Embracing Ellie: Chapter 18

It didn’t even matter whether the massage women believed they were married. Why’d she start the ruse in the first place? Did some small secret part of her like the women believing she and Hemi were a couple? That would be awful. Wouldn’t it?

If Daniel knew she’d done it, he’d love to show up right now and exaggerate their marriage in front of these women, doing it just to tighten the screws on her discomfort and shame, amplifying her worst traits, shining a bright light on them so the women could see. But maybe Daniel was on to something. Because, boy, she liked the way her heart raced right now. Liked the way some sort of hot coal burned low in her belly. Liked a certain sexual tension quivering down her thighs—her loins!—and up her lower back. It felt like hunger, but it wasn’t her tummy seeking something to eat.

Right behind her was a gorgeous naked man with an incredible body and his huge thing hanging out. And she was working a broken-English pantomime trying to kill time while the ladies packed up. Pretending Hemi was her husband. Pretending the man one of these ladies had rubbed down was married to her, and soon she and her absolute hunk of a husband were going to get naked in the hot tub together.

But they were going to get in the hot tub together, weren’t they? How were they going to work that out?

Whatever she was doing to kill time while Hemi showered, it seemed to convey an anxious need for the ladies to leave and the ladies seemed to detect that energy now. No longer thinking she was weird about joining her husband in the shower and now most likely believing this crazy lady wanted them gone because she was going to shag her husband like a wildcat. They’d probably seen this reaction before from other couples who were actually married.

At last the ladies left, all smiles and nods and knowing looks. When she turned back to the window this time, Hemi was toweling off, the view of him from the side. He had huge thighs that bulged with muscle, the towel dancing around over his upper body and head, Hemi hunched over. No penis sighting this time. Her eyes wandered to the towel’s hem, looking to see if she could catch a glimpse of that thing again. She’d looked, seen it, and looked away so fast, now she was beginning to doubt what she’d seen. Thinking now it was something more like what she’d thought she’d seen. All that talk with Danny about wine bottles had her imagination playing magic tricks with her eyesight.

With nothing else to do, she joined Hemi on the deck, staying at the safety of the door’s threshold, leaning a shoulder on the door frame. The air was crisp, not cold now. her body was well-heated and supple. The women were right. Hemi had the towel at his waist now, wrapping himself up again.

He said, “You’re up next, Ellie. She’s all yours.” He straightened, and now she saw him full topless and up close. His chest was like an overhanging slab, his torso a sea of tumultuous muscle that rippled as he moved and talked. He looked to the right to admire the view.

She thought again of how she’d looked back and saw him naked when she’d promised she wouldn’t. And when she’d regarded the masseuses again, her cheeks had blazed with heat and she stammered some nonsense.

She said, “Promise you’re not going to look?”

Hemi crossed his heart, a big manly hand drawing an X over his plate-armor chest.

She passed him by and went to the tiled shower platform. She asked Hemi which knob did what and he walked her through getting the warm water out of the shower head, Hemi sitting on the hot tub’s edge with his feet in. “Nice and hot,” he said to her.

She drew a whirly bird in the air, signing how he should avert his eyes now. Hemi laughed and scooted around so his back was to her. His big, strong, wide, tanned back, shining wet.

It was a wild experience, disrobing and trusting this stranger not to turn and see her as naked as she entered the world. The safest play at exhibition she could venture to. Like a beginner’s class. A slow normalization. All part of Danny’s ploy, most likely. And what did Danny believe was happening right now? What did he fantasize was happening?

As she soaped up, she surmised this was exactly what Danny wanted. He wanted his wife put into extreme sexual discomfort and anxiety. Did it because it turned him on. Did it because he knew it turned her on, too. The odds were high that Danny lurked in the bushes somewhere in these foothills, watching this theater through opera glasses from a safe distance. If he’d given her a phone with some juice, she could communicate with him, ask him to confirm that Hemi had a giant sausage and potatoes between his legs that hung down in a heavy heap. Did you see that, or am I dreaming, Danny?

Hemi stayed true to his word, keeping his back to her while she cleaned up, hunched over and using his phone. His back was so wide, and the muscles there were like wings. She imagined curving her palms over them and wondered what that would feel like, a man with bulk like Hemi. Was it hard or soft?

Hemi raised his phone over his shoulder, speaking aside so she could hear him without him turning, saying, “Danny says he’s got some togs for you in the bedroom there.”

The fear he would turn when she asked him what the hell that meant was huge. She was totally naked and uncovered, her knees a little shaky, her core a little tight; the vulnerability was pronounced. She turned off the spray, saying, “What was that?” Her hand went to cover her mound and her forearm covered her breasts.

Hemi didn’t turn, just said, “Togs, you know? A swim suit.”

“Oh, right-right-right,” she said, snatching her robe, breasts swaying, Hemi in profile. She should just get it over with, tell Hemi she peeped him by accident and he should get a freebie to keep things fair. 

Why the fuck did that idea just arouse her so much?

Danny knew what he was doing, because what was happening here this afternoon had her what she could only describe as horny. A horn dog. But horny in a way she’d never felt before. She’d have to examine it a little more before she could classify it.

Togs, right. That was a relief.

“You texting with Danny, then?”

“Yeah-yeah. He said look in some boxes in your bedroom.”

“Did he leave trunks for you?”

“Me? Why would he leave trunks for me?”

Right. Hemi thinks this couple’s retreat with Ellie Torres and her tour guide was impromptu, coming together only after Danny had “slept wrong,” and tweaked his back.

“Yeah,” she said and chuckled. “That would be crazy.” But maybe Daniel did. Maybe one of those bedroom boxes contained a skin-tight banana hammock for Hemi to stuff his man parts into, right in front of her. Danny would probably love it.

She said, “I’m going to go in and put something on.”

“You don’t mind me, do ya?”

She regarded him, tightening the belt on her robe, looking back. He’d slipped into the tub, hiding the body she liked to look at. “Without trunks?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Try not to think of it; I ain’t got a choice.”

“Your husband didn’t pack you some surprise swimwear?”

“Nah. No one in my life thinks ahead like that.

“Your auntie made that bread for you. That was really sweet.”

Hemi leaned his head back on the hot tub’s rim, the water bubbling around his shoulders like it was boiling.

“Nah,” he said, “I mean an unrelated lady-type of my chosen persuasion.”

She laughed, pausing at the door into the cabin. “So you like women?”

“I like em quite a bit, I reckon,” he said, smiling, sunlight falling on his handsome face.

Ellie laughed, too. “Well, that’s good to know,” she said, stepping inside the cabin.

Good to know?

Why would she say that? . . . Good to know. Good to know what—that Hemi liked women? Why would that be good to know for a married woman who showered naked next to him while he was naked too, sitting in a hot tub?

She stomped through the cabin and by the time she got to the master bedroom door, she understood how stupid she was. The boxes. Boxes Daniel had arranged in preparation. Togs.

Sure enough, when she loosened the ribbon and lifted the gift box’s lid and riffled open the tissue paper, there was a familiar strip of blue cloth and string. The bikini she’d tried on at the Peak Chic Boutique. 

“You’re in so much trouble, Danny,” she sighed. “So, so, so much trouble.”

And once again, an interior voice spoke to her, assured her of her position: Danny would hate it if you played along. Boy, he’d hate it so much.

And he would, wouldn’t he? Danny would hate it if she were unbothered. 

Despite her former fisticuffs with anxiety in the dressing room less than twenty-four hours ago, right now the idea of donning this tiny fabric covering amused her. Danny had pre-arranged their delivery to this cabin surprise, knowing he wouldn’t be here to give them over in person.

Getting the bikini on in the privacy of the bedroom was easy—but Hemi was out there on the deck, naked in a hot tub. She looked down at her bare body, just some flimsy coverage. Maybe she did look good. Well, she knew she looked good; all the women at work told her so. Smooth skin, great complexion, nice proportion, a generous bosom. 

“Damn it, Danny,” she whispered as she sidestepped to a full-length mirror angled in the room’s corner. She flinched seeing her reflection. She was practically naked. 

Here was a reasonable assessment she considered: Would she wear a normal two-piece bikini in front of Hemi? She might, under the right circumstances. But these weren’t the right circumstances, were they? Hemi wore nothing. She was alone with Hemi.

This was what Danny wanted.

Danny wanted her to twist like this. But he also wanted her to wear it in front of Hemi. He just didn’t want her to like it.

She gasped now in horror. In the mirror, she could see her nipples had bulged out the teeny cups of the bikini top. She hunched and coddled her breasts like the sight offended her.

“Gross, Ellie,” she said, condemning herself, whisking her robe back off the bed and donning it in rough, jagged movements, scowling. Danny had maximized her stress for his own delight.

She stormed out of the bedroom and across the living area where those nice women had rubbed them both down. Then paused at the glass door to the back deck.

Hemi sat in the tub, sideways to her, head turned out to the mountain view. He looked unbelievable. Rugged and handsome; big beefy muscle, tanned, round shoulders up high as he draped arms around the rim of the tub, relaxing without a care in the world. Why would he care? Things were looking good for him, weren’t they? Some dude from America paying him to cart the dude’s attractive wife around New Zealand, hiking and rafting and skiing, and now he was naked in a hot tub waiting for her to return—the dude nowhere to be seen. Things were working in Hemi’s favor, that was for sure.

She stepped out into the cold air, protected by a heated body and a fluffy robe. Hemi turned to regard her (probably expecting her to be standing in togs). Was that disappointment she saw register in his face, seeing her in the robe?

She smiled, the robe’s lapels held closed and up to her neck. “Could you look away again? Just for a second—the togs Danny bought me, I believe, may have been for his eyes only.”

Hemi chuckled. “Oh, yeah, no worries. That lucky bugger.” He looked away again to the mountains, the muscles in his chest and shoulders flexing, showing off the sharp angle of his jaw. He was an exquisite man.

An exquisite man who’d just said Danny was a lucky bugger because he was the one who got to see her in the bikini. She shivered with a strange, foreign delight. And dropped the robe on the deck. And stood there in almost nothing, knowing now she wanted Hemi to look her way. To see her the way she’d seen on Danny’s screen. She’d looked hot in that naughty dressing-room photo.

She stepped to the tub’s edge, waiting—just waiting—for Hemi to break his view from the mountains and get a look at her mountains. Get a look at the flat plain of her tummy, looking as taut at twenty-nine as she did at twenty. Get a look at the little peaks poking out her bikini top, her nipples still hard and aching. That sexual urge twisted low in her belly again, inch by inch slipping into the delightful, hot and bubbling water with naked Hemi, Hemi still resisting taking a look at her unsuspecting. She hadn’t resisted. She’d snuck a peek at Hemi’s naked body against her own will. Some dirty part of her psyche seizing control and turning her head to see him completely naked with his giant dong and balls swinging between his legs, water spilling down and splashing off his gorgeous body.

As her body slipped under the water, the heat searing her nipple-flesh, her eyes scanned the tub, looking at the warbled image of Hemi’s tanned form beneath the bubbles, wondering the worst thought yet. Was Hemi’s flesh hardened the way her nipples had gone? Was that thing she’d seen while he’d showered bobbing under the water right now like a dangerous sea monster, engorged, turgid, and as long as a wine bottle?

Hemi’s phone dinged, and, still not looking her way, he retrieved it from the deck and read the screen.

Ellie asked him, “What now?”

Hemi looked at her, his eyes looking down to her chest, her breasts under water, but her bosom and cleavage showing. His gaze flicked up, and he said, “Danny says there’s a bottle of bubbly he wants us to crack open. It’s in the fridge. You want to get it, or should I?”