Where Sea Meets Sky: A Novel

by Karina Halle

  Josh seems to think the same thing. He pulls away, long enough for me to inhale sharply as I try to catch my breath, and tugs me to the side of the road, to a crop of trees. He spins me around and lifts me up until I’m pressed back against the smooth bark of a tall beech tree.

  I wrap my legs around him for stability, but he pushes them away and starts undoing the fly of my shorts. In seconds he’s pulled them and my thong down to my ankles, then I kick them off into the bushes. Part of me thinks he’s moving too fast, part of me thinks he’s not moving fast enough. My body aches for him and as soon as he undoes his jeans and takes his cock out, my cunt aches as well.

  There is no time to admire him under this soft sunshine. He poises the head at my opening and pushes in just as he bites down on my neck, groaning. I’m lucky I’m wet, because he’s as long and wide as I remembered, and he drives himself in deep with one hard thrust.

  I suck in my breath, my body trying to accommodate him, to accommodate the fact that Josh is fucking me against a tree in broad daylight. I’m still not sure how we went from arguing to this, but it feels so fucking good, I don’t care. The muscles in his back are tight under my fingers and my other hand disappears into his hair, tugging on the thick black strands until he moans against my skin, deep and guttural. I wrap my legs around him tighter, pulling him so he’s inside me to the hilt and I can feel the tickle of his balls against my ass. There is something so incredibly sexy about that.

  He pulls out, slowly, and I can’t help the moan that falls out of my mouth.

  “Wait,” he says, his voice manipulated by sex and desire. “You’re still on the pill, aren’t you?”

  I know he’s seen me taking them every morning. “Yes,” I reassure him. “Though it’s a bit late to ask; what if I had said no?”

  He grins at me, breathing hard. “I’d pull out right now and come all over your tits.”

  “And what’s in it for me?”

  “Oh trust me, sweetheart, you’d like it.”

  Sweetheart. He’s using that term again like he did in Vancouver. This is Josh’s sex talk. I love this side of him.

  He slams back into me and I let out a gasp.

  “You okay?” he murmurs against my mouth before thrusting hard again. It feels like he’s trying to nail me to the tree.

  I half-mumble, half-groan something and readjust my hold on his neck and back. I just want him to keep going.

  He does. Each pump is controlled and hard, slow and teasing, coming out until I feel empty inside and heavy and swift coming back in.

  “Do you feel me?” he whispers into my ear, his breath warmth, voice gruff.

  I can barely nod. I feel everything.

  He thrusts again and again. “How do I feel?”

  “Good.” I can’t tell if I’ve said it or just thought it loud enough. My eyes close and my head starts to bang against the tree trunk.

  His thumb goes to my clit and slides up and down with each thrust. “How about now?”

  My body is expanding, greedy, hungry, spurred by the hot, heady pressure on my clit. He rubs his thumb expertly, slickly, and it’s making me insatiable.

  “How do I feel now?” he repeats, determined for an answer.

  “Oh god, Josh,” I groan out, “just keep fucking me.”

  He bites my ear, tugging at it. “Just tell me. I want in deep. Do you want me deeper?”

  “Yes,” I cry out, my nails digging into him.

  “I want you to feel me.” His voice is now more hard than breathy, like he’s determined to pound me within an inch of my life. “I need you to feel me. Feel me fucking you, my cock so fucking deep you’ll never get enough.”

  His dirty fucking words and his heavy hitting are doing a number on me. That, combined with his fingers and the fact that we’re having hard sex on the side of the road that anyone could drive down at any moment, means I am seconds from coming. I can feel that wave coming, ready to flatten me to the ground and pull me under. The tide inside me starts receding as it builds.

  “Keep going, please,” I cry softly as the pressure builds to the breaking point.

  “Always,” he answers and the wave crashes. My whole body shudders, shatters, and I’m swept under that delicious riptide. As I tumble, my cries and moans and little utterances of orgasmic nonsense fill the air. I’m not sure which way is up and I don’t care if I sink or swim.

  Josh comes loudly, too, his thrusts harder and faster, and I can feel the heat of him as he pours inside of me. “Fuck,” he utters. “Fuck. Oh Jesus, oh Gemma you . . . you . . .” and his words fail him. He doesn’t have to continue. I understand. I feel the same.

  When the wave loosens and I pop up for breath, I realize I’m a sweaty mess, holding on to him like he’s a life raft keeping me afloat. He stares at me with a lazy, heated gaze and a smile tugs at his lips.

  I want to kiss him. I want to lie down in the grass and curl up beside him. Then I want to do that again and again and again until I’m raw and worn out and I don’t feel anything.

  Because right now, I feel something; everything.

  I swallow and look away from his softly probing eyes. The haze of sex and orgasm is wearing off and I carefully try to unhook my legs from around him. He gently pulls out and lowers me to the ground.

  “Excuse me,” I say to him and then disappear behind a bush to relieve myself. No one wants to walk up a hill with cum streaming down their legs.

  When I reemerge, he’s fastening the belt on his jeans and smiling. He looks like he’s just been laid. There’s the relaxed peace about him that I haven’t seen in a while.

  “I guess we should head back,” I say, nodding at the road. I walk over to it, avoiding him.

  He tries to reach for me anyway but I slip out of his grasp. “Where are you going?” he asks and I can hear the puzzlement in his voice. “What’s the rush? Stay and relax awhile.”

  Just then there’s the sound of crunching gravel, and at the bottom of the hill I see Hamish’s truck coming toward us. I step out into the road and wave at him.

  “Gemma,” I hear Josh say but Hamish is pulling the truck to a stop.

  “Did you guys have a nap or something?” Hamish asks, his arm hanging out of the window. “Come on in.”

  I smile my thanks to him and quickly get in the passenger side. I look over my shoulder at Josh but he’s standing there, his gaze jagged. He looks to Hamish. “Thanks, but I’ll walk. I could use it.” He nearly spits out those last words.

  I feel a sting but push it aside and close the door. The truck starts up the road and I avoid the side mirrors. I don’t want to see Josh walking through the wake of dust from the truck.

  I feel like a bitch. I am a bitch. We fucked and I bailed and that is so not what Josh deserves. But I don’t know how to keep sex as just sex, and I don’t know how to keep a friend as just a friend, and Josh is a friend and sex all rolled into one.

  And he’s something else, too, something that gets under my skin, and that’s the thing I’m afraid of discovering, the thing that wants to loosen my grip. If he gets too far under my skin, he’ll stay there.

  Chapter Sixteen

  JOSH

  I’ve never been so happy to leave a place in all my life. I sit down in the back of Mr. Orange and my leg bounces from nerves and it doesn’t stop until Gemma starts the engine and we’re pulling onto the road.

  Yesterday felt like the best day of my life combined with the worst. It went from fuckawesome to fucking terrible in a matter of minutes, but I guess that shouldn’t surprise me when I’m in a country where the weather can change at the drop of a hat and I’m with a woman who’s so fucking moody it’s like being around two different people.

  I still don’t know what went wrong. One minute we were having it out, yelling at each other in the middle of the road, and it was good, it was brilliant, beca
use finally Gemma was giving me something—her feelings, her fears. The fact that she actually cared what happened between me and Amber—it should have made me feel guilty but I only felt happiness. Here was the validation I needed, evidence that she cared.

  Then it led to hot-as-fuck sex, and I knew she could feel me, I knew I was in deep and she was letting me in. It was physical but it was the start. Everything I’d been holding inside I let loose into her. I wanted to fuck it out of her, her emptiness, her coldness, the person she hides behind.

  I thought I was succeeding.

  And then it was like that beautiful, soft, vulnerable light I saw shining in her was snuffed out. I didn’t expect her to start spooning me and whispering sweet nothings in my ear, but I also didn’t expect to see that blank chill in her eyes, for her to treat me like nothing had happened.

  Everything had just happened. Now she just wanted to sweep it under the rug. We fucked and that was that, and now we’re back to being extremely awkward around each other.

  But that’s not what I want. At this point I want more than just a hot fuck, but you know what, I’ll take more of that if I can get it. But she doesn’t even want to give in to the physical and it blows my mind because I know she came and loved every rough minute of it. She’s great at faking life but she can’t fake that.

  Naturally the rest of the day was all strained bullshit. She kept to herself and to Amber, and the closest I got to her was during dinner when we sat beside each other. She wouldn’t even look at me.

  Now we’re supposed to head up to Kaikoura before taking the ferry back to the North Island, and I’m having second thoughts. I can’t stand being in this bus anymore with her, and with the way things are, I’ve had enough, frankly. It’s too bad because, for all the mind games and craziness, she has an inner beauty that comes through when everything is just right; that beauty is the only reason I’ve been able to hang on for so long.

  But I’ve got my limits.

  “Hey Gemma,” I say as we roar down past the blue-harbored town of Akaroa. “How much do I owe you so far for the trip? You’ve paid for a bunch of things already.”

  She eyes me in the rearview mirror, seeming surprised that I’m talking to her. “I’m not sure. I’ll look, I have it written down on my phone.”

  “Can we stop by the nearest ATM?” I ask.

  She frowns slightly. “Of course, but I don’t need it right now.”

  I take in a deep breath. “That’s fine. And can you drop me off in Christchurch?”

  She blinks as if she doesn’t hear me. Amber turns around in her seat. “What are you talking about?” she asks.

  “I want to be dropped off in Christchurch. I think I’m going to do my own thing from now on. Maybe head down to Dunedin.”

  Gemma is watching me more than she’s watching the road. I meet her eyes for one second and she nearly flinches when she sees I’m serious. She looks back to the road and I watch as her knuckles grow white against the steering wheel.

  “Okay,” Gemma says in a small voice. “Shouldn’t we talk about this?”

  “Do you really want to talk about it?” I ask.

  Amber is looking between the two of us, chewing nervously on a strand of hair.

  “In private, sure,” Gemma says. “I’ll just pull over.”

  “Nah,” I say with a wave of my hand. “There’s no point. Just drop me off at Christchurch please, beside an ATM. I’ll pay you and we’ll part ways.”

  “Josh,” Amber says quietly. Her eyes are big and starting to water. “What happened? What did I do?”

  It’s sweet that she thinks it’s something she did.

  “You didn’t do anything,” Gemma says, and then she bites her lip, as if to prevent her from saying something else. I know what it is but she manages to choke back her pettiness. Gemma’s issues no longer have anything to do with Amber groping me, and they never even had anything to do with Nick. Gemma’s issues are all from her, and I just don’t have the fucking patience anymore to deal with it.

  I feel my chest harden and I like it. I hope it stays. Is this what it’s like to be her, to have this power where nothing can hurt you?

  “Amber, you’re awesome,” I tell her. “I just think it’s time for me to go.” There is so much more I want to elaborate on but I don’t want to air our dirty laundry. “The trip had to end sometime.”

  “But you’ll be alone at Christmas,” she protests.

  “It’s still better than being at home for Christmas, believe me.” I give her a placating smile. The poor thing seems to be taking this worse than Gemma, but that shouldn’t surprise me. “It’s all good, really. This is for the best. Might as well end on a high note.” Even though everything since that night at Key Summit has felt low.

  Suddenly Gemma brings the bus down a small road that hugs the edge of a stream. It starts to wind up, and I’m about to warn her about Mr. Orange’s inability to handle the hill, when she pulls over to the side and shoves the bus into park. She shuts the engine off and then jumps out of the van.

  For a moment I think she’s going to do something crazy again, like jump into the river, but she slides open the back door and climbs inside, grabbing my arm.

  “Come with me,” she demands, pulling hard. She’s fucking strong when she really wants to be, and I’m actually halfway off the seat before I pull back.

  “Why?”

  “We need to talk,” she says.

  “I really doubt it.”

  She tugs harder but her eyes grow softer and I see a hint of that light again. She’s begging, pleading with them. She’s desperate. So I relent.

  She leads me out of the bus and then slams the door shut. “We’ll be right back,” she yells at Amber and then leads me a few feet up the road. I pull out of her grasp but continue walking by her side.

  “Jesus, kung fu grip much?”

  When we’re far enough from the bus, she stops. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Why do you think?”

  She crosses her arms and looks away. “Just . . . don’t go. Please. Stay.”

  I love that she’s saying this but I don’t believe it.

  “Give me a reason to stay,” I tell her. “And I’ll stay.”

  She bites her lip. “Because I’m a fun person?” she asks unsurely.

  “You can be, when you’re not . . .”

  “Being a bitch?” she supplies.

  I shake my head. “I only use that word when I’m really fucking mad, and I’m not even mad anymore, Gemma. I’m just . . . I’m tired. I can’t figure you out for the life of me, and I don’t think you want me to try. Things are just so weird now and I think it’s best if I just go. You and Amber will be a lot happier without me.”

  “We won’t be,” she says, and I hear the sincerity in her voice. I have to ignore it. “Will you be?”

  I sigh and run a hand through my hair. “No,” I answer honestly. Because I don’t want to go, I just feel like I need to go. I need to move on and forget her and the big tangled mess I’ve gotten stuck in.

  She grabs my hand and squeezes it tight. “Then please don’t go. I know I have issues and I’m trying to deal with them and it’s not fair that you’re caught in the middle.”

  I step closer to her. “What are your issues?” I implore her.

  She shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know. Everything.”

  “Am I your issue?”

  She shoots me a quick glance but doesn’t say anything.

  I put my hand on her face, making her look at me again. “Am I your issue?”

  “I . . . I don’t want to become attached to you,” she says, and I can see it took a lot of effort to admit it.

  I frown though something inside me is growing warm. “Why not?”

  She balks like I asked a stupid question. “Because.” She sighs harshly. “A
ttachments hurt when they’re taken away. You’re leaving.”

  “So what?” I tell her. “I’m attached to you already and I’m still leaving. I almost left right now. Doesn’t mean that the pain negates everything, that none of this was worth it.”

  She swallows, looking surprised. “You’re attached to me?”

  I shake my head incredulously and run my thumb over her lips, marveling at how fucking clueless she is. “Gemma, Gemma, Gemma,” I murmur. “I told you how I feel about you. I told you why I’m here. Of course I’m attached to you. And I know very well that I’m leaving, but that isn’t stopping these feelings from happening. In fact, it only makes it sweeter, stronger, because I know we don’t have much time together.”

  She seems to take that in. I want her to believe it so badly. I have never in my life been so open with a girl. Always in the past it was my girlfriends or random chicks that wanted more from me, wanted a piece of me. I never wanted shit from them. But being with Gemma is like getting blood from a stone, and I may be a fool for trying but I finally understand what it’s like to be on the other side.

  She relaxes a bit, her eyes softening. I’m think I’m finally getting to her.

  “At the very least, we should be screwing each other’s brains out until I get on that plane,” I say with a smile, pressing my thumb into her wet mouth. I could definitely screw her right here. I spy some sturdy trees over her shoulder. If not, she could easily get on her knees and suck me off. She was good at that.

  She bites my thumb then pulls back. “So you’re not going.”

  “Are we going to screw each other’s brains out?”

  She smiles coquettishly, which makes my dick harder. “If you’d like.”

  “Sweetheart, it’s what you’d like,” I tell her. “And if I remember correctly, you liked it an awful lot.”

  She seems to consider that. She looks over at Mr. Orange. “Maybe we should wait until Amber’s not with us anymore, or at least until we’re at my mom’s and we’re not all cramped in the bus together.”