Page 63 of On Dry Land

“Spencer,” he says, minutes, hours, perhaps days, later. I breathe out hard, shivering as he turns my name into a plea of yearning. I move my hand, fingers curling, and he groans. So reactive. So responsive. So perfect for me.

I like to bring him up to the ledge with teasing before letting him fall. When I wrap the fingers of my free hand around his dick, his hips jerk at the contact, and he moans like it hurts, no matter that I’ve left his cock untouched until now. I can feel him there, right on the cusp, and stroke him accordingly. Fast, but not punishing. Firm, but not painful. When he comes, he squeezes his eyes shut and continues moving his hips, grinding himself through the tunnel of my fingers. I want to kiss him again but caress him through completion and further, knowing the pleasure doesn’t have to end so abruptly.

Gratification, for Dryden, is a wave that brings him right up to shore and deposits him into sleep. He drifts, eyes closing and lips parting. I wonder if the fall has always been this easy or if he’s used to fighting it. Bending down to kiss the inside of his thigh, I slide one leg off the bed and stop when he grabs my wrist.

“Stay,” he says, voice sated and sleepy. His eyes are barely open, and his grip is loose enough that it would require no strength to break it. The plea makes me feel woozy for a moment, and I almost capitulate, crawl back into bed, and tuck in beside him to bask in the glow of Dryden wanting me like a lizard sunning itself on a rock. But this part—the cleanup and caretaking and the trust Dryden has in me to allow himself to doze while I do it—is my favorite part. Pleasure doesn’t end with orgasm, and neither does my purpose. I’m the one who gets to show him how it feels to be cherished.

“Just going to grab a washcloth,” I tell him quietly. “I’ll be right back.”

He lets me go with a yawn, straightening his legs and pointing his toes as though stretching. His eyes are closed, but they open as I fully rise from the bed, watching me as I cross the room to the little bathroom. Turning on the tap and letting the water warm up, I rub my fingers together. I always feel so wonderfully settled and alive after being with Dryden. In the past, people’s misunderstanding of my sexual preferences and their disbelief that anyone could want what I want made for some disappointing and, at times, frightening encounters.

I don’t like to fall prey to the “perhaps it’s better not to try at all” way of thinking, but sometimes it’s difficult not to do so. Being alone has proven much easier for both my lifestyle as well as my sexuality. I haven’t been with someone in a long, long time, and I’ve never once been with someone like Dryden. Testing the water with my fingers to make sure it’s warm enough, I wet a cloth. Perhaps Dryden and I are both unique species—one half of a whole that functions best when they’re together. Soulmates, I suppose would be the term, although I’ve never given such a thing enough thought to even know if I believe in that.

Leaving the bathroom on legs still a touch shaky, I quietly approach Dryden. Miraculously, he’s still awake, eyelashes parted to watch me as I sit next to him and lovingly wipe the mess from his stomach. He raises a hand to trail his knuckles down the side of my back, making me shiver. He largely keeps his hands to himself when we have sex, content with fingertips pressed to my arm or leg and letting his gaze do all the touching. It makes it all the better when we’re done and he presses gentle regard into my skin through the pads of his fingers. I’ve never met a person so willing to stay on one side of a boundary I’ve erected instead of snapping and clawing at the fence.

I don’t like sleeping undressed, too aware of how difficult—impossible, really—it is to defend or flee when you’re at such a severe disadvantage. When shit hits the fan, you don’t want to be stumbling around, trying to pull your pants up. But Dryden feels like a safety net. Even when he was sleeping up at the big house, and me here, my anxiety felt dampened. I imagined an invisible force field around the property, and Dryden himself the epicenter. It’s not so difficult to slide into bed beside him, naked but for my underwear, and tuck the fear away for later. It’ll be there to greet me on another day, an old friend never far behind, watching my back.

But tonight, like last night, and several before that, I don’t have to survive. I get to create a nest of warmth under soft sheets, curled into a ball and facing Dryden, watching his face in the dark. I get to stay awake, not because I have to be alert for possible danger, but because I like to be present for the moment Dryden falls asleep and rolls over onto his stomach. I get to exist in that perfect pocket of time when he curls an arm over me and pulls me in the way someone might tuck a pillow into their chest. I get to close my eyes and fall asleep held in the security of knowing Dryden will be there in the morning.

Chapter Twenty

DRYDEN

In some wild turn of fate, the day my divorce was finalized by the judge three years ago was also the same day as our wedding anniversary. I wake up early on the day of, as I always do, opening my eyes to a dark room. There is a leaden, almost paralytic feel to my body, as though everything but my brain has decayed. Sitting up as carefully as I can, aware and trying to ignore Spencer’s presence in the bed, I slip out from under the sheets. He twitches, face scrunched as he mumbles, but doesn’t wake. I look away from him, wishing he weren’t here.

Retreating to the bathroom, I rub my hand over my face and check the weather on my phone. Cold, but calm, as far as the wind goes. Texting Cody that we’re hauling, I splash some water on my face and brush my teeth. I’m hungry and in no mood to eat, wishing I could crawl back into bed with Spencer and hating him for being here at all. Hating myself most of all for letting him in in the first place. I’m weary of waiting for him to tire of Siren’s Point and leave. I want him gone. I want my bed back and my house to myself and the blessed relief of not giving a single fuck about anyone but myself.

“Dry?” he says when I leave the bathroom, voice rough with sleep but still sounding far more awake than I can ever manage just seconds after rising. He’s a much better morning person than I am.

I make a noncommittal answering noise and start getting dressed. Spencer clicks on one of the bedside lamps, and I stiffen. I don’t want to look at him or talk to him. I want to slip out the door into the dark, silent morning and come home to find him gone. I don’t want to pretend this time together has been anything more than a fun interlude for both of us. I don’t want to wake up after six years together and find out it was all a lie.

“Going out on the water?” he asks, as though there would be any other reason for me to get up so early.

“Yes,” I reply, wondering if he can hear the razor blades in the word or if they remained stuck in my throat.

“Okay. Be safe,” he replies, and I barely manage not to flinch. I can see him out of the corner of my eye, sitting up in bed with the sheets pooled around his waist, skinny chest pale, and brown hair spiked up. I watched him cut it a few days ago and helped him get the back of his neck. He’d smiled at me like I’d presented him with the Hope Diamond.

The air outside feels freezing compared to the almost sauna-like heat of the cottage when I finally walk out the door. Spencer likes to be warm, and even in my currently foul mood, I can’t begrudge him that. I’ve never slept outside in frigid temperatures, but I’ve spent enough days working in them to know how to appreciate a heated home. I look back at the cottage when I get to the Porsche, already knowing the light will be on inside, peeking around the curtains. He never goes back to sleep after I leave. Acid rolls in my stomach at the fact that I know him well enough to recognize his habits. Too long. I’ve let this go on far, far too long.

Cody is on the Maiden when I reach my slip, grunting a hello to me at the sound of my footsteps. I often dream of slapping duct tape over his mouth to get some peace and quiet during the day, but I rarely have to wish it in the mornings. He knows I don’t like the early starts and leaves me be. I send up a quick prayer to anybody who might be listening that today is a day where he lets me hold on to the silence for the duration. Cody allows me to get away with a lot, but even the most agreeable of people will eventually grow weary of a dog that does nothing but bite.

It’s a clear morning, the buoys easy to find and the water almost deceptively calm. It reminds me of the morning Cody and I went out, thinking we’d have success grappling, only to end the day calling for a rescue. The weather had cooperated then, too, right up until the moment it didn’t.

“You all right, Dryden?” Cody asks, after hours have passed with little more than grunts and single words between us. I’m never chatty, but I suppose emotional dissonance is as easily felt as verbal.

“I’m fine,” I reply, which isn’t a lie, even though it tastes like one.

Hook the buoy, attach the line to the pot hauler, lift the trap to the rail, sort the catch, slide it down to Cody to re-bait. Pull the next, sort the catch, slide it down, and do it again. And again. And again. We eat between buoys, never breaking stride or stopping the boat for longer than necessary. Haul, sort the catch, bait and release. Over and over again.

I used to be a gym rat, less because I liked the actual fitness aspect and more because the results were expected of me. I enjoyed seeing a smooth, gym-toned body in the mirror just as much as Dylan appreciated it in his bed, and so the burn never felt like a burden. Now, with a job that requires enough physicality of me to constitute a workout in itself, I can recognize the other, less obvious benefit of fitness.

It calms me. It shaves down my frayed edges and helps me regulate emotions I’m not accustomed to dealing with. It allows my mind to stop fixating on logic and problems and things I don’t understand and to focus instead on the burn of muscles and the ache in my joints. It’s hard to care about a hurt in the chest when your back is screaming for the attention.

“Want to grab a drink, boss?” Cody asks as we unload our haul. It’s the second time he’s asked me in so many months and makes me wonder why he thinks now, after several years working together, is when I’ll be persuaded.

“No,” I answer, hoping that will be the end of it. I want to be left alone. I desire friendships as much as I do a relationship, which is to say, not at all. Give people the space to hurt you, and they will, every single time.

Cody says something cheerful in response, which I barely pay attention to. I actually do want a drink, but I want it alone. Or, better yet, in the company of Ryan, who doesn’t care about me at all, nor ever pretends to.