Jackie strolled from the lazy lull of the small village square and onto the creaking, wooden walkway through the shrubs and dunes to the smooth, quiet beach. His postal route wasn't over, but days like this you couldn't be a slave to the clock. No one would mind getting a delivery a little late, right? What did anyone in this tiny corner of the world have to wait for? The holiday season was winding down, leaving his little patch of coast all but deserted on a weekday afternoon. He hooked his mail satchel higher on his shoulder and let his shoes skid in the dusting of sand, the white canvas long dyed brown with the grit covering the seaside paths.
He clapped the rickety wooden rail and swung with a long bound from the end of the walkway. He spread his arms to feel the swell of breeze beneath him, pointed his toes, and let his plummet outrun his pulse. He landed with a soft thud in the pillow of golden sand. He took a deep glug of the sea air, tasting sour kelp and salt crystals and someone's distant barbeque. It made him hungry and alert. He gazed out across the empty beach and the glittering ocean beyond. The sky was all blue fire and the sea was bright and rich. It tossed and tumbled out to the hot haze of horizon, boats bobbing in the distance like lost letters. The shore curved and trickled away into high, round rises crowned with bristling flowers and long grass. The tourists had blown away like litter and left his home clean and secluded and wild once more.
The wind was up, spurring the waves into a gallop. The snarl and whoosh of the tide rushed under his skin and made him tingle. He beamed. He picked up his small feet and began to spin, stumble, run. His satchel bumped his leg and sweat prickled under the collar of his uniform. His shoulder-length tangle of mouse-brown hair pranced around his tanned face with its speckles of old acne scars. He played tag with his shadow and scattered the birds. He gazed bravely up into the endless sky so his ink green eyes stained sapphire. He waltzed with the winds and slipped on the streams and surrendered himself to air. Nothing made his body feel more like home than the beach and the breeze fresh off the water. He tipped through the heat, blindly following the sensual sighing of the tide until his toes pressed into sludge. He made himself dizzy on purpose, trusting himself to the sunshine and the shore. It meant that when he opened his eyes and saw the vision cresting from the sea, he thought his head must still be spinning.
A turquoise wave whistled and reared up like stampeding hippocamps. It curled high over the shore, frothing white. Tucked into the wave's rippling curve was a sturdy body shining like mother-of-pearl. A woman spread her feet on her surfboard and rode the wave as if she had wings. Jackie stilled and stared with a doped smile at her, heart skipping.
Harmony's expression was hard and self-satisfied, her chilli-red lips fixed in a defiant smirk as she tamed the wild wave. A large pair of heart-shaped sunglasses concealed her eyes and reflected the fizz of water. Her burgundy hair billowed behind her, making sea serpent shadows on the wall of blue looming over her. It looked ready to engulf her, but she shot like a bullet too fast for it to fall. The spray bejewelled her, aquamarine shade like the translucent scarves of a belly dancer. Her thick legs and round shoulders were strong, muscles rigid as she controlled the surfboard. Jackie watched how she delicately steered the wildness of nature with the lightest, expert pressure, slicing the roaring wave like a knight with a drake. He swallowed.
"Hey, Harmony!" He waved a little too eagerly, his light voice cracking. He cleared his throat and brushed his hair off his face.
Her head twisted to him. She waved back. With the scooping of her arm the tide growled and plunged towards the shore. She grinned like a machete and brought the board with it, foam churning at her feet as she advanced towards the beach.
His ears went flat to his head. "Uh... Harmony?"
She peeked over the top of her sunglasses with a maniacal glint.
"STOP! I'M IN THE WAY!"
The wave galloped to the shore. With a yelp, he threw the satchel of mail to safety, but before he could kick off from the ground, he was knocked onto his back and trampled by a barrage of cold water. His ears filled with the roar, his breath halted. A rollercoaster thrill swept his body as he braced against the rush. Sensation and panic raced over his flesh and vanished as quickly as it had hit, leaving him sprawled, drenched, trembling, and blinded by sunspots.
And pinned.
The surfboard lay a few paces off, kicked away as she flung herself to earth. There was a warm weight on him, squashing him into the bed of smooth sand. He blinked furiously. Harmony's face was framed by a halo of sunbeams, her dark, wet hair twizzling down to drip on his chest. Her sunglasses slid to the tip of her proud nose to unveil her dazzling, exuberant eyes.
"Well, hi, Har..."
She cupped his face and kissed him.
Jackie's head spun even faster. She smelled of sea salt and tasted of strawberry ice. Her body blanketed him sweetly after the sudden cool. He hugged her to him, met her tongue with his, and whimpered into her mouth. She kissed him indulgently for what could have been a full lifetime. When she pulled away, his lips were numbed and his heart was giddy. He gazed stupidly up at her. "You are, by far, my favourite person to surprise run into."
She beamed down at him and patted his cheek. "It's nice to see you too, Magpie." She sprang up and walked out of the surf. Jackie rolled dizzily onto his front and stared after her, the hem of the sea still lapping over his calves, his shoes sopping. She stood a few paces away with her back to him, her plump ass right in the centre of his vision. It hovered over him with pleasant threat. She twisted her hair into her fists and wrung it out, droplets skipping over her fingers. She was wearing a peach bikini tied at the hips and the back, like a pretty gift. Water trickled down the ravine of her spine, marking a shimmering track from her willowy neck to her round rump. Her full thighs were brushed with bronze tan. Her shoulders sparkled. His eyes took in every curve and crevice. He bit his lip hard and squirmed through a vicious tingle going up his legs.
It is too on the nose that she's dressed that butt as a peach.
"Jackie?"
"YEAH!" He perked up too quickly with a squawk. He forced himself loose and low. "Yeah?"
Harmony turned, still wringing out her hair so it crinkled around her strong-featured face. She pushed the heart-shaped sunglasses up her nose and flashed him an easy grin. "Isn't it a fabulous day? God, I love getting into the ocean. I feel replenished."
He stared slack-jawed. She tossed her hair in a Ferris wheel of glitter and stretched her long, muscled arms, drawing her hourglass torso up and bunching her breasts in the thin, peach cradle. "With Cliff away again, it's the only thing that keeps me from going crazy." She released, dropping the hang of her belly so her stretch marks quivered like violin strings. She flicked a feline look at him that creased the smile lines in her maturing face. "Well, almost the only thing."
He wet his lip and swallowed. Cliff was Harmony's often absent husband. They'd moved to Jackie's little haven after a holiday they decided they didn't want to end, but Cliff's work kept dragging him back to the big city for hollow stretches of mutual pining. He was one of those very tall, very smart, very serious men who seemed something between extremely dangerous and limitlessly trustworthy. A stoic, strong, stylish, husband-material kind of guy, masculine as machine oil and sandalwood. Absolutely nothing about him was particularly expressive, except for how much he doted on his wife. Almost as much as she doted on herself. Cliff had pulled himself up a trepidatious ladder to build a life that gave Harmony perfection and pleasure at every possible moment, and not even absence was going to stop him giving. When he was away, he left her with one insistence.
Take what you need, have what you want. Everything and everyone is yours. Don't go hungry for a moment. Just let me taste your happiness. Your happiness is why I still have a soul.
This had brought a very interesting turn to Jackie's life. And the life of the quiet seaside village. Harmony was as hungry and high energy as the waters that fed their community, her desires cavernous and tidal and teeming. She was a goddess of appetite and flow and tempest, like the ocean. It wasn't fair on one working man to take the whole delicious demand of her on his shoulders, even if his shoulders were particularly broad and hunky. Fortunately, there was never a lack of willingness to help that polite city gentleman out in fulfilling the insatiability of his darling, devious damsel.
Jackie kept staring as Harmony rolled her shoulders. The motion made maroon shadows coil around her curves. Her skin was the colour of dim candle-glow, she looked like amber harvested from the sea. The sun was behind her, turning her ethereal. She kept talking blithely in her deep, burning voice. "Jesus, his boss is so damn clingy. Don't get me wrong, I get it, he creates a sort of stability that's hard to go without, it's how I survive the world. But come on, his special skills are supposed to be reserved for me, right? Just because mine aren't exclusive, doesn't mean I expect to share his, thank you very much. And I do worry about my man when he doesn't have me there to untie his knots. We had a bunch of visitors over his birthday last month, so I thought it would be good for him to get some alone time, even from me, but I've been getting some slightly intense texts." She looked down at herself and adjusted her bikini from where surfing had twisted it a little. Jackie's eyes flicked to every spot she pinched and snapped. "Oh, I'm sure he's fine. I just get a little anxious that he's gonna burrow into that busy head of his," she grinned sweetly, "like a little bunny." She chuckled. "Everyone thinks he's such a big, scary man, but, well..." she grinned, "our little secret."
Jackie tapped his lips in agreement, not fully registering what the secret was as he kept gawking.
She ran her thumbs under the bra straps, briefly hoisting her breasts. Jackie's mouth watered. Foam tickled his feet. Sunshine teased the small of his back through his clinging, scarlet shirt. She took a couple of thoughtless steps closer, towering over him against the vast, searing blue sky, like a lighthouse. "Wow, that sun! You just feel it on the beach different to anywhere else, don't you think? I'm sizzling, it's glorious!"
Her legs were virtually astride his head. His gaze slowly roved up their long, elegant sculpt into the soaked sunset panties pasted to her pussy. If he squinted through the silhouetting, he could just make out her soft, cowrie shell shape. "Glorious..."
She looked down at him. She was magnificent when she was looking down on men. "Are you listening to me?"
He blushed. He grinned guiltily and rolled onto his back, like a spaniel, tongue lolling. She laughed like wind chimes and stamped lightly on his chest. The impact sent a shock of happy want through him that made him whine in his throat. She nudged her sunglasses down and gave him a mock-stern look. "Honestly, a girl tries to have an adult conversation and you're too busy drooling to pay her attention."
"I assure you," he slurred as he kept gazing up her legs, "I am only here to pay you adult attention."
She laughed again and put her hands on her hips. The blinding sky seemed to be emanating from her. "OK then, if you simply must cover me in that pretty, green stare, we might as well put it to use." She strode away. He scrambled onto his forearms to keep his eyes on her. She sashayed up the beach to a folded towel and clam-shaped bag. She bent to search in the bag, ass rising into the rich sunlight. His tongue lolled again. She straightened and walked back to him with her phone in her hand. "Thank God this town finally got phone signal. Hubby and I have started making more time to talk, text, add stuff to a shared calendar to look forward to..." her grin broadened, a curl of ice cream in the rising heat, "...and send pictures."
Jackie raised his eyebrows. "What... what kind of pictures?"
"All kinds."
He pressed his lips tight together and nodded, the back of his neck prickling. "That's nice for the two of you."
"Isn't it?"
She raised the slim phone and he heard a click. He grimaced and looked down at himself, his uniform soaked and muddied and plastered to his slim body, his hair drooping onto his neck and sand sprinkled over his arms and legs. "Uh, why?"
She tapped away, making no effort to hide sending the photo. "What? He'll think it's cute."
Jackie cocked an eyebrow drily. "Terrific."
"Anyway, could you do me just the biggest favour?" She held the phone out.
His eyes widened. "Is the favour... take a bunch of sexy beach pics of you to torture your husband?"
