We kissed. For five minutes or five hours. We kissed as lovers, we kissed as friends, we kissed like hungry desperate strangers, until our lips were swollen and numb and raw, and she fell asleep beneath me.

It would have been a huge blow to my ego if we hadn’t already fucked three times. To be honest, I needed the break. She was insatiable. And I just wanted to lie there beside her, to stare at the becoming shape of her, in the half-light, and enjoy the nearness of her for as long as I could before either of us started to get nervous about things changing.

I’m usually obsessed with time. As a runner, you’re constantly aware of it—race timing, recovery time, beats per minute. As a techpreneur, you have to be aware of your burn down schedule—how much longer your money will last versus how many days until the product launches. But when I was with Gemma, for the most part, I was just with Gemma. All I was aware of was her. Even when we’ve got the TV on and I’m catching up on emails, I always knew if she was laughing or crying or bored or annoyed with me for not paying attention to the home makeover show or noticing the brilliant and subtle layering of colors in the main character’s bedroom.

Here on vacation, I was aware only of the fact that our stay wasn’t limitless, but underneath that there was still this constant flicker of fear that my time with Gemma had an end date, no matter how many times I asked her to stay. Three years was definitely not enough. Five years wasn’t enough. All that time wasted, not being like this with each other. I used to think I was so smart, but now I wasn’t so sure.

Now I knew what she tasted like, how she trembled and whimpered and moaned before letting loose and crying out my name, I knew I was right about that brave and naughty side of her. I’d had some very beautiful and sexy partners in bed before, but this was something else entirely. I knew as I watched her sleeping that I would never get enough of Gemma Kelly, and that even while I had her I couldn’t let go of the nagging thought that someone else had had her before me, and I hated the thought of anyone coming between us. It was like running a marathon with a sustained injury. I knew I could push through the pain and get through it, but the longer I ran with it, the harder it would be to heal.

I must have slept, and when I woke up, Gemma was lying on top of me, out like a light. Just like on the morning after we met, she began to stir, sighing and gently moaning, but this time my brain didn’t have to fight my body’s response, I could run my fingers through her scented hair all I wanted, and I was ninety-nine percent sure that if she was dreaming or feeling frisky it was because of me.

Thirty seconds later, I was one hundred percent sure, because she started kissing my chest and reaching her hands downwards, God bless her.

“We have to be quick,” I whispered, as I squeezed her perfect, luscious ass.

“Why?”

“Because I’ve got something fun planned for us out in the world.”

“This is the world,” she purred, as she covered us with the sheet and flipped me over so I was on top of her.

She was right.

And we weren’t quick.

We were an hour behind schedule by the time we had breakfast in the hotel restaurant and I didn’t care one bit.

I knew that this wasn’t Gemma’s idea of paradise when I first brought it up, but I was confident that her mind would be changed soon. It was like being in a storybook, as we approached our destination. Passing by the Rainbow residential area, making a right at the Emerald entrance, onto Summer Lane, to park the rental car and then emerge to breathe in the crisp mountain air.

As she shut the passenger side door, I asked her if her shoelaces were tied.

She rolled her eyes. “Yes!” Then she looked down at her feet, bent down and tied them. “Shut up.”

“Double-tie them.”

“I am, I am, shut up.”

“Also, by the way, it’s very unlikely, but if we happen to come across a bear, it’s important to get still and quiet. Stop moving. Speak calmly and softly to the bear so it knows you mean no harm, and then back away slowly. Never turn your back and run.”

She narrowed her eyes at me and gave me a You could have taken me to Maui you turd look, but she nodded and said: “Roger that. Are we bringing the picnic food now, or leaving it in the trunk?”

“Trunk for now. We’re gonna go for a little walk and do something and then we’ll relax on the dock. You’ve got your bathing suit on, right?”

“Yes sir I do.”

I watched, as she took in the view.

As much as I loved taking her breath away last night, watching her forget to breathe as she took in all the green and blue, as far as the eye could see, may have been even more satisfying.

“So beautiful,” she whispered, as she stared out at the still turquoise Green Lake, surrounded by towering evergreen trees and mountains and blue sky. “Layer upon layer of green. Mother Nature is the best production designer. No one could top this.”

This girl. Cheesy without even trying, but somehow she could say things like that without making you want to throw up in your mouth. I just put my arm around her and smiled.

We walked hand-in-hand and I told her about the time I came here with my parents. It was our last family vacation before everything changed between them. My Dad seemed almost desperate to show us a good time. It was so unexpected when, a few months later, he started staying in a hotel. As I walked down the path with Gemma, I realized that he had already met the woman that he’d eventually leave my Mom for, but was fighting to make himself stay, to start over and make everything new again. When you’re aware that something might be ending, you cling to it in a way that you wouldn’t if you completely trusted that it would go on forever.

I had been so angry with my Dad for years, but I understood him better now.

I just hoped that I would learn how to hold onto what I had with Gemma in a way that would work for both of us, and as always, I had to work on it with both my body and my mind.

There was no one else around this area. When we reached the edge of the cliff, I dropped my backpack, pulled out the towels, pulled off my shirt and shoes and socks. With this girl we had to do new things before she could talk herself out of it. “Here’s what we’re gonna do,” I said. “We’re gonna jump off this cliff into the lake.”

“Um. No.”

I was in full-on Jedi mode. She was going to do this with me. “I did this when I was a kid, it’s really fun. The water’s from a glacier, so it’ll be a bit cold but refreshing.” I ignored her glare and grabbed her arm as she started to turn away. “It’s only a forty-two foot drop, and the water is plenty deep, there are no rocks below, nothing you could hit on the way down. Be confident. Visualize yourself doing it first. Jump feet first, keep your body tight, toes stretched, arms close to your body.” I pulled off her shirt, and she let me. She removed her shorts, but made her reluctance known with her very articulate facial expressions and body language. She was game, but as with everything else I’ve persuaded her to do over the years, she wasn’t going to play without resisting first. “Remember to breathe out through your nose after you hit the water. I promise we’ll relax and feel amazing after this. You with me?”

She looked over the edge. “Sure. But how do we get back up here for our stuff?”

“Good question. There’s a path back up, it’s not steep.”

She nodded and gave me the thumbs up.

“I’ll go first, and I’ll be there waiting for you if you panic.”

She smiled. Every now and then, I said the right thing, and that smile of hers made me feel like the king of the world. I grabbed her face and kissed her, then took five steps back, ran and jumped off of that cliff.

For a second I was flying, and it was exactly how it felt to finally let myself fall in love with my favorite person in the world—exhilarating but familiar like a dream, a beautiful release. The shocking embrace of cold water that followed made me feel so awake and alive, and the only thing better than experiencing it myself was knowing that Gemma was about to experience the same thing.

When I sprung up for air, I shook my head and wiped my eyes and saw her looking down at me.

“You ready?” I called up, as I swam a safe distance away.

“Now?”

“Now!”

She disappeared for a second, and then I held my breath and watched as she took a powerful leap off of the edge and into the air with perfect form. She came crashing into the water six feet from me, barely making a splash because she had done exactly as I told her to do, her body was straight as an arrow. When she surfaced, we swam towards each other and she covered my face with wet smiling kisses.

“Thank you!” she yelled out, and it echoed across the lake. “Thank you thank you thank you.” She was breathless again, and we floated on our backs, holding hands, and we were young and happy and carefree and we were rocking that honeymoon and I was proud of us. I knew that I’d go back to that lake with her, over and over again, if only in my memory. No matter what happened.

After returning to the cliff and drying off, we retrieved the take-out food from the hotel restaurant and lounged on a dock at the edge of the water. We weren’t alone, but it wasn’t crowded. It was sunny and peaceful and we were so content we barely spoke.

Because she jumped into a lake with me, I offered to browse a home décor shop in Whistler Village with her. She posted pictures on Instagram, and I actually enjoyed watching her examine items with an expert eye. I offered to buy her whatever she wanted, but she declined. She didn’t say it, but she still wasn’t completely sure where she’d be living. I tried not to let it ruin my mood.

I suppose I wasn’t so good at hiding the fact that my mood had changed, but once we got back to the room, Gemma was determined to make things up to me in a way that I was not expecting.

I had unwittingly slammed the door to the mini-bar shut when I took out a bottle of water, and then placed the bottle on top of the counter with a little more force than necessary. I turned to her, frowning, and found her with both hands on her hips, studying me.

“What?”

“I’ll show you what,” she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me into the bedroom. She pulled my shorts down, pushed me down onto the edge of the bed, and kneeled on the floor between my legs, licking her lips as she looked up at me. I was instantly hard, and when I watched her contemplate my cock while she cupped my balls with one hand, I knew that she was going into this with the intention of doing it right. I was about to ask her to marry me again, but when she started licking my shaft, I forgot how to speak.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the whole universe had suddenly been distilled down to my intense erection and the unbearable pleasure that her hands and mouth were awarding it. I felt worshipped and desired and accepted and nurtured, but she was totally in command. I had always loved her messy wavy hair, but looking down at it like that, while she was doing that to me…Fucking bliss. I was grabbing fistfuls of it, while she managed to stimulate every single one of my hot spots with her soft, warm, wet mouth and gentle but firm fingers.

Talk about not being aware of time. I have no idea how long it lasted, but she wanted me to come in her mouth, and I just remember feeling so good and grateful afterwards that it scared me. As an adult, I had never felt like another person had so much control over me, or that I could lose control of myself because of it.

I had collapsed onto my back. She climbed up on top of me, wiping her swollen lips with the back of her hand, and I reached out for her. I reached for her hand, I placed my fingertips on her mouth. Who are you? What did you just do to me?

“How?” was all I could manage to say, at first.

“How what?”

Part of me knew that I shouldn’t ask, but I had to know. “How did you learn to do it like that?”

She blushed and covered her face, shaking her head.

“Tell me.”

“Did you like it?”

“Gemma. The word ‘like’ doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt about that. No words can.”

“Good…Andrew made me watch a porno once, to show me how to do it.”

I raised myself up on my elbows. “You did that to him and he still cheated on you?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t do it very often.”

“Baby. Nothing that you did or didn’t do was a good enough reason for him to —”

“Yeah yeah I know. I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Me neither.” I also don’t want to think about you doing that to him but now I may never be able to stop.

“I guess…Andrew just wasn’t very expressive, so I could never tell if I was good or not. But I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Let’s never talk about him again.”

I kissed her, long and hard, to erase his name from her lips.

“I love you,” I groaned. Groaned. Like it hurt me. It did. I ached for her, even when our skin touched, it never felt like quite enough. So different from the soft and sweet “love you” we had said to each other a handful of times over the years.

“I love you,” she said, so quietly that I barely heard her.

Before dinner, when I got out of the shower, I saw Gemma looking at her phone while she was changing in the bedroom. As soon as she saw me, she closed the app and turned her phone over. I had been hoping for a different kind of reaction when she saw me naked, running my fingers through my wet hair, with a towel wrapped around my waist.

I laughed. “What?”

“Nothing. Just a work email.”

“A job offer?”

“An opportunity. I’d still have to meet with the production designer. It’s just a short film, but it would add another set designer credit to my resume. I’ll look into it when we get back to LA. Could be good.”

“Is Ben the one who emailed you about it?”

“Yes. The director’s a friend of Ben’s.”

“You should take the job.”

“It’s all on location. In Big Bear. Ben would be there.”

I managed to unclench my jaw to say: “Cool. Sounds like a good gig.”

“We’ll see. Should we go for a walk in the village or something?”

“I want you to take the job. I want to make this work. I want you to go to work without having to worry about me being a jealous maniac. I’ll be cool.”

“Yeah, cool. I’ll think about it when we get back to L.A.”

I walked over to her and put my arms around her. “I love you, Gem. Nope. I lied. I just lied. I’m head-over-heels, so crazy deep in love with you. I had no idea it was possible to feel like this. I don’t want to fuck it up…Oh shit.” I fucked up.

“What?!”

“It’s fine. I just realized I had a conference call scheduled. Where’s my phone? It’s fine.” It was insane that I had gone so long without checking my phone, but she had literally blown my mind earlier.

She looked very concerned. “That is…unlike you.”

“We’ll just reschedule, it’s not a big deal.” It was with one of my investors. It wasn’t not a big deal. “You know what, I’m gonna see if we can get him on the phone now. I’ll say I didn’t have a signal. I’m on vacation, he’ll understand.”

She nodded, and I could tell she was trying not to look worried as she watched me scroll through my messages when I finally found my phone. I was able to get back on track with my investor, and Gemma and I were able to get back on track with our vacation not long afterwards. I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that we would be able to stay on that track forever, but one always hopes.