She nodded. That quilt must've been damn fascinating for the attention she paid it. Through the open window, I heard crickets and cicadas, water lapping the shore, wind rustling the trees. It was a calm, cool night and the sky was a dark velvet cloak studded with millions of jewels, just the way I liked it. And this woman, the one who had the world on a string and knew everything about everything, couldn't make sense of her needs.
I liked her most of all.
"Is that what you're craving?" I asked. "Some anonymity?"
"No," she replied. "That's not—no. That's not it." She started to shake her head but stopped herself. She lifted her chin, met my gaze. "Maybe it is. Maybe I don't want to be accountable. Even if it's dangerous. Even if it's reckless exhibitionist sex in a car. And maybe…maybe I don't know what it is."
"Then, let me help you find it."
She studied me as if she had to press my words through a sieve to understand them. Then, she held out her hand to me and said, "I'd like that."
I took her hand as she climbed onto the bed. We met in the middle. I shoved my fingers through her silky hair and tasted her lips for the first time in too long.
There wasn't going to be any headboard banging tonight. No sex toys, no up-market lube. No claw marks on my back, no hair pulling. Despite the possessive caveman in my head who'd wanted to sit Neera on my cock no fewer than ninety-six times today and even contemplated defiling the kitchen table, sharing a bed without the possibility of sex excited me more than anything we'd shared last night.
"Me too," I said.
* * *
This time,the jetlag was to blame.
I woke up much later than I'd intended and found the sun high in the sky and the waters of Talbott's Cove shimmering through the lace-curtained window. True to form, Neera had smoothed the sheets on her side, tugged her half of the quilt up, and nestled her pillows against the pine headboard exactly as we'd found them yesterday.
Once I'd checked the time—good fuck, it was almost noon—and posted a sleepy-face selfie to Instagram—that shit was follower wildfire—I made the bed and stumbled across the hall to the shower.
Cole and Neera were in the kitchen as promised. I didn't see them, but there was no missing the debate in progress. I spoke enough languages to get around this planet, but I couldn't make sense of a word they were saying.
While I waited for the shower to warm up, I studied the cramped bathroom with its vintage tiles and porthole window. Neera lived in a small, bland apartment and Cole and his husband had a bathroom straight out of the seventies. The better part of me admired the fact these people lived simply despite their staggering wealth. The smaller, grouchier part of me wondered how anyone with their money—not to mention a private airstrip for their private jet—could put up with a sluggish water heater.
My family didn't know the first thing about living simply. Though I'd never analyzed it deeply, I knew my desire to stay close to nature and make my own way was a reaction to them. They knew it too. Thankfully for all involved, my work earned me enough acclaim for them to regard me as an eccentric artist rather than a finger-painting nomad. Eccentric was fashionable; finger-painters and nomads were not. They weren't going to disown me or force me to eat my Christmas Eve meal in the potting shed, but me finding moderate success as an artist made it easier on them.
I washed and dressed as I knocked around the idea of Neera meeting my family. Traveling with me to Brazil, back home to the Morumbi district of São Paulo. Introducing her as my…as mine. They'd embrace her, I was sure of it. They'd see smart, savvy Miz Malik and they'd think she kept my ass in order.
I wasn't certain either of us were anywhere close to orderly.
I spotted Owen entering the kitchen from the back deck at the same time I came around the corner from the hall. A worn ballcap hid his eyes and the print on his t-shirt was long since sun-bleached away. He gestured for me to follow him around the island. Cole and Neera stood shoulder to shoulder at the far end of the table, bent over two iPads. They were deep in discussion, cutting each other off and jabbing fingers at the devices without noticing either of us.
"Heading out now?" I asked him.
"Been out, up the coast, off to the fish market, and back again," he replied. "My day's half over but I wanted to stop in and feed these two. If I didn't, they'd forget and then we'd have real problems on our hands. My husband is irrational when he's hungry." He pushed a glass of iced coffee in my direction. "I'm going to check a couple of traps soon, if you want to come along."
While I was interested in getting a view of the landscape from the sea and I knew Owen required no conversation, I needed to wander. A boat wasn't room enough to wander. "I want to take you up on that offer," I started, "but I think I'll stay on land today."
He nodded toward Neera and Cole on the other side of the room. "They'll be tied up for the next four or five hours. Go. I'll tell her you're settled."
I set off from the house with a backpack stocked with water, snacks, and enough sketch paper, pencils, and charcoal to occupy me for a month. Due to recent developments with a certain lady, I kept a small sculpting kit tucked into the front pocket. Couldn't risk encountering the urge to carve another bird without having the right tools on hand.
Salt water and forest scented the warm summer air and it tasted like rebirth. Once again, I knew who I was and how to exist in this world. I meandered down trails both marked and unmarked, sat on felled trees until my ass was numb, watched deer cavorting in the distance. I picked up branches and rocks, drew nineteen different renditions of the jagged coastline, walked through the town's picket fence neighborhood and heartbeat village. I stopped into a bookstore and bought reading material on the area's pre-Columbian history after talking with the shopkeeper, a delightful woman who seemed to have several graduate degrees'-worth of information to share.
Armed with new insight, I found a large, flat rock overlooking the shore and filled an entire sketchbook with the bounty around me. I didn't acknowledge the cramp in my fingers until reaching into my backpack for my spare sketchbook. I laughed at my stiff claw of a hand and hauled my ass off the rock. It was time to put the pencil down if I wanted use of this hand later—which I did.
I respected the hell out of Neera's boundaries and limits. I also respected my cock's desire to get inside her many more times before returning to California.
I picked my way through the woods and along the shoreline, collecting stones and stray bits of driftwood that intrigued me. I was busy turning a bit of old, knotted wood over in my palm when I bumped into a large outcropping of granite. I stopped, staring at the rock for a long moment. Earth and moss hid most of it, but the exposed portion angled toward the horizon, rough and harsh and amazing.
I wanted Neera to see this with me, if for no reason other than seeing the incredible things hiding in plain sight.
I turned in a circle as I looked up at the forest's canopy, imagining the way it would filter the moonlight, the shadows it would cast. The way Neera's dark skin would glow. I wanted her here. Draped over the rock. Kneeling, the earth staining her skin. Would she still savor being seen if the only ones watching the show were the animals and the trees and the sky?
