Beyond the Breakwater Page 3

  “What?” Caroline suddenly realized that her friend James was still speaking.

  “The black belt thing…that’s happening soon for her, right?”

  “Oh. Yes. Sometime this year.”

  “Man, that’s amazing.” James leaned against the counter and fished a handful of potato chips from an open bag beside him, then took a swallow of his beer. He and Caroline moved closer together as another woman squeezed in beside them, muttering that she was looking for ice. “She, like, practices every day, doesn’t she?”

  “Almost.” Lately, it seemed that Bri’s training was the most important thing in her life. Caroline knew for a fact that the martial arts were much more important to Bri than college. And not for the first time, she thought that Bri had come to Manhattan only to be with her. Perhaps if we had stayed in Provincetown, Bri would have been just as happy. Maybe more.

  When they’d talked about going away to college, Bri had simply said that she would go anywhere that Caroline wanted to go. So, when Caroline received the scholarship to the Parsons School of Design in Manhattan, it had seemed like an ideal solution. Manhattan wasn’t that far from Cape Cod, so they could still get home easily. There were plenty of schools where Bri could enroll, and Reese Conlon knew of a dojo where Bri could train. Bri had settled on John Jay University, because it was affordable and offered a solid curriculum in criminology. She wanted to go into law enforcement, like her father and Reese.

  It was great timing when she and Bri found the tiny apartment in Alphabet City, the student/artist enclave in the East Village, and life had seemed perfect. For her, it still was.

  “I’d better get back out there.” Caroline grabbed a bottle of beer for herself and moved toward the front room.

  “Later,” James called as he reached for more chips.

  The front door was just closing behind Bri as Caroline walked into the crowded living room, which also happened to be their bedroom when the sofa bed was pulled out. Caroline stepped over extended legs and threaded her way around the bowls and bottles on the floor until she reached her lover. Standing on tiptoe, she slipped one arm around Bri’s shoulder and gave her a quick kiss on the mouth.

  “Hi.”

  Bri, taller than Caroline by a head, was in her usual outfit—tight, threadbare blue jeans, multizippered leather jacket, and heavy black motorcycle boots. She put both arms around her girlfriend and pulled her close, squeezing gently. Caroline always smelled like the shampoo she used, some combination of fruit and spices. Just the scent of her could make Bri wet.

  “Hey, babe. How’s it going?”

  “Okay. Missed you.”

  “Sorry.” Bri let Caroline go and shrugged out of her jacket. The black T-shirt was stretched tight across her muscled chest and shoulders, her breasts smooth shadows beneath the thin cotton. Narrow-hipped and broad-shouldered, hard-bodied from the daily practice of jujitsu, she exuded danger and a seething sexuality.

  “Come on.” Caroline took her hand. “You want something? A beer?”

  “Sure.” Bri allowed herself to be pulled though the crowd. She was relieved that Caroline hadn’t asked her why she was late, but she’d seen the hurt in those deep green eyes just the same. Fuck. I have to tell her soon.

  *

  By two a.m., everyone had gone. Discarded bottles and half-empty bowls of snacks lay scattered around the room, but the apartment had survived the crush of partyers in fairly good shape. Caroline and Bri were nestled on the couch where they had collapsed after bidding good night to the last of the art students. The room lights were off, and a few candles provided the only illumination. Bri, cradling Caroline in her arms, leaned against the corner of the sofa with the smaller woman lying between her outstretched legs.

  “I guess we should open the bed,” Bri murmured, nuzzling her lips in Caroline’s fragrant hair. She rubbed her palm slowly up and down Caroline’s bare stomach, brushing the navel ring back and forth. Every now and then, she tugged it lazily between her fingers. “Carre? Babe? You awake?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Caroline turned on her side and snugged her hips between Bri’s thighs. “It’s awfully nice just like this.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Bri tilted Caroline’s chin up with a finger and found her lips, exploring with the tip of her tongue along the sensitive inner surfaces. They’d kissed thousands of times, but every time she was struck anew by the incredible softness of Caroline’s lips. Within seconds, Bri felt herself swell and grow hard.

  “I love to kiss you,” Bri whispered.

  “Mmm. Me, too.” Caroline rested her hand on Bri’s chest, rhythmically brushing her thumb across the peak of her lover’s taut nipple. She knew that would make Bri crazy.

  After a minute, Bri was primed. “Come on, babe. Let’s open the bed and get out of our clothes.”

  “Not yet,” Caroline said with gentle firmness. “I’m too comfortable. Just kiss me for a little while longer.”

  Bri knew what Caroline was doing, and as much as it frustrated her, it excited her tremendously, too. Carre likes to tease me. She always has. They’d barely been sixteen when they’d met, but Caroline had always been confident. She wanted Bri, and she didn’t care who knew it. That had always made Bri feel like a king.

  Surrendering to the sweet torture, Bri groaned and kissed Caroline hard, her tongue inside the warm mouth now. Minutes—hours—passed, she couldn’t tell how long. Her head was light, her legs heavy, and her breath hissed from her chest in uneven gasps. Somewhere in the midst of their kisses, Caroline had turned on her stomach between Bri’s open thighs, and now she thrust her hips into Bri in time with their questing tongues.

  Clasping Caroline’s butt in her hands, Bri pulled her hard against her crotch, trying unsuccessfully to satisfy the pressure building precariously inside. She sighed against Caroline’s mouth. “You feel so good.”

  The only response was a soft whimper.

  The sound of Caroline’s pleasure snapped the tenuous threads of Bri’s control, and she wrapped one strong arm around Caroline’s waist and twisted until the smaller woman was beneath her. She grasped the lower edge of the diminutive crop top, pushed it up, and lowered her mouth to the soft, full breast.

  Caroline arched and cried out as Bri sucked the nipple into her mouth. She fisted her hands in Bri’s hair, pulling frantically as the pleasure streaked from her breast through her belly. “Bri…ooh, you always make me so hot.”

  Never moving her lips from Caroline’s breast, Bri eased away enough to get her hand between them. Deftly, she opened Caroline’s jeans and began to push them down over her hips.

  “Oh, yes. Hurry.” Caroline lifted her hips, grasped her jeans with one hand, and helped bare her body. Then with her lips pressed to Bri’s ear, she begged, “I’m so excited. Make me come, baby.”

  Bri groaned. Nothing had ever made her feel at once so powerful and so hopelessly inadequate. That Caroline would want her, would trust her so completely, nearly broke her heart. She pressed her forehead to Caroline’s breast, murmuring fervently, “I love you so damn much.”

  “I know…I know…oh, love me now.” Eyes closed, head twisting helplessly against the arm of the sofa, Caroline pushed Bri down with trembling hands.

  Moving fast, Bri knelt on the floor, her palms beneath Caroline’s hips, pulling her forward to the edge of the couch and lifting her easily on her powerful forearms. “Babe, I love you.”

  “Please, do it. Please.” Caroline lifted her hips beseechingly.

  Then Bri lowered her head and stroked the slick folds with her tongue, holding tightly as Caroline jerked at the first light touch. When she took the distended clitoris between her lips, Caroline’s cries echoed the thundering of her own fierce passion. With her mouth, with her hands, with her lips, she paid homage to the love that had saved her sanity and shaped her life.

  As Caroline climaxed, trembling and whimpering, Bri groaned with the answering surge between her own thighs. She rocked her pe
lvis against the sofa, the seam of her jeans riding over her clitoris. The faint pressure was more than enough to trigger her oversensitive nerve endings, and she came instantly, shuddering with the force of it. Her hoarse cries mingled with her lover’s last soft moans.

  “Bri? Honey?” Caroline questioned weakly, trailing her fingers over Bri’s face. Bri’s cheek was pressed to her stomach, and Caroline’s hand came away wet. “Are you crying?”

  “No,” Bri lied.

  Caroline sat up and leaned forward, her arms resting on Bri’s broad shoulders. “Oh, baby. Yes, you are.”

  “It’s nothing.” Kneeling, encircled in Caroline’s embrace, Bri looked away. “Don’t worry.”

  “I don’t think you’ve done that since the first time. Remember?”

  Caroline’s voice was gentle, and Bri thought of the warm summer nights in the dunes—innocently making love beneath the stars with the sounds of the surf in the background. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I remember.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Bri insisted again.

  “You have to tell me.” Caroline gave Bri a small shake. “Something hasn’t been right for a long time. Ever since Christmas.”

  “I don’t know how to explain.”

  Caroline’s heart lurched. Suddenly, unimaginably, she was frightened of something that Bri might say. Her hands tightened on Bri’s shoulders, and she lowered her face so that she could see her expression in the flickering candlelight. “Is there…another girl?”

  “No! Jesus.” Bri put her palms on either side of Caroline’s face and kissed her swiftly. “Never.”

  “Then what?”

  “I want to quit school.”

  “In the middle of the school year?” Caroline jerked back. “Why?”

  “I don’t know…college, it’s just not for me.” She didn’t know quite how to tell Caroline that she’d never really been happy in Manhattan. Caroline loved it there, loved the excitement of being with other artists like herself. But Bri felt lost, out of place, far from the wild seas and barren shores of Cape Cod. Just walking the beach in Herring Cove settled her restlessness. And being in school, pursuing a degree that every day seemed less and less to represent what she wanted out of life, was making her miserable. She just wanted to be a small-town cop, like Reese. “I don’t need to spend four years studying to do what I want to do.”

  “I know you want to be a sheriff, but I thought you said college would give you more opportunities later.” Caroline was trying not to sound scared, but she was.

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “But why quit now?”

  “Because I don’t want to be here next year while you’re in France.” She hadn’t wanted to say that. But it was the truth.

  “Oh.” The sound was small, surprised.

  Neither of them said anything for long moments, until finally Bri got to her feet and moved as far away as the small room would allow. She leaned against the doorway that joined the kitchen and the living room and pushed her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.

  “I won’t go then,” Caroline said quietly as she hastily rearranged her clothing. Brushing a hand through her disheveled hair, she smiled tremulously. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “Because I want you to go,” Bri said forcefully. “You want to go. Fuck…you should go.”

  Bri turned and walked into the kitchen, then jerked open the small refrigerator door and pulled out a bottle of beer. Viciously, she twisted off the top and threw it into the trash. She turned to find Caroline framed in the doorway, staring at her with wounded eyes. “I can’t go with you, Carre. You know that.”

  “What would you do?”

  Bri looked away.

  “Bri?”

  “I applied to the sheriff’s department training academy on the Cape. If I start with the next incoming class, I’ll graduate in time to work this summer.”

  “When does that start?”

  Bri hesitated. “In a few weeks.”

  “You’re going to move back home?”

  “Yeah.”

  Caroline couldn’t hide her shock. She felt as if she had just plummeted into another world. They had barely spent a day apart since they were sixteen years old. From the minute she’d had awareness of her own sexual longings, those desires had been centered on Brianna Parker. She’d never imagined a life with anyone else, and she couldn’t conceive of being away from Bri, even for a few weeks. She’d known that the year in Paris was going to be hard for them both, but she had hoped that somehow they would find a way to work it out. Now, it seemed that Bri had made other plans—plans that didn’t include her at all.

  “When did you apply?” Caroline’s voice was eerily calm.

  “Just before Christmas.”

  “You didn’t tell me.” It was a statement, not an accusation.

  “I didn’t want you to change your mind about Paris.”

  “Oh, Bri.” Caroline hadn’t meant to cry, but the tears came before she could stop them. She felt so sad, and so helpless to change events that already seemed to be moving too fast.

  Stunned, Bri put the beer bottle on the counter and rapidly crossed the room. She pulled Caroline into her arms and buried her face in her hair. “I’m sorry. Please, don’t cry.”

  “Can we talk about this tomorrow?” Caroline pressed hard against Bri’s body, needing the solid reassurance of her presence.

  “Sure. Anything you want.” Bri kissed Caroline’s forehead. “It will be okay, babe.”

  But somehow, they both knew that wasn’t true.

  *

  Less than two weeks later, Bri and Caroline stood together in the chill January wind on the sidewalk in front of their apartment building. Bri strapped her loaded saddlebags onto the back of her Harley with methodical care. She wasn’t taking much—extra jeans, a few books, her gis. And she was leaving everything behind. “You should go inside. It’s freezing out here.”

  “I’m okay.” Shivering, Caroline crossed her arms over her chest, but it wasn’t the frigid air that chilled her. She was still having trouble believing that when she went to bed that night, she would be lying down alone and waking up without Bri beside her. “I don’t care about Paris.”

  She’d said it before, a hundred times, a thousand times, in the last two weeks, trying to convince her stubborn lover that a year of studying in France didn’t matter to her. But Bri wouldn’t budge, insisting that Caroline shouldn’t miss the opportunity, and Caroline didn’t know what else to say. She couldn’t beg her to stay in Manhattan, not when she’d finally realized how miserable Bri had been for months. Bri wanted to go home, wanted to get a job, and Caroline wanted to finish school.

  “I know you want to do this sheriff thing now, and not two years from now. It’s okay. I want you to do it, too, if that’s really what—”

  “Look, I’ll come home when I can. And once school ends, you’ll be moving back to the Cape for the summer. That’s only four months.” Bri’s chest ached. The tears in Caroline’s eyes were killing her.

  “But if I stay here next year,” Caroline continued hurriedly as if Bri hadn’t spoken, “I’ll be able to see you every other weekend or so. At least once a month.”

  “How? Take the train or the goddamn bus for six hours each way?” Bri yanked on her heavy riding gloves. “I don’t know when we could afford a car.”

  “Still, it would be better than a whole yea—”

  “We’ll have this summer together. By the time you have to leave in the fall, we’ll be used to the idea.” Bri straddled the bike and tried to think of something that would take the hurt out of Caroline’s eyes. It’s not just Paris. It’s not just next year. Don’t you know that? Your art is really good, babe. Everyone knows it. And this is your chance. You have to do whatever it takes, and it sure isn’t going to be spending your life in Provincetown. If I stay here, I’m only going to hold you back.

  Caroline rushed across the sidewalk and threw her arm
s around Bri’s leather-jacketed shoulders. She buried her face in Bri’s neck, her words muffled against her lover’s cold skin. “I love you. I don’t want us to be apart.”

  “Oh, babe.” Bri wrapped the smaller woman in a bone-crushing embrace, pressing her face to the top of Caroline’s head. Much more of this and she was going to crack. It felt like her chest was going to explode, it hurt so much. “We just have to do this. Promise me if you get the scholarship, you’ll go.”

  “Bri,” Caroline pleaded, her fists clutching the stiff leather.

  “Promise.”

  Caroline nodded wordlessly as Bri brushed a kiss into her hair. “Go inside, Carre. I don’t want you to watch me ride away.”

  “Call me when you get there?”

  For one terrifying moment, Bri didn’t think she could let her go. She had a horrible feeling that she would never hold her again. Oh Jesus, what am I going to do without you? Hoarsely, she managed a barely audible, “Sure.”

  Reluctantly, Caroline stepped away, her jade green eyes locked on Bri’s midnight blue ones. She was crying now, but she didn’t feel the tears freezing on her cheeks. “I’m not going to let you leave me.”

  “I’m not,” Bri whispered, but she feared she might be lying to them both.

  Chapter Three

  February, Provincetown, MA

  Reese leaned on the railing of the postage-stamp-sized deck behind the Galleria, a relatively new two-story enclave of boutiques on Commercial Street in the middle of town, watching the fishing boats leave Provincetown Harbor for their morning run. The air smelled of seashells and jellyfish, and in the distance, the waves frothed against the breakwater, a huge rock barrier that prevented the ocean’s wrath from pummeling the harbor shoreline. She’d looked on the scene hundreds of times since she had come to Provincetown almost three years before, searching for home. And she’d found it here by the timeless sea in the arms of a woman whose love had defined her destiny. Never had she imagined it was possible to feel so content.