The devil and his deep blue sea.

Chapter 11 - kisses - ashley

Possession  kisses me back and it’s not like it was in the water. It’s not half of a fight we’ve been having. It’s not a technique to get me to shut the hell up and go along with being rescued. It’s deeper than that. I feel a little bad that I’m using this as a distraction. It’s a distraction for me, too. None of what he said should redeem him. None of what he said should make it tolerable to kiss him. Even if he’s telling the truth about horrible people selling children—and he probably is—he’s the same man who’s keeping me for ransom. None of it should make me want this. I’m split neatly down the middle. Part of me wants to make out with him until I’ve forgotten every other person I’ve ever kissed. And part of me knows I’d be better off making another escape attempt than staying here. I let go of the ball and touched him. The front of his shirt. His collar. The solid body below his collar. I put both hands flat on his chest so that he gets a sense of them. All the old lessons come back to me. Keep your hands moving. The art of misdirection is about drawing people’s attention. I’ve given Poseidon my lips and my hands to focus on, and if I have to, I’ll give him my body. Again. That’s what I was doing before, when he— No. That’s a lie. I wasn’t. I wasn’t doing anything to him. I was lost to him, and that can’t happen again, because if it goes much further I’ll never be found. I’ll never understand what happened here. I’ll never be able to sort out in my own mind why it felt so good to feel him swim us back to the ship after I spent all that time trying to get away. I’ll never get over it. But the memory of being beneath him in that bed kickstarts everything I didn’t want to happen. The heat spread across my face. The desire winding up between my legs. If it weren’t for the damned ball, I’d have them open for him. What the fuck is wrong with me? It takes everything I have to wrap his shirt in my fist and pull him in for the final part of this plan. The key to the ball and chain is in his pocket. Its slim outline has been obvious since I brushed my hands over his pants. He didn’t notice. He doesn’t notice now. He’s too busy kissing me back with a kind of serious concentration that seems unlike him. Then again, what the hell do I know? Maybe he is like this. Maybe he always kisses like he’ll never get another chance. This next part is trickier, but I’ve already guided my ankle up onto the bench. I push into him harder, opening my mouth for him, letting him in while I slip the key into the lock around my ankle. The clasp opens. I kick the chain off as Poseidon pulls back. Surprise chases the heat and lust from his eyes, and before he can grab me, before he can stop me, I stand up and walk the ball to the railing. It goes over. Falls. Plops into the water with an echoing splash. I’m free of it. But also, not free. I whirl around in time for Poseidon to meet me at the railing. It’s a cold stripe across my back and he pushes in, a hand on either side of me. It’s not the same as in the galley. Not the same at all. Down there, I was pressed against a solid wall. Now I’m one good shove from a quick drop into the ocean. I have to lean back, almost out over the water, to keep his face in view. It makes my breath shallow and my heart take off in a sprint. “Where the hell did you learn that, princess?” “There’s lots of things you don’t know about me.” I want him to kiss me again, right now. The want is awful, and I have no explanation for why it feels so torturous that he’s not kissing me already. Questions rise like bubbles and pop, one by one. My body is lit up with him. My body doesn’t know that we were playing a game. “Yeah.” A sharp tone. “What else?” “Like...” I’m drawing a blank. An enormous blank. My entire life is nothing right now with the night breeze in my hair and Poseidon making a cage of his body and his own ship. He must know—he must know how it feels, but nothing in him hesitates, nothing in him gives me so much as another inch of breathing room. “I don’t know how to swim.” He blinks, straightening up. One hand comes off the railing, then the other, and the crackling tension that had all my nerves alive with moonlight releases. “I thought you were tired, not… If you don’t know how to swim, then what the fuck were you doing on a yacht?” Another flush of embarrassment heats my cheeks. All I can manage is a shrug. “We weren’t going to leave the boat.” Leaving the boat was not on the agenda. Neither was getting shot in the head or getting lost at sea. A piece of me caves in, thinking about the sunlight on the yacht deck and Robbie’s blood pooling red on those coral shorts. It’s enough to cause an earthquake, that hollow space, and I fold my arms over my waist to hold it in. Poseidon makes an incredulous sound, and I drag my eyes up off the deck and back to his face. “What kind of fucking boyfriend lets you on a boat without knowing how to swim?”