Page 106 of Deep End

His hand returns to my cunt, and this time it parts me. “Christ.” His hot cock throbs against my hip, and I cannot help myself.

“Please,” I beg.

“Please, what? You could come just from this, couldn’t you? From me playing with your nipples and your ass. You want to be roughed up, don’t you?”

I nod frantically.

“Hmm.” His finger dips into my opening, and it’s so close towhat I need, soclose. “Not yet, sweetheart. Not until my cock is at least halfway inside you. Why do I fuck you, Scarlett?”

I don’t know. I whimper, tears flooding my eyes.

“I’m going to hurt you once more. Once more, and then I’m going to get inside you. Okay?”

“’Kay.”

It’s the hardest yet, and I’m crying because of how good, how wrong, how perfect it feels. His large hands cup both cheeks of my ass, slowly massaging them, healing me and hurting me more. His thumb slides between them, catching against my hole, lingering and pressing there for just a second, and he must feel the sudden tension, hear the alarmed hitch escaping my mouth, because what he says over my shoulder is “Next time we’re on a bed.”

It’s not a question. He’s informing me. He’stellingme what he’s going to do with my body, and I—“Please.”

“Please, what?”

“Please, please,please—”

“Not until you tell me why I fuck you, Scarlett.”

My cheeks are covered in tears. I try to squirm, but my hips are imprisoned in Lukas’s hands. “I don’t know. I don’tknow, but I—I need you to—” I’m babbling. I’m not proud of it, but I can’t help myself. And Lukas . . . Lukas says something in Swedish, something frustrated and resigned, and then the blunt head of his cock is right there, pressing against me, too big.

I sigh in relief.

He nestles inside, less of an inch. I grip the edge of the bench to avoid coming. “I fuck you—” He pushes deeper. “Because—” Deeper. “It’s all I want to do—”Deeper. “From the moment I wake up.” He hits aspot, and . . . I hope he’s halfway inside, I really do, because I’m already coming, clutching around the too-big, hard width of him, flutters I cannot help. It’s so intense and shuddering and good, I’mlost to everything but my pleasure, and I almost don’t hear the rest of what Lukas whispers in my ear.

“I fuck you because you’re the most perfect thing I’ve ever felt, Scarlett.”

The last thing I see before I close my eyes is Pen’s locker, her name in white and green against the cardinal red metal.

CHAPTER 43

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, WHEN I ATTEMPT ANOTHER INWARDdive from the springboard, my core twists itself into some backward career-ending abomination.

Guess What Dive Scarlett’s Body Will Come Up with Instead of the One She’s Supposed to Do has been a recurring segment in my practices, but this time I did not expect to fail. In fact, I’m so virulently outraged at havingonce againfucked up, I inhale about a liter of chlorine.

“Fuuuuuuuuck,” I scream underwater. The cutesy, almost cartoonish bubbles that spill out of my mouth only heighten my fury.

But when I resurface, coughing and sneezing and generally miserable, no one pays attention to me. Coach Sima is doing dryland with Pen. The assistants are focused on the twins practicing at one meter. Not a single glance slides in my direction, and in all honesty . . . why would it?Congrats on your one thousandth missed dive, Vandy—here’s a cake made of Swiss chard and anchovies!

I suspect that their expectations of me have been permanently downsized. After all, I haven’t told Coach that last night at 2:00 a.m. I managed an inward dive.Oh, that’s amazing, Scarlett! In which facility did that happen?he’d unavoidably ask. I’d be leftwith the choice of throwing Lukas under the bus, or pretending that I’m a patron of the Palo Alto public pool.

But it doesn’t matter, does it? It’s not about what others think. What’s important is howIfeel about my own mistakes, and that’s where I sense something new.

I’m not as mortified as I used to be. I am . . . combative. Determined. Ready to be over this.

Last night didn’t heal my mental block, but I shed some helplessness, and that seems as big a win as the Powerball.

I think of texting Lukas, to inform him of this new step in my recovery journey. He seems fascinated by the workings of my slightly dysfunctional brain—maybe he plans to go into psychiatry? But he’s on a plane, forty thousand feet on top of the Eiffel Tower, a neural network haphazardly drawn on the back of his hand. Likely watching reviews of cleaning supplies.

Do flights to Tallinn enter the French airspace? I could google and find out. Alternatively, I could just do my damn German homework.

On Sunday, instead of spending the day getting ahead with homework, I do something groundbreaking: celebrate my MCAT results. Pen and I eat industrial amounts of ice cream and walk around campus, taking in the homecoming alumni crowd, mildly befuddled by their unwavering support, wondering if there’s something wrong with the school spirit part of our brain.

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