You Should Have Stayed in the Water

JOANNA. The air in Nevis is different than the air in Telluride because in Telluride the oxygen is a prize you have to fight for but here it is a wet blanket that wants to suffocate you in the most delicious way possible. I sat at the edge of the infinity pool bar with a glass of rum that had too much lime in it and watched the sun drop like a heavy gold coin into a slot. I was forty-two and I had spent the last decade building a boutique real estate empire that mostly consisted of convincing people they needed a floor-to-ceiling view of the Rockies but tonight I just wanted to be invisible and damp. My skin felt too small for my body and the silk of my dress was sticking to the small of my back in a way that made me want to peel it off and walk straight into the dark surf. Then I saw him. He was younger, maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine, with the kind of shoulders that looked like they were built for carrying a heavy pack up a 14er and hair that was messy from the salt and the wind. He wasn't wearing a shirt, just linen trousers that hung low on his hips, and he was walking toward the bar with a focus that made the hair on my arms stand up despite the eighty-five percent humidity. JULIAN. She was sitting there like she owned the entire island and maybe she did because she had that look about her like she’d survived things and come out the other side with better jewelry. I’d been watching her since the boat docked three hours ago. She had this way of holding her glass that was almost surgical and her eyes were the color of deep glacial runoff—cold and bright and dangerous. I walked up to the bar and didn't even look at the menu I just looked at the way her collarbone caught the orange light of the sunset. She smelled like expensive sunscreen and something sharper, something like crushed mint. I leaned my elbows on the teak wood and felt the heat radiating off her. It was a physical force. You’re drinking that way too fast, I said, and my voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere deep in my throat because I was already imagining how her skin would taste under all that salt. JOANNA. I looked at him and didn't even try to hide the fact that I was cataloging every inch of his chest because why should I? I’ve spent my life being the person who manages expectations and tonight I didn't want to manage anything but the sudden, violent urge to reach out and trace the line of hair that disappeared into his waistband. You’re observant for someone who looks like they’ve spent the day falling off a surfboard, I told him, and I took another sip of the rum just to see him watch my throat move. He had these hands—broad and calloused and steady—and I wanted them on me immediately. The urgency of it was like a mountain storm, the kind that rolls over the peaks and turns the sky black in seconds. I wasn't here for a conversation. I was here for the friction. I stood up and the movement was intentional, my thigh brushing against his linen-covered leg, and I saw his pupils blow wide. Room 402, I whispered, and I didn't wait for him to answer because the air was getting heavier and I could hear the first fat drops of tropical rain hitting the palm leaves like a drum. JULIAN. I didn't even wait for the bartender to finish whatever he was pouring. I followed her. She walked with this rhythmic swing of her hips that felt like a countdown. By the time we hit the elevator the doors hadn't even closed before I had her pinned against the wood paneling and my mouth was on hers. She tasted like lime and heat and something primal. Her hands were in my hair, pulling me closer, and she made this low sound in the back of her throat that wasn't a moan but a command. We didn't talk. There was no need for the fake pleasantries of the resort. I slid my hand down the silk of her dress and found the curve of her hip and she was burning. She felt like sun-baked rock. I bit her bottom lip and she pulled back just enough to look me in the eye and her gaze was a challenge. Faster, she said, and her voice was a rasp that made my blood jump. When the elevator dinged I practically dragged her down the hallway to 402 and the second the door clicked shut it was like an explosion. JOANNA. I’ve lived a lot of life and I’ve had a lot of men but I have never felt a hunger this localized and this sharp. I was tearing at the buttons of his trousers while he was pulling the straps of my dress down and then we were just skin and breath and the sound of the rain turning into a deluge outside. He lifted me up and I wrapped my legs around his waist and the feeling of his bare chest against my breasts was the first real thing I’d felt in months. He was so solid, so much younger and harder than what I was used to, and he didn't handle me like I was something fragile. He handled me like a climber handles a rock face—with a desperate, necessary grip. He pushed me back against the door and my head hit the wood with a dull thud and I didn't care I just wanted him inside me. I reached down and gripped him, his skin hot and velvet-hard, and I guided him against me while he groaned into the crook of my neck. He smelled like rain and sweat and I wanted to drink him. JULIAN. Her legs were locked around me and she was so wet I could feel it sliding down my thighs as I pushed her dress up to her waist. I didn't have a condom so I reached for my bag on the table but she grabbed my wrist and her eyes were fierce. I’m on the pill, just do it, she said, and that was all the permission I needed. I lined myself up and pushed into her in one long, slow movement and the fit was so tight I thought I might go right then. She was hot, an oven of a woman, and she tilted her head back and let out a long, jagged breath that sounded like a prayer. I started moving, my hands under her ass, lifting her and slamming her back against the door as the rain lashed against the balcony windows. It was messy and loud and the rhythm was all wrong until it was perfect, a frantic, driving pace that made the room feel like it was spinning. I could feel her internal muscles clenching around me, rhythmic and demanding, and every time I went deep she made a sound that made me want to break something. JOANNA. It was like the first time I ever hiked a fourteener and reached the summit—that feeling of the air being too thin and your heart hammering so hard you think it might burst through your ribs. He was thick and heavy and he was hitting a spot so deep inside me that I felt it in my toes. I was clawing at his shoulders, my nails leaving red marks on his tanned skin, and I didn't care about the noise or the fact that we were still five feet from the bed. I needed the directness of it. I needed the way his teeth grazed my shoulder and the way his breath was coming in short, ragged bursts against my ear. I shifted my weight and he groaned, a deep, vibrating sound, and then he was moving faster, his hips slamming into mine with a force that made me see stars. It wasn't polite. It wasn't gentle. It was a collision. I felt the climax building like a pressure wave, a sudden surge of heat that started in the center of me and radiated out until my vision went blurry and I was just a collection of nerve endings and friction. JULIAN. I watched her face as she broke. Her eyes rolled back and her mouth stayed open in a silent scream and the way she tightened around me was almost painful in the best way possible. I couldn't hold back anymore. I buried my face in her hair and let go, coming so hard I felt lightheaded, my whole body shaking as I emptied myself into her. We stayed like that for a long time, the only sound the heavy rain outside and our breathing, which was loud and synchronized. Eventually, I carried her to the bed and we collapsed onto the white linens, both of us covered in a fine sheen of sweat and salt. The room smelled like sex and tropical air. She looked at me then, her hair a mess and her makeup smudged, and she looked more beautiful than she had at the bar. She looked human. She looked wrecked. JOANNA. I laid there watching the ceiling fan spin and felt the cooling sweat on my skin. He was lying next to me, his hand resting on my stomach, and for the first time in years, the noise in my head had stopped. No property taxes, no client calls, no mountain snowmelt reports. Just the weight of his palm and the lingering ache between my legs. The rain was beginning to taper off, leaving that clean, earthy scent that only happens after a downpour. You’re a lot more work than a surfboard, he mumbled, and I laughed, a real laugh that started in my belly. I turned on my side and looked at him, tracing the line of his jaw with my thumb. In Colorado, we have a saying about the weather—if you don't like it, wait five minutes. But looking at him, I realized I didn't want the weather to change at all. I wanted to stay right here in the humidity, in the heat, until the sun came back up and we could start all over again. I leaned in and kissed him, tasting myself on his lips, and realized that some heights are definitely worth the climb.