At the Water's Edge (21 page)

“It’s ‘us’ now, is it?” More poison coming from my mouth.

“You have to drop the defensive act. If you want something good to come out of your return home, you have no choice.” She stares at me, her eyes as ink-black as the night sky. “If you want ‘us’”—emphasis where I didn’t expect it—“to have a chance, you need to let your guard down. And stop feeling so ganged up on, as though the entire world is against you, because, let me assure you, that silly notion only exists in your head. Nowhere else.”

“It’s just,” I start, tapping into the last ounce of energy burning away in my body, “the way they were sitting there, as though Nina leaving didn’t matter anymore, after all those years—”

Kay tilts her chin, lightly shaking her head. “You don’t know what they talked about after you left. You can never know what goes on in another person’s mind, Ella. Stop wasting your energy on trying to predict someone else’s thoughts. It’s as pointless as it gets.”

Perhaps falling in love with someone like Kay is exactly what I needed. Someone I have a sizable emotional investment in who actually makes me register the things she says, as opposed to just acknowledging them, hearing them briefly, the sound of the words sitting in my ear for a moment, before falling away because I always know better. How could I not? It’s always been this way, ever since I can remember. This is how I’ve lived my life. Gauging other people. Filling in the silence. The little bit of confidence I do have, built with the wrong bricks. But mainly, through the years, ever since I first spotted that cold hard glare in my mother’s eyes when she looked at my dad—sometimes even at me or Nina—I’ve been afraid of everything.

“Come on.” Kay curves her arm around my shoulder again. “Enough therapy for you for one day.” Slowly, we head toward the lodge, this haven of escape, this place where Kay and I originated—where she fucked me against her bedroom door.

“Were you planning on majoring in psychology at UT?” I ask as Kay unlocks the door.

“No, silly.” That sparkle in her eye again. “Engineering.”

I chuckle, releasing some of the tension coiling beneath my stomach.

“How about I draw you a bath?”

“If I believed in some deity in heaven,” I clasp my hand solemnly to my chest, “I’d be sure he or she sent you to Earth especially to save me.” I grab Kay’s wrist and pull her close. She has that glint in her eyes again. From the way she hesitates to reply, I can tell she wants to say something I may not want to hear—again. “It’s okay. As long as you draw me that bath, you can say it.”

“Just one more thing.” She inches closer, a mere inch of space left between our bodies. “I watched you interact with your family tonight, and I know you’re someone who doesn’t like to say things out loud. You prefer to let them fester until they burst out of you, the words tumbling out of you in an explosion of poison. One of the first things my dad taught me was to not go to bed with thoughts that bothered me. When I was little, he made me say them out loud while he tucked me in. There’s so much power in saying something out loud, Ella, before it has the chance to turn sour. So, from now on, when you spend the night in my bed, let’s do the same. Before you go to sleep, you need to give me a list of all the things that bothered you that day.”

“That should make for some special pillow talk.”

“And none of those wisecracks either.”

“Or what?”

“I’m serious, Ella. If you want to be with me, you have to make an effort.”

“I’m sorry.” I lean my forehead against hers. “Deal.”

With her index finger, Kay lifts up my chin. “Good.” Her entire face smiles at me, eyes included. “Now go take off your clothes.”

* * *

The bathroom of the lodge is old-fashioned, pale orange tiles from the eighties on the walls, cupboards that don’t close properly underneath the sink. But it doesn’t matter, because I have my eyes closed, the back of my head leaning against the edge of the tub, my body surrendering to the hot water, not an inch visible from underneath the mountain of foam piled on top of me.

Despite being so tired I can barely think, my mind goes there. Kay’s fingers. This morning. And the look in her eyes when she slipped them inside. Without thinking, I let my hand wander down, the memory of Kay’s fingers an irresistible turn-on.

“Why don’t you let me take care of that.”

Startled, I open my eyes and see Kay standing in the doorway, her body slanted against its wooden frame, a smile on her lips so seductive it takes my breath away. Kay doesn’t wait for my response. With light footsteps, she crosses over to the tub and positions herself on the edge, disregarding the foam and how wet it will leave her clothes.

Under water, her hand finds mine—stopped in its tracks—and above, her eyes lock on me. In them, I see her desire for me glimmer with unmistakable fierceness, and that lust, for a moment, erases everything else from my mind. The way Kay wants me, how she can’t hide it, how it’s all over her face right now. It has the power to mend at least some of the wounds in my soul left by years of insecurity and doubt.

The water splashes softly around Kay’s arm and, already, I’m spreading wide for her, my knees knocking against the sides of the tub, my pelvis floating on a bed of water, reaching up for her.

The tension of the day seems to have gotten to Kay as well. The path her finger takes is clear, not allowing for distractions, going straight for my clit.

“I want you to come for me,” she says, a hint of something in her voice I can’t place. Desperation or demand? “Once now and once later.”

Her words may as well be a thrust of three fingers inside of me, that’s how much they make my pussy contract—but Kay doesn’t give me that satisfaction. Not yet. Instead, the meaty part of her finger is insistent on my clit, applying pressure under water, which creates an entirely different sensation than this morning, when she made me come at her fingers for the very first time. She circles her finger with the confidence of someone certain of the fact she’ll get what she came for. Someone so solid in the knowledge that she can tip me over the edge with just a few tiny flicks that, just the sight of her, the set of her jaw and the self-assuredness in her eyes, is enough. With Kay, there’s no room for questioning. If she wants it to happen, it will happen. In that, I’m hers.

“
Now
, Ella.” The insistence of her finger has made its way into her voice, in her eyes, as she demands my pleasure, and I know that this climax is only half due to what her hand is doing under water. The other half, the most satisfying, core-shattering half of it, happens because of us. Because of this unexpected change of air between us. Because of how she talks to me. Because of what we have together.

“Oh.” I clasp my hands around the edge of the tub, holding on as my body disappears under water. “Oh fuck.”

When I open my eyes, the satisfaction is visible on Kay’s face. Reassured of the power she has over me, she cocks her head and blinks once. “That was number one.”

My limbs no longer feel as though all they want to do is sink into a soft mattress and rest. I can’t wait for number two.

Kay stands and picks a towel off a rack next to the door. She opens it wide, indicating she has no plans to wait long to make me climax for the second time. Once I’m wrapped in the towel, she presses herself against me and leans in for a kiss.
I still haven’t tasted her
, I think, when our lips meet. With the way she seems to love bossing me around, I wonder if I ever will.

“Go into the bedroom,” she says, when we break apart. “Don’t fall asleep. I’ll be right there.”

I hear the sound of splashing water as I make my way into Kay’s bedroom and, still snugly wrapped in the towel, fighting against sleep after the climax and the warm bath, lie down. Against my will—because I want what Kay has in store for me much more than sleep—I can feel my body go limp the instant I touch down on the bed.
Emotional fatigue is just as draining as the physical kind
, Dr. Hakim once said. I now know what he means. Everything that has happened today flashes in quick pulses through my mind. My fingers inside of Kay. Nina’s arrival. The burn of the whiskey. Kay’s fingers inside of me. Bringing Nina home. The cemetery. The Attic. The bathtub. One more lazy blink of my eyelids, and I’m drifting off—ready to give my tired brain the time to digest.

“What did I tell you?” The stern quality in Kay’s voice startles me awake. She saunters closer. “You can sleep all day tomorrow if you want, but tonight, I need you to be mine.” The way the word ‘need’ comes out, indicates a desire I haven’t yet seen in Kay. Maybe it’s how she deals with overly emotional days, with the memory of loss, and grief. Maybe she really does need me to belong to her.

It’s hardly a chore for me to blink myself fully awake. Kay has stripped off her clothes and her skin smells freshly washed. We’ve cleaned the day off us. It’s time for the night.

“Sit up.” Need and tenderness do battle in her voice, and it’s exactly that blend that grips me by the throat—that would make me do anything for her. The towel falls off as I push myself up.

A darkness builds in Kay’s eyes. A need so great it frightens me a little, but not as much as it exhilarates me. “I’m going to make you come and you’re going to watch.” She turns her head away and looks into the mirror that hangs on the wall across from the bed. “I need you to see.” With her hand, she pats the spot next to her, indicating where she wants me.

I shuffle over, a fresh burst of energy flaring in my muscles.

“Spread your legs.” Kay’s voice is shot to pieces by emotion, reflecting perfectly how I feel inside.

I let my knees fall to either side, exposing myself to the room, to Kay, and the mirror. Kay sits next to me, her body glued to mine in a sideways position, one hard nipple poking into my upper arm, her rasp of a voice in my ear.

“Look at yourself,” she commands.

I glare at myself in the mirror, hesitantly at first, so self-conscious I want to avert my eyes. I see two women intertwined, Kay’s hand caressing my inner thigh, half of her body covering my side. I stare into the blue of my own eyes and the dullness that used to greet me, cold hard morning after cold hard morning, is no longer there. I see fire, lightning, and love.

“Follow my hand with your eyes.” Kay’s voice has gone very quiet, but her lips are on my ear and every word registers loud and clear.

I lock my gaze on the motion of her hand. It trails upwards, closer, and I can’t help but look at my own glistening pussy lips. A strange sensation takes hold of me, a foreign sort of arousal, the excitement of a new discovery saturating my blood. This arousal is not triggered by looking at my own intimate parts, but by Kay’s approaching fingers. Two. Feather light on the sensitive skin of my inner thighs. Barely touching me, but inching closer.

“Watch me fuck you,” she whispers, and it’s enough to make my breath stall in my throat in a hiccup of excitement.

First, she spreads my pussy lips with two of her fingers. Every vessel in my body seems to be pumping blood toward my clit, toward where Kay’s fingers are headed—as though as much of me as possible wants to greet her there.

“Jesus,” I groan, when the tip of one finger slips inside of me. I’m so wet, I barely feel it, but my eyes are witness to it, and the recruitment of a different sense sparks immediate pleasure in my flesh.

I watch as more of Kay’s finger disappears inside of me, her arm crossing the pale skin of my upper body, the contrast of it making me see much more than how she fucks me. I see two women in this mirror: one giving, one receiving. And, although it’s Kay’s finger sliding deeper inside me, the ragged whoosh of her breath in my ear, how it stops and starts in sync with the motion of her hand, tells me that, to her, giving equals receiving.

Kay adds another finger, two digits parting my pussy lips in the mirror in front of me, but I’m distracted by her moans in my ear, by how they get interrupted by speech as she starts to say something. “I—” she begins, but doesn’t finish.

“Say it,” I hiss between my teeth, between the bucking of my pelvis, between the bursts of pleasure igniting between my legs. “Tell me.”

“I’m so in love with you.” I can barely make out the words through her breathy sighs and the sounds now emanating from my own mouth, yet, they’ve pierced my flesh and lodged themselves in my heart already.

As though saying it needs to be countered by upping my pleasure, Kay adds another finger. My eyes seem to go as wide as my pussy spreads for her. Kay’s words in my ear, her fingers in my cunt, working me, finding something inside of me—just like, when I arrived at West Waters, she saw something in me I had failed to see for years.

Kay doesn’t have to ask me to come this time. With part of her buried so deep inside of me, while her body embraces me, and her face is so close to mine, I’m there without demands needing to be made.

“Oh fuck,” I stammer, again, for the second time in the past hour, as the pleasure crashes through my flesh, paralyzes my muscles, and surrenders my soul to Kay Brody. Exhausted, I let my torso fall against Kay’s chest, but still, I can’t keep my eyes off that woman in the mirror. The one with the wild eyes, with the look of freedom on her face. Me.

Kay leaves her fingers inside of me, copping a good look at herself. Our eyes meet in the mirror, both of us misty-eyed and satisfied. Then, slowly, she retreats, leaving me empty there, but filled with all of her in my head.

“Oh christ,” I mutter, after dropping onto my back on the mattress.

Kay is quick to drape her body on top of me, her arm wrapped around me, one leg, bent at the knee, resting on my thighs.

“Now you can sleep,” she whispers, but sleep is the last thing I want to do.

“Funny.” I giggle, my breath on her cheek. “I’m not tired anymore.”

“Really? After that, I thought I would have worn you out.”

Suddenly, I feel as though my time with her has become overly precious. That I’ve wasted it on the wrong actions and emotions. And then there’s that thing I’ve wanted to do to her since this morning—as much for her as for myself. I need to taste her.

“It’s going to take a lot more than that to keep me away from where I want to go right now.” I start sliding myself from underneath her.