in high spirits. By evening, she was exhausted but still feeling optimistic about her plan. She wove between tables with a broom and dustpan, sweeping the floor of the hotel’s terrace restaurant. It felt good to work again, to have a hand in her own future.
The chef had taken her on with very little prodding. Michael’s presence gave the restaurant more business than one person could reasonably manage. All Bryony had to do was mention that she had experience in a kitchen, and the chef had her chopping vegetables immediately. His English was halting but understandable, and Bryony found the work conducive to learning a little Spanish herself.
Her plan was to make enough money for train tickets home. Then she would take Michael to her house—assuming it hadn’t been burned to the ground by angry congregants—and invite him to live there. That way his public life would be his own choice, not a means to shelter. She needed him to have a choice. She needed to know he wasn’t exploiting himself for her sake. She guessed about two weeks of work would do it. Two weeks and they would be on their way home.
It was the last hour of her first shift. A few stragglers still sat at the bar. Bryony had cringed when the odd customer pointed her out to others at their table. But most of her work was in the kitchen, so she didn’t have to deal with unwanted attention often. Anyway, it would all be worth it, she told herself, and by the end of the evening, she actually believed it.
Everything was going swimmingly, in fact, until Michael himself strode out onto the terrace. He was drained of color, slick with sweat. His mouth held a striking grimace, and his hands were tight fists at his sides. He made a beeline for her, never minding the people at the bar who turned on their stools to watch the drama unfold. He crossed the floor, plowing through unoccupied chairs like a cannonball. Something was most definitely wrong.
Bryony shrank back when he reached her, expecting to finally see his full temper. Instead he dropped to one knee and scooped her into his arms. He squeezed her so tight she dropped the broom and dustpan. All the while, she heard him muttering, “I thought you were gone. I thought you were gone. I thought you were gone.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Bryony saw her new boss watch with his arms crossed and one eyebrow arched. She gave him an apologetic smile. He shook his head. “Go,” he said, waving his hand at her. “Come back tomorrow.”
Bryony wriggled out of Michael’s embrace and took him by the hand. “Come on.” She led him off the terrace and onto the beach. She walked with him until they were halfway to their private patio. He could have his outburst here—away from customers—but he didn’t. He just stood there, swaying, exhausted. His chest heaved with the air he greedily took in.
“What happened?” she asked. “Why are you all sweaty?”
He had a few false starts before he answered. “I . . . I thought you were gone.”
“Gone where?”
He pushed his hair off his forehead, and it stayed that way, clinging with sweat. “Gone.”
“You thought I left you?” She could hardly believe it. He didn’t nod, but he didn’t need to. The pained look on his face confirmed it. “Oh my god, no! I just wanted to get a job so we could buy some tickets home. I have a house, Michael. We don’t have to live in a hotel or on the streets. I just wanted to do something to help.”
“I thought you were gone,” he repeated. The refrain was starting to get to her. She’d seen him like this once before—the day she “broke” him, as Raeni had put it. It was becoming increasingly clear that the end of this relationship would be the end of him.
“Why would I leave you?” Bryony lowered her voice. “You’re everything to me.”
He choked on his next words. “Because I shorten your life. Because being with me is too public for you. Because I . . . I can’t control the part of me that paralyzes you. How can you be okay with all that?”
“Well, I’m not.” She shrugged. He was right that she’d been uneasy with the direction her life seemed to be taking, but she saw it as a problem to be solved not run from. “But none of that’s your fault, Michael. And I did sign on for this, you know. I knew you’d be different.”
“You couldn’t have known it would be like this.”
“No, I couldn’t. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow either, and neither do you. But we’ll deal with it together. That’s the whole point of—” She couldn’t finish. He’d lifted her into his arms and then dropped to his knees so her feet could touch the ground. As soon as he loosened his hold on her, she finished her sentence. “A relationship.”
For a brief moment, he cupped her face between his palms. Then he dropped onto his hands and bowed his head. His entire body went rigid. And then she felt it—that rush, that warmth and fullness. The high. Worship. “Michael.” She tapped him on the head. “Stop. I don’t need it yet. Please.”
“I know,” he said through gritted teeth. He gripped the sand like he could pull the whole beach up with him. “Just . . . give me a second.” He was fighting his nature, but not successfully. Bryony couldn’t stand to watch him. If he lost this struggle, he might lose his mind along with it. Love and worship could never comingle. It’s what had driven his father mad. So, amid another wave of ecstasy, she cleared her throat and began to sing.
Bryony’s singing voice was not something she was proud of. In fact, she was damned ashamed of it, and she hoped Michael would be too. She’d never been able to carry a tune. Her little brother used to beg her to sing just so he could hear her parents beg her to stop. Now she sang with all her heart. The only song she could think of in her haste was O Holy Night, which she was certain she’d butcher adequately. She began timidly and raised her voice as her confidence grew. Michael’s worship wavered but only a little, and she dared to think her singing might not be that bad after all. Then she came to the line, Fall on your knees! And she sang it at full volume.
Michael shot up and covered her mouth with one hand. “Stop, for the love of god.” He laughed when she narrowed her eyes at him. He pulled his hand away, and she spat out the sand that had gotten in her mouth.
Hardly worth the humiliation, she thought, but then again, it had worked. Michael looked at her with adoring eyes, but that was all. Adoration, she could handle. “You didn’t have to go that far,” she said.
“Oh, yes I did. Believe me.” He grabbed her shoulders and kissed her. He was becoming more aggressive with his affection, and Bryony rather liked it. He splayed one hand against her back and bowed his body as she arched her own, locked in his ever-deepening kiss. He wrapped his long fingers around her thigh and coaxed her leg up, brushing one thumb across her knee as he did. His skin began to warm. Good. Bryony didn’t taste a hint of worship in him any longer. It had been replaced with what might indelicately be described as abject lust.
As flavors went, Bryony was hardly a stranger to lust. She’d been a fumbling teenager in the backseat with the best of them. She’d never been so careless as to do anything that might result in pregnancy—contraception being scarce in their modern age and angels being the terrifying, puritanical overlords they were—but she’d been a lonely girl, and certain boys her age became far friendlier when you gave them what they wanted. She’d taken some pride in pleasing them. It was a gift, she supposed, and sometimes you had to give gifts to make friends. But the boys were never so friendly to her afterwards, and she frequently found herself just as alone as she was at the start.
Michael distracted her from her memories, first by slipping his tongue into her mouth, which she audibly appreciated, and then by pulling away and staring over her shoulder, which she liked significantly less. “Don’t turn around,” he said, and she immediately wanted to. “Close your eyes.” She did, and he lifted her into his arms and carried her down the beach. “Don’t open them yet.”
She hoped whatever he had planned included a soft spot to recline and some privacy. She was feeling extremely amorous, which could be the result of chasing a shot of worship with a long, sensuous kiss. Or she could stop overanalyzing everything and just accept the rather mundane fact that she was attracted to her own boyfriend.
When Michael set her down again, the sand was wet under her feet and the ocean an even louder roar in her ears. He turned her around and said, “Okay. You can open your eyes now.” And Bryony stood stunned before an ocean of crashing, frothing bioluminescence. Michael draped his arms over her shoulders and pulled her back against his thighs. “Look down,” he said. The sand under her feet glowed. She took a step and laughed. It was as though the entire beach was wired to respond to her touch.
“Is it dangerous?” she asked.
“No. Maybe try not to drink it.”
She bent down and drew a circle in the sand. It luminesced and faded. She wrote her initials next, followed by, I love you, Michael . . . “What’s your last name?” she asked him, realizing how ridiculous it was that she didn’t already know it.
He hesitated. “I don’t . . . really have one.”
She looked up at him, puzzled.
“I never gave myself a surname, and my mother never gave me hers. I honestly don’t even know what it was.”
Bryony frowned. His first name had already faded, so she rewrote it in the sand and followed it with Moss. “There. You can have mine.” His eyes lit up. He looked about to cry. “Don’t make me sing again,” she warned.
“No. No, I won’t. It’s just”—he smiled down at her—“a first.”
“It’s no big deal.”
“Of course not.” But she could see by the way he had to stifle his grin that it was a big deal to him. For a brief moment, he seemed to deliberate and finally come to a decision. “Life is short.” He crouched, wrapped his arms around her, and walked her into the surf.
“What are you doing?” She laughed.
“Going for a swim.” The waves rose and pushed against her. When they receded again, she felt the power behind their pull, and every muscle in her body tensed. “Don’t be afraid,” Michael said into her ear. “I won’t let go of you. Just watch the sea. The angels say it’s dead, but they’re wrong. You can still see Rahab in the movement of the tides. Despite his own death, there’s a world of life and light in his grave. It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?”
He dropped to his knees and set her on her feet but continued to anchor her, his hands curled around her ribcage, as the ocean rose and fell from her chest to her hips. All around her, the sea glowed with a ghostly light. Every breaker burst into sparkling life. She spread her arms and watched the luminescence flow between her fingers like smoke. But if she was honest, just now, it wasn’t the sea she found beautiful.
She murmured, “Michael, I’ve been thinking about what happened last night.” He tensed but she went on. “About the seraph. We’ve been intimate before, on Dragonfly, but last night you were drunk. That was new, wasn’t it? Maybe that explains it. Maybe the seraph shows itself more easily when you’re drunk.”
“So I just have to stay sober?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged and turned to face him. “Maybe we should test it.” She dragged her hand down his shirtfront, let it slip under the water, and felt for herself how much he wanted her. His grip on her tightened. She hesitated, blushed, and offered what she could. “I can take you home if you want.”
He bowed over her, one hand at the small of her back, drawing her close. “Right now?”
“Only if you want.”
He breathed shakily into her ear. “But we don’t have tickets yet.”
She laughed because he’d misunderstood. The romances he read were old ones. He didn’t know the modern euphemisms, and she loved that about him. In some ways, he was every bit as naïve as she was. She decided not to correct him, not to tell him she meant to relieve his tension with her hands and take him all the way home, as the boys from her youth liked to say. Instead, she caressed him beneath the waves and asked, “Do you want me to stop?”
He shook his head. “But I should warn you. If you go on . . .” His breath hitched as she increased the pressure of her touch.
“If I go on?”
“If you go on, I’ll be forced to repay you.”
She laughed again, this time because she had misunderstood. She’d thought perhaps he meant to warn her about climax, assuming she was unfamiliar with the concept. But no, he meant to flirt, and she had every intention of playing along. “And how do you intend to do that?”
He detached his mouth from her throat to murmur, “I could show you.”
“Could you?”
He nodded. “I could, but you’re wearing entirely too many clothes.” With that he stood, lifted her into his arms, and took long strides toward the beach like a creature emerging from the deep.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
He practically growled his answer. “Home.” So he was a fast learner. “It’s not home if you’re not there with me.”