by Marni Mann
“Yeah.”
“Here?”
“No one will see you.”
“No one but you.”
He leaned against the side of the boat, bending over to untie his shoes. He looked up through his lashes with a mischievous grin on his lips. “Right. No one but me.”
I ignored the flutter that sparked in my lower stomach and reached for the collar of my sweatshirt. He was getting undressed as quickly as I was. And even though I was occupied with the task, my hands busy, my nerves building, I still stole glances at him.
Whenever Saint had been in the water, he’d worn nothing more than a pair of trunks. Here on his boat, he seemed more exposed than any of those occasions. Maybe that was because he’d yanked his clothes off with a rushed, forced movement, making each of his muscles tighten. And he wasn’t hidden by the darkness of the water. The lights from the dock lit up his skin. His gray boxer briefs clung to his thighs and forced the outline of his dick.
His eyes met mine as he turned around. “Zip me up…”
He knew he’d caught me staring—we both did, and his expression showed it. Instead of trying to make up an excuse for my gawking that would only embarrass me more, I hastily slid behind him, relieved to have a few seconds to hide my blushing. The ink that covered his entire back peeked through the opening of the suit. This was the first time I’d really gotten a chance to examine the details of the piece: there was shading beneath each bar, confined space inside the cages. They were dramatic symbols for him to have permanently placed on his body.
“Why cages?” I asked.
“Long story—not one that’s worth sharing tonight.”
Another question that wouldn’t be answered. They were starting to collect.
The cages seemed to represent his emotions pretty specifically. I knew they could be used to describe mine.
I gently grabbed the zipper, my fingers brushing over his skin while I pulled the gap closed. I felt his body constrict from the pressure. Mine did, too. And it tightened once again when he turned around, and I met the liquid caramel of his irises. The movement sent me his smell, and I felt it warm my skin as I stood in the open air in only my bra and panties.
His eyes didn’t dip past my pupils. “Let me help you.”
My mouth opened to answer him, but as soon as I felt his skin again, it closed. His hands surrounded mine and carefully pulled the suit out of my grip. He kneeled on the floor and held the opening in front of my feet.
“Hang on to me so you don’t fall,” he said.
I rested my hand on his shoulder, and I stepped into the suit. He slowly raised the fabric up my legs, past my panties and over my stomach, pausing for me to slip my arms in. His eyes remained on my face in spite of how little my bra actually covered. When the suit was up to my neck, he moved behind me to zip the back. His breath hit my bare skin. His fingers grazed and lingered much longer than they needed to. I closed my eyes and did everything I could not to lean into his body.
This was the first time a guy had ever put clothes on me, rather than take them off. It was still such an exhilarating experience.
Before he returned to my front, he clasped my hand in his and led me to the back of the boat. I expected him to jump off, diving into the deep water and I would follow closely behind. Instead, he stepped over the side and held onto the dock until he had the right footing, then he straddled the Jet Ski that was tied to the boat.
“We’re not going swimming?” I asked.
Once he got settled on the seat, he reached for me. “Not yet. Give me your hand.”
I fastened my fingers around his, and let him guide me over the wall until I was seated directly behind him. My legs pressed against his, my chest rubbed into his back. He untied the rope that held us in place and started the engine.
“Hold on,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Don’t let go of me.”
I moved my hands to his waist and squeezed. “Okay.”
He started off slowly until we moved past the boat and the dock and into the open water. The moon glistened off the top of each wave. The air sailed past our faces, sending the freshness of Maine and the spice of his cologne into my mouth. The breeze made my eyes tear. My ponytail flapped after each dip, pieces of hair tickling my cheeks. Once again, I was weightless, out of control.
I liked the feeling of both.
His hands covered mine to move my palms up his body until they stopped on his chest. “Squeeze here and use your arms to hold onto me.”
He leaned up a little so I could get a better grip. As soon as he felt my fingers and arms clinging to him, he circled some of the waves he had created and prepared to jump. His muscles tightened, giving me a warning and a little more stability. The Jet Ski sprang into the air at least a few feet, freefalling right back into the water. My whole body reacted, shaking with fear at first, then I screamed from the excitement. The thrill of being so high up, and with Saint…it completely consumed me.
“Again!” I said as we landed.
He laughed and tucked his hands under my thighs, surrounding my legs with his fingers to pull me even closer. The jump had shifted us a bit, but now I was fully straddling his ass. “Stay close to me.”
The rush was just as intense the second time and the third. But my body no longer stiffened in anticipation for the jump or the fall. It loosened, relaxing into Saint, allowing him to guide me into the air and to bear my weight as we descended. My eyes closed; there was nothing but darkness around me. But there was plenty to feel…in my hands, against my face, on the inside of my thighs. And just when I began to fully lose myself in his movements, completely releasing every bit of tension that had been caged inside, he killed the engine. Silence enveloped us. He stood, lifting his leg and swinging it over so he balanced on one side of the Jet Ski. Then he dove into the water.
“Come join me,” he said after he surfaced.
I couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead. It was impossible to find his face. We were in a small pocket where the moon didn’t reach. But I knew how far away he was. I could feel him, sense him, like always.
I reached my hands over my head and closed my eyes again. I took a deep breath, the freezing air rushing into my lungs. Something was suddenly different. It was the feeling that filled me. The sensation hadn’t been there earlier, or yesterday, or even in the last few months. I wasn’t free. I wasn’t even close to it. But I felt lighter…much lighter, actually. And when my face hit the water, I let it sink into the depths, the vast liquid darkness swallowing me until I was fully submerged.
The wetsuit protected my limbs and core, but my hands and feet felt the change in temperature and it cooled the rest of me. When I finally surfaced, Saint’s hands were at my sides, sliding around the length of the suit and my back.
I tried to control my chattering teeth. “It’s so cold in here.”
“I don’t even feel it,” he said calmly. “I just feel you.”
It was too dark to see his eyes, but I sensed his need. It was in his voice, his fingers, the breath that came from his mouth.
I gnawed at my bottom lip and sucked on its edge to keep my teeth still. His thumb stopped me, pushing its way into my mouth. His face moved closer. Then his teeth bit down on me, his lips wrapping around mine, his tongue teasing just the inside rim. My arms swished through the water, my feet gently kicking while I let his kiss resonate inside me. But he was gone almost as quickly as he had come. A small space now separated us.
“You taste as good as you feel,” he said.
Something kept me from wrapping my legs around his waist, from reaching for the zipper on his suit. It wasn’t just the thought of him with another woman earlier tonight, but all the women he had probably been with this week. Just yesterday, I had caught him in the alley. There had been so many girls…and he hadn’t wanted any of them to be me. I never smelled their lingering scent on his breath or on his skin, but it didn’t prevent me from knowing that they’d been there.
I’m not wha
t you need, Drew. I’m stopping this before I hurt you.
I didn’t want to be just another girl to him. But a part of me wanted to feel that hurt, that pain from when he would leave the next morning and never return. Anything would have felt better than the sense of loss that continuously dropped my feet out from beneath me and left my heart plummeting through nothingness. At least I could enjoy that sparkling moment of silence that he always brought. I could lose my mind for a little while by giving him control of it.
I’d find my breath and release a moan all at the same time.
As much as I tried to make myself believe I could handle casual sex with him, I didn’t think I really could. I knew I would end up with feelings for him.
I already had.
“Kiss me,” he demanded.
He waited for a response, a movement, a glimmer of compliance. When I didn’t give any, he leaned into my face again and I pressed my forehead against his to stop him. We stayed there for several seconds, our breath passing back and forth, heat mixing from his lips to mine. I wanted his mouth. But I knew that if I took it, I would only want more.
“Maybe we should go back,” I whispered.
“To the boat?”
I nodded. His forehead tapped against mine.
“Is something wrong?”
“Everything…how’s that for an answer?”
He sighed, his fingers gripping my cheeks as more of his warmth spread over me. He tilted his head back and even though I couldn’t see his eyes, I could feel them. They slid down to my nose, over my lips and back up. “I can’t give you what you want.”
“I—”
“No, let me finish,” he said. “I know you didn’t ask for this, but I’m giving you my answer, finally, so listen to it.” His fingers tightened, and he paused between breaths. “I’m fucked up, Drew. You don’t want that. You shouldn’t want anything to do with me.”
“I’m fucked up, too.” I placed my hands on his chest. “Don’t you see that? You have to…it’s impossible not to.”
More silence. More breathing. Waves splashed around us, but neither of us spoke. The salty water entered my mouth and I didn’t spit it out. I didn’t move.
“I shouldn’t have brought you here. I…should have left you alone,” he said.
“But you didn’t.” I was pushing. “So what are we doing?”
He hadn’t released me. If anything, his hands squeezed me even harder. I could feel his truth hovering between us. It was on the verge of spilling and, since I couldn’t use my eyes, I tried to use my fingers to hurry it along, to let him know if he told me his, I’d tell him more of mine. It never came. And as time seemed to pass between us endlessly, the intensity of the moment began to die. When it was completely extinguished, he turned his back to me and swam toward the Jet Ski.
“No,” I said, grabbing his arm before he could plunge it into the water. He stopped swimming and started treading. Even if I didn’t like what he had to say, I needed to hear it. I wasn’t going to let him shut down again. “You have to talk to me, Justin. Please.” I thought using his real name would make a difference, that it would show him I wanted us to get beneath the surface.
His arm extended across the water, latching onto mine and pulling me to him. His back was pressed against the base of the Jet Ski, using it to hold him up.
“You keep saying you’re going straight back to Florida once the house is sold.” His voice was so stern. “You’re just going to run away from me like everyone else.”
“Saint, I—”
“I won’t let anyone else leave me again, Drew. No one. I won’t let another fucking door get slammed in my face.”
My thoughts shifted to Rae and how she’d told me I needed to ask Saint about his parents. “Who left you?”
There was so much pain in the way he gripped me and I had seen it so often in his eyes. It resonated with what I felt inside.
“Everyone.” His voice turned hoarse. “Everyone but my grandparents.”
“I know how that feels. You know I do.”
“That’s not going to keep it from happening, though, is it?” I knew I didn’t have the right answer. I sensed he knew that, too. “I didn’t think so.”
“I…don’t know, Saint. I have too many gaps in my own life to help fill in anyone else’s.” He said nothing. “I can promise you one thing. I won’t ever lie to you.” I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t leave. But I could offer this, at least.
He reached his hand around my side, just below my ribs. I expected his grip to be hard and rigid, but his fingers were soft and tender. “No one has had a chance to. Not in a long time. I don’t let them.”
Tourists.
It made much more sense now.
Those women couldn’t leave him because he left them first. I knew what a hole felt like and how desperate people got to fill it. I was filling mine. Swimming helped, and drinking. Was unattached sex what filled Saint’s?
The tourists would have probably pressed their bodies against him, rested their lips over his, and spread their legs to the outside of his thighs. They would have made promises with their tongues. I did none of that.
“I’m not like those girls,” I said.
“I know you’re not. And I don’t want you to be.”
Something passed between us, more than just an understanding… more than just the heat of our hands on each other. It was possibility. A chance to see what would happen without the heavy expectations that came with a promise.
It was the place where we needed to start: At the beginning.
Since I was a child, I’d watched the most beautiful flowers that my parents had planted sprout from the tiniest of seeds. That’s what Saint and I were now, two seeds, new and hopeful and delicate, hoping to push through the soil and develop into something greater. Neither of us was guaranteed that something good would happen or where we might end up. The best we could do was try.
I took his face in my hands and gently pressed my lips against his cheek. Then I grazed it with my nose. “Stay away from those girls. For me.”
“I told you, stop listening to him.”
“I know, but—“
“What you saw yesterday? That was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
I took a deep breath. “You need to know…” I pressed my lips onto his again. “There isn’t anyone else. Just you.”
He lifted me onto the seat of the Jet Ski and mounted it in front of me. “That’s exactly what I needed to hear,” he whispered over his shoulder. Then he started the engine and we sped off toward home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MY DEAREST MOTHER,
Drew graduated from high school this afternoon. When I watched her walk across the stage, holding that scroll in her hands, I was filled with such pride. My baby. My little girl. She isn’t so little anymore. She’s eighteen and beautiful, full of life and energy, charisma and spirit. She has a soul like I’ve never felt, like I’ve never witnessed. She lights up, she glows. She’s stunning.
I raised her right, Mom. I pushed her, hoping she would surpass me, and she did. Her diploma trumps my GED; her acceptance to the University of Florida is greater than anything I’ve ever accomplished. Mine may not have been a success story, but my daughter’s will be and that tells me that, in spite of everything, I did something right.
She’s going to be a photographer. You should see the photos she takes, and the way she enhances them on the computer. She’s so talented. I knew she’d be creative, but I never believed she would be able to make a career out of it. She can, though. She’s that good. I always had to work for everything I had, for everything I did. But this comes to her so naturally, so easily
I’ve watched her closely, I’m strict, and I’m hard on her. I’m not going to let her make the same mistakes I did. So far, she hasn’t. She’s stayed out of trouble. She didn’t allow anything to stop her from pursuing her dream. She has a goal, and a plan to make it happen. She’s strong willed and independent and c
onfident enough to see it through.
In other words, she’s nothing like me.
I think we’re both thankful there isn’t another teen pregnancy in the family.
As for me, I sleep much more peacefully knowing she’ll be attending college and furthering her education. And there’s satisfaction in knowing that my hard work will allow me to pay her tuition, that she won’t have to get a job while she’s in school. She’ll be able to focus only on her dream and emerge without debt, without restrictions. With freedom and peace of mind. Knowing I can give her that means every sacrifice I’ve ever made was worthwhile.
That’s what a mother does for her children.
She never stops providing for them. She never stops supporting them. A mother never stops being a mother, despite the decisions her child makes.
And she never stops loving them, regardless of their mistakes.
Your daughter,
Rebecca
***
The letter dropped from my hands, slowly fluttering along unseen currents of air before it hit the kitchen floor. Standing above it, I stared down at the words. Her words. In the minute or so that it took me to read that short note, I realized how much I didn’t know about the woman who wrote it. I knew that she’d graduated high school, that she’d left Maine after graduation…that her parents had died when I was child.
All I knew were the lies.
She’s nothing like me.
She was trying to prove herself, her parenting, the success she’d had in raising me. But now I wondered if those letters were really sent to keep Marilyn up-to-date on my progress, or if they were a way for my mom to feel better about herself. She sounded bitter. Resentful. There was an evolution in her tone in the fifteen years that had passed between the notes.
She never stops providing for them. She never stops supporting them. A mother never stops being a mother, despite the decisions her child makes.
And she never stops loving them, regardless of their mistakes.