Behind the Curtain

by BETH KERY

  “Never mind. Screw it,” Asher said after a minute, frustrated. He hated how sharp he sounded. He despised himself for his foul mood. “Thanks for helping me look,” he told his friends, feeling guilty. “And sorry. About that before.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Get some sleep, man. You look cashed out,” Jimmy said.

  But Asher knew he was too wired to sleep. Once in his room, he flung open a dormer window and unhinged the screen. A few seconds later, he climbed out onto the shingled roof.

  He sat with his knees bent, looking out at the expanse of the black lake across the horizon. God, he hadn’t come out on the roof to calm down and be alone since he was fourteen years old. There was something about being up so high . . . about being that much closer to the stars that gave him a little perspective. Plus, he’d known his parents would have hated it back then, him being out here on the high, slanted roof. That knowledge had often helped soothe whatever had gotten him riled.

  He pressed his forehead against his forearms, willing this feeling inside him to fade. It wouldn’t. He realized what he was feeling wasn’t anger. It was desperation.

  Six nights. That was how many he had left here in Crescent Bay. And he was wasting this one.

  “Asher?”

  He started and lifted his head, sure he’d imagined her voice. He wanted her so much he was hallucinating her presence.

  “Asher? Are you out there?”

  Adrenaline shot through him, making his veins seem to burn. He saw a flash of movement at the edge of the window eight feet below him.

  “Laila?”

  “Yeah. What are you doing out there?”

  Her flat, incredulous tone brought it home. It really was her. He gave a bark of disbelieving laughter and started to crawl down the roof. He noticed the outline of her shoulders as she leaned farther out the window. Her long hair rippled in the breeze off the lake.

  “Don’t come out, Laila,” he insisted. “I’m coming down.”

  “Asher, be careful.”

  She disappeared behind the pane when he reached the dormer. A few seconds later, he clambered across the sill into his bedroom. He saw her pale dress glowing from the shadows. He turned on a bedside lamp. She was definitely here. No ghost or hallucination could possess Laila’s singular, luminous face or smooth, toned arms or lush, sexy hair. He hadn’t seen her in days. He experienced a wild urge to yell like some kind of savage. She was so damn beautiful, he wanted to absorb her.

  Her eyes looked huge in her delicate face.

  “Is everything okay?” he demanded, concern penetrating his euphoria at seeing her so unexpectedly.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then . . . what are you doing here?”

  She pursed her lips together. She looked anxious. Miserable.

  “Laila?” he asked, stepping toward her. He took her hands in his. His head dropped and he brushed his mouth against her cheek. “What is it?”

  “It’s just . . . it wasn’t okay,” she whispered, glancing up at him. He realized she was trembling slightly all over. His arms closed around her.

  “Shhh,” he murmured against her temple. “Just tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I’ve been feeling like I was going to jump out of my own skin for days. My mom kept giving me one thing to do after another, after another. She saw me texting you and assumed I was texting with Ben. She wants to ask him back for dinner on Sunday, but Baba said he’d talk her out of it. We had this big picnic on the beach, and I threw it all up.”

  “What? Are you sick?”

  “No. I’m fine. I just . . . I feel like my insides are scraping together. Like my worlds are,” she said, looking up at him entreatingly. He smoothed back her hair, hating witnessing her distress, wishing like hell he could say something to help . . . knowing he couldn’t, because he was the cause of it. “After dinner, my dad started telling me all this stuff about how important it was to find someone that you shared common values with, because relationships are hard enough as it is. And then he told me how it would’ve been irresponsible for Uncle Reda and him to build sports cars and how you can’t buy food with dreams . . .” She paused and gasped for air.

  “What?” Asher asked, very confused and concerned at how worked up she was. Christ, she looks as tense as I feel.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she sniffed. “None of it matters. My point is, the whole day, I felt so . . . trapped, because I couldn’t speak the truth out loud, and I knew you were here, so close, but I couldn’t see you.”

  He pressed his mouth to her temple again, and then to her hair. Inhaling her scent made his throat hurt. His chest. Everything.

  “I had to come. I snuck off the sleeping porch. I stole Zara’s car. Jimmy told me you were up here in your room,” she recounted shakily. “I’ve never done anything like this before. I don’t know what’s wrong with me—”

  “Shhh,” he whispered, kissing her cheek. “There’s nothing wrong with you, baby. I felt the same way all day.”

  “It was . . . it was you saying that thing about us having only a week left that really . . .”

  “I know. I know,” he murmured, skimming his lips against her jaw. She turned her face toward him. Their lips brushed together.

  “You do?” she whispered.

  “I know I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  He hadn’t been prepared to say it. He’d never felt it, let alone said it in his life until now. It had just popped out of his mouth, a simple, huge, inarguable truth. She stared up at him, her eyes shimmering. Since he was acknowledging it for the first time, he thought maybe he looked just as amazed by his declaration at that moment as she did.

  “Is that what this is?” she asked him slowly, wonder tingeing her voice.

  “Granted, I’m new to it, but yeah. I’m sure.”

  Her throat convulsed as she swallowed. “I am too. That I love you, I mean. What else could be making me so crazy?” she said, as if it had all just become crystal clear to her.

  He gave a sharp bark of laughter, feeling some of the tension he’d been carrying around seep out of him. “This is a good thing. This is a very good thing.”

  “Right. I mean . . . it’s never bad, to love someone. To be loved. Is it?” she whispered, stepping closer to him. His arms tightened around her. “It’s always a good thing.” Her gaze traveled over his face. “It’s always . . . an amazing thing.”

  He cradled her jaw and lifted her mouth to his. “In the case of you, it’s nothing less than a miracle.” Unable to take it a second longer, he swooped down to claim her mouth.

  Chapter Thirteen

  She drowned in him, every cell in her being flooding with Asher. She succumbed willingly to the onslaught. Joyfully. He placed his hands at the top of her bottom and leaned over her, making her back arch, while he kissed her with furious intent. There was something so sharp about her need tonight. Something unbearable that clawed at her insides. Maybe it had to do with what they’d just confessed to each other . . . the revelation.

  She gripped his rib cage, her fingertips sinking into the dense muscles of his back, her nails digging through the fabric of his shirt. When he groaned into her mouth and broke their kiss, she sought him again, craning up to nip at his lips. She saw his small snarl.

  “Come here, Laila.”

  He lifted her off her feet, and he was kissing her again, wild, deep and wholesale. She clung to his neck, feeling herself moving. Sailing. But mostly, her entire awareness was dominated by his hot, hungry kiss. He laid her down on her back. She blinked her eyes open when his mouth left her. He stood by the edge of the bed he’d laid her on, his expression fierce as he looked down at her.

  “From the moment I first saw you, heard you even, something told me you were mine,” he said. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but now . . . it seems so obvious.”

  She held her breath
when he leaned down and traced her skin along the top of her dress, his fingertips gliding over the tops of her breasts. With his other hand, he caressed her arm so lovingly, it made her ache. “I’m going to make you mine, Laila.”

  “Yes,” she said, the single word saying it all: yes, to the risk . . . to the deeper . . .

  . . . To him.

  Holding her stare, he began to unbutton her dress. It would have been easier for her to just slip it over her head, but she didn’t say anything, enthralled by his expression as his fingers descended down the middle of her body.

  Finally, he parted the fabric and just looked down at her. She wore only her panties beneath the dress. Her skin felt flushed, her breasts tender and sensitive. But she experienced no shame beneath his possessive stare.

  “I wish I could tell you what you do to me.”

  “Show me,” she whispered, holding up her arms for him.

  He knelt, sliding off the sandals she wore and kicking off his own shoes. He drew his shirt over his head. Placing his hands on her knees, he parted her thighs and sank down next to the bed between her legs.

  • • •

  She was like a dream, lying there with her long, dark hair spread around her head, her dress opened to reveal her breasts and the smooth, erotic span of her belly. That was where he kissed her first, pressing his face to her softness. She whimpered. He felt her hand at the back of his head, holding him to her as his lips skimmed across her fragrant skin. He nuzzled the area just above her panties, that stretch of exquisitely soft skin. He inhaled her scent: flowers and honey and the sweetness of her arousal. That fullness inside him, the one he’d wanted to describe to her but couldn’t put into words, swelled high.

  He lowered her panties down to her ankles, sliding them off her feet. She shifted restlessly on the mattress beneath his stare. He glanced up at her face, his hands bracketing her hips. He recognized what glistened in her eyes and leaned down to kiss her mons.

  “Such a gift,” he told her gruffly, before he dipped his tongue into the distilled essence of Laila.

  • • •

  He’d said it like she was presenting him with a gift, but as pleasure flooded her in a wave, Laila knew it was the reverse. Surely it was his mouth that was the gift, his focused desire.

  Oh God. It felt like heaven on earth when he touched me with his hand, but this . . . this is almost unbearable, it’s so sweet.

  Her entire body tensed tight at the sensation of his tongue moving in her most intimate flesh. He was firm but tender; hungry but somehow worshipful, as well. One of her hands gripped the bedspread, the other at his head, her fingers delving into his thick hair. She made a wild, helpless sound in her throat.

  He lifted his head and pressed his warm, damp lips to her thigh. She felt the deprivation of his mouth like a pinching pain. “Okay?” he asked her hoarsely.

  “Yes. God, yes. Please . . .”

  But his mouth was already back on her, the tip of his tongue finding her clitoris, rubbing and agitating her until her eyes rolled back in her head. He sealed his lips to her flesh, providing a slight suction, while his tongue dipped and pressed and circled. She moaned his name, her hips twisting against the sharp pleasure.

  He firmed his hold on her hips and lifted his head.

  “Does it feel good?”

  “Yes . . . I never knew it could feel like this,” she managed to say, biting her lip to silence an anguished cry. She shook slightly from the absence of his touch.

  “I never knew anyone could taste so good. Hold still. I want more. So much more.”

  He groaned, and the pleasure was stealing her breath again.

  He was hungrier now, but so was she. Her entire world swirled in a cyclone of sensation. She called his name as she rose to the pinnacle, and she thought maybe she sounded a little afraid . . .

  . . . Because she was, she realized. It had never felt like this before, like she was about to commit herself to some scary initiatory flames.

  And then his finger was at her entrance, piercing her. She heard his voice. She trusted in it.

  “Come for me. There’s no going back.”

  His tongue found her again. His head twisted subtly but firmly between her thighs while his finger sank into her to the knuckle. She ignited, her entire body blasting with pleasure. She gave herself to the fire, feeling the old world falling further and further away.

  • • •

  When she came back to herself, Asher stood again next to the bed, shedding his shorts. He came down over her, helping her scoot farther onto the bed. She let her dress slip off her arms and fall away. She caressed his face when he came down over her, mouthing his name, wonder still clinging thick in her dazed consciousness. He touched his mouth to hers, and she tasted her desire mingling with his.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you too.”

  “Tell me how to say it in Moroccan.”

  “Kan hubek,” she whispered feelingly.

  He flexed his hips against her, and his heavy erection slid against her thigh. He looked so beautiful in the dim lamplight, his skin gilded from the sun, his muscles bulging and tight.

  “Kan hubek,” he said.

  It’s like a god came down to love me.

  • • •

  “I’m going to wear a condom,” he said.

  She nodded, her throat too tight to speak.

  “But I’m not going to come inside you either. The consequences are too big to play with the odds,” he said thickly.

  For a few seconds, she wanted to weep. She had a wild, crazy urge to tell him no. She wanted him in her naked, for them to surrender to this completely.

  All or nothing.

  But then reality took hold, and she recognized her childishness. The selfishness of her impulse. They were committing to each other in a very deep sense. But the future was still far from certain. She couldn’t afford to get pregnant.

  Asher couldn’t risk his future either.

  “Yeah. You’re right,” she whispered. “Thank you for thinking of it.”

  He leaned down and kissed her mouth. In typical Asher fashion, his kiss started out tender and quickly turned hot and fierce, melting her.

  His mouth blazed a trail down her neck and chest. She lay with her head fully back on the pillows, feeling like she’d never felt in her life, like she’d discovered an additional sense. He touched her so reverently. So knowingly. His tongue swept across her nipple, and she gasped in wonder. His mouth enclosed her, warm and wet and hungry. She felt his firm suck tugging at her core. His hand moved at her sex. She called his name, raking her hands through his hair and squeezing the muscles of his shoulders with her palms. She could feel his cock pressed against the side of her hip. He felt so heavy . . . so stark and blunt and unapologetic in his need. She leaned up slightly, eager to return the pleasure. He caught her mouth in a hot kiss and her wrist with his hand.

  “Let me touch you right now,” he said against her mouth. “It’ll be better for both of us this way.”

  She wasn’t sure what he meant but gasped in relief when his hand returned to her sex. For a moment, she closed her eyes and swam in pure, decadent pleasure. Her eyelids fluttered open. He watched her closely while he took her to the brink again. She accepted his gaze into her private world, melting into it. Everything was blending and burning, and she wondered where he began and she ended.

  “This is why they call it making love,” he said as if from a distance, a small smile of wonder curving his mouth. It was as if he was just getting something that had always seemed mundane that was, in actuality, one of the most profound truths of the universe.

  And she felt it too.

  “Asher—”

  “Shhh, it’s okay,” he said, calming her, because he’d just removed his hand when she was so close to climax. He stretched, opening a bedsi
de table drawer. He rolled away slightly and she realized he was putting on a condom. Rolling between her thighs, he leaned down to kiss her mouth. She felt him shift his cock until he pressed at her entrance. She winced in pleasure at the feeling of his hardness against her melting, sensitive flesh.

  “Kan hubek,” she told him softly, opening her thighs wider.

  “Kan hubek.”

  The words were new to his tongue, but the expression on his face made them ancient, somehow. Eternal. He flexed his hips, and she gasped.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, his face pinched as if he were in pain.

  She reached for him, cradling his face. “It hurts far worse being separate from you.”

  He pressed again.

  It was like all the emotional friction in her became a solid reality, like it found an outlet in the flesh. It hurt her, to feel it so vividly, so harshly. It felt like being reborn.

  Remade.

  He made a rough sound of misery, his chin dropping to his chest. He held himself off her with his straightened arms. She touched him, trying to soothe his pain. His muscles were hard as stone.

  “Asher, it’s okay. Go deeper.”

  “Laila.”

  He thrust, his face breaking in agony.

  She was so full, she couldn’t speak. Think. Only feel. He reached between their fused bodies. His touch made her burst with pleasure.

  Through the roar in her ears and the convulsions shaking her world, she felt him moving, doing battle with their shared desperation, slaking his own hunger. She held on to his shoulders, urging him to her. Their bellies pressed tight. He rolled his hips, his strokes in her shorter and harder.

  “You feel like heaven. God, Laila.”

  She grasped his hips and then his buttocks, mounting the pressure of his thrusts. Her body began to move in tandem with him, recognizing the dance by instinct. She stared fixedly at his face, enraptured by what she saw there. The pain had left her. His driving cock created a whole new pressure in her. He rocked them fiercely now, his actions causing his bed to bump in a sharp tempo against the wall. It was a new rhythm for her, a whole new cadence, one rife with power. She touched his face with her fingertips. She’d never seen another human being so tormented by pleasure.