This Sweet Escape

by J. Evans

  “Ready.” I take his hand and follow him down the Jetway without a single look back over my shoulder. I’m leaving the past behind and I swear on everything good in the world that I will never, ever look back.

  Chapter Two

  Danny

  “You gave me the key to your heart, my love,

  then why did you make me knock?”

  -Lord Byron

  I’m determined to stay awake and keep talking to Sam until I can get to the bottom of whatever’s been going on, but by the time the plane reaches cruising altitude, my eyelids feel like they’re made of granite slabs. The week before I left Croatia, I led three mountain bike tours and four overnight rock-climbing expeditions, wedging in as much work as I could before I headed to Maui to take a month off before opening another branch of Extreme Adventures on the island.

  Now, I’m feeling every adrenaline-packed hour. I can barely stay awake long enough to wolf down the teriyaki chicken and Hawaiian shortbread cookies on my dinner tray and then I’m out, sucked into my first deep, peaceful sleep since Sam stopped returning my calls six days ago.

  No matter how long we’ve been together, or how much we’ve been through, a part of me had been certain she was about to end it. End our seven-year relationship and take a sledgehammer to my life in the process because I can’t imagine who I would be without her.

  I’m the owner of a thriving adventure-tourism business, but only because it’s a career I knew would blend well with our dream to travel the world before we settle down. I’m a brother, an uncle, and soon-to-be an uncle again when my sister Caitlin’s first baby is born, but no matter how much I love my family, they could never fill the place Sam holds in my heart.

  Sam and I have grown up together, and all I want is to grow old with her. We’re like trees planted too close, our roots tangled and our trunks fused together. If I lost her, I would lose my foundation, a part of my heart, and everything that makes me happy. Without her, I can’t imagine what there would be to look forward to. There would be no reason left to dream, and without a dream there’s no fucking point in being alive.

  Watching my father piss his life away taught me that lesson early. The world would have been better off without Chuck Cooney in it, and I never want to be anything like him. That’s why I’ve been sober for two years and fight through temptation every time someone, who doesn’t know I’m an alcoholic, offers me a drink. But if I’d lost Sam, I might have started shuffling through life in my father’s footsteps, drinking too much, caring too little, choosing selfish oblivion over facing the world.

  To say I’m relieved that Sam and I are still together is an understatement. I feel like I’ve surfed past a shark lurking beneath the water and escaped with all my limbs intact, and when I wake up to the humming silence of a darkened plane and feel Sam caressing me through my faded khaki shorts, the bliss of her fingers gripping me through my clothes is enough to make me dizzy.

  “What time is it?” I ask, my voice rough with sleep as I shift toward her, granting her easier access.

  “The middle of the night,” Sam whispers, her full lips moving in the shadows. “You’ve been out for hours. I was getting lonely.”

  “Sorry.” I scan the aisles across from us. Everyone in my line of sight is passed out and snoring, and that’s all the permission I need to reach under the blanket covering Sam’s lap and return the favor.

  I slide my fingers up and down the ridge of her jeans, lingering over her clit, wishing she were wearing one of her sundresses. It would be so easy to push the fabric up, pull her panties to one side, and get my fingers inside her. It’s been almost half a year since we’ve been together, and I’m dying to touch her, taste her, feel her body gripping my cock as her muscled legs wrap around my waist and pull me deep.

  “It’s okay.” Sam’s breath hitches as I pop the button on the top of her jeans. “You’re awake now.”

  “Wide awake,” I confirm, teeth digging into my lip as Sam drags my zipper down and reaches inside my boxer shorts, taking my cock into her hand.

  She wraps her fingers around me and slides her fist up and down, tugging me with the perfect amount of pressure before she pauses to circle her thumb around my swollen head, spreading the cum leaking from my tip in teasing circles that are almost enough to set me off. Her palm is warm, but my dick is on fire. I’ve jerked off more than my fair share the past few months, but it’s not the same.

  I know I’m going to come fast, but I don’t want to come before her.

  Even our first time, the summer before our sophomore year of high school, when I was so horny I felt like I was going to pass out from excitement the night Sam told me she wanted to go all the way, I made sure to go down on her first. I brought her over on my tongue before I slid on the condom we’d stolen from her mom’s latest boyfriend and pushed inside her.

  She’d been so wet, so tight, and the sounds she’d made as pain became pleasure were the most erotic things I’d ever heard. I can still remember every moment of our first time—all sixty seconds of it. Tonight I’m going to last longer, but maybe not by much.

  As Sam continues to jerk me off with the skill of a woman who’s spent years pleasuring the same man, I slide my hand down the front of her jeans, beneath her panties, and begin to demonstrate my own expertise. Her jeans are tight, but not so tight I can’t reach her entrance. When I do, I curl two fingers inside her, fighting the urge to groan as her wetness coats my skin and her breath rushes out over my lips.

  “Danny,” she whispers, her head falling forward until her forehead rests against mine.

  It’s only my name, but those two whispered syllables tell me a thousand things at once. They tell me she’s as desperate for this as I am that she’s felt just as lost without this connection, this touchstone to who we are together. Sam and I have always been able to talk, but there are some things that can’t be communicated with words. Like the fierce and forever way I love her, like the fact that I’d fight an army single-handed for the chance to lie by her side for even one more night.

  “I love you.” I slide my fingers in and out of her with long, sensual strokes, summoning more heat from her body, letting me know my touch still affects her the way it always has.

  We haven’t lost this. We’re still us, and we’re going to find our way back to each other, the way we always have.

  My pulse picks up and my cock swells beneath Sam’s increasingly firm grip, but I ignore the pressure building in my balls and focus on pleasuring her. I shift my hand until the heel of my palm rubs against her clit as my fingers drive deeper inside her, ignoring the cramp in my wrist and the faint stirring from across the aisle. At this point, I don’t care if someone’s watching. I need Sam to come on my hand, I need her release as much as I need my own. More. I live for her touch, but I would die for the chance to watch her features twist as I bring her over, to know I’m the one responsible for unraveling her so completely.

  “Yes,” she whispers, chest rising and falling more swiftly as her breath comes faster. “So close.”

  There is just enough pale blue light in the cabin for me to see her nipples hard beneath her tee shirt and it’s all I can do not to reach up and cup her breast in my free hand. I’m dying to pinch and tease her nipples between my fingers, to take her in my mouth and suck her pebbled skin. But that will have to wait until we have something more than a tiny blanket to hide behind.

  Fuck…we can’t get to that hotel fast enough. I can’t wait to get Sam naked beneath me, above me, or in any other position she’s up for.

  The past couple of years, our lovemaking has been veering toward the kinkier side of the spectrum. It started with having sex in every waterfall on Maui two summers ago, and ended with a paddle last December. Sam is one of the strongest people I know, but she also has…unexpected fantasies. When she’d first mentioned wanting to be spanked and to play with toys—bringing it up in a sexy whisper when we were already half naked—I wasn’t sure I’d be into it. But by the ti
me I had Sam tipped over my knee, her bare bottom in the air, and her pussy dripping down her thighs as I reddened her ass, I’d changed my mind. After that experience, I’d been sold on kink, and looking forward to all the new ways we would find to get each other off.

  But then Sam’s emails and texts grew shorter and further apart, and when we talked on the phone on Saturday mornings she sounded distant. She said it was because of her new roommate—her old roomie was studying abroad for a semester, and the new girl, Tate, was an eavesdropper and a gossip. Sam blamed Tate for our shorter, less intimate phone conversations, and I didn’t have the courage to call bullshit when she was acting so weird.

  Sure, a nosey roommate meant we couldn’t have phone sex, but it didn’t mean we couldn’t talk. Sam could have gone to the park or one of the hiking trails near her apartment for the privacy we needed to catch up on our usual news. For her to tell me about her classes, and me to tell her how fast the business was growing, and how weird it felt to have employees for the first time in my life. Instead, our catch up sessions grew microscopic, and I started to worry our last encounter was to blame.

  Maybe Sam regretted what we’d done. Maybe I’d screwed up seven years of loving each other with one night of raunchy sex. No matter how much I’d enjoyed it, losing Sam wasn’t worth the novelty. I’d rather have normal, amazing sex with her than all the kinky shit in the world.

  But when I’d finally worked up the nerve to mention my concerns, Sam had refused to talk about it. She’d said she wasn’t in a safe place to have that kind of conversation and made an excuse to get off the phone as fast as she could. That time, she hadn’t returned my calls, texts, or emails for four days. When she finally picked up the phone again, I was too grateful to hear her voice to do anything to spook her again.

  The sex conversation had been tabled, but the fear that our easy physical relationship was damaged lingered, driving me crazy as winter turned to spring and Sam still sounded weird every time she answered the phone.

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever touch her like this again. I wasn’t sure I’d ever hear her breath hitch the way it does right before she gets off. I’m so grateful to be with her I’m pretty sure I could have lost it just from hearing her whimper and feeling her hips buck into my palm as she goes over. The combination of her pussy pulsing around my fingers, and her hand working my cock is enough to make me come so hard I see stars.

  The bliss coursing through me lasts for what feels like forever. I bite my lip to keep from making noise, but as soon as I’m sure I can keep quiet, I lean into Sam and kiss her with all the emotion making my chest feel like it’s about to explode. I slip my tongue between her lips, exploring every inch of her sweet mouth. She tastes the way she always does, like sea air, clean sweat, and summer time. Like the best parts of being a kid, the freest parts of being an adult, and everything I’ve wanted since the moment Sam agreed to be my girl.

  She tastes exactly the same, but the way she ends the kiss after only a few moments and tugs at my wrist is different. Strange.

  “It’s okay,” I whisper, glancing across the aisle to find the other passengers still dead to the world. “No one’s watching.”

  “The stewardess could be by any minute,” she whispers, her tugs at my wrist growing more insistent. “Come on, Danny. I need to get zipped up.”

  “Let me help.” I slip my fingers from between her legs and reach for her zipper only for her to bat my hand away with a sharp slap.

  “Sorry,” she says with a breathy laugh that makes me think the slap startled her as much as it did me. “I’m just afraid we’re going to get caught. I’ll run to the restroom for some tissues for you. Be right back.”

  Before I can tell her to stay, that I have napkins left over from dinner shoved into the seat pocket in front of me, she’s slipped out into the aisle and is hauling ass toward the bathrooms at the back of coach. She’s the one who started this, and I know she enjoyed it as much I did, but it feels like she’s running away from me.

  No matter how physically close we were a moment ago, that emotional distance is still there, and I don’t know how to make it go away. Even when she gets back and asks in a sexy whisper if this means we’ve joined the mile high club, it’s hard to play along. I say the right words, insisting we deserve all bragging rights, but there’s nothing lighthearted about the way I’m feeling. I’ve known Sam too long and too well to be fooled by her attempts to muscle through the strained moment before she bolted for the bathroom.

  Something is wrong. Something’s been wrong since January and if it’s not her and me, or that last night before she left the island in December, then it has to be something else. Something or someone has rattled Sam so badly that she’s let our relationship—the one thing she promised she would fight to protect, no matter how busy our lives, or how great the physical distance between us—suffer.

  And I’m going to find out what or who that is.

  And then I’m going to kick their fucking ass.

  Chapter Three

  Sam

  “What deep wounds ever closed

  without a scar?”

  –Lord Byron

  The past ten hours could have been better, but they could also have been so much worse.

  All in all, I’d say the flight was a success. I haven’t thought about any of the things I promised myself I wouldn’t, and Danny and I broke the ice after a long, difficult dry spell.

  I’d been afraid being intimate again would be awkward at best, awful at worst, but it was neither of those things. After months of feeling nothing but numbness, interspersed with bursts of almost debilitating regret, I was shocked to find Danny could make my body do more than flutter. He’d made me burn, heating me up so quickly I’d already come on his hand by the time my mind caught up with what was going on.

  It had caught up eventually, and done its best to ruin things, but I had managed to regain control.

  I am in control. I’m taking my life back and soon there won’t be anything anyone can do to stop me.

  As we trudge up the Jetway, I slip Danny’s phone from the outer pocket of his pack and drop it into my purse without him noticing. I’ll take care of both of our phones in the bathroom. Once I do, there’s no way any of the bad things will be able to taint our fresh start.

  Danny and I step out into Auckland Airport’s International terminal, where the afternoon sun is shining brightly through the floor to ceiling windows, and optimism floods through me for the first time in ages. My chest relaxes and my spirit lifts as we let ourselves be carried along by the crowd, through a massive ornamental archway where carved monkeys, birds, and a cat god with golden eyes stare down at all the exhausted travelers, warning us that we’re not in Kansas anymore.

  As we pass beneath the warm, honey-and-sunset colored wood, a shiver passes through me. I can feel the new Sam slipping more firmly into place. I’m ready to throw my arms wide and embrace this adventure, and am positively giddy by the time we reach the restrooms just before customs.

  “I’m going to run in and freshen up,” I say, giving Danny’s hand a squeeze before I release it.

  “Me too,” he says. “Meet you by the water fountain.”

  “Okay!” I practically jog through the burnt orange hallway into the mostly deserted bathroom. I can’t wait to pull the SIM cards from our phones and smash them to pieces.

  I should have taken care of mine before we left Maui, but I wasn’t thinking beyond getting the hell out of the airport. But neither of us have turned our phones back on after we shut them down for takeoff, and I’ve been paying my own cell bill for years, so there shouldn’t be any way for Dad or Penny to trace my journey to the opposite hemisphere.

  Penny offered to keep me on the family cell plan, but as soon as I could afford it I insisted on getting my own phone. I wanted to be able to call Danny as often as I needed to without anyone patrolling my texts or the times of my calls. Penny had stopped giving me shit for “wasting my life” on the phone ye
ars before, when she realized trying to shame me into spending less time texting Danny was a waste of breath, but I didn’t like her having that window into my life.

  Even back then, before the—

  I shut the thought down before it can reach completion and focus on locking the door to the handicapped bathroom behind me and slipping the SIM cards from the backs of the phones.

  My thoughts are stupid sheep that keep wandering toward the cliff at the edge of the pasture, but if I keep catching them and shepherding them toward safer ground, they’re going to learn where not to go. Eventually, I’ll be able to relax my guard, and one day I might forget there was ever a cliff to begin with.

  All things seem possible now that Danny and I are here with thousands of miles between us and danger.

  I drop the cards to the tile floor near the garbage can and use the edge of my phone to smash them in half before throwing the pieces and both phones into the trash can with a satisfied sigh. Now, no one can call me, and my dad can’t call Danny. There’s a chance I would have been able to get by with swapping out the SIM cards, but on the off chance that Danny had Dad’s number stored on his phone, not the card, I couldn’t risk it.

  I stand staring at the trash can for a long moment, the realization that I’ve just said goodbye to my family settling around my shoulders.

  Mom never recovered from losing Dad, and has been more like an unpredictable girlfriend I don’t trust to borrow my shoes than a mother the past seven years, but I still love her. Dad is so far up Penny’s ass it’s ridiculous and way more impressed with the wealth he married into than anything I’ve accomplished in my twenty years of life, but I love him, too. I even love Penny. She’s tried to do the right thing by my little brother and me, stepping in to play Mom when my own mother couldn’t be bothered, and always making sure Erick and I had the best of everything.

  I love all three of my parents, but our relationships have become too complicated, and I have no idea what they’ll think when they find out the truth. Maybe they’ll hate me, maybe they’ll pity me—either way they’ll want me to do the right thing. My parents and stepparent are all very much into Doing the Right Thing, in facing the consequences of your actions and fessing up to your failings. They would want me to stop running, but I can’t and I won’t.