(Complete) Devil In The Waters, Book 2, Chapter 3

There was more to the story and he could see she was close to swerving away from it. He said, “Keep going, Kimmy. I’ll hear anything you want to tell me. Please, tell me . . .”

Kimmy steeled herself, and though they sat closer now, it was like she sought some distance, closing him off again by hugging her arms tighter and pushing her back into the chair. He played with her skinny knees. “Tell me, Kimmy, whatever it is we can get through it.”

That made her sigh, and in one simple change of posture, from stiff to sagging, he knew she would tell him now what happened. As bad as what Devin had said to her, so close to the time their pregnancy failed, he knew the real barrier between them was more than that. She said, “I tried to, you know, grab him. He took my wrists . . .”

“Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head no. Her eyes went down. “I struggled. We were on the ground . . . he pinned my hands above me.”

“He was on top of you?” His heart pounded. Right out of nowhere, his heartbeat became a thundering train. Rage and arousal stormed all at once. He wanted to hunt Devin down and beat his fucking good head of hair into his brains. But all his mind’s eye focused on was his wife with her hands over her head, on her back in the lakeside grass, her knees up on either side of Devin’s large frame. Devin dominating her, looking in her eyes . . . 

“Yeah,” she said, eyes down already, sliding to the side now. “It became something weird, Josh.”

“Weird how?” His pulse was a Taiko beat on his ear drums. His brow lowered to a scowl.

“He . . . kissed me.”

“He what?” His voice had stretched hoarse and tight.

“We didn’t . . . it wasn’t a fight he wanted.”

What was she saying? He rubbed his cheeks, then spoke behind his hands. “Are you saying he sexually assaulted you?”

“Oh no, Josh. No. Not like that.”

“Why . . . what do you mean—did you kiss him?”

“No—he didn’t kiss my lips, Josh. He kissed my neck. He was trying to turn our fight into . . .” She didn’t finish.

“Did you . . .?” He didn’t finish either.

She looked him in the eye. Her brow had lowered as well. “No, Josh.”

“You told him to get off?”

“We struggled—or I guess I struggled . . . And then . . . When I said I wanted up, he let me up.”

Now he could see how it had happened. After this escapade with Kimmy in the grass while he slept, Devin’d barged into his tent to taunt him. All riled up from humping Kimmy, Devin had thought it hilarious to jab the woman’s husband with the What if. The guy was a top level asshole and manipulator.

“That’s it?”

Kimmy’s chin went up and down, her expression bowed with sorrow.

“I’m glad you told me. Are you glad you told me?”

“Yeah,” she muttered, putting her hands between her closed thighs. “I am. I wish you didn’t go behind my back to ask Amy, but I blame myself. I owed you the truth. I was so glad you didn’t press me on what happened, but I didn’t see how unfair it was.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t let it go, Kimmy. I tried to leave you alone, but I just couldn’t get it out of my mind.”

“I get it. I hoped you’d trust me . . .”

“Hey, that’s not fair . . .”

“No, sorry, Josh, I don’t mean it like that. I mean—”

“Kimmy . . .” The phrase Devin told me he fucked you formed on his lips, sputtered, then died there. That Devin would do that to Kimmy then fuck with her husband the way he did, his old high school foil, reduced him to the total nothing he used to be in grade ten. Both husband and wife chumps under Devin’s thumb might seem comforting, brothers-in-arms and all, but he’d rather be strong. Rather be someone Kimmy could lean on than another victim, another weak man pressed under by a strong one. “What do I do? Do you want me to confront him? I will. I want to. Do we go to the police? . . .”

“The police? No, Josh, it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t what he wanted it to be, but when I wanted to get away he let me go.”

“What a nice guy.”

Kimmy breathed quiet a moment, hands tucked between her thighs still, stretching her back, looking around.

“I trust you, Kimmy.”

“Okay.”

He reached for her, took a hold of one of her slender wrists and put his fingers between hers. She tossed her head one way then the other, trying to avoid his gaze, but he could see a lightening in her eyes. He leaned toward her, climbed his hands up her long skinny arm, pulling her near. She came to him, all long limbs unfolding and she sat on his lap. He hugged her waist and she hugged his head, then kissed his cheek. He said, “He held you down and kissed you?”

“Yeah,” she whispered near his ear.

“And he wanted it to be more than a fight?”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what you said. Devin wasn’t fighting when he had you on your back on the grass. You said he wanted it to be something else.”

“He did.”

“How do you know?”

She frowned, her eyes going to black dashes, her cheeks dimpling high. “He kissed me. You know what I’m saying, right?”

“That’s all? He just kissed you?”

“Does there have to be more?”

He stared at her collar, not knowing how to phrase his question. “Was he . . .”

“He kissed my neck, we were rolling around . . .”

His mouth went to cotton. He leaned aside to sip the huge glass of beer. “He didn’t touch you anywhere else?”

She wasn’t seeing his line of questioning, only looking across the Dragon’s patio with an expression of disbelief—like she couldn’t fathom why her husband didn’t believe her. But it wasn’t disbelief—it was confirmation he sought. There was something about the details that was zapping at his heart strings.

“He had . . .” She scrunched her nose, looked at the other patrons a second, all of them engaged in their meals. “He had an erection . . .”

Some phantom hand squeezed his stomach and adjacent organs while another one feathered a ghoulish touch on his balls. He writhed in the seat, Kimmy going up on his lap, then back down.

“Jesus,” he groaned.

“Do you believe me now?”

“Kimmy, I believed you.”

“I know how it felt.”

His eyes widened, and his ears flooded with a buzzing sound. His heart surged loud. Kimmy leaned away, an arm hooked around his neck, and she sipped his beer. He realized she didn’t mean she knew how Devin’s erection felt. “You just knew what he wanted,” he said.

She wiped a line of foam from her top lip. “Yeah. It was obvious.”

His heart kicked in his chest again. “Did you see it . . . Or did you feel it?”

“I just felt it,” she said, without regarding him.

He groaned, shifted with her light weight resting on his thighs. “Felt his erection?”

She shook her head, shaggy hair scratching at her collar. “What?—no . . . I mean I felt what he wanted.” But then she raised her eyebrows, cocked her head; an expression that mimed the word: although . . . 

“How did you know he had an erection? That’s what I meant.” Now he couldn’t swallow, desperately wanted a sip of beer, but was paralyzed waiting to hear her answer.

“Both, I guess,” she said.

“You saw it and felt it?”

She muttered an uncomfortable sound, hugged his head—the act hiding her face away so she couldn’t be seen.

“Kimmy, serious, tell me.”

“I saw it. He pressed it against me.”

His mind reeled in the most unexpected way. The image of his wife now on her back in Tiffany’s grass had the added knowledge that giant cop’s flashlight between Devin’s legs was grinding into her. Shit, but where? Into her leg? Into her stomach? God, did Devin press it against Kimmy’s cute little vagina? . . . 

“Hoo,” he sighed, pushing her back from him. His cock had turned to throbbing steel right now, and Kimmy’s thigh leaned on it. How the hell would he explain that to her? He didn’t even understand it himself.

Kimmy flashed him a troubled gaze, offended in a small way that he’d pushed her away. His eyes screamed at her the question he needed answered: Where did you feel it, Kimmy, God, did he dry hump you with that thing? . . . He showed it to me in the tent right after he was with you. . . . But he said, “Can we get out of here?”

“You don’t want to eat, Josh?” Her voice was high and worried.

“I want to go home, Kimmy,” he said, fumbling cash from his pocket to throw down for the waitress, his hands shaking.

***

 The story she told Josh proved too much for him, and now they were walking together under the Dragon’s archway and headed for the Nissan. Josh’d thrown down twenty dollars for the two beers, then led the way off the patio and across the brick courtyard. She’d had to hurry to keep up.

It wasn’t until they were both seated in the quiet of their car that she spoke again. “I hope you’re not mad at me, Josh.”

He paused, finger hovering over the Qashqai’s start button. He swiveled to face her. “I hope you don’t think I’m mad at you.”

“Why are we leaving?”

“I want to be alone with you.”

Now she was worried Josh wanted her somewhere he could grill her further. Maybe say things he didn’t want people to overhear. Take her somewhere private where they wouldn’t make a scene . . . 

“Josh, I know I should’ve told you.”

“Kimmy, I just want to be along with you. Just to be with you.”

She stared in his eyes, looking for meaning. He was practically trembling. There was an earnest, desperate expression on his face. And then he was closing the distance, leaning over the console between them, slipping an arm to her waist and pulling her close. She went to him, bewildered. His reaction wasn’t what she thought. He kissed her, she kissed him in return, doing it honestly, feeling enormous relief swelling up from inside her. His kisses became more passionate, and whatever was driving him got into her too, and she put her hands on him, running hard her fingertips against his arms, and over his back. She gasped for breath around his kiss, then returned, pushing her tongue into his mouth. Josh put his hand on her thigh, then between her legs. She opened them. He massaged fingers into the crotch of her shorts and got her gasping again. She hooked her arm around him tighter, leaned closer. Her hand went between his legs, found his arousal steel bolt upright.

He said, “I just want you alone.”

“Well get us there then . . .”