After dinner is over—lamb kebabs—and the world grows dark, we retire inside to the bus. I’ve barely unfolded the bed before he’s stripped naked and on me. Our soundtrack is the occasional passing car in the distance, the choir of crickets, the pounding surf and our hushed and ragged breathing as we thoroughly explore each other’s bodies with hands, lips, and tongues.

He goes down on me and just before I’m about to come, he pulls up his head and slides his cock inside me with a low groan.

“I think I found a new calling in life,” he says, his voice husky with desire. He places slow wet kisses along my jawline that shoot sparks down my body.

“What?” I whisper back, all my thoughts diverted to the languorous, steady way he’s driving himself in and out of me.

“Fucking you,” he says, his tongue snaking down my neck. “Fucking you in the morning, fucking you at night. Fucking you in a bed, fucking you in the ocean. Fucking you slow, like this,” he withdraws his cock with deliberation before thrusting it back in, “fucking you raw. I would like to fuck you forever.”

I close my eyes and groan at the way he’s filling me up inside, the way his hands move over my hips and breasts like he’s laying claim to different parts of me. “You like to say fuck.”

“I like to fuck,” he says, picking up speed. “And it takes on a whole new meaning when I’m with you.” He licks a path to my nipples and sucks on them hard enough to make me gasp. “You,” he whispers against them. “Everything has a new meaning with you.”

I close my eyes and let the sensations take over. I can feel every inch of him. Inside me, around me, in the air I breathe, in the empty parts of my soul.

Even after we come and I’m snuggled into his chest, feeling his heart slowing beneath my fingers, I can still feel him.

He’s buried in deep.

Chapter Twenty

JOSH

This woman is going to break my heart.

I knew it the moment she told me she destroyed all her paintings, all her memories. I knew she was going to destroy me, too.

I saw it in her eyes, in the dust of her father’s studio: the fear that I had found her out.

I just wanted her to know, that’s all. I wanted her to know that she didn’t have to do this to us.

I can only hope she heard me. In some ways, I think she did. When we screw, I can feel her winding down while I’m winding in. The wall she has around her is coming down brick by brick. She’s opening up. She’s letting me in, even if she doesn’t realize it.

I think she’s starting to really like me.

I think I’m starting to fall in love with her.

I don’t want to, of course. I don’t want to fall because she’s not someone I can trust with my heart. But if I could trust her to handle it with care, with understanding, with respect, then it might be worth everything. It might be the best thing on earth.

Or she might just toss it in a fire and watch it burn.

I may have to take my chances.

I get up in the morning before she does and take care not to disturb her. The inside of the van is a little damp, the way it normally is when you first wake and the sun hasn’t had a chance to start kicking your ass.

Gemma moves a bit, pulling the sleeping bag up to her chin, her dark hair spilling around her like waves of black oil. She is so gorgeous, so perfect, that I can’t help but stare at her. I love to do it when she’s sleeping. Not because I’m trying to tip the creep scales here (I think I already did that when I followed her to New Zealand in the first place) but because she’s finally at peace. Her face looks like a clean slate, with no anger or sadness or hollowness hidden in the corners.

I go outside to piss and contemplate going for a morning dip in the surf in lieu of a shower when I hear the crunch of tires going off road. I look over to see a policelike vehicle pulling onto the grass and head toward the beach. It doesn’t seem like he’s seen us yet but considering the bus looks like a giant orange Jolly Rancher, it’s only a matter of time.

Shit.

I jump in the passenger seat, start the engine, and slam on the gas, peeling out of there.

“What the hell?” Gemma cries out, bouncing around in the back, her hair flying as I eye her in the rearview mirror.

“Stay down!” I yell at her. “I think the cops are onto us.”

“What?” she says and looks behind her out the window.

Luckily the cop or the D.O.C. or whoever it was doesn’t seem to have caught on that we were illegally camping there overnight, and soon we’re speeding up the highway and on our way north.

Nothing like adrenaline to get your morning started on the right foot.

At our next stop, Tolaga Bay, some place with a really long wharf, we fill up with gas and try and make ourselves presentable for the rest of the journey. I’ve been driving in just my boxer briefs for about an hour, getting really weird looks from the truck drivers who overtake us.

The Maori presence on this part of the cape is really strong, and though at times I feel like I don’t really belong here, being the tatted white guy and all, there’s also something welcoming about it. It’s mysterious. I want to explore the hidden coves and talk to elders with tattoos on their faces—tā moko, as Gemma explains—to understand their connection to the land. I find myself touching the greenstone pendant often, as if it will anchor me here somehow.

Gemma is behind the wheel now as we head toward our stop for the night, the East Cape Lighthouse, and I ask her about her heritage, if she feels more pākehā or Maori.