Page 86 of Just Say (Hell) No
“Uh…” she said. “The beach was never… like that.”
He laughed softly against her mouth and kissed her again. “I haven’t done that in a long time. It’s never felt as good as that.”
“Haven’t donewhat?Boy, this isn’t comparison time.”
Another laugh. “Nah. The train, that’s all. Call it a full-body experience.”
“And you weren’t even the one taped up.”
He stroked the hair away from her temple, then brushed a kiss over first one closed eyelid, then the other, before he settled over her mouth again and kissed her with so much sweetness, her heart swelled. Without deciding to, she was wrapping her arms around his bare back, stroking her hands over the muscle there, trying to pull him closer, like she hadn’t had enough already. Like she needed him to stay on her, and in her, forever. “I’ve never done anything like that before,” she confessed. “Nothing close. I wasn’t sure. The only reason I could do it was… I knew you’d stop.”
“Mm.” He rolled to his side, but kept his arm across her body, and his own body was so warm, she had to snuggle in. “Always. No trust without promises kept, eh. That’s why I keep my promises.”
She moved so her head was on his chest, and he stroked his hand over her hair, pulled the sleeping bag more thoroughly over her, and tucked her in tight under his arm. “I’d say,” she said, “that any night when you get blindfolded, get done that hard, feel a freight train,andsee stars—that’s a good night.” She sighed. “That’s…paintworthy.”
On a breezy May midday nearly three weeks after what Marko had taken to calling her “train ride,” Nyree was hitting the button to lock the Escape, reminding herself to take the keys, trying to keep her heart under control, and hustling across the Auckland Airport carpark with Ella to meet Marko.
The problem was, it had been much too long since those stolen five days after they’d come back from Tekapo, when Ella had stayed on with Caro after all, saying, ‘Too boring to be in Auckland the whole time, since I don’t have friends and all.’
Five days during which Nyree had gone to work with absolute reluctance and raced home afterwards. That night, too, when Marko had come in to eat at Bevvy, and how it had looked to see him walking through the door, taking up too much space. Hearing the buzz beginning around him, and knowing he was there for her. Getting the chance to flirt with him even as she knew people were watching, the chance to tease in a way she’d never done in her life, absolutely safe and out on the edge at the same time.
Five days when she’d eaten too much, laughed too hard, and possibly had too much sex in too many new positions, judging by the soreness of her muscles afterwards. Five days when she hadn’t painted nearly enough, a fact she’d pointed out to Marko when she’d left him at the airport two weeks earlier, en route to South Africa with the Blues.
He’d grinned at her, said, “So you’re waiting for me to set you free, eh. A bit like last night.” When he’d used that tape again, this time to fasten her wrists together over her head. Before he’d draped her legs over the back of his couch.
She might have shivered a tiny bit at that, because he’d smiled some more, leaned across the seat, kissed her much too deeply for public consumption, and said, “I’ll miss you too, baby. Two weeks is two weeks too long. Be good while I’m gone.”
“Telling that to the… wrong person,” she’d said. Not as firmly as she might have, because he’d been kissing her neck, absolutely heedless of anybody watching. “I’m not the one with, uh… access to temptation.”
“No? And yet you’re the one working at a restaurant, wearing those pretty clothes, sending that message you just can’t help, and meeting all those fellas who’ve had too much to drink. I can’t even scare the bastards away, because the clientele keeps changing. Bugger.”
“You may have to trust me. And I send a message? What message?” Her fingers had curled through his hair, she’d rubbed her cheek against his, and all she’d wanted was to keep him with her.
“Dunno about anybody else,” he’d said, “but that message says ‘life’ to me. Always has. Possibly ‘sex’ as well. And here’s a thought for you. You may have to do the same thing, trust-wise.” He’d kissed her mouth again, nothing but sweetly, run his hand over the side of her face, looked into her eyes, and said, “You can, you know.”
She’d felt that treacherous lurch of her heart. “So can you.”
After that? He’d opened the door and left her. She’d watched him head into the terminal and be stopped by two blondes before he could even get to the door. He’d posed for one selfie, then another, and she’d driven away thinking,You could have done something easier than this.
Except that she hadn’t had a choice.
Two weeks, then, of paying back those traded shifts at the restaurant. Two weeks of losing herself in her painting again, her bedroom studio filled with the smell of acrylics and the music of Spain, her head filled with the saturated blue of a mountain lake, the yellows and browns and sage greens of the subalpine heath, and the velvet black and blazing white night sky that a woman might have looked at, forty or fifty or an impossible sixty thousand years earlier, from a sleeping hollow dug out of the red Australian earth. Her heart filled with the memory of a freight train passing too close and the orgasm of her life shaking her body from outside and inside, and the man over her, inside her, piercing all the way to her soul. Feeling all that power tumbling her over, around, down and down, into the star-strewn blackness. Helpless.
Two weeks to let her imagination run free, to feel it all again, to take it further, and then to put it on canvas with all the genius and control she could possibly command, while the lack of sleep left her ever more giddy and reckless. Falling asleep with a brush in her hand, and waking up to paint again. Yanking herself out of the painting trance with an almost physical effort to do some lonesome-cat tending, to fix meals with Ella and hear about school, because people mattered, too, and Ella was right here. Of reading the card of the day and Marko’s sexy, sweet texts, and trying to let him know, in her answers, that she was thinking of him. Two weeks of too much to do, and not enough Marko.
And last night.
The first text had come a couple hours after the match, when Marko was probably at a bar surrounded by leggy South African blondes. He’d written,She could be a bit more subtle. But what am I saying. It’s my mum. Also, you’re going to think this is the only reason I can’t wait to see you. Have to admit it’s looming large, but it’s not the only reason.
It had been followed by the most phallic Tarot card Nyree had ever seen.
The Ace of Wands,his mum’s text had said.This one’s about giving all your energy, putting it out there. Since your match is over, that’s not it. It’s about following your impulses, wherever they lead. I know they won’t steer you wrong.
Nyree had answered, typing as fast as her thumbs would move, not waiting to think better of it,Could be I want your energy, and your impulses, too. Miss you so much.
He’d replied,
Got this one as well. More high-minded than the place I went, maybe.
