and her eyes darted up to see Hemi watching her, his features in a sly mask.

Her jaw sagged, her brow lowered. It was a natural question given the circumstance and the things Danny had texted him today. But still, the boldness surprised her.

But Hemi softened, his expression easing, saying, "Not like that, Ellie. I mean we can lay down and talk and that's it. But we can play a little. Only if you want."

She touched her chest, her heart galloping, feeling an all new flush. "What do you mean play?"

Hemi said, "You've never been with another man?"

She shook her head no. "I never have."

"So, you've never touched another man in your life?"

She shook her head again.

"Like that. If you want. You can touch me. I won't touch you."

"You won't touch me?" She scoffed as though insulted now.

Sunlight dazzled in his eyes, narrowed by a lowering sun. "I'll do as you command, love. You give the word."

"It all seems so sudden," she muttered, eyes turned down.

"I've scared you."

She was quick to reassure him. "No-no, Hemi. You didn't. I'm fine. It's just…"

Hemi looked away, thinking, his smile widening. He regarded her again, cocking his head, squinting. "I tell you what we need."

She sat back, heart beating, wanting them to be back where everything seemed so playful. Not wanting the fun to end at all. And it had been so much fun.

She said, "What do we need?"

"A nap."

She chuckled, her head dropping forward. Then she rubbed the back of her neck. "I could nap."

"We've had a busy day."

"Then the massage and then the hot tub." She rolled her eyes up and shook her head.

"I've been up since four," Hemi said.

"I got jolted out of bed."

"Yeah," he said, nodding, jaw set. "A nap would be excellent."

She said, "Yeah," both of them looking into each other's eyes.

"I tell you what, why don't you go on and get yourself settled. I'll clean up here, maybe later I'll join you."

"Yeah," she said, nodding, picturing Hemi coming in the bedroom while she was in bed and the image scaring the crap out of her. "Or maybe, uh, maybe you go lie down and, um, I might, might come in for a lie down."

"Sounds good," Hemi said. He set his Coke on the edge and she admired the humps of tanned muscle on his back. And then imagined how they might feel under her hands. Under her lips. She squeezed her thighs together.

He turned back, "Mind your eyes," he said, rising in a crouch, "I'm going to get dried off first."

She averted her gaze while he rose and stepped past her, out of the tub an onto the deck. She heard him with a towel. He said, "I don't have any gear here, yeah? I might be sleeping in the buff."

She nodded, her eyes cast out to the view of the snowy mountains painted in pastel and gold. "I know," she said. Then added, "That's fine."

She heard him open the door and go into the cabin.

She exhaled and folded forward. "Oh my god," she sighed, sitting back up and holding her own cheeks. "Danny , what are you doing to me?"