CHAPTER 26

ajay

Nick shook me awake the next morning, my mind groggy and my body feeling like it had been ploughed by a b-double semitrailer. As memories started filtering their way back through my brain, I recalled with a smile that it kind of had.

"What?" I mumbled.

"You are so cute when you're waking up," he grinned at me, no signs of our night visible on him as he stretched out his golden limbed body.

"No one's cute at six AM," I grumbled.

"Incorrect," he grinned. "You are."

"Is it time for a surf?" I guessed, peering out Nick's window to the low light drifting across the sky.

"It's our last day together. I want to spend it all with you," he said, nuzzling my neck and making every one of my nerves tingle awake.

"I could be convinced," I returned, shying away as he nipped at my neck.

"Want to take the boat out with me?" he asked, leaning his head on his elbow as his fingers traced patterns on my stomach. "We could go down the coast a bit. Find the offshore reef again."

"It's really not something you need to sell to me, Nicky," I returned with a grin. "You, me and the sea is always a yes."

"Good," he said. "Get your gorgeous ass in the shower then and we'll hit the road. Or the water as the case may be."

"Okay, bossy," I purred, stretching out my sore limbs and enjoying the way Nick's eyes drank me in. "You gonna join me?"

"No. I actually want to get going at a decent hour and you'll just distract me."

"I distract you?" I smirked, running my hand down my chest to my stomach as his eyes trailed my every move.

"Stop that. I know exactly what you're doing. And I'm not following you in. We both know all it will take is a bat of your impossibly long eyelashes before I cave and I'm right in there with you."

"Your dick knows it too," I added with a cheeky grin, eyeing him suggestively before I climbed out of bed, throwing a saucy glance at him over my shoulder.

"Ahh," I heard him groan. I kept my smile to myself as I stepped into Nick's ensuite and set the water to run. I knew how much Nick loved his time on the boat, enough to ignore the pressing needs of his body and I was nice enough to leave him in peace so we could get going.

I could hear the shower running in my bathroom next door and assumed Nick had used that one. Obviously my various temptations were too much for him to bear, a thought which gave me no endless amount of satisfaction.

Nick was already dressed in his black boardies and a loose fitting grey tank which I knew would spend most of the day on the boat floor than covering his gorgeous body. Not that you would be hearing any complaints about that from me.

I stepped into what had formerly been my guest room before I'd all but moved in with Nick and pulled on my navy boardies and the green t-shirt Nick had told me he liked on me.

He had already packed an esky full of drinks and snacks and fruit and even sandwiches by the time I made my way downstairs and helped him heft the esky into his Jeep.

"Finished your beauty routine?" he joked, sharing a grin with me.

"Hey, it takes time to look this good," I returned.

"Nah. I've seen you laid out on your back, sweaty and sticky and breathless and never seen anything more perfect," he added with a wink. Because of course he did. He made my breath hitch with his words, just like always. It was almost as though Nick had taken it upon himself to build me up, to make me try and believe how beautiful and sexy he always made me feel. Sometimes he even made me believe it.

"Now that's a memory I like," I stopped, wrapping my arms around his neck. I perched on the tailgate of the Jeep and Nick stepped into the space between my legs, arms around my hips.

"I don't think you've been told enough times in your life how perfect you are," he replied, blue eyes serious for the moment. "So that's on me now. I'm going to make sure you hear every day how absolutely fucking unbelievable you are. How much I want you. How much you do it for me."

"The things you say to me, Nick Tempe."

"And I'll say plenty more to you, baby, but not until we're safely out on the water in my boat," he answered, pecking a quick kiss to my lips. I chuffed a laugh and climbed into the front seat of his Wrangler beside him. I sent off a quick text to Dane to let him know not to expect us for the day and then settled in for a day out on the water with my man.

It was still not even seven o'clock by the time we untied the lines and set off from the marina. Nick was at the wheel, looking like he belonged there as he steered us out of the marina. I guess you could say I'd always had a bit of a competency kink and my man had it in droves.

It wasn't long until we were chasing the blue horizon and I sat on the deck with the wind whipping through my curls.

"Ajay," Nick called. I looked up at him and he cocked his head towards the steering wheel. I grinned and joined him up there. He let me take the wheel but he kept his hands on mine, his chin resting on my shoulder as the beach became smaller and smaller in our rear vision.

There was something quite magical about being out here on the water, just him and me and absolutely nothing and no one else for miles. Something really nice and kind of romantic if I was honest.

Nick eventually slowed us down and we dropped anchor near the offshore reef. We jumped into the water with the snorkelling gear and swam around, looking at the colourful reef. The fish were vibrant and flitted about so fast we could only catch splashes of colours in the sunlight. I almost lost it when I saw a sea turtle meandering along in the deep, Nick laughing at me when I startled at the shadows in the water.

We lazed on the deck in the sun as the day heated up. We ate the fruit and snacks and shared a sparkling water. And then Nick peeled my shorts down my legs and blew my brains out before lifting me onto his hips and letting me ride him.

I collapsed on Nick's lap afterwards, his hands coming up to hold me tightly to him. Those same hands stroked my back with a tenderness I felt everywhere while I came down from that beautiful floaty place my mind had just withdrawn to, like a drop of water caught in the sun's rays.

"Ajay, baby," Nick sighed, my name like a prayer on his lips.

"I love it when you call me baby," I murmured, face buried in his chest.

"Okay, baby. Then hear me when I say this. I give in. I surrender everything to you. I'm coming back with you to Sydney. I can't give you up. I need you. I need this."

I heard his words, heard them pulsing inside me and inching their way into my mind and my heart. But his dick was still inside me which meant only one part of my brain was still functioning so I hauled myself off him while Nick dropped his head to the seat rest behind him.

"Ajay," he sighed. "Baby. I mean it. Now that I've had you I don't think I can live without you."

"I know. I feel the same," I returned, still sucking in air to my depleted lungs. "But you can't move to Sydney, Nick. Not yet.

"I need to. I need you, Ajay."

"You have, like, eleven months to go on your apprenticeship," I pointed out. "You can't walk away right at the pointy end."

"I don't care. I'll get a job at your coffee shop. I'll do anything to be with you."

"I want that too," I told him, taking his hand and entwining our fingers together, liking the way they slotted like that. His hand was larger than mine and so solid and firm. Skilful and strong. Safe. "But you're finishing your apprenticeship first. I won't let you walk away from that. Okay? It's only eleven months."

Nick glanced at me, sadness in those piercing blue eyes that were sparkling in the full summer sun, as blue as the water reflecting back at us as far as the eye could see. It was nothing but blue all around me. An assault of blue.

"Okay," he finally conceded.

The words held no joy for me but I knew it was the right thing to do. Probably for the both of us. I was still finding my feet in Sydney as it was and I knew this relationship could consume us both if we let it. Time had always hung like a heavy weight around our summer together and I knew we had more than used it to the best of our abilities. It was like a relationship on steroids at this point – days on end spent up in each other, nights entwined together, no responsibilities, no real life poking its way in where it was not wanted. It could probably do with a little calming down. A little dose of reality.

"We'll make time for each other whenever we can," I promised him. "I'll spend all my uni breaks down here with you. Sleeping in your bed instead of the guest room. As your boyfriend instead of Dane's best friend, though I'll still be that too. And we'll have dates at Paddy's and the ice cream shop in town and we'll surf every morning and you can bring me out on the boat and we can make love five times a day to make up for all the time apart."

"Ten times a day," he returned, bottom lip jutting out.

"Sure. Ten times a day," I grinned, reaching out to nip on that pouty lip.

"And there will be lots of phone sex."

"I can agree to that too," I grinned.

"I'll drive up to see you whenever I can," he added, pulling my knuckles to his mouth and kissing each one of them in turn. "Maybe you could catch the train to Wollongong some weekends and we'll meet half way?"

"A dirty weekend in Wollongong, huh?" I laughed. "Yeah, we can do that too, Nicky."

He pulled me back onto his lap, his hands threading my curls and I rested my head against his warm chest as the day ticked ever closer towards its end. My last day with him. My last day of the most perfect summer I had ever had when I had accidentally found myself on the South Coast, meeting my best friend's brother in the waves and unexpectedly falling head over heels and inside out in love. With him.

My Nicky.