Page 18

The storm lashes against the window of Daniel’s room.

In the dim light, it feels like we’ve left the world behind and entered some liminal dream space where anything might happen.

He turns the deadbolt on the door, then walks towards me slowly.

I don’t break our gaze as I step out of my sweatpants, now dressed only in my bathing suit.

My heart is drumming in my chest. It’s been so long. Do I even know how to do this?

He stops a few inches from me and strokes my jaw with his thumb. Daniel’s breathing is even, his movements controlled; this is a man who is not in a hurry. I might not even know that he wanted me right now, except for the erection pushing against his pants.

‘Are you sure?’ he says.

I nod, mute.

‘If at any point you want me to stop—’ he says.

Without breaking eye contact, he peels down the top of my bathing suit. His eyes say, Still OK? and I send back yes .

Outside the window, the furious ocean rolls on to the beach in punishing waves. The wind beats at the glass, and our bodies are cast in grey light.

His gaze drops and tracks over me, taking in the fall of my breasts, still without touching. But my body responds as if he was, my breathing growing heavy, my nipples contracting, a dull pulse pounding between my legs.

Daniel tilts his head, his gaze returning to mine. ‘What do you want, Lily?’

I lick my lips. What do I want? A lot, suddenly. His tongue on my breasts. His mouth between my legs. His dick, as deep in me as he can get it. But all I can manage to say is, ‘You.’

The same way I just answered his question, What are you scared of? Maybe it’s always the thing we’re afraid of that we also want the most.

My head is swimming with heat. I’m very, very wet. Which I hope Daniel will discover very, very soon. I feel greedy for the moment his fingers discover how vigorously my body responds to him.

‘Come here,’ he says. He peels off my bathing suit the rest of the way, and we fall on to the bed together.

He pushes me on to my back and straddles my hips.

I run my hands up his muscled torso, taking him in– his solidity, the tattoo on his arm I can now see is a dragon with the tail curling around his forearm.

Slowly, I trail my finger over its lines.

Bracing his arms on either side of me, he leans in and gives me a look that says, You like what you see?

I sigh my agreement. Then, his mouth is on mine, warm and wet.

He kisses me with a slow, deep urgency. I can feel the promise of the weight of him hovering just above me, and I want it so bad, all of him, crashing down on me.

Instead, all I get is the brush of his chest, feather-light on my skin.

I arch my back so that my breasts push into him harder. I need you now.

He cups my neck with one hand as his kiss deepens, and then his hand moves down me, taking me in by touch– the swell of my breasts, the plane of my stomach, the tender, sensitive flesh between my legs—

Ah. His fingers slip into just the right place, and I groan.

Daniel in bed is just like Daniel out of bed.

Deliberate. Focused. There’s a wordless communication that somehow flows between us, and I know based on his micro-adjustments as he explores my body with his fingers, with his mouth, that he’s reading my every sigh, my every movement, learning from my reactions, zeroing in on what I want.

It doesn’t take long until a searing pleasure is burning between my legs, a sensation so close to pain I can hardly take it. Daniel’s strong, patient fingers and his capable tongue bring me to the edge.

As the burning becomes nearly unendurable, I cry out, ‘I can’t—’ because the feelings are so strong, and my body isn’t used to this any more, but he says, ‘You can. Let go,’ and that’s what sends me over.

‘Ahh—’ I gasp, and it’s all I can do to smother a scream as I fall into a release that feels like a sun-flare ripping through me in wave after wave, destroying everything but hot sensation.

It’s only after I’m whimpering in the aftermath, legs trembling, that Daniel takes his pants off and rolls on a condom. He lifts himself above me, powerful arms braced, and plunges in, angling our bodies just right so that each thrust hits that spot.

‘You’re going to make me come again,’ I whimper.

‘Good,’ he says with wolfish pleasure, as my body opens for him like a cloven fruit, my hips pushing up so that he can thrust even deeper.

I’m no longer in control of anything, least of all myself.

All I want is to be taken over by this– by him– by this devastating feeling that is more powerful than I am, that demands my utter surrender.

I cry out as my eyes squeeze shut, my body arching under his.

I have a moment of panic as I sense another mind-erasing crush of pleasure about to take me.

I could fight it. Try to stay in control.

But I let go, and in the release I’m gone, nothing but hot waves drowning me again, pushing me under to where life is nothing but this single moment of feeling.

*

Afterwards, we lie on his bed, the sheets cluttered around us, my body still thrumming. I’m on my stomach, he’s on his side, idly stroking my back.

Even the storm outside has calmed somewhat, as if the weather is somehow responding to the two of us.

I find myself… wordless. Utterly content to just lie here, being touched.

Time feels slow, generous, like it’s opened up a pocket of eternity for the two of us to rest in for as long as we want.

Daniel apparently doesn’t feel the need to talk, either, and I know without asking that we’re experiencing the same thing: the present.

A rare thing when I’m mostly either grieving the past or planning for the future.

Daniel’s fingers are light and agile on my skin as they dance over my spine. I stretch with a satisfied moan.

‘What’s this?’ His fingers stop their stroking.

I crane to look. Ah– that little area on my left forearm.

‘Just some old scars.’

‘Cooking oil?’

‘No.’ I rub the spot– just a sprinkling of white dots, like a constellation. Almost invisible now, unless you’re looking closely. ‘I don’t cook.’

‘Wait. Your catering business—’ he begins.

‘I know, I know. Jess was the chef. I ran the business side. You know, the contracts, the bookkeeping, the advertising. The boring part.’ I pause. ‘Obviously we have a new head chef now.’

His finger makes little circles over the scars. ‘What’s the story, then?’

‘Always the journalist.’

‘Or maybe you just fascinate me.’

I laugh and roll on to my side, pulling the sheet up around me.

‘It was the early days of our catering company. Jess got a deal on an industrial-sized coffee maker on eBay. But every time we tried to use it, we tripped the breaker. We didn’t have the money to hire an electrician, so I watched a few YouTube videos and…

’ I realize I’m smiling. Which, considering it’s a memory of Jessica, feels…

different. Good . ‘I went into the electrical panel to bypass the breaker, and it was filthy. Like, so dirty. So I got a wire brush to clean the lug. The brush accidentally shorted out to ground, and there was a huge spark, and basically I got showered with molten metal.’

‘Holy shit,’ says Daniel.

‘I know. It ruined my favourite Beatles T-shirt. And it also got me between the electrical gloves and my sleeve.’

He grins. ‘I had a sense that you were the handy type.’

‘I wouldn’t call myself handy. It’s more like I do what has to get done.

’ I pause, taking in Daniel’s incredible body.

Solid, with a smattering of dark hair across his broad chest. And I realize that I barely know a thing about this man.

I wag a playful finger. ‘You’re really good at getting me to talk, mister, but you don’t talk much yourself, do you? ’

‘Occupational hazard.’

‘Tell me something about you. Are you handy?’

His grin turns mischievous. ‘Well, didn’t you think so?’

‘No, really!’ I swat him. ‘Do you own a tool box? Can you use a wrench?’

He grins again, but then clears his throat and knits his eyebrows like he’s decided to behave.

‘Um, let’s see. I’ve replaced a faucet. Caulked a bathtub. Do you want the whole CV?’

‘Plus references.’ I laugh, and so does he. ‘Here’s a better question. Why journalism?’

He rolls on to his back, and now it’s my turn to scootch over and prop myself above him, trailing my fingers down his chest, swirling my fingertips through the hair.

‘The short answer? Conviction. The world needs people who are willing to tell the real story.’

‘No rose-coloured glasses,’ I say.

‘No.’ He loses his gaze in the ceiling.

‘You say that like you’re sad.’

He readjusts his body, putting his hands behind his head, which highlights the musculature of his arms.

‘I made a mistake, once upon a time,’ he says.

For once, instead of looking at me, he looks somewhere to the right of my face.

‘I… let something drop that I should have pursued. I listened to my boss instead of my conscience. People got hurt. I blame myself.’ His eyes flick back to mine, and though normally I’m good at reading emotion, I can’t quite read him.

I squint. ‘Did this “matter of conscience” happen at your current job? Fit Life ?’

‘Before Fit Life . But you know? I learned from it. I realized that the truth isn’t just about me and my conscience, or me being able to sleep at night.

It’s about all of us. It’s a responsibility we have to each other.

Any time we betray that responsibility, the ripples are far-reaching.

I promised myself I’d never compromise again.

’ He stops short for a second. ‘And I haven’t. ’

‘Well.’ I lay my palm flat on his chest and feel the solid beat of his heart. ‘I guess the important thing is to learn from our mistakes, huh?’