by Marni Mann
I looked away, facing the window, and rested my hand against the glass. With the heat on in the car, fog started to form and I squiggled my finger over it. But it wasn’t just squiggles. It was letters.
Make it stop.
The alcohol and weed would soon wear off and everything in my head would return. I needed to prevent that from happening. I needed… the water. It was waiting for me at home. The black, deep ocean that could float me into a new calm. That could make the whispers go away. I knew I wasn’t in the right state to go swimming.
I also knew I didn’t care.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
RAE DROVE DOWN THE LONG PATH that led to the Coswells’ house. She parked near the front steps as I removed my seatbelt and opened the door. “Thanks for the ride.” I knew my words ended in a little slur…I could feel them mesh together on my tongue. It was the most I’d said in the last fifteen minutes. Not her, though. She hadn’t stopped talking the whole ride, telling me all about Brady’s longstanding feud with Hat Boy. I didn’t care about it in the least. Then she talked about the man she was in love with who was no longer interested in her. Her non-stop chatter wasn’t the reason I had stayed mute. It was because I was so buzzed, I worried what would come out of my mouth if I opened it. Rae didn’t need to know my business.
No one did, really.
“Sorry about tonight,” she replied. “Wish I could say that doesn’t happen a lot, but when there’s a big group and beer, it usually does.”
No more talking, I thought. Just salt water and long strokes, the smell of tonight washing off me as Bella watched from the shore. I couldn’t remember the last time I had left my sweet girl alone. I could see her through the glass pane that was next to the door. She sat in front of it, her gaze focused on the car.
“I’ll come in for lunch soon,” I said. I had nothing else to offer as a good-bye, and I didn’t wait for her to respond before I shut the door behind me. A thick fog gathered around me as I moved over the rocky driveway. It wasn’t in the air…it was in my head. Maybe it had been there since we’d left the party, and being on my feet again had only strengthened it. The feeling had finally returned to my limbs, at least. But the rest of my body was numb as I climbed the front steps and opened the door. Bella’s tail whipped around while she sniffed my legs and hands and licked my palms. She wove in and out of my stride, her fur rubbing and tickling the outside of my jeans.
Ocean.
I wasn’t actually sure if my bathing suits were hanging in the bathroom or the living room, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to wear one tonight. There were too many paces between those rooms and me and I didn’t feel like searching or digging through my suitcase. I just needed the wet and the salt and the black coldness covering me.
When I got to the back door, I looked at Bella. “I’m going swimming.” She cocked her head to the side. I knew she couldn’t answer me; I just felt the need to tell her. To tell someone. Anyone. “Watch me from the rocks, okay?” My words still slurred together a bit. “Too dangerous for you out there. I have to protect you, Bella. You’re all I have.”
Ocean.
Bella followed me down the stairs. Once I felt the grass under my feet, I reached for the hem of my shirt and tugged it over my head. I shivered from the breeze that blew against my skin. Goose bumps covered me. Then I unbuttoned my jeans, trying not to trip as I yanked them past my thighs and knees. I pulled my ankles out of the holes. Wearing just my bra and panties, I slid down the grass and onto the rocky shoreline.
I wasn’t alone.
Ocean…and him.
I knew he was there. I had seen him from the window in the laundry room; I’d heard his splashing as soon as I was outside. This was way past his normal swim time; I had no idea if he was close to being done or had just started. I didn’t care. I ran down the peninsula that separated our properties, cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled across the water, “You have to get out!”
He stopped in the middle of the pool, lifted his head and removed his goggles. Then he floated the rest of the way until his fingers were close enough to grip the rock by my toes. “I have to get out?”
“I really need the water.”
“Wearing that?”
I could feel his eyes on my black and gold leopard bra. The goose bumps tingled even more when I felt his gaze wander down to my panties.
I shook my head. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
His exhale came out in thick white clouds that circled my ankles. My skin turned warm. I wanted his heat to spread to my stomach, to have it sun my arms and neck.
When he didn’t respond, I said, “It’s just underwear, Saint. I’m sure you’ve taken them off plenty of women.”
He sucked in his bottom lip, holding it in his mouth. It glistened in the moonlight when he finally released it. “You’re too drunk to get in.”
I laughed. “I’m not drunk.”
“No?”
My hands went to my hips. “Nope.”
I felt like I had to prove it to him, to show him that I was fine to swim. So I tried to kneel on the rock, but I dropped a little too quickly and landed on my butt, much harder than I would have liked. Saint’s hands immediately went to my knees to steady me. The movement sent the water sloshing up over my thighs. It was even colder than the air. A few laps was all it would take and I’d be warm.
His fingers traveled to the bottoms of my feet. “You haven’t convinced me that I should let you in here.”
“You can’t stop me.”
We both knew he could. I actually hoped he would try since that would bring him even closer.
“Where were you tonight?” he asked.
Droplets of water ran from his head, past the black stubble on his cheeks and over his lips. I wondered what they tasted like, if they had the tang of the salty ocean or if it was an entirely different flavor.
“Why do you care?” I whispered.
His hands moved again, much faster this time as they reached under my thighs and pulled me into the water. He pushed my back against the wall of rock while the rest of me froze under his grip. I wasn’t going anywhere…and I was okay with that.
His nose grazed my neck and cheek. “I can smell Brady all over you,” he said.
“Brady?”
“You went to Caleb’s house, didn’t you?”
“Who’s Caleb?”
That name didn’t sound familiar. But even if it had, I couldn’t concentrate on anything besides his mouth. The fullness of his lips. The wetness that I wanted to somehow seep into my own mouth. His warmth was enveloping me.
“It’s the brown house in the woods, the one I’m pretty sure was having a party tonight.” His mouth closed and he exhaled through his nose. He was several inches taller than I was, and his down-pointing gaze sent his breath straight into my mouth. I swallowed it like it was smoke. There was a hint of salt in his taste along with something fresh and sweet like mint candy. “I bet Gabe found you before everyone else.” He dipped the bottom half of his face into the water, submerging the parts I was having a hard time dragging my eyes away from. “I imagine Brady hated that. And I bet the two of them got into a fight.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re new here and no one’s been able to touch you yet; I know how they think.” One of his hands gripped the rock above my head; the other hugged my waist, clenching my skin as he spoke. “I bet you were wearing something tight, too…teasing them with your body.” My legs lifted on their own and wrapped around him. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t stop me or pull away. “I can’t really blame Gabe for wanting you, can I? Or Brady since he was just protecting what’s his.”
Did he really mean that? Or was he trying to get a reaction out of me?
“I’m not his…or anyone else’s.” His eyes gleamed from my words. “And you can’t smell Brady,” I added, “because he wasn’t all over me.”
His nose skimmed my chin. “I can smell his weed on your skin.” Then
it raised an inch higher and scraped over the edge of my lips. “And his beer on your breath.”
“Don’t judge me just because I needed a break. We can’t all be Saints…” He hardly looked like one, and he wasn’t giving off an innocent vibe despite the lack of booze in his scent. Still, I couldn’t help but feel like I had done something wrong tonight. When I went to pull away, to put some space between us, my legs tightened instead. My body was responding on its own, regardless of what my mind was telling it to do.
“There’s no judgment coming from me. I’ve been where you are so I know what it’s like to find something that makes you feel normal… and to want more of it.” I remembered the conversation we’d had about this. I didn’t know why we were talking about it again or why my actions even mattered to him. But there was a part of me that felt the need to explain myself. I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. I wasn’t a pothead, and I definitely didn’t have a drinking problem. “Just because I can relate,” he said, “doesn’t mean I’m going to let you go swimming tonight.”
“You say you’ve been where I am…how do you even know where that is?”
I didn’t even know what this period of my life was or how I was supposed to overcome this overwhelming pain and move on. The weed helped; so did the alcohol that was still warming my chest. But it wasn’t enough.
Nothing was enough at this point.
“How do I know?” he echoed. “I just do.” His voice was soft but demanding. His fingers had found my waist again and held me in such a strong grip that my emotions began unraveling. Despite my resistance, I was being pulled toward him. I was opening in a way I had never done before. And I was doing it for a stranger. A sexy stranger.
I had witnessed his pain in motion; the way he had stroked over the sea fueled by something so similar to what fueled me. The agony he couldn’t hide from his caramel-colored eyes. I was drawn to whatever was broken in him, probably in the same way he was drawn to what was broken in me.
He continued speaking…I could feel his words because his breath kept hitting my face and his sound floated into my ears. But I wasn’t listening. I couldn’t. My brain had gone to that place…where all I saw was the blood and all I heard was my parents’ screams. My secrets were on the verge of being revealed, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
“My parents were…murdered.” I looked down. The weight of my confession was becoming too much, pulling me farther into the water.
Saint stopped my descent. His fingers lifted my chin until our eyes met again. “It’s okay.”
Those two small words seemed to be all I needed to hear.
“It happened in our house. I wasn’t home at the time…I should have been. I could have…”
His hand slid up to the middle of my back and he slowly wrapped around me, hugging me to his body. My face fit so perfectly against the spot where his neck dipped into his chest. It was too dark to see the ink, but I knew my hands were resting across the cages that were tattooed across his back.
Caged.
That was exactly how I felt: my emotions were bound in the center of my chest and I didn’t know how to release them, how to soothe them. How to make them go away.
I pulled my face out of his neck and leaned the back of my head against the rock. He didn’t let me go, holding me with the same strength and with hardly any distance between us. I felt suspended, beyond the water, beyond the chill.
The cage opened a little more.
“My dad accidentally left the daily deposit on the kitchen table and there was a window right next to it. Some of his older clients paid him in cash—Dad didn’t mean to leave it there, but he didn’t know that fucker was going to be in our neighborhood, looking through windows to find something to steal.” The knot was back, wrenching into my throat, blocking the air from passing in and out of my lungs. I pushed on. “He broke the kitchen window and it woke up Bella. My dad must have heard her barking and followed the noise.” I had no tears as I spoke; I’d shed too many in the recent weeks. There was only anger and confusion and what if’s and an urge to make Saint understand the source of my pain. “The guy was tweaking, I guess he had been for days and he just lost it. The police said my dad put up a good fight, but the bastard had a baseball bat….and he used it. He used it on my dad…and there was blood. It was everywhere. Everywhere. And then…and then he used the bat on my mom.”
There was an ache in my chest and everything in me was throbbing. But beneath the physical agony, I felt something lighten. It was a sense of relief for pushing through the block that had kept me from talking about it. Gianna had been the only person I’d told.
Somehow, it felt right for Saint to be the second.
The moon reflected against his jaw. I could see the bones moving underneath his skin. He was grinding his teeth as he listened to me. “Was he caught?”
I nodded. “He’s in jail, awaiting trial.”
“So he can’t hurt you.”
My fingers squeezed his shoulders. “Not anymore than he already has.” I swallowed hard. “There’s tons of evidence. He’s not getting out, probably not ever.”
“How did they find him?”
“He dropped his phone in our house. His case was red. It was the same color as the pool of blood it was lying in.”
His hand moved to my cheek. He was holding it tighter than he probably should have been, but I needed that. I needed a bit of physical pain to mix with the emotional ache. It made me feel balanced.
“I…don’t know what to say, Drew.”
Nobody ever did.
My fingers touched his face, and the pad of my thumb grazed his lips. I melted from the sensation, from the texture of his flesh, the wetness of his mouth, the heat, I wanted all of them…all of them on me. “There’s nothing you can say.”
“No, I guess not.”
I was compelled by more than just the way he had listened or the brokenness I saw in his eyes. It was the feelings that had continued to stir within me since the first time we’d met, the ones that had nothing to do with our mutual pain. But it hadn’t meant as much to me then as it did now. Still, I couldn’t act on it. I couldn’t want anything from him.
Could I?
I slowly closed the gap between us, using my legs to draw him against me, letting our faces drift nearer. My arms began to fold around his neck. And just as my lips were about to touch his, he lifted me into the air above him.
“Tell me, Drew.” His chest was rising as fast as mine. “Tell me this is really what you want. If not, I’ll put you back on land and we can forget this ever happened.”
I hung weightless, his hands supporting all of me as I thought about his question. Was I even in the right state of mind to give him an answer? I felt free in his grip…and hungry.
There was nothing I wanted more than his lips all over me.
“It’s what I want,” I whispered. “Don’t let me go.”
He gently slid me down his body, bringing me deeper into the water as his hands traveled to the small of my back. My legs found his waist again, circling around him, pulling him into me. His mouth parted when I neared. Just before my lips touched his, he bent his head and kissed my neck, the spot where my throat met my chest. His hair tickled my nose, filling me with the smell of the ocean and his skin. My nipples hardened, poking into him, begging for his fingertips. It wasn’t only my desire I could feel…his was there, too, pressing into me.
“I can’t wait to kiss you,” he said.
“Then why don’t you?”
His mouth suddenly left my neck and traveled to my chin, slowly rising up my cheek and to my ear. He moved his lips across my forehead and down the other side, stopping when he reached my earlobe. He stayed there, breathing into my face, the intensity between us growing. The anticipation teased my nerves and everything inside me began to shake.
“Saint…” I whispered.
He leaned away from me and used the back of my head to bring me to him, steering me straight towar
d his mouth. “I’ve waited so long to do this, you needed to know what that waiting felt like.”
My eyes closed. “Don’t make me wait any longer.”
Before I even had the last word out of my mouth, his teeth and tongue had found me. Every time he pulled away to reposition his lips, he ever so gently nipped at mine, then his tongue would explore again. He was in complete control and I was melting beneath him.
There was so much strength in his body. In the way he gripped my legs and held them around his waist, how he pulled my long hair to dominate my movements, how he varied how much of his mouth he gave me and how much he would allow me to take. His kiss was much more powerful than anything I’d ever had.
I wanted more.
As my fingers reached into his hair, pulling the strands to bring him in even deeper, he lifted me once again. My body cut through the air, and he sat me on top of the rocky peninsula. Then he kicked back and put several feet of water between us. Too much water…too much distance. “What the—”
“Go to bed, Drew.”
I felt like I’d been slapped. The rejection made its way into my chest. My pulse quickened, my heart pounded.
“Now?”
There was still passion in his eyes.
“Yes. Right now,” he said. His tone was so stern.
“But…”
“I’m not what you need. I’m stopping this before I hurt you.”
Hurt me?
“What does that even mean?” I asked.
He didn’t answer—not with words or an expression. He floated several strokes backward. “Go to bed.” Then he turned around, dropped his face into the water and swam toward the other side of the cove.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I DIDN’T KNOW HOW MUCH I had actually drunk or smoked the previous night, but it had been enough to knock me out and finally allow me to get some sleep. It also left me with a pretty nice-sized headache in the morning. Bella didn’t help with that…she woke me up before the alcohol had even left my system. But had I not partied, I probably wouldn’t have slept at all.