Float Plan(57)
“As good as Puerto Rican baseball?” he asks.
“Better.”
Fifteen minutes and a steep hill later, we arrive at a small wooden cottage with an outdoor kitchen and a view of the harbor. A striped hammock big enough for two is hanging on the veranda, but the focal point of the room is the large bed with fresh white bedding and a mosquito net draped along the headboard.
Keane takes it all in, and nods. “This is most certainly going to be better than baseball.”
I laugh, shutting Queenie in the bathroom with food, water, and her favorite tennis ball. “Definitely. I mean, I figured we could go to the beach or hiking in the forest or—”
He stops me with soft kisses, one after another, a hand sliding into my hair as the other seeks out the hollow of my lower back. Soft becomes harder, more urgent, and I clutch the back of his T-shirt in my fists, my heart thumping a wild beat. It may be that I push him backward or he draws me forward, but together we find the edge of the bed. He sits and pulls me onto his lap.
He touches my cheek. “Are you ready for me, Anna?”
“Yes,” I whisper, turning to brush my lips against the inside of his wrist. “Yes.”
He works open the buttons of my shirt. Keane has seen me in my bikini and the other day in my wet pink polka-dot bra, but today I feel exposed. The glue has only just dried on my broken heart and I’m offering him a hammer. But when he kisses my skin, just there, above my heart, I feel safe.
My shirt lands on the floor as he kisses my shoulder. I tug his shirt up over his head and send it to the ground. Kiss the corner of his mouth that always lifts first whenever he grins. I stand to remove my shorts, and Keane watches as I unclasp the front of my bra and take off my underwear. I worry that my breasts are too small and my pubic hair too much, but when I hear his sharp intake of breath and my name on the exhale, I’m reassured. Need settles heavy between my thighs.
Feeling bolder, I straddle him again and follow as he moves backward on the bed, first beneath me, then above me. The sheets press cool against my back as his mouth forges a warm trail down my body. Insecurity creeps in as I feel his mouth on my inner thigh, but it’s lost to the pleasure of his tongue.
My legs are still trembling with release when he removes his prosthesis and his shorts and slips on a condom. He moves over me. Inside me. “Oh my God.” I groan into his shoulder. “You have no idea how good this feels.”
Keane rolls his eyes and shifts his hips, making me gasp. “Yeah, none at all.”
At first we’re laughing and out of sync—two bodies that have never moved together before—but once we find our rhythm, the world around us disappears. And when it’s over, our skin damp and our breath short, the words repeat in my head like a litany. I love you. I love you. I love you. I’m afraid to say them, but when I kiss them silently into his mouth, it feels as if he’s giving them right back to me.
“Jesus, Anna, that was—” He blows out a breath and presses his lips to my forehead. As much as I love the feel of his mouth on mine, forehead kisses are the Sullivan sign of true affection and they are my favorite.
“Exactly.”
He laughs, rolling off me, and raises his arm for me to fit up against him. “I reckon you’ve ruined me now.”
“I’m not even sorry.”
As we lie together, the sun casts a square on the floor, and outside, the birds squawk. A tiny green gecko scurries up the wall beside the bed, lingering to stare at us. I focus on these things. On Queenie’s short, sharp bark that demands freedom. On the steady beat of Keane’s heart beneath my ear. Anything to hold at bay the guilt that my feelings for this man might be bigger than anything I’ve ever known.
* * *
There are a lot of things we could be doing in Martinique, but the first three days we spend nearly all our time in bed, venturing out only to take Queenie for a walk or eat in the open-air kitchen. I cut Keane’s hair using a pair of scissors I found in a drawer, and he shows me his self-care routine, explaining the layers and how he maintains his prostheses. We memorize each other’s bodies like maps, learning the places to avoid and the places to linger. We sleep. Make love. Talk. Fuck. Laugh. The time is a crash course in being together—although we’ve been learning since the beginning—and we go back to the Alberg with everything we’ve discovered.
The cabin of the boat smells like the oranges hanging in the mesh bag above the galley, and I smile at the sight of my Cangrejeros hat hanging on its hook beside the companionway. The blue is already beginning to fade in the sun, and it has molded to the shape of my head. The Pig Beach starfish stand in a row on the ledge in the V-berth. The photo of Keane and me at the patchwork house hangs beside the photo of Ben and me. A new house rising up beside the old.
“I’ve hung the hammock,” Keane says, coming into the cabin as I’m making up the bed. He slips his arms around my waist from behind. “But sleeping naked beneath this fluffy duvet with you is going to be the best part.”
Warmth rises in my cheeks, even though we’ve been more naked than clothed over the past two days, and he laughs softly.
“I have a gift for you.” He rummages through his duffel. “I bought this in San Juan and then you gave me Ben’s mug, and I feared it was too much and not enough, but now … here.”
He thrusts a palm-size package at me, done up in Christmas wrapping. While I tear open the paper, Keane rubs a hand across the top of his head. He’s nervous. So I’m nervous too.