Page 78 of Never Enough

He placed her bag on the double vanity, then let go of her hand to reach into the shower and turn it on. After closing the shower door, he grabbed two towels from the alcove under the vanity and placed them on the closed toilet seat. It wasn’t until then that he turned back to her and let go of her hand. The loss of contact was short-lived, as immediately both hands went to frame her face. Nemo stepped into her personal space, their bodies barely brushing against one another. His lips met her hairline in the center of her forehead.

He sighed. Against her skin, his hushed voice said, “As much as I want to get into that hot water with you and make you so clean you’re dirty, I’m going to be a very good boy and go in the other room. Take as much time as you need. When you come out, I’ll clean up, and then we'll find some food.” With another chaste kiss to her hairline, he turned and left the bathroom, closing the door behind him, leaving a stunned Haskellstanding in the center of the room, her skin already starting to bloom in the steaming heat of the shower.

Clean and clothed in something she hadn’t been in for almost twenty-four hours, Haskell emerged from the bathroom and into the dark hotel room to find Nemo standing in front of the sliding glass door, legs spread shoulder-width apart, hands on hips, staring out into the night. Before she had a chance to even consider her actions, she walked up behind him, slid her arms around his waist, pressed a kiss between his shoulder blades, and laid her cheek against his back where her lips had been. His hands dropped and covered hers.

“Feel better, sugar cat?” he whispered.

Haskell nodded, knowing he’d feel the action against his body. Slowly, he turned in her arms and wound his arms around her shoulders, pulling her tight to his body. He rested his chin atop her head and breathed in heavily.

Nemo held her like that for several minutes. His first words to her when he broke the silence were nearly her undoing. “You always smell like sugar.” He buried his nose in her curls. “Even your hair. Everything about you is so fucking sweet. All I want to do is warm you up and make you melt on my tongue.” Nemo pulled back from her, breaking the circle of their arms. “I promised you food. Give me five minutes to clean up. I found an Indian restaurant that’s open late, about two blocks away. That sound good?”

She nodded, incapable of speaking.

He smiled, grabbed his bag, and on his way past her to the bathroom, he placed a kiss on her star tattoo.

30

SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

Nemo

Australia in August was mild yet, even at ten thirty at night, so the temperature was just above fifty degrees. However, there was a breeze coming off the ocean, so he used it as an excuse to pull Gem to his side as they strolled the two blocks to the restaurant.

After they ordered, Nemo took hold of the hand closest to him that she had on the table. “Gem. Can I ask you something?”

“You’re going to ask me why I left both times, aren’t you?”

He grinned. “I’m like Scheherazade with her manatee. Relentless.”

Nemo observed closely as Gem looked down where his thumb was caressing the back of her hand. The slow and steady stroke was almost hypnotic. She was considering how to answer his question. The darkness of the restaurant, with its softyellow table lighting, was soothing and less baring, but she clearly didn’t want to talk about it here.

“Can we take a walk after dinner?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

“I’m not dodging the question. Honest. I’ll answer it. Just not here. Not now. Let’s eat, and then I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“Okay. But I’m holding you to that, sugar cat.”

“I promise, Nemo.”

With dinner over,Nemo guided Gem over to the opposite side of the street and onto the sidewalk along the waterfront. His eyes continually scanned the area around him, and he kept himself between her and the street, his arm once again around her shoulders, pulling her tight to his side. Patiently, he waited for her to start talking.

“So. Why I left.”

The only sounds were the ocean waves, the seagulls, a few distant calls from the night surfers, and randomly passing cars.

“I told you the basics about my mum, how that affected my da, and what my childhood was like. The prize he was after when he met my mum was the Saturn Diamond. He had to make a choice. He chose Mum. He’d never failed at collecting his quarry before, so despite how happy he was with her, he always felt like he let the diamond slip away. Then he got a second chance, only to have it snatched from him again.”

Nemo put the pieces together. “His accident.”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “The entire time he wasrecuperating, it ate at him. And when Mum left him while he recovered, it snapped something inside him.

“The diamond became an obsession. I think, in his mind, if he’d been able to steal the Saturn Diamond, Mum never would have left him. To be honest, I think she would have left eventually anyway, but we’ll never really know for sure. Anyway, he couldn’t let it go. And since he could no longer do the theft himself, he set all his sights on me. At first, I was excited to have his eye. To know that he was admitting that I, hisdaughter, could be successful.

“In the beginning, I loved the work. With each job, though, the pressure became more intense. I didn’t recognize that his obsession was starting to take hold of me as well.

“When you and I first met, I was on my way back from a job in Madrid. Da took on a contract job for a pink diamond being held at the Museum of Natural History. He never told anyone that he didn’t actually do the jobs anymore, that it was his daughter he was sending out to collect their prizes. As I was on my way home from that job, I decided to take a detour to Valencia just for practice, and I met you.”

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