Deep End

DO YOU HAVE TO BE KIDNAPPED FOR IT TO BE STOCKHOLM syndrome?” I ask. “You shouldn’t, not if the guy you fell for against your will is Swedish.”

Sam seems unimpressed with my mastery of psychological constructs. “Does being in love with Lukas make you unhappy?”

“No. Just . . . guilty.”

“Because of Penelope?”

Her name has been coming up a lot during my therapy sessions. “Yeah.”

“And Penelope’s well-being is important for you?”

“Of course. She’s the closest thing to a best friend I’ve had in . . . ever.”

“She hurt you, though. The other day.”

“She didn’t mean to. She was just . . . careless. Because she is hurting, too.”

Sam nods. “Is she the reason you’ve been avoiding Lukas?”

“I haven’t—”

“How many times have you two met since Amsterdam?”

I lower my eyes. Too few, and only because of me. In fact, my excuses have been so laughable, I know Lukas doesn’t believe them. Study group. Paper due tomorrow. Exhausted.

LUKAS: Just come over to spend the night. I sleep better when you’re around.

SCARLETT: Why?

LUKAS: Because I know you’re safe.

LUKAS: And you smell good.

LUKAS: And you’re soft.

I should change his name in my contacts. I know how to spell Blomqvist, and it hurts to see what he wrote—sharp kitten claws digging into the squishiest parts of my chest. But.

“I caught Pen sobbing in the locker room, this morning,” I simply say.

“That is sad. But as we discussed, her relationship with Lukas is unlikely to productively resume, while your relationship with Lukas—”

“I know. But it’s temporary. She feels so alone, and the possibility of getting back with Lukas is . . . an illusion she clings to. I can’t shatter it by spending time with him under her nose.”

“Is a lie this big really kinder than the truth?”

I sigh and rub my face. This won’t last long. Pen will feel better soon. I just need to wait it out. Curl into myself like a pill bug. Focus on training—exclusively ten meters.

Coach was initially reluctant, but begrudgingly came around on the condition that I keep on practicing three-meter synchro with Pen.

“It doesn’t have to be forever,” I told him. “But Mei said that—”

“Why do I feel like a cheated husband?”

I try to keep a straight face. “Because Mrs. Sima has taken up with the landscaper?”

“Because my diver came home smelling like another coach!”

“That’s not true.”

“Mei is your favorite. You stan her.”

I wince. “Did your son teach you that word?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

But if Coach Sima knows what I used to be capable of before my injury, Mei has a better idea of what I’m capable of now. And it works: endless repetition, constant corrections, infinite fine-tuning. I become, if not better, more confident, and the focus helps drown out the noise in my head.

“He’s back,” Maryam says into my room on the following Saturday night.

I look up from my neurobiology homework. “Who?”

“The Love Island contestant.”

“What?”

“The heartthrob with the accent.”

I blink. “Lukas?”

The deep “Yup” coming from behind her squeezes my stomach like it’s a washcloth.

“I’m not sure whether I’m being flattered,” he says, closing the door, “or torn to shreds.”

“With Maryam? The latter. Always.”

“I introduce myself every time. She could just use my name.”

“Nah, not her thing.”

He stands over me and I’m breathless. Even more when he bends down to kiss me, one hand on the back of my chair, the other on the desk. He’s a blanket of heat and comfort. I lean into his lips because I can’t help myself, then clear my throat.

“I’d love to hang out, but I have to finish my quiz.”

He nods, ever understanding. And says, “Action potential, sodium, amygdala.”

“What?”

“The answers to the three questions you have left.” He crosses his arms and looks down at me like he’s never, not once, fallen for someone’s lie. “What’s going on, Scarlett?”

“Nothing. Why?”

“Why?” He huffs, amused. “You’re not good at this, no more than I am.”

“At what?”

“At playing fucking games.”

He’s right. It’s why we like what we like, and each other. Structure. Negotiations. Agreements and predictability. “I’m just catching up with schoolwork. We’re so close to Pac-12—”

His fingers pinch my chin like I’m a child, leaving me no choice but to meet his eyes. I don’t know if I can stand it. It’s that pressure again. A constant threat of tears. “I left this place two weeks ago. You were happy and fucked out and half in—” He breaks off. A muscle in his jaw twitches. “Are you okay?”

I nod, but can’t bring myself to say a single thing.

“Hey,” he tells me, tone shifting to real concern, searching, weighty. “You don’t have to pretend. You don’t have to come up with some bullshit excuse. It’s just me.”

It’s true. This is Lukas, and he loves the truth. I can vomit out whatever’s in my head and he’ll accept it—and doesn’t that make it even worse?

I’m being strangled. Cannot breathe. Have to slow myself down. “Pen is . . . not doing well.”

“Right. Pen and her fucking delusions.” His tone terrifies me—icy. Angry. A dangerous machine he could use to excavate the beating heart out of my chest. “Did she ask you to take a step back?”

“No.”

“No.” The word is, at once, out of his mouth before I’m done answering, and spoken in the most unhurried of ways. “All on your own, then.”

“She’s my friend.” I run my palms down my bare thighs. “I don’t think she could handle that you and I . . .”

“You and I?” His smile is a little cruel. “Come on, Scarlett. What are you and I doing? Are you ready to finally say it?”

I stare down at my legs, hoping the words will roll out easily when I’m avoiding his eyes. But no. “Until she feels better, maybe we should pull back. Or focus more on the . . . physical part of our relationship.”

Lukas doesn’t answer, not for a long stretch, and when I give up and tilt my head up at him, his gaze is cataloging, all-seeing. “Now?” he asks.

“What?”

“Do you want me to fuck you while pretending that you’re not the person I feel closest to in the whole fucking world now, Scarlett? Or another day?”

I don’t know what cuts deeper—the words, or the chill in his tone.

“I . . . if you want to, now, we can—”

“I want.” He sounds mocking, even a little contemptuous, but his hand is gentle enough as he pulls me out of the chair. “Am I allowed to kiss you?” His smile is bitter. “Would that be unfair toward Pen?”

He’s angry, and anger doesn’t go well with power exchange. I just have to decide whether I care. “Of course you can kiss me.”

But he doesn’t. He pushes me onto the bed, belly down, and his strength vibrates throughout my body. And we haven’t even started.

Or—I haven’t. Lukas has pulled my shorts down to the bottom curve of my ass. I didn’t bother with underwear after my shower, and feel the heat of skin against mine. His fingers tangle in my hair, lifting my head until his other palm is right in front of my mouth.

“Get it wet.”

“I—what?”

His grip tightens on my scalp. “Since when do we ask questions, Scarlett?”

Oh my god. “I—I’m sorry.”

A hard slap on my ass. “If I tell you to do something, you just fucking do it. Lick it.” He’s rough, which addles my brain. I’m so turned on, I can feel the smear of it between my thighs. I part my lips, running my tongue up the center of his palm. “Again.”

I repeat it four, five times. When he deems his palm wet enough, he pulls back, and then I feel the thick denim, the rhythmic bump of his knuckles against the soft part of my bottom, the sticky wetness of his skin dragging over my lower back. He’s just jerking off. Using my body—barely.

I’m at his disposal. Any disgusting thing he’s ever thought of, he could do with my blessing, but he doesn’t take advantage. It’s detached like this, like I’m a canvas, nothing more than a picture he found on the internet, some faceless, nameless girl he doesn’t care about and never will.

His grunt when he comes is familiar, embedded in the back of my brain. I squeeze my thighs together and my eyes shut, hiding my face in the cotton sheets.

A dip in weight, the bounce of the mattress. He’s leaving. My heart sinks for a flurry of reasons that have nothing to do with the fact I’m this worked up and he won’t make me come. Then his shirt hits the floor, and relief floods over me. He presses a kiss between my shoulder blades, long and lingering, a stark contrast to the clinch of his hands around my waist as he arranges me. His fingers dip in the come at the base of my spine, and he asks, “You know what I like about fucking you?”

I shake my head.

“You’d let me do anything, wouldn’t you? You trust me that much. You’re just that perfect.”

It’s Lukas who’s perfect. Who knows how to push my boundaries but never cross them. To make me hurt just enough to feel good.

Maybe we’re just perfect for each other.

More valid than sharing the same sexual—

“What do you say if you want me to stop?” he asks. But I’m distracted. His hand slides down my back, between my ass cheeks, smearing his come against my hole.

My breath catches and I squirm. I thought he’d leave me like that, a fair punishment for my lies, but instead a single finger presses inside me, foreign and new.

I tense. Gasp in fear and hunger. It’s all messed up, blended together in my heart and in my belly. The fullness aches, a slick, perfect burn.

“Lukas, I—” I’ve never done this. He knows it.

“Scarlett.” He’s immensely displeased. “What. Do. You. Say?”

“Stop.” He rewards me with a good girl that makes my cunt flutter.

He’s gentle, but not too much. He makes the head of his cock slick with his own come, and it takes him long enough to fit it in that I’m a puddle underneath, trembling and clutching at the sheets and forcing myself to breathe around him.

“Okay?”

I nod, overwhelmed. He’s not all the way inside. Without real lube, even with, I’m not sure he’d manage. He parts my cheeks, rubs against the place where his cock stretches skin, and lets out a husky, surprised grunt, like he didn’t expect to enjoy it this much.

“I want to take a picture of this.”

I twist my hips, searching for something—not sure what. It’s too much. No room. I shudder. One of Lukas’s palms plants on the side of my head, and I turn into it, rubbing into the tendon of his wrist, pressing a simple kiss on his skin, because—he could really hurt me. Split me and make me bleed. The thought is as much a turn-on as knowing that he’d rather slash his own arm off than harm me.

That’s where it lives, my love for him. In the space between the things he could do, and what he chooses instead. Care, swallowing violence, swallowing care. Over and over again, until it’s all exquisitely tangled up together.

“But I don’t need a picture, since I’m never going to forget this.” He presses maybe a fraction of an inch deeper. My breath hitches. “It’s okay. You’re okay,” he says, a comforting hand up and down my back. Somehow, his words make it true. “A little more. You were made to be fucked by me. Is it too much?”

I nod.

“Liar.” His laughter is low and gentle against my skin. “I’ll give you more. Since you want it so much.” He knows my body better than I do. When to stay still. How long till the burn fades. All my tells.

He knows me. I know him.

Than sharing the same sexual—

I let out a single, pitiful sob. A warbled sorry that has nothing to do with what’s happening.

“Baby.” Another kiss. On my cheekbone. “It’s okay if you want to cry. It hurts, doesn’t it? It all hurts so fucking much, huh?” He sounds like I’m gutting him with a rusty knife—because it has nothing to do with his cock sinking into my ass.

What really hurts is pushing him away.

The balcony in Amsterdam.

His name in my phone.

Self-professed belonging.

“Lukas.” Despair and heat spill into me.

“Sweetheart. I’m here to pick you up,” he whispers. “Fuck you into a thousand little pieces, and then put them back together. You don’t need me to do it, but it’s what you want, isn’t it? For me to fix you?” It’s horrifying, the truth of it. Even more so when I feel his lips against my ear, a whisper rolling out of his mouth. “You want to come, baby?”

I nod. I’m almost there, and yet a million miles away.

“I could make you wait for it. I could force you to tell me all the things you cannot say.” His hand slides between my hip bone and the mattress. “But I won’t. You know why?” He finds my swollen clit. Index and middle fingers draw circles around it. A tap that makes me shiver. “Because I know all of them already.”

A wet explosion in my brain. I burst just like that, wedged between his hand and his chest, clenching around his cock until I’m so narrow, he almost slips outside of me. His groan rolls through me—There you go, such a good, beautiful girl—and when I’m mellow again, he orders, “Be nice and quiet while I finish, okay?”

He can’t manage proper thrusts, but he drags his movements out anyway, like he doesn’t want this to end. I lie patiently, loving every second of it—being his, being used, being wanted, it’s all a contented, indistinguishable hum reverberating inside my body. His pleasure makes him speechless, a handful of noiseless grunts and foreign words and my name, hands gripping my breasts and teeth holding my neck. He throbs and jerks, and then we lie there, waiting, catching our breaths.

Then he lifts my hips up, knees wide on the bed. I feel his gaze on me, studying, memorizing, and I’m about to beg him to stop, when his mouth is suddenly there, tongue lazy and broad against my clit, painful bites where my ass joins my thigh. Orgasms sweep over me, and I’m sobbing, choking on my own cries. He’s the one to push my face into the blanket and remind me that I have to hush, c’mon, Scarlett, just bite here and you’re fucking ruining me, and then I’m coming again.

I’m outside my body. It’s the best and worst thing I’ve ever felt. I space away. Perfect. Perfect.

Afterward, he disappears in the bathroom, door open, not bothering to turn on the lights. I watch him, boneless, sweat slowly drying on my spine. When he comes back to clean me up, little tears pebble under my eyes, and he wipes them away with his thumb. Tucks me into bed. Doesn’t join me.

Instead he crouches by my pillow, holds my hand to his lips, and asks, “What are you scared of, Scarlett?” His eyes look . . . sad, maybe. I’m not sure. Traces of emotions crease the corners.

“Everything.”

A deep sigh. “When it comes to what matters, you’re fearless. Try to remember that, okay?”

I make no promises. Instead, I snooze. Dip in and out of sleep, but Lukas stays there, watching me, for what feels like a long time. Then he presses a kiss against my forehead, turns off the light, and lets himself out.

The following week, Pac-12 starts.