Where Sea Meets Sky

She clinks her bottle against mine. “It’s the tits, isn’t it?”

My eyes drift over her. “It’s a lot of things.” The truth is, I’m torn between wanting to tear her clothes off and fuck her senseless or wanting to sit somewhere quiet and talk to her the whole night. It’s a curious war I’m fighting, but I’d be happy with either victory.

“So, you,” she says, turning around so she’s leaning back on her elbows, one boot kicked up onto the other, “tell me about Josh. All I know is you have a sister called Vera who lives in Spain, you watch Futurama and Game of Thrones, and you have a big ego and a nice dick.”

I choke on my beer and quickly wipe my mouth. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who told you about the dick?”

She takes a polite sip of her drink, her eyes playful. “You did earlier. You said it was a Canadian thing.”

“Right,” I say, quickly recovering. “Well, that’s where the ego comes from.”

“Uh-huh,” she says. “And what do you do? You know, work-wise?”

My smile falters. This part is where I kind of suck at life. A big dick can only get you so far. “Oh, I just kinda work. Jobs.”

“Oh, jobs,” she says. “I’ve heard of those.”

I sigh inwardly. “I’m a line cook at a restaurant.”

She cocks her head. “Oh, so you want to be a chef?”

“Not really,” I say, but what I mean to say is not at all. “It’s just something that pays the bills.” The minute I say that, it’s like I’m lying, because while I do pay rent, I pay it to my mother and it’s nowhere near as much as what most people pay. The dirty truth is, I live at home and there’s no woman alive who finds that sexy.

“So then what do you like to do, if that’s not it?”

Here’s the thing. On the surface, Joshua Miles is a charmer. I’m tall, have a good body, nice tats, and a dick that I know how to use. I can be shameless but funny enough, which usually works to my advantage with the ladies. But aside from the fact that I work as a line cook and I live at home, I’m also an aspiring artist. A graphic artist. I mean, my dream job is to either work for a place like Marvel or DC illustrating their comic books and graphic novels, or to just create my own one day. But the moment you tell a girl that you like to draw comic books, they look at you like you just took a shit in front of them.

But I don’t know Gemma, and since she’s leaving tomorrow I don’t have a lot to lose. Besides, something tells me she’s different from the others, and it’s not just her accent.

“I’m an artist,” I tell her, deciding to cut out the aspiring crap. “Graphic design, graphic art. I sketch, I paint, lots of digital work. I’m in the middle of illustrating my own comic book, though I just have half the rough drawings complete and none of the dialogue. I’ve even applied for art school but I’m still waiting to hear back.”

She’s silent for a moment and I peer at her cautiously, expecting to see her eyes glazed over. Instead, she looks extraordinarily happy. Her smile is breathtakingly wide and it’s such a sharp contrast to her ever-present smirk.

“Really?” she exclaims. “That’s so awesome!”

“It is?” I thought she’d tolerate it, not actually think it was cool. Goddamn it, who just dropped this dream woman into my lap?

“I used to paint,” she says and her smile winds down. A wash of sadness comes across her brow and I have this sudden urge to kiss her and hope it brings that smile back.

I wait for her to elaborate, but she doesn’t. “Hey,” she says, brightening up. “Come on, I’ll buy you another drink.” She quickly downs her beer and I can tell she’s forcing some cheer into her face. I can’t say no to another bottle, though.

She grabs my hand again, but this time she’s in no hurry to let go. Neither am I. Just like that, a beer is the last thing on my mind. This woman seems to be everything I’m looking for and I only have her for one night, if I even have her at all. I want to bring her into a dark corner and let my tongue caress hers before sliding it down her neck. I want to feel her smooth, tight body beneath my hands and make her smart mouth open with a moan. Then I want to glide my fingers down her pants and make her moan louder. I want her eyes to stare at me with lazy lust and beg me to do my worst.

But there are no dark corners on this roof deck, so we make our way through the sweaty mess of people again. I immediately miss the relative privacy and the invigorating chill of the outdoors and make up for it by having a cold beer, and then another.

We find a small living room at the end of the hall where we sit down on a couch and watch a few people play Rock Band in the near dark. I’m buzzed and the room is hypnotizing with the sounds and lights and her warmth beside me. I put my hand on her thigh and try to talk to her, but it’s too loud and the dark is too inviting, too freeing. I go to whisper in her ear, to ask her if she’s having a good time, to ask her what time her flight leaves, to ask her anything at all, and I find my lips grazing her earlobe. I’m losing the war and losing it fast.

She tastes far too good for me to stop. I tease the rim of her ear with my tongue to taste her even better.

She doesn’t shove me away. She doesn’t flinch. She just turns her head so my lips are next to hers, and for one moment I hesitate, my lips brushing lightly against hers, feeling the heady desire build to a breaking point. Her breath hitches in anticipation.