The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  I approve of the girl I see in the mirror. She looks exotic, French. Audrey Hepburn with lighter hair and a decent tan. I want Josh to be there so badly I can taste it. I want him to be there so badly I'm not sure I'll be able to stand my disappointment if he isn't.

  I walk from my room to the restaurant’s patio which sits under the graceful arch of palms, diluting the sun overhead. Planters divide the space but I notice heads turning as I approach. My new hair is still a miracle, however…people suspect I’m someone, but until they can put a name with my face, I get to remain anonymous. And I want anonymity more than anything right now, because in a moment I will either appear thrilled or devastated and there is no middle ground.

  I’m about to approach the hostess when I see him.

  Josh.

  In khakis and a button-down, sleeves rolled up, looking impossibly beautiful. I remember ridiculing him for wearing that exact outfit when I arrived in Honolulu. Now I'm thinking I’ve never seen anything hotter in my life. It’s as if he is suddenly the prototype upon which my tastes are created—if he decided to start wearing tank tops and Speedos, as unlikely as that is, I’d probably decide that also was my favorite outfit.

  His eyes lock on mine, and there’s a hard stab of want in my abdomen at the sight of him.

  "I see them," I tell the hostess, my voice admirably calm and adult.

  I make my way toward the table with the strangest mix of euphoria and fear swimming in my stomach, like nothing I’ve ever felt, even walking on stage. I worry it’s all written on my face.

  The Baileys rise as I approach. I hug Beth, and even Jim, and then I turn to face Josh. How did I forget how tall he is? Even in my small heels he looks like a giant above me.

  He steps forward. I wouldn’t say he looks happy to see me. It’s more as if I’m something he unwillingly can’t look away from. His arms wrap around me all too briefly.

  "How have you been?" he asks. His voice is cool with disinterest.

  I feel like I’ve been punched and I’m mad at myself for expecting anything from him in the first place.

  "Good," I lie. My throat sounds like it’s full of gravel. "Really good. I leave for New York tomorrow."

  He nods and pulls out a chair for me beside him. Only remnants of their lunch remain. I wish I’d skipped the shower so I had more time with him. I also wish I hadn’t come at all.

  Beth starts telling me all about how he’s testifying to Congress later in the week. “You’ll have to watch him on C-SPAN if you get a chance,” she urges, pride shining in her eyes.

  Josh groans quietly, running a hand over his face. “Mom, you’ve got to stop telling people to watch C-SPAN. Especially people who are appearing on primetime the same day.”

  He knows my schedule. I want it to mean something. God, I want it to mean something, but he’s barely even looking at me.

  “I’m just proud of you, honey,” Beth says to him, leaning back so the waitress can clear her plate. “Besides, Drew’s practically family.” She squeezes my hand. “Thank you so much for the scarf and the sweet note. I’m sorry things didn’t work out with Joel, but you’re both young still. Anything can happen.”

  Josh’s gaze jerks to mine. That wariness in his eyes is now shock and—something else.

  He didn’t know. I have no idea if that changes anything, but based on the way he’s looking at me now, it might.

  Jim pays the bill while Beth asks about my plans and then suddenly we are all standing and my chance to change something between us is pretty much gone.

  “Josh, honey, I want to go to the gift shop,” she says. “Can you get the car? We’ll meet you in front.”

  He nods, never taking his eyes off me.

  I hug his parents goodbye and then it’s just the two of us.

  "So," I say nervously. The moment is too much. I stare at his shirt, focus on the texture of it. It would feel like fine grit sandpaper under my fingers, his chest hard beneath it.

  "Let's walk," he says with the sort of decisiveness that makes my knees weak. I let myself be led from the restaurant. "Where's your room?"

  I point toward the cottages weakly and we move, his hand on the small of my back as if we are a couple. I fumble with the key. The cottages at the Chateau are weirdly old-fashioned and still look like the sort of place where some 1950s starlet might drink herself to death in a satin robe. I wish now I’d stayed someplace modern, someplace for the well-adjusted.

  When the door opens, he follows me inside and doesn’t look at the room at all. He’s only looking at me. I want to memorize his skin, his lovely mouth, his deep-set eyes. I search his face, wondering why he’s here, looking for an answer so I won’t have to ask.

  He takes a step forward. I take one too. It feels as if we are magnetized, as if I can’t stop moving his way until we are pressed together, skin to skin.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you broke up with Joel?” he asks.

  “Would it have mattered?”

  He pushes his hands into my hair, gripping my face in a way that shocks me, leaves me breathless. “That cannot be a serious question.”

  And then he kisses me. Not the way he kissed me in the airport. This time, he kisses me as if we’ve been kept apart by war and deserts and decades and he kept praying, the entire time, we’d somehow find each other.

  He lifts me onto the small table behind me. His hands are on my bare thighs and our mouths are frantic. I groan and he pulls back.

  “Drew,” he whispers, his eyes closed. He’s about to say goodbye and I won’t allow it.

  “Stay,” I command.

  His mouth lingers over mine, his palms stretch over my skin—my thighs, my ass, and higher—as if he’s trying to touch as much of me as he can. “I have to take my parents home. My dad doesn’t drive in the city.”

  And, of course, he can’t tell them why he’d like to remain.

  My hands slide up his shirt, clinging.

  “Can you come back?” I ask.

  There’s a hint of a smile in the curve of his lips. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m definitely coming back.”

  Two hours later, I hear his knock on the door.

  In the time since he left, I’ve picked up the room and made the bed, all evidence of my depressive state hidden. I have showered again, shaved every inch of skin, moisturized, chosen better lingerie, and then put the same outfit on so he won’t know I did it.

  I am unreasonably nervous and far too sober. I wish I’d had a drink. I wish I’d had ten drinks.

  He’s in shorts and a t-shirt. It’s my new favorite outfit. He bites down on his smile, his eyes curving into quarter moons, a flash of the dimple in his cheek. I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anyone and it feels like I’ll never be brave enough for it at the same time.

  “Do you want a drink?” I ask him. “I need a drink.”

  I reach for the champagne bottle on ice, provided by God knows who and God knows why. He takes it from my hand.

  “I don’t need a drink.” He pops the cork with practiced ease, which surprises me. I didn’t picture him having a lot of experience with champagne. “Should it bother me that you need one the second I walk in the room?”

  I hop on the counter and hold out a champagne flute as if I’m still the casual girl who doesn’t care about anything all that much. And then his gaze levels me, forces honest words from my mouth. “I’m nervous. You make me nervous.”

  His upper lip quirks up for half a second as he pours, quietly pleased. “You just spent several days risking life and limb trudging through mud with me. You’ve shared a tent with me. How could I be making you nervous now?”

  “I wasn’t about to sleep with you any of those times.”

  His eyes darken in a way that makes me shiver. Feral, dangerous, certain eyes. “And you’re about to now?”

  “We could play Monopoly if you prefer.”

  “Monopoly is a stupid fucking game,” he says, stepping between my legs. He’s decided something. I shiver again
.

  “Sounds like someone’s not very good at Monopoly.”

  He pulls the champagne flute from my hand. “I could kick your ass at Monopoly. Grab St. James Place and you’ve won the game.”

  He pulls my hips to his, his gaze trailing over my face before he leans down and kisses me. A light kiss made of whispers. A brush, a graze, his breath offering nearly as much pressure as his mouth.

  “I haven’t really done this before,” I whisper. “Been present for it, I mean. I'm always drunk or high or half-asleep or just…zoning out.”

  He stops for a moment and studies me. “Why?”

  I shrug. I know it makes no sense. Half my songs are about sex and the truth is I find it terrifying. “It was too…intimate. And I’ve always tried to bypass that feeling, but I don’t want it to be that way with you.”

  He pushes the hair away from my face. “I want the real you, bad or good. Don’t pretend things are fine if they’re not, okay?”

  I nod and pull him back to me. When he kisses me again, my nerves disappear, because he’s so damned good at this. I’ve been kissed a thousand times by men who treated it like an annoying pitstop before the journey could begin. Josh kisses like this is the journey right here, as if this alone is enough.

  It feels as if I’m made of warm air and little else. As if, without the weight of his hands, I might float away entirely or melt into a puddle at his feet.

  His hands slide up to the silk tank and run beneath it, gliding over my skin, calloused thumbs grazing my rib cage, the underside of my breasts. Just the barest brush of his thumb but I feel it everywhere.

  A man has never made me gasp simply by touching my breasts, but I’m not sure I’ve ever been seduced in precisely this way before either. As if I’m something precious and fragile, something to be savored.

  “You okay?” he asks. He is hard as steel now, wedged between us, pressing against me.

  “It was a good gasp,” I reply breathlessly.

  His fingers slide to my back and undo my strapless bra, removing it from beneath the shirt with practiced ease.

  He pulls his head back just enough to glance down. My nipples poke the confines of the silk aggressively now, rubbing against the smooth fabric with every breath I take.

  He shakes his head. “You tortured me on that goddamned trip.” Over the tank, he runs a palm over one nipple before brushing it with his thumb, flicking it with his forefinger. I arch into his touch and my thighs tighten around him in response. I feel it everywhere. “I tried so fucking hard not to look,” he groans. He bends to take one of my nipples between his teeth, tank and all. There’s something strangely erotic in his refusal to undress me, in the feel of the now-wet silk against sensitive skin.

  My legs lock around his waist, trying to pull him closer. I rock my hips, desperate for friction. If it takes him ten seconds to get inside me, that will be ten seconds too long. I reach for the button on his shorts.

  His mouth is still on my breast. He raises a brow, stays my hand. “In a rush?”

  “I’m ready,” I tell him in lieu of the much cruder words I might normally use. I have no idea why I’m suddenly so timid. Maybe it’s simply that I don’t want to be Drew Wilson today. I don’t want to be the brazen pop star who sings about sex without a hint of embarrassment. With Josh, I just want to be me, the real me. And that person is uncertain and even a little scared by this whole thing.

  His hand slides up my thigh and presses between my legs. I see it in his face the moment he notes that my thong is soaked. It’s like an electric charge.

  “So you are,” he says, removing his hand. He lifts me up and starts moving us toward the bedroom. “But I have thought about this for an extremely long time, and I want to savor it.”

  I snort, wrapping my legs around his waist. He carries me as if I weigh nothing at all. “You didn’t even like me until a week ago.”

  “Wrong,” he says, laying me on the bed. “And I’d have given up everything I own for this even if I didn’t like you.”

  “That would be more flattering if you owned anything.”

  He laughs, kneeling between my legs to remove my tank at last, his eyes traveling over the exposed skin. I’ve never seen someone observe me the way he is now, like I’m some lost artifact no one thought was real.

  “I’m feeling a little naked here,” I tell him. “And if you turn that into a joke about the fucking song, I will kill you. I’ll probably kill you and then have sex with your corpse, if that’s anatomically possible, but the part where you die is the certainty.”

  He gives a low laugh and then starts to unbutton his shirt, tossing it behind him when he’s done. “Better?” he asks.

  All I can do is nod my approval, my eyes glued to his perfect chest. I’ve seen him without a shirt, of course, many times. But never like this…never above me, so much larger, so…mine. It’s too much and not enough all at once. I’ll never be able to get my fill of him. “Come here,” I say, reaching up. His bare chest presses to mine. Skin to skin. The sensation is heady and intoxicating. I wish I could keep him like this forever, but this is probably only happening because I can’t. That’s what makes him safe.

  His mouth moves to my neck as his hand slides inside my panties at last. I can’t hold in the moan that escapes me.

  “Jesus,” he whispers, his strong fingers slipping in me and over me and making conscious thought difficult. He tugs the panties down my thighs and I kick them off as I reach for him. The button on his shorts releases easily, and I slide his boxers down just enough to see that tattoo I once glimpsed—a snake climbing a pole, inside this weird star.

  “I wondered what was here,” I tell him, my voice throaty with desire.

  He glances down at my fingers, pressing against it. His nostrils flare as if even this much contact is too much. “It’s the Star of Life,” he says. “Symbol of emergency medicine. I lost a bet and that’s what my friends picked.”

  They chose well. “What will I find if I keep exploring?” I ask, and my hand ventures further into his boxers until I grip him, hot and firm in my hand.

  He stills for a moment, his eyelids fluttering closed. “Fuck,” he groans as my hand wraps around him. “Drew…it’s been a really long time.” He sounds like he’s choking.

  “Good,” I whisper. “Then you’ll be able to go more than once.”

  He gives a pained laugh as my palm slides over him. He’s thick in my hand, long and smooth as I stroke him from base to tip. His hand wraps around my wrist to stop me. “I don’t think that’s anything you’ll have to worry about.”

  I lose my grip on him as he moves back and climbs off the mattress. He kicks off his shorts and boxers, then removes a condom from his wallet. The bed sinks beneath me as he kneels between my legs to roll it on. I’m feverish, slightly dazed, by the sight of him between my thighs. He is perfect everywhere.

  And as exposed as I am right now with my legs wide, the way he looks at me—hungry, fierce—makes me feel sexy and powerful rather than vulnerable.

  He leans over and places a kiss on my stomach, then between my breasts, and braces himself above me, pressing between my legs, watching my face earnestly, as if this matters. It feels almost too intimate. When he starts to thrust inside me, I close my eyes.

  “Don’t,” he says. “I want you to see exactly who you’re with.”

  “I do,” I whisper, and he pushes in. Slowly. I feel every inch of him as he continues until he’s fully inside me—so thick and perfect that the pleasure overwhelms me. My eyes want to shut, but I’m glad they don’t, because it means I get to see his reaction too: his long lashes dipping for a moment, the soft, inaudible “god” he murmurs as he slides in the rest of the way.

  I get to watch him suck in air between his teeth as he pulls back, and, finally, his own eyes shutting when he fills me again. His mouth dips to my neck then, presses to my skin. “Now you’re the one who isn’t looking,” I say breathlessly as he pulls out.

  “There was
never a moment’s doubt who I was with,” he replies.

  Ah. I love that. I love that I know it’s true, I love that it sounds like something he’d rather not have admitted in the first place, that he isn’t saying it in some attempt to charm me but simply because he doesn’t want to lie.

  It’s a tight fit, the two of us. If I wasn’t so wet, it would be too tight, but instead it’s delicious, that friction.

  There’s an exquisite ache in my center and it’s growing. I want to do this all night, moving as slowly as possible toward the moment when it all breaks open, but I’m already too far gone.

  I wrap my legs around him, pulling myself closer, and it’s as if that ache in my center has taken on a life of its own. “Faster,” I beg.

  He winces. “Jesus, I’m gonna come so hard.”

  But he complies, drawing back and slamming into me. I see stars. Again and again he does it, faster and deeper with every stroke. I cling to him, desperately holding on. And then I can no longer keep my eyes open and light explodes behind my eyelids. I come, gasping his name, my head falling backward, only vaguely aware of him thrusting hard and then holding there, shuddering above me, seconds later.

  He falls by my side, wincing as he pulls out and ties off the condom. And then he tugs me against him.

  “I’ve wanted that for so long that if you’d asked me an hour ago, I’d have told you it couldn’t possibly live up to my expectations,” he says. “Yet it was better.”

  I peer up at him. “I have to assume you didn’t want it for that long,” I reply. “You’re still the guy whose primary concern a few weeks ago was where I would vomit.”

  He laughs. “I’ve wanted you since the first night I saw you,” he says. “Last summer, at the party.”

  “You acted like you hated me at that party.”

  His mouth curves up just a hint. An almost smile that is rueful and apologetic at the same time. “Sometimes,” he says, pulling the sheets over us both, “it’s easier to hate something than admit you’re just pissed off you’ll never have it.”