Even Lovers Drown

“Blake, where are we going?”

Thirty minutes. Saylor had held in the question for thirty whole minutes. She thought to ask before they started down the crowded sidewalks, when she first took notice of Blake’s strange attire in the hotel lobby. A large, black hoodie hid her frame and baggy jeans hung loose on her hips. Dark sunglasses shielded her blue eyes, possibly inhibiting her eyesight in the process. Her blonde curls, normally tousled, were pulled into a ponytail, shorter strands tickling her face. Thug couture sans the matching ski mask.

She made a very pretty thug.

The clothing was far from her usual choices, though, looked like an attempt to avoid attention, which made sense, Saylor supposed, if she wanted to avoid attracting fans during their date. But she would attract the wrong attention walking into a store dressed in robber’s garb, would draw more attention than she would exposing herself as lead singer of Say Goodbye. Saylor didn’t want to see Blake get carted off in a police car because of the suspicions of a store worker and she didn’t think Blake wanted that to happen either.

So where would Blake’s guilty criminal attire not get them in trouble? The question had been on the tip of her tongue in the hotel lobby, ready to fly from her lips alongside the demand of an answer.

But Blake had wrapped her arm around Saylor’s waist and held her close, guided her to snuggle against her warm side as they walked. And Saylor had forgotten her question.

As well as how to breathe.

She wasn’t used to this, the display of their budding relationship, the sweet embrace. Katie would never hold her like that in public, not even in private most days. Saylor had needed time, a full thirty minutes of fluttery stomach flips, to collect herself before finding her question and her voice.

“To see a friend,” Blake answered, smiling down at her.

Nothing else. No further explanation, just the casually cryptic “To see a friend.” Saylor couldn’t draw much from the response. They were going to see Blake’s unknown friend for unknown reasons at an unknown location to take part in unknown activities. And Blake wasn’t going to clear up the multitude of unknowns, seemed to want to keep the element of surprise alive. She should have been nervous, terrified even, of all the left out details but her nerves were calm, as calm as they could be with her body pressed to Blake’s.

Blake’s surprises could be trusted.

“Am I about to witness a drug deal?” Saylor asked, hiding her smile under a serious tone.

Blake chuckled, her nerves calm though she had just been accused of using their date to satisfy an addiction. Laughter shone behind Saylor’s green eyes, her sultry voice held a teasing hitch. She wasn’t serious, despite her attempt to sound so, and Blake wasn’t offended by the joke in the least.

Considering her shady appearance, the pedestrians walking the sidewalks around them probably thought she was the one dealing drugs. Most days, that would bother her, being mistaken for some form of criminal when all she was trying to do was remain anonymous. Some days, she would “mistakenly” leave her clothing shield at home and risk getting stopped by fans every couple steps. Anything to avoid the accusing looks she received. She would have gone without the ridiculous wardrobe, left it in the hotel room and exposed herself to fans during her date. She didn’t think Saylor would have minded much, may have even enjoyed watching her growing number of younger fans approach her.

But she had no time to waste on fan encounters today.

“Sorry, my dealer’s out of town,” Blake joked.

“Oh, I know,” Saylor said. Her voice dropped to a delicious whisper, breath tickling Blake’s ear. “You’re about to buy a Physics book, aren’t you?”

The question held no sexual intent, the book’s subject hardly one of more sensual nature, Saylor’s sultry voice holding nothing but amusement, but Blake’s body decided otherwise, warmth berating her core and making her ache. It was that damn whisper. Saylor could be reading the mentioned Physics book, each word drawled in her precious whisper, and Blake would feel the same urge to slam her against the nearest hard surface and share explicit touches.

Too bad they couldn’t end their date early for the sake of fulfilling her urge.

“Don’t tell the authorities,” Blake mumbled.

Saylor’s eyes flicked to her lips then back to her shielded eyes. The corners of her lips tugged upward, a suggestive smirk. “I might need to be bribed a little into keeping that secret,” she murmured.

Encouragement to take there conversation away from the tame subject of childhood that had kept them entertained for thirty minutes and the joking comments they casually shared. Blake wouldn’t pass up the invitation.

“And what kind of bribery should I subject you to?”

“I enjoy kisses.”

Maybe not the bribery she was hoping for, but Blake would take what she could get. Besides, she liked kissing Saylor. She could spend her whole day kissing Saylor, over and over again, and be content.

Mostly content.

Her ache, the unbearable one that seemed to come up every time she touched Saylor, made being completely content impossible. But she enjoyed the kissing and that was good enough reason to agree to Saylor’s suggested bribery.

“So I kiss you till you forget?”

“It’s a start.”

Saylor wasn’t quite sure what compelled her to insinuate she could be “bribed” by more than kissing, by sexual caresses. The pounding desire between her legs certainly couldn’t have been her motivation.

Blake’s lips quirked in a smirk, Saylor imagined the excited glint that must have lit her blue eyes behind her sunglasses.

“And what else can I do to ensure my secret’s kept?” Blake asked. Her hand slipped from its spot on Saylor’s waist and into the back pocket of her jeans, resting against her ass and pressing their bodies closer together.

Heat seemed to seep from Blake’s body through their layers of clothing and sear Saylor’s skin, mingling with the already intense heat bombarding her. She held back a groan, trapped it in her throat against impulse. Her body throbbed for Blake. So intense she could barely stand it. She needed her touch. Now. And she could probably have it if she just asked. She didn’t think Blake would deny her.

But instead of ducking into the nearest store’s bathroom and showing Blake acceptable forms of bribery, Saylor continued to walk, tucked into Blake’s side, not willing to overtly ask for what she wanted.

“Depends on what you’re willing to do.”

“Anything.”

“Anything?”

Blake leaned in, lips brushing against Saylor’s ear. “Anything,” she whispered.

Saylor shivered, unable to hold back the response. Blake’s breath beating against her ear, the implication behind the simple word, their bodies pressed tightly together, the feeling of being wanted, too much, all too much, bombarding her and making it hard to think.

“I, uh,” Saylor trailed off.

What was she going to say?

“Are you okay?” Blake asked.

She would be once they were locked behind the closed doors of their hotel room. On their bed. Or the floor. Or against the wall. Or in the shower. Or even in the closet if that’s what Blake wanted.

“Maybe,” Saylor mumbled, “we should go back to the hotel.”

A coherent sentence above her distracted thoughts. She should applaud herself for being able to string anything together under Blake’s seductive prowess but she didn’t want to be able to speak, think, feel anything other than Blake. She wanted to be so submerged in her that nothing else mattered.

“I don’t think you’d make it that far—”

“Probably not,” Saylor agreed quickly, eagerly, cutting Blake off in the process.

They could make a quick stop in a shop’s “Employee’s Only” backroom on the way. Just to appease them for the rest of the trip.

Blake continued, “And we have somewhere to be.”

“Where would that be?”

Blake opened her mouth, then shut it, raising one eyebrow in amusement, lips spreading in wide smile. “Oh, you’re good.”

As if Saylor initiated the conversation with the intent to seduce the location of their date from Blake. She wasn’t enough of a seductress to execute that plan, didn’t have the gall to use her sexuality for the sake of extracting information.

She’d make a terrible femme fatale.

“You’re not going to tell me?” Saylor asked.

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Because.” Blake turned toward a building, steering Saylor alongside her. “We’re here.”

Saylor’s eyes darted from Blake to the building, and she stopped dead in her tracks, forcing her date to jerk to a stop. Neon signs signaling the shop’s current open state hung in the windows, vibrant despite the competing glare of the sun. Through the windows, she saw red walls covered in art work, customers in the back of the shop laid out on cushioned surfaces, workers diligently working on top of their exposed skin

“Blake, this is a tattoo parlor.”