The trick is to pretend that I’m not going to jump in, and then do it so suddenly that my body doesn’t have time to resist. I know this isn’t technically possible but I look out to the moon anyway. Pretend, pretend, pretend...
And jump.
I lose my grip on the buoy but it stays with me thanks to the tow rope. Fuck, it’s cold, it’s cold. Springtime doesn’t matter to the ocean. The chill squeezes all the air out of my lungs and I slap a hand over my mouth to disguise the gasp. Tingling nerves fire in my feet. If anything touches them now, I’ll scream.
“No screaming,” I choke out, and haul myself up and over the buoy. It’s bigger than the red and white one, but it doesn’t feel any more stable. From up here I can pull the waterproof bag up toward my face and dig out the compass.
It slips in my fingers.
I slap it against the side of the buoy, whispering a thousand fucks, and bring it slowly to my face.
My hand hurts right away from holding it so tight, but I point myself in an easterly direction and start kicking.
I don’t look back.
It takes almost no time to get outside the pool of light cast by the ship, and then it’s me and the moon and the pitch-dark sea. Small swells toy with me on the surface. The buoy presses my shirt—Poseidon’s shirt—tight against my skin. It rubs and rubs and I don’t think of the way he put his hand in my hair. Not once. Not ever.
I concentrate on getting to land. And putting the compass back in the bag, once I’m sure I’m going east.
Is there land in this direction? No guarantees. But the farther away I get from the ship, the safer I am from Poseidon. My heart thuds from the exercise now, not from the fear, not from that horribly delicious fear.
A splash in the dark freezes my legs into two unwieldy sticks and I twist, abs aching, to face the shark.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Poseidon says.
The shriek I’ve been holding in tears out of me and echoes across the waves. “What are you doing?”
“Saving your skinny ass from getting eaten.”
My teeth chatter but I kick at him anyway, trying to push myself away. He closes the distance. Poseidon is treading water in the middle of the ocean, and there’s no strain on his face. It’s like he’s standing on the deck of his ship.
“My boyfriend told me there weren’t sharks around here.” Shivers bite each of the words in two.
“The same boyfriend who got his head shot off by drug dealers?”
“Where’s your ship?” I don’t see it. A ship that size, with those lights, should look like the Empire State Building out here.
“It’s hidden, princess.”
“Hidden from what?”
“Sharks aren’t the only things to fear in these waters. Now let’s go.”
He reaches for the buoy. I wrench it away. “No.”
I make a turn and swim away from him, knots twisting in my calves. Poseidon catches an ankle and hauls me back through the water. “Not that way.”
“I’m not going with you.” Hot tears sting the salted corners of my eyes. “I’m going to find land.”
“You’re not.”
His hands work at the buoy. “What are you— No!”
Too late, I realize he’s undone the loop from around my waist and I’m not connected to it anymore. Poseidon tugs it swiftly, easily toward him, and I’m left scrabbling for it with wet hands. He holds up the waterproof bag and it disappears from sight. “So you’re a thief, too.”
“I’m leaving.” I summon the rest of my strength and try to pull the buoy back. “I need that.”
He laughs, and then the buoy is out of my hands, it’s in the air, arcing through the night sky. I let out a howl and turn. Fuck it. I’ll swim away.
My face meets water and then I’m under. I’m blinded, sinking fast. The water sucks at my clothes. My legs don’t work. I don’t have the strength to get back up, back up toward air—
A strong arm around my waist arrests my trip to the bottom of the sea.
The first breath is a gasping miracle. A gift from God.
But the devil is still touching me, and fuck this. Fuck him. I won’t. I shove both hands against his chest and get enough leverage to turn in his grip and kick him. He laughs again, and then his arm is gone from my waist. I’m free, I’m fucking free, and I’m going to save myself—
I go under again.
He repeats the process.
This time, I aim for his face, my body writhing against the sturdy lines of him in a way that sends sparks all through my skin. I can’t stop them but I can ignore them. He blocks my hand before I can make contact. “Fine.” It’s a bitten-off word for a bitten-off frustration. “Fine.” Fingernails on his shoulders. I’ll climb over him, if that’s what it takes.
He lets me do it. Lets me fall into the water and struggle.
Pulls me up again.
When I resurface he splashes me in the face.
It’s so much water that I choke on it, coughing, and I can feel him shaking with a laugh, like we’re in a pool together and he’s being playful and hot and not trying to capture me again. He has me pinned against him with one arm. “Come on, princess. That enough to shut you up?”
I lean into the circle of his arm and let myself drop straight down.
I feel every heartbeat.
One.
Two.
Three.
And then a fist in my hair is pulling me up, up, up. My scalp screams, but I don’t have the air to match it. “Again,” he says. “Again.”
I kick. I punch. I try to scratch him. None of it lands. He’s the water and I can’t touch him. He’s all around me and I can’t touch him. I can’t do any real damage. His strength is endless. It grows the longer we’re out here.
He lets me go a final time, and for a bare second, I’m floating on the surface, driving my arms into the water, trying to keep my head above the water. It hurts. Everything hurts. My arms, my legs, my neck. The water hooks its fingers in my clothes and pulls down hard, salt water on my tongue. My arms fight against me, legs slowing, and—
“Please,” I beg. I don’t know who I’m begging. Poseidon to save me or the ocean to end this. “Please, please.”
There’s movement underneath me and he’s there, rising up out of the water, both arms solid beneath me, holding me up.
Holding me close.
I slump against him, pressing my face into his neck. The rest of me follows. I mold myself to him, arms around his neck, body pressed to his.
He’s warm.
Warm like bath water, out here in this cold hell.
He’s warm, and I’m so cold.
I press my lips to his neck and become aware of how hard I’m breathing, how fast. Panting.
Poseidon turns his head and he’s not breathing hard—of course he’s not—and one of his hands goes to the back of my head.
No room left between us, no sensation but the slick caress of water. There’s no close like being together in the ocean. His palm strokes over my hair, my neck, and finally his breath whispers over my cheek and my jaw. He takes in a big breath, and for the first time, it doesn't seem steady.
He kisses my cheekbone first and warmth bleeds out from the brush of his lips.