I sigh, because those are pretty much my thoughts exactly. I have a million thoughts running through my head, but I can’t get any of them past my lips in English or Spanish, and I don’t want this moment to end, so I settle for letting my hands roam Delta’s body. I play with her hair, and stroke the narrow bones of her shoulder, and trace the curve of her spine, and palm the juicy bounce of her beautiful ass.

  She murmurs something under her breath, which I can’t quite catch.

  “You say something, Delta?” I ask.

  She twitches a shoulder in what feels like a shy shrug. “Not really.

  “Delta.”

  She sighs. “I like the way you touch me, and I hate that the sun is rising already.”

  I glance at the horizon and see the sun is staining the horizon pink, which means our stolen moment is nearly over.

  “I like touching you, and I hate that the sun is rising too.”

  “Can you stop it from going up any more? So we can go again?”

  I laugh softly. “Used to be, I’d be ready again in a few minutes. Nowadays, it takes a little longer than it used to.”

  Delta’s lips touch my jaw, kissing gently, then her palm presses into my cheek, turning my face so her mouth can find mine. “I don’t care how long it takes, Jonny. I just want you again,” she breathes, only breaking the kiss long enough to get out the words, before kissing me again. “I don’t want this to end.”

  “Me either.”

  “Why does it have to?”

  “Been over this.”

  “I know.” She sighs, letting the silence stretch between us for a minute or two, before starting again, hesitant. “Was that—you and me, just now, did it feel . . .?” She trails off as if unsure how to finish the question.

  “I don’t have words for what it was, Delta.” I shake my head and kiss her, trying to ignore the way things in the region of my chest are twisting and aching. “I wish things were different.”

  “Me too.” She shifts on me, and I feel her clenching around me. “I know, I know—you have to go. And I have to go be with my sister. My son needs me. A hundred reasons why this cannot go on. Doesn’t make me want you any less, though. Crazy as it is, stupid as it is, I just . . . I fucking want you, Jonny Nuñez. And no matter what happens, I’m glad we had this.”

  Dammit, dammit, dammit.

  “Me too, Delta Martin.”

  Not sure how long we lie there in our little nest in the sand, the sun rising in shifting washes of pink to red to gold, the ocean shushing us, the gulls trying in vain to rouse us. I feel her heart beating; I feel her hands clutching my hair with desperation; I feel her core pulsing around me, her muscles clenching and releasing; she’s clutching me on purpose, I think. Trying to arouse me.

  It’s working, damn her.

  She feels it, feels me hardening inside her. She nuzzles her lips and nose and forehead into the side of my throat, kissing and kissing and kissing, so softly, so sweetly that my heart clenches and my head spins and my soul aches for an hour more, a day more, a week more with her.

  “Delta,” I breathe.

  “Sssshhhhhh.”

  “I’m not trying to stop this, I just—”

  “You can’t stop this. It’s already happening. Just hush, Jonny. Just . . . hush.”

  Delta’s hands close around my face, her palms on my cheeks, her thumbs brushing my cheekbones, her fingertips playing with my earlobes and the stubble on my jaw, and she’s kissing me fiercely, deeply, sucking my breath from me then giving me her breath and slashing at my tongue with hers, and I’m so hard now it hurts, aches, throbs. I’m inside her, Delta’s tight channel is spasming around me, wet and hot and intoxicatingly perfect. She moves then. Holding my face. Kissing me. I have both hands in her hair, and I’m kissing her back and moving with her and moaning, muttering I don’t even know what in Spanish.

  I have to . . . I have to take her how I want her. How I’ve envisioned taking her, since the moment I met her.

  I roll, putting her beneath me. I adjust the blanket so we’re still both covered, and I brace my hands in the sand by her face and I lean down and I kiss her mouth, and then I slide my mouth down her soft pale skin to her breasts, and I devour them greedily. I suck her nipple into my mouth and flick it with my tongue until she’s mewling helplessly, and I’m moving into her, thrusting slowly, lazily.

  She clings to me, her hands on my butt, pulling at me, encouraging me, silently begging me to go faster, harder. I resist, taking my time. I graze my mouth across the valley between her tits and kiss and lick and suckle the other nipple. Back and forth, using my hands on one breast while my mouth is occupied on the other. Her legs curl around mine, and she’s whimpering quietly.

  She shudders, and her hand steals between our bodies. Delta fingers herself as I thrust into her, bringing herself swiftly to orgasm with a few economical circles of her fingers, and I feel her channel tighten and spasm around me, and her teeth nip at my neck, and her breath huffs hot on my ear; the feel of her coming around my cock takes me to the edge.

  Delta’s eyes search and find mine. She pulls at my ass, wraps her legs higher around mine, urging me. “Come with me, Jonny!” she whispers fiercely, desperately. “Come with me! God, I’m coming so hard, Jonny, and I want to feel you come too.”

  I let go. Fuck her with urgency, growling as I reach my own orgasm, and Delta is still coming, or coming again, I’m not sure which. Doesn’t matter, because she’s gasping frantically and smashing her hips against mine, and I release with a low, guttural growl.

  “Delta, Delta . . .” I bite out her name in a chant, and I’ve reverted to Spanish yet again, something only she seems able to make me do. “Take it, Delta. Take it all. Do you feel me coming inside you? You feel so fucking good I can’t handle it. Too good. You feel too good. God, Delta, don’t stop, don’t stop!”

  We move in perfect unison, thrusting in synch, groaning together, coming simultaneously, kissing raggedly and breathing harshly and gasping together and moving with furious desperation together until we’re both spent and breathless. I let her have my weight, and she takes it eagerly, stroking my hair and caressing my back and my butt and my arms: everywhere. Breathing with me. Whispering my name as we catch our breath.

  “My fucking God, Jonny,” she says, finally. “What was that?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know, Delta.”

  “It’s fucking crazy what you make me feel, Jonny.”

  “I know.” I roll off her, and she rolls with me, immediately returning to settle into the nook of my arm. “I feel it, too, Delta. Don’t think I don’t.”

  Dawn is in full effect, now. We lie together in contented silence for a while, and I’m even starting to drift off again when Delta lets out a muffled giggle.

  “What’s funny?” I ask.

  She giggles again. “I’m leaking.” A pause, and I feel her shifting her legs, sliding them together. “Like, a lot.”

  “Um. Sorry?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t be. I just didn’t think about this particular aspect of this.”

  “Me either.”

  She wiggles again, laughing. “Eww. Every time I move more come squishes out of me.”

  “You could rinse off in the ocean,” I suggest. “Might be a bit brisk, but . . . you’d be clean.”

  “Clean . . . er, maybe.” She lifts up to look at me. “Are you suggesting we go skinny dipping in the ocean right now?”

  “You, not me. I don’t have come leaking out of me.”

  “Well, not anymore. And I wouldn’t call it a leak, exactly.” She snickers. “More of a howitzer sort of situation, judging by the amount of come I’ve got leaking out of me.”

  I can’t help laughing. “I feel like I should apologize for making you messy, but I also feel weirdly proud, too.”

  She smacks me on the chest. “Proud? You feel proud of filling me to the brim with your sperm?”

  I shrug. “Yeah, kind of.”

  “It’s gross!” she protests.

  I lift up on an elbow so I’m over her, staring down at her. “You like it.”

  She blinks at me. “Do not.”

  I gaze back steadily. “Yes, you do. Admit it. You like being full of my come. You want more of it.”

  She sighs heavily, and her face twists. “I do. I really, really do. I like it. No—I love it, and yeah, I want more of it.” She seems to give in to sadness for a moment then wiggles out from underneath me to sit up, tossing the blanket off of us; glancing around to determine that we’re still alone, she shrugs out of her shirt, tosses it at my face, and laughs. “Last one in is a rotten egg!”

  And then she’s gone, tearing off across the beach toward the water. I bolt after her, feet digging into the sand. She’s fast, but I’m faster. I reach her moments before she reaches the water, grab her around the waist, haul her into the water, throw her bodily, and dive after her. She splashes into the waves, squealing, and I’m right there with her as she surfaces, spluttering and laughing.

  “Asshole,” she says, laughing. “I was going in by myself.”

  “Yeah, but that was more fun.”

  “Fuck, it’s cold.”

  “I thought you grew up here?”

  “Other side, Gulf side. It’s a little warmer.” We’re waist deep but crouched so we’re fully immersed. Delta stands up, dripping, and her nipples are hard and she’s so beautiful it hurts. “You’re looking at me funny, Jonny.”

  I stand to face her, slip my hands around her waist and pull her close, and she wraps her arms around my shoulders. “Just looking at you. Admiring you.” I kiss her, and we move deeper into the cold waves. “You are so fucking beautiful,” I say in Spanish.

  “What’s that mean?” Delta asks. I tell her, and she ducks her head, laughing sarcastically. “You’re only saying that because we just fucked twice.”

  I shake my head. “No, Delta. I’m not. I’m saying it because it’s true.”

  She swallows hard, pulls away from me, dives into the water, and swims a couple feet away, then crouches in the surf, scrubbing at her armpits and between her legs. “You can’t say shit like that, Jonny.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’ll start to believe you actually mean it.”

  “So? I do mean it.”

  She shakes her head again. “It’s better for both of us, I think, if you’re just flattering me because we had good sex.”

  I try to wrap my head around that and fail. “Not sure what you mean by that. I wouldn’t flatter you after sex, if you were trying to think negatively of me. I’d flatter you before, so you’d fuck me, and then stop acting like I care. If I’m flattering you after sex, it stands to reason I really mean it.” I frown at her. “And why would it be better for either of us for you to think the worst of me?”

  She doesn’t answer right away. After scrubbing herself, she rolls onto her back and heads into the oncoming waves. She floats, her breasts just barely peeking above the water. “Because . . . because I’m a clinger, and I’m trying not to let myself go there, but you’re making it really fucking difficult, okay?”

  “A clinger? What do you mean, you’re a clinger?”

  She stops swimming and moves so she’s standing with the water just above her breasts and shakes her head again. Not a denial so much as a . . . an expression of not knowing what to say, I think.

  “I get clingy. Emotionally attached quickly.”

  “Oh.”

  She nods. “Yep. Oh. Not so beautiful anymore, huh? Nobody likes a clinger, especially when she’s a single mom nearing forty.”

  “Delta, it’s not like that.”

  “Exactly.”

  I shake my head and swim toward her. “You’re misunderstanding me, Delta. When I say it’s not like that, I mean I’m disagreeing with what you said about yourself. You and me not being able to . . . I don’t know . . . be together, I guess—it’s not about you being a single mother, or clingy, and I’m over forty myself.”

  Delta sighs and swims backward away from me. “Jonny, goddammit. You’re not helping.”

  “What? You want me to be an asshole?”

  She laughs. “Yes, actually. I mean, no. But yes.”

  “Well, that’s clear as mud.”

  “It would be easier for me to walk away if you were an asshole. But obviously, you’re not an asshole, thus making it all the more difficult.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. “Delta—”

  She waves a hand to stop me. “Don’t, Jonny. It’s gonna suck. It is what it is.” She glances past me at the shore. “Better get out while the getting is good. People are gonna be up soon.”

  She swims past me, staying low in the water until she has to climb out and trot ashore. I stay in the water and watch, because damn, the woman is beautiful. The way her body moves, the way the right things bounce just the right way when she jogs ashore? Takes all my willpower to stay here in the water. I have to, though. If I go ashore with her, I’ll only make things worse.

  I want her.

  I don’t want to let go.

  I shouldn’t have slept with her. I shouldn’t have. Now I have the taste of her on my lips, and the feel of her skin on my hands, and the scent of her on me, and the memory of the way she felt. I don’t regret it, not in the slightest, but when I do finally leave, it’s going to hurt.

  Delta wipes her body dry with the blanket, slinks into her clothes, and bends forward to wring out her hair. I just watch. I’m frozen, my bones aching in the cold Atlantic water. I don’t follow her, I accept the cold. I want to touch her again. Hold her again. Make her scream. Take her somewhere private and do things right, not just a stolen few moments on a beach.

  I stay where I am until she’s gone. When she’s out of sight, I emerge from the ocean and use the blanket, like she did, to dry off somewhat, and dress, and plan my next move.

  It’s time to visit Ava and discharge my duty as Christian’s best friend.

  5

  After getting dressed and leaving the beach, I go in search of coffee. I don’t have to go far, as there’s an enterprising individual with a pushcart containing a gas camping stove, a kettle, bottled water, and a drip coffee setup. I gladly pay the five bucks per cup, since there’s not a coffee shop or restaurant open anywhere nearby. I buy two coffees, wait a good ten minutes for them to be prepared, and take them back toward the nest Jonny and I have been sharing over the last few days.

  He’s dressed, his hair is wet and messy, and he’s gathering up his things. I sit on the edge of the boardwalk watching him. He notices me and the coffee, which I hand to him.

  “Thanks,” he says.

  I just smile, watching him wrap the last of his supplies into the blanket, which he sets near me on the boardwalk. Then he hops up to sit beside me, the metal box tucked under his arm.

  We sip coffee together in silence.

  He finally eyes me. “What’s your plan?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. I might try to get Ava to come back to Chicago with me and Alex.”

  “Probably be good for her not to be alone right now, I think.”

  I glance at Jonny. “You think he’s dead? Christian, I mean?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. With my experience and my knowledge of the odds given the situation, I’d say, yeah, there’s literally no chance he could have made it. But . . . as his best friend? I want to believe he found a way to survive.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  He blows out a breath. “I don’t know. The ship I came in on has a spot for me. Dominic is a good man, a good captain. It’s not a sailing job, but after my journey with Chris . . . I’m not sure I want to sail again right away. I might go with Dominic and do some trawling for a while.”

  “Who is Dominic?”

  “Dominic Bathory. Owns a deep-sea trawler. Picked me up off The Hemingway after the storm, stitched up my leg, brought me here.” He waves up the coast. “He’s north of here a ways, helping with the offshore clean-up. The plan was for me to find Ava, give her the box and make sure she was in an okay place, and then join Dominic on the boat.”

  “So what changed?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer for a while, sipping his coffee. “I dunno. Nothing, I guess.” He glances at me. “And everything.”

  “Everything, meaning what?”

  “Everything, meaning you.”

  I let out a breath. “Oh.” I shake my head. “That doesn’t change anything, though, does it?”

  He groans. “Delta, I don’t—”

  I hold up a hand to stall him. “I’m not asking anything of you, Jonny. We’ve talked about this already. Nothing has changed. You sail, and I’m raising a kid. Ft. Lauderdale isn’t my home; Chicago is. So it’s not like if I was to say you could visit me . . .” I trail off, shaking my head. “Never mind.” I smile at him again. “It was a good thing while it lasted, Jonny.”

  “Yeah, it was.” He glances at the sun, now fully risen over the horizon. “About time to go see Ava.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.” I stand up, coffee in hand. “Ready?”

  He eyes the blanket full of things. Glances up the boardwalk, sees a man who was clearly homeless before the hurricane and is in more dire straits after it; the homeless man is dressed in rags, feet clad in shoes that are little more than shreds, carrying a plastic garbage bag full of who knows what. Jonny grabs the makeshift sack of supplies wrapped in the blanket and carries it to the man. They exchange a few words, and the homeless man can be heard effusively thanking Jonny, who just nods and waves and walks back to me.

  “Now I’m ready,” Jonny says.

  I glance at him as we walk in the direction of the hospital. “Why’d you give him that stuff? Don’t you need it?”

  He shrugs and shakes his head. “Nah. I can make do, find what I need, plus I’ll be aboard The Glory of Gloucester soon anyway.”

  I laugh. “The what?”

  Jonny chuckles. “Dominic’s boat, The Glory of Gloucester. It’s a joke, I think. He’s from Gloucester, Massachusetts. I dunno why he named it that, but it feels like a joke, since as far as deep-sea trawlers go, he’d agree she’s no glory of anything. Seaworthy, clean, tidy, well kept, and dependable—which is all you can ask of a ship, in my opinion—but she’s not a glorious craft by any stretch of anyone’s imagination.”