by Coralie Moss
“I like it when your fingers are inside me.” She couldn’t bring her voice to speak above a whisper, but her hips felt unfettered enough to grind into the bed and against Liam’s groin.
He drew away his arm, slid his hand behind one of her knees, and drew her thigh toward his chest. He spoke into her neck, his eyes darker, staring. “Look again.”
A part of her anatomy she never, ever examined in detail reflected its mysterious beauty in the mirror, the bright peach of the vibrator pointing right at her sex. She found herself fascinated by the spread of treasure, her breath catching when Liam slid his thumb inside, playing his fingers along and around the sensitive surfaces below.
Anna couldn’t watch herself orgasming, not yet, so she squeezed her eyelids closed, felt herself peaking, and dropped every ounce of awareness into the cacophony of sensations happening below her navel.
“Take it off! Take it off!” Gasping, she lifted her toy-covered finger to him.
Liam tossed the vibrator aside before extracting his fingers and threading them, damp and pungent, through her hair. Turning her head to the side, he took her lips, now every bit as pliant as the ones between her legs. “My turn.”
“Let me finish shaking.” She breathed out, her body heavy and languid and craving more.
“No, I want you now.” He wrapped his arm around her ribs and lifted her away. “Sit up and straddle me.” His voice insistent, he positioned his body under hers until her still-throbbing sex hovered above his cock. Both their heads were closer to the mirror. “Now you can watch some more.”
He grinned at her shock, continuing to knead her butt and rub her up and down the length of his erection. The fabric of his briefs bunched, absorbing some of her wetness.
“Time to lose these,” she said. The snug cotton covering was off before she could say another word, and her weight returned to rest on his lower belly.
“Do you want me?” He took hold of his cock at its base, fanning his fingers over his testicle, stroking himself into an ever more urgent erection.
“I want you, Liam.”
She lifted enough for him to position the head right where she wanted. Still tight from the contractions of her orgasm, she took him inside, rising and lowering until they found their rhythm.
“Every.”
Sink. And rise.
“Single.”
Rise again, take in more.
“Inch.”
Anna took all of him and then some. Her gaze was drawn to the mirror, the reflection of Liam’s head, his hands on the fronts of her thighs, and her arms supporting her straddling his body. She dared herself to look until she found what Liam wanted her to see, the sight of him entering her, over and over again. The sight of her own eyes, darkened with desire, and her cheeks, flushed. The sight of her hair, wild and unbound.
This was the best way to start a Monday. Or any other day ending in the letter Y.
Liam pulled her chest to meet his and signaled Anna to roll with him. His knee nudged her thighs open, a power surge building in his body. His cock grew more rigid, his leg muscles harder, his breathing more guttural. He bit her chin as she wrapped one leg around his hip and dug her heel into the back of his thigh.
“I can take it, take you,” she whispered.
“Hold the bed,” he growled, grabbing at one of her wrists and holding her hip down with the other. Anna curled both hands around the wood bar of the footboard and gripped tight, another orgasm building. This one felt different, less external, more deeply connected to the friction of his cock against her inner walls.
The rasping of the bedsprings compressing and releasing became louder and louder as their bodies met the mattress with more and more force. It was impossible for her to stop the inevitable finish. Liam grabbed the railing, his hands bumping against hers. His heart pounding against her soft breasts, their chests slick with sweat, he threw himself into his release, every thrust answered by flesh meeting flesh and wood meeting metal.
He slowed, gasping, while the bedframe gave a final, resounding groan and separated from the headboard before crashing to the floor.
“Let go!” His arms circled her chest, urging her to roll with him. He guided their sweaty bodies toward the closet. “In here!”
“Maybe we should go into the demolition business.” She laughed, hysterical, her legs trembling, adrenaline surging, unable to sit upright. He collapsed beside her, a wide grin threatening to split his face.
Liam laughed along with her, tears streaming down his cheeks. “First, we sink a boat. Then we break a bed…”
“I was thinking about getting rid of that bed anyway, and this was just the sign I was waiting for.” She calmed her convulsions into a giggle and struggled to her knees and feet. “Come on,” she said, once she could breathe, “let’s go make some coffee.”
Anna reached for him, but instead of joining her, he pulled her into his lap and whispered into her hair. “You’re a sex goddess, Anna. A verifiable sex goddess, and I am at your service.”
After a shared shower, they dismantled the queen-size bed frame, carried the pieces to her sewing studio, and left the box spring and mattress on the floor.
“Do you want my help with anything else?” Liam sat on the lone kitchen stool, about to bite into his second ham sandwich.
She shook her head. “I think I’m going to hire a couple of Gigi’s friends who started a moving business, but first I’ve got to rent a storage unit. I don’t know what I want to do with a lot of this…stuff, but I want to give my kids time to go through it and not feel rushed.”
“Are you thinking of selling the cottage?”
Anna nodded. “I considered it for about five minutes.”
“I’m glad you didn’t give it any more time than that. This place is pretty idyllic.”
“I love the setting, but I don’t want to get tangled up in thinking that preserving memories equals never letting anything change. Because I’m changing. I’m growing into the next version of myself, and that version needs to be surrounded by things that reflect that.”
“I’m glad I got to witness the unveiling of the new Anna.” He finished his sandwich and sipped at his mug of coffee.
“You’ve had something to do with it, you know.” She reached across the narrow island and clasped his elbows.
“It has been my privilege.”
“Do you have your departure date?” she asked, stroking his arms, feeling for his muscles beneath the flannel shirt.
“Two weeks from yesterday.”
She withdrew her hands and straightened. “That’s sooner than I expected.”
“Me too, but orders are backing up, clients are getting antsy, and I’m close to accomplishing what I came here for.”
“Your health?”
Liam nodded. “I feel stronger, my head’s clearer, but it’s been the creative reinvigoration I most needed. And though it wasn’t on my agenda to have a steady lover, you’ve had a big influence of helping to get my juices flowing.” His smile pulled Anna to his side of the counter. He held her between his thighs. “I’ll miss you.”
She slipped her arms around his chest, the scents of sex and sandwiches flooding her nostrils. “I’ll miss you too.”
They stayed in their embrace long enough for her to become aware of the ticking of his watch. She closed her eyes, his hair against her cheeks, and willed herself not to shed any poor-me tears.
He squeezed her tight before relaxing his hold and leaning away. His hands slid to her ribcage. “I forgot to tell you. My former girlfriend paid me a visit on Saturday, after you left.”
“How was that for you?” She fought every urge fighting to the surface. He had healed, and he was leaving. He wasn’t hers anymore.
“I was irritated at first. She got in touch with Daniel, and he let her know I was in Rhinebeck.” He stood and carried his plate to the sink. “We had dinner Saturday night.”
“And?”
Liam turned his back to the sink, crossed hi
s arms, and crossed his ankles. “We had dinner, and we talked. We’re going to try again.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Anna tried to make light of Liam’s news, tried to rally a modicum of happiness for him, but she couldn’t. He explained Cassidy had gone into therapy after their break up, and she seemed changed, more aware of her self-centeredness. She owned her behavior and apologized. Cold embers caught flame, and now the two of them were considering taking a second chance at making a relationship work.
He left Anna’s house after breaking this wholly unexpected piece of news. His matter-of-fact delivery further derailed her. Standing at the kitchen counter, facing the maw of her upended living room, Anna let loose a hidden cistern of unshed, anger-infused tears.
Change hurt. And in this moment, it was proving difficult—if not impossible—to embrace the idea she was better off now than she’d been on her birthday. Daniel’s emails planted seeds of hope, even nurtured them into sprouting.
And Liam managed to insinuate himself into her quiet, ordered life to the point she couldn’t move through the rooms of her house or walk on her stretch of beach or even see clients at the marina without thinking about him.
He was leaving the island, and she was staying.
He was picking up the threads of his life and reworking them into stronger, more creative connections. A few of those threads—her newly revealed history with his uncle, Cassidy’s re-entry—were tangled, but Liam was resourceful and creative.
He would do fine.
Anna pulled the stool into the kitchen and folded her arms on the counter. She wanted to cry and keep on crying until she was dried out or else the overwhelming feeling of being abandoned midway through her self-improvement project would take over and she’d go back to being Invisible Anna in the oversized hoodies and the little gray truck.
When the waterworks slowed, she took two aspirin for the headache brought on by Liam’s confession and called the only storage company on the island. They could deliver a pod to her house the next day and pick it up when she was ready.
She dug out a canvas boat bag from under a jumble of winter boots on the floor of the coat closet and tossed in her toiletry kit and a few changes of clothes. She double-checked to see lights and burners were off and windows were locked and added chargers for her laptop and cell phone. She riffled through kitchen cabinets overstuffed with mismatched dishes and found a dinged-up travel mug and a water bottle.
When Anna left her house, she was a woman without a destination, wanting to be anywhere but shuttered within the confines of her cottage and this seventy-four-square-mile island.
Thirty minutes later, she pulled into line at the nearest ferry terminal, and ten minutes after that, she boarded a ferry to another, bigger island. She’d figure out the next step when she drove off the boat, because at that point, her choices would be limited but clear—turn left or turn right or turn around and go back to the emotional hole she’d begun to dig with the shovel Liam left behind.
A right turn and five hours of driving found her harbored in the bleak, wintry beauty of Tofino, a town situated on the west coast of Vancouver Island and home to some of the country’s best surfing. Anna didn’t come because she was a fan of the sport. She ended up in Tofino because she needed to feel waves pounding against sandy beaches and water-smoothed boulders. The inner pummeling her emotions sustained craved a counterpart in the natural world.
They found it.
A late-autumn storm teased the wide-open coast the entire day. Anna checked into a bed and breakfast, donned the rain gear she kept in her truck, and drove to the beach to watch the incoming storm front deliberate whether to come ashore and how much wind and rain to unleash. She arrived at dusk, and the darkness outside—of the sky and the water—mirrored her mood perfectly.
She opened a packet of instant cocoa, poured still-hot water from her thermos into her travel mug, and stirred. Gusts of wind thrashed at the truck, rocking it side to side. The windows steamed up, adding to the sensation of being safely held even in the middle of her ongoing internal storm.
Anna pulled out a blanket stashed behind the driver’s seat and covered her legs and lap. Empty cup of cocoa resting on the dashboard, its contents warming her belly, she leaned her head against the door and closed her eyes, relaxing into the syncopated beats of the wind and rain. The thud of waves hitting the ground travelled through the wheels and cab of the truck and into her body. Unleashed nature had a calming effect on her stress level.
Hunger finally drove her back to the warmth of the B and B.
“Hey, where are you?”
Standing in the bed-and-breakfast’s compact bathroom, she read Liam’s text. For a moment, she was tempted to write, “Fucking your uncle.”
Snide Anna rarely showed up, but today she clamored to lash out.
Suki also texted, this one an image from her first ultrasound. “Hi, Grandma!”
Snide Anna stepped aside so one of her more empathetic cohorts could coo over the faint outline of a future human being. The same cohort tugged on Anna’s sleeve and urged her to reconsider a move to Toronto. Snide Anna took back the phone and texted her response, a series of hearts emojis.
Why was she reacting so intensely to Liam’s news that he and someone he’d been in a relationship with were getting together again after months of being broken up?
Because it was she, Anna, who’d been instrumental in his sexual recovery, and she wanted to be the one reaping the benefits of Liam’s re-established virility. Her furniture budget couldn’t take too many repeats of the morning’s activity, but her body could. She liked it when he was tender, and she liked it when he took possession of her body, coaxed her past her comfort levels, and introduced her to ever more pleasurable levels of arousal and desire.
She had grown to trust him. She had grown to trust him enough to be physically, soulfully, naked in his presence.
Hope for a future had linked arms with trust and braided a daisy-chain crown, and that was the source of her anguish. She wanted more time with Liam, in her cottage, in his cottage, at his place in New York, and who knew where else they could go to test mattresses, sex toys, and a sailboat’s seaworthiness.
She held a warm washcloth to her eyes, her hands shaky. Cold water would be better for the puffiness, but she couldn’t manage to throw any more of a dampener at herself. Bed was a relief, morning would give her a fresh perspective, and Liam could continue to wonder where she’d gone.
Putting her feet in the roiling sea the next morning would have been ill advised. Anna did the next best thing. She took to the hot tub on the deck of the charmingly converted turn-of-the-century house. The bite of cold ocean air contrasted in a skin-fully delicious way with the heated water pummeling her legs and back. Another hour or two and a good chunk of the angst she carried in with her would be coaxed out and sent swirling skyward along with the rising steam.
She would do the mature thing and text Liam she was off island—no more, no less. Toweling off, she picked up her phone.
His response was almost immediate. “When will you be back?”
“Not sure.”
“May I join you?”
She hesitated before typing. “No.”
Taking a page from Gaia’s book, Anna spent the day in contemplation. She drove her truck again to the beachhead and braved a short walk that ended in a waist-high tangle of fishing nets, crab pots, and a dead gull. Other shore birds patrolled the area closer to the road, while a few of their brethren attempted flight. The wind was too much even for them.
She rested in her cozy bed, found solace in the hot tub and the quiet of her room, and spoke only when one of the staff asked her meal preferences. On the second morning, she awoke more settled in her body and heart, not missing the fluttery thrum that had accompanied her ever since the day Liam had walked up to her favorite rock and insinuated himself into her life.
A half-smile quirked the side of her mouth. The calendar said it was autumn, winter
was up next, but the stirrings of spring were a more accurate reflection of her internal state. She rolled to her side and gazed out the rain-pebbled window.
Her house was a mess. The living room was Pile City. The spare bedroom looked like it had lost a bet to a whirling dervish, and her vision of what it all could look like was hard to find under all her…stuff.
Ugh.
But what changed the half-smile to a satisfied grin was knowing she’d turned a corner. She’d keep her business, for now. She’d keep researching the idea she and Elaine were working on until they had enough information to make an informed decision—or a calculated leap of decently funded faith.
And she’d start to make art again.
She giggled. Make art.
Okay, maybe that was a bit presumptuous. She’d made room in her psyche for the idea of returning to creative work. Next up was a space to work, materials, and tools. She could go home now and return to being fifty-year-old Anna without the need to hide or shrink.
By the time she disembarked the ferry and drove across the island toward home, everything inside her body was calmer. Her heart rate was relaxed, and the ball of tension she’d developed under her sternum had disappeared. Turning into her driveway, she had to stop short and maneuver around the boxy, white storage container with bold red lettering her Space Savior had arrived.
Anna giggled.
Something about the way the box claimed the end of her driveway declared her house project was officially a thing. She emptied the cab of her truck and made a second trip for the six-pack of flattened storage boxes purchased on the way home. She called Elaine and asked if she wanted to supply Anna with pizza and gossip while helping to sort a roomful of books.
“I think I know what prompted this monstrous project, but how about you fill me in?” Elaine put herself in charge of filling and labelling the boxes, once Anna decided where the individual piles would go.
“I’m tired of being surrounded by so much stuff I don’t use or read or even need anymore. And I’m back to thinking about a move to Toronto. Maybe. Part-time at most.”