Burning Moon (13 page)

“Here I am.” I walked into the clearing, making sure I didn't let my eyes wander below his waist. “I see you found water.”

“I hope you don't mind that I had a bit of a swim in it?”

Oh God
, he'd been swimming free willy in our drinking water…I wasn't sure how I felt about that. I watched him put on his shirt and I hoped I wasn't gawking, because all I could think about was his skinny-dipping self. I had also become acutely aware of the unsubtle rock sculpture right behind me. I looked away from Damien and immediately wished I hadn't.

It was as if the universe was conspiring to play the sickest joke imaginable. The joke was so sick, I wondered if I wasn't hallucinating.

But after blinking a few times and squinting, I realized that it was neither a joke nor a figment of my imagination. There, surrounding the clearing, rising up from the underbrush, poking out of every nook and cranny, jutting out of the ground, peeping out from behind the palm leaves…
rocks
.

All with one thing in common.

They looked like penises.

To make matters worse, Damien had taken to leaning casually against a massive one that jutted straight up. My mouth fell open and all I could think about, as I gazed from Damien to the rock and back to Damien and then to the rocks, was…
well
, it was pretty damn obvious what I was thinking about! This was making me feel so awkward I wanted to crawl out of my skin…

…penis, penis, penis, penis, penis, penis!

“I know right! They look like giant dicks,” Damien suddenly said as casually as ever.

“I've heard about these but haven't seen them before. They're pretty famous in Thailand actually.” He flashed me a smile, but I certainly wasn't ready to reciprocate, nor was I ready to acknowledge the fact that we were surrounded by a pack of penises. Penii?

“Really…” I shrugged. “I hadn't noticed.” I tried to look casual, but inside I was freaking out.

Damien laughed. “You're not a very good liar, Lilly. It's plastered across your face. You're gaping at the giant penises.”

“I am not! Not. Okay? Not.”

“Mmmm…I'm sure that's what all the girls say,” he added with a mischievous smile that did nothing to distract me from the fact that
I was surrounded by massive dicks
! I must have blushed, or something equally embarrassing, because Damien laughed again.

“Lilly, you're so squeamish.” His tone was distinctly mocking and playful.

“I'm not.” But truthfully I was. I was very squeamish when it came to things like strip clubs and phallic-shaped rocks. Truthfully, a traumatic childhood experience had completely altered my perception of sex and sexuality. My friends were always trying to get me to loosen up, especially Stormy. She'd even suggested I go to someone who could help unblock my root chakra—whatever that was.

“They're just rocks, Lilly. They look like that from all the friction caused by wind and grinding against other rocks for thousands of years,” he said very calmly, as if sensing my terror.

I swallowed hard.
Great!
I wasn't just thinking about the phallic forest now, but I was also thinking about bumping and grinding and all manner of different frictions.

“There's also a famous vagina-shaped rock on Koh Samui. They're very common here.”

“Stop!” I threw my hands in the air. “Can we not talk about…you know. It's enough that we have to be surrounded by the bloody things without you giving me a geology class, too…so did you find a village?” I quickly tried to change the subject.

“A village?”

“You went looking for a village,” I reiterated. “Did you find one?”

“Oh. No I didn't.”

“So now what?” I sighed and threw my hands in the air, bumping one of the rocks. I pulled away quickly.

“Why does this freak you out so much?” he asked, looking up at me curiously. I held his gaze for a while, wondering if I should tell him. His face suddenly softened and he smiled at me gently.

“You don't have to tell me.”

“I know,” I said. But suddenly I wanted to tell him. There was something about Damien that made me feel safe to open up and be myself.

“When I was about ten, I went on a camping trip with my mom and her new boyfriend. We were all staying in a caravan together and…” I cringed just thinking about it and Damien jumped off the rock as if something had shocked him. He started coming toward me.

“No. It's nothing like that,” I said quickly. “My mother and her boyfriend…
well
, let's just say it wasn't pleasant when they kept me and the entire camp up all night with their disgusting noises. And worst of all, the guy had a running commentary going throughout the whole thing. He was very clear and specific about what he was doing, what he was about to do, and what he wanted to do, and trust me, it was very
Fifty Shades
. And it went on for hours, and then for the rest of our vacation. It was disgusting. So yes, you can say that my attitude about sex is a little bit damaged.”

“That's really terrible, Lilly. I'm sorry,” Damien said. He looked genuinely upset by my story. This was such a change from what had happened when I'd told Michael. He'd laughed and told his friends and soon it was turned into a joke. Michael also didn't think it was a very legitimate excuse for lack of sex, either, I might add.

Damien slipped his shirt back on and grabbed his things. “Come, let's get out of here then.” But as he said it, we both heard the roar of an engine. I practically threw myself through the thick foliage and straight back onto the beach. Damien was in hot pursuit and we both barreled onto the soft sand and ran for the shore screaming and waving our arms widely. But it was too late. The second we'd managed to get close enough to be seen, the tour boat was gone.

“Crrraaaaappp!” I struggled to deflect the waves of frustration and anger that had just smashed through me. “Craaappp!” I screeched again before collapsing onto the ground in the manner of a soap opera actress. Or my mother. I quickly preempted Damien's response, which I was getting all too familiar with by now. “This is not funny, by the way!”

But he wasn't smiling this time. Maybe he was finally taking this “stranded” thing seriously. My heart jumped. I think I preferred it when he thought it was all a big fat joke. He flopped down onto the sand next to me. “So we missed this one. At least we know they come past. We'll wave down the next one. Promise.”

“Promise?”

“I promise we're going to get off this island.”

I nodded tentatively. I wished I had his confidence right now.

“Remember what I said. I would never let anything bad happen to you.”

We smiled at each other for a moment, and I felt mildly better. The sand was warm and didn't feel unpleasant, even if the situation was. I ran my fingers through it. It was so fine and soft that it reminded me of cotton candy that melts at the touch.

“It is beautiful here, though,” I offered, looking back up at the sea. A familiar-looking shape bobbed up and down in the current.

“Well, there go my new shoes,” I said, pointing. “And there goes a handbag.” I didn't even flinch; in fact, I was somewhat relieved I wouldn't have to lug them around anymore—who needs high heels when you're stranded on a pile of sand anyway?

But then the waves started lapping dangerously close to my bag of clothes. Those I did need! Before I could make a move to save them, Damien was already jumping into action. He waded into the water and started pulling them out, stuffing them back into the bag.

“That's about as close to fishing as I'll ever come.” He strode out of the water and headed for a palm tree that was growing horizontally across the sand. I watched as he carefully hung my clothes over it to dry.

“This is so domestic.” He turned around and flashed me a massive smile before returning to his task.

He was right. I was totally domestic, and suddenly I imagined Damien like that. Coming home from work after a long day in the physics lab, or whatever you call it. I would cook, we would have a glass of wine and laugh and chat about our days and…

What was going on?
What the hell was I thinking?

I tried to stop the thought dead in its tracks, but to no avail. The thought plowed into me with such force that I jumped up.

I was…
no, this was not happening
.

Too late…
it had already happened
.

I liked this guy.

A lot. Maybe more than a lot.

The sun was starting to set over our little lonesome rock. We hadn't seen another boat go by in the last couple of hours, but after constant reassurances from Damien that a whole bunch would come past in the morning, I was vaguely starting to relax. Vaguely. I had no option really.

The air was still warm, despite the sun taking its final bow. Damien and I had made our way through two bags of big chips and a slab of chocolate already and he was on his way to top off our water supply. We were both physically fine. No one had had their limbs gnawed off by passing indigenous cannibals, or sustained any deadly insect bites. All in all, our exile was going rather well.

I'd been stealing glances at Damien all afternoon, trying to figure out whether I really liked him or whether the whole marooned-on-an-island-and-possibly-facing-death situation was messing with my emotions. How could I like someone so quickly, and so damn much, after being left at the altar only a few days ago?

Right now, I was supposed to be Mrs. Lilly Edwards. A wife. The wedding seemed so far away now and so did Michael. It was so surreal, like a bad dream you can't shake.

God, how had it all happened?

“What are you thinking about?” Damien was standing next to me with a full bottle of water; I hadn't even noticed him return. I had disappeared down a trail of thoughts that left me feeling very uneasy.

“The wedding. Or lack thereof,” I half grumbled.

“If you don't mind me asking, what do you think happened?” he asked gently, sitting next to me on the sand.

“I think…I think that maybe the relationship wasn't as good as I thought it was. Maybe he wasn't ready to get married…” Then the painful part to admit to myself. The bit that had been biting at the back of my mind for a few days now. “I don't think he ever wanted to get married. Maybe he'd felt pressured.”

The engagement, marriage, and wedding had been my idea. Settle down, start a family, get a dog, a manicured lawn, and perfectly pruned roses.
Wasn't that how it was supposed to work?
Maybe I'd wanted that life so badly that I'd had blinders on.

Looking back now, there had been some signs. I just hadn't noticed them at the time. The closer we'd gotten to the wedding, the more distant he'd become and the more time he'd spent working late and on weekends. He constantly forgot wedding appointments, and whenever I excitedly showed him a picture from a magazine or asked his opinion about something, he'd just said, “
Do whatever you want, honey.
”

“Even if he felt pressured, he still shouldn't have proposed,” Damien said.

“No.”

“And he shouldn't have waited until your wedding day to tell you, either. That's just cowardly.” Damien sounded genuinely angry. “Bastard.”

I smiled. There was something so sweet about Damien getting upset like this.

“Do you want me to hurt him?” he asked.

“What would you do to him?” I turned and looked at Damien with an excited smile.

“It depends. Do you want him permanently or temporarily maimed?”

I burst out laughing. Damien had a way of making me feel better about everything. “You know what…right now, I actually don't care about him. I don't care where he is or what he's doing…I just don't give a flying fuck!”

I threw my head back and looked up at the sky. I took a long, deep breath. Warm, salty sea air rushed into my lungs, and a feeling of absolute freedom washed over me. It was almost euphoric.

“Do you still want to get married, though?” Damien asked.

This was a good question.
Did I still want to marry Michael?
These last few days had made me realize that I hadn't been as in love with him as I'd thought. I'd been in love with the idea of love. I'd been in love with the big, romantic white wedding. I'd been in love with some strange notion of a perfect husband and family.

Did I still want it all,
a family life with all the trimmings?
Yes, and hopefully I would find it one day.

“I do. Just not with Michael,” I said faintly. “And you?”

“I'm not sure. I've never thought about it before,” he said after a long pause. “Maybe. I guess. One day.” He didn't sound that convinced, though.

Suddenly, the desire to ask him about those girls overwhelmed me.

“And do you…I mean, have you…with relationships…woman, and—?” I mentally slapped myself on the side of the head after I'd vomited out that hot mess of a sentence.

Damien turned and smiled at me. “You're asking me about my relationships?”

“Only if you want to tell me. No pressure!” I defended quickly.

“I've had a few relationships over the years, but they never really get serious.”

I had sudden visions of Damien being a man-whore, chewing up and spitting out women like gum that had lost its flavor. I think this subject was better left dropped.

“What I mean is,” he continued, “I don't think I've ever really let anyone get close, or let myself get close.”

“Why?”

“I guess I have this fear. The people I love tend to…go away.” His voice was steeped in sadness and I knew he was referring to his sister.

“I get that. How your past affects your relationships. I think mine has, too, just in opposite ways. I think my life was so messed up as a kid that all I wanted was this perfect life and a family of my own…but there's no such thing as perfect, is there?”

“Like I said, Lilly, we're both damaged little souls.” His voice sounded sympathetic and affectionate and sexy all at once and it made the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention.
Bloody hell.

With each passing moment I seemed to be feeling closer and more attracted to this guy.

Despite all outward appearances, and the different ways in which we both lived our lives, I'd never felt that I'd had more in common with anyone. And I'd never felt so understood before.

The sun completely disappeared and darkness settled in. It was time to start thinking about our sleeping arrangements. We decided not to attempt building anything from palms and stalks (we both agreed we would fail dismally). The night was warm and the breeze was even warmer. The sky was so magnificent that it made the Sistine Chapel look like a spray-painted mural on a wall. And when you combined those things, lying on your back on the beach was perfect. My unnecessary clothes purchases finally came in handy, and we made a makeshift bed on the sand with sarongs. We both lay down—not too far, not too close.

“This is pretty cool, though,” I said.

“
Pretty
cool?” Damien raised himself up on an elbow and shot me a sarcastic look. “
Pretty?
Lilly, this is something that you and I are going to remember for the rest of our lives. How many people get to say they slept under the stars on an uninhabited island?”

Damien lifted himself even farther off the sand and inched a little closer to me. “I'll certainly remember this forever.” He flashed me the kind of smile that could stop traffic, and possibly even stop the world from spinning on its axis. “I've never had so much fun with anyone before.”

“Me either,” I said breathlessly.

“I'm really glad fate threw us together, Lilly.”

“You believe in that stuff?”

“Not until now.” Damien collapsed back down in the sand, but this time he was definitely closer to me. I could feel the heat coming off his body, and when I adjusted slightly, my hand grazed his. Instead of pulling away, though, I kept it there. Gently touching his.

“This has got to be the best bed in the world,” Damien whispered.

“Best bed in the world.” I seconded that.

He pointed up at the night sky. “See that. That's one of the arms of our Milky Way galaxy. I've never seen it this clearly before.”

“It's incredible.”

“Do you know what's even more incredible? In the center of every galaxy is a supermassive black hole. They're the most destructive things in the universe, but they're also what holds it all together and makes it so perfect.”

“I like that,” I said. It was a beautiful sentiment, and I stared up at the sky thinking about it as my eyes started getting heavier and heavier. “Damien, I still wouldn't mind getting rescued tomorrow, even though it's so pretty here.”

“We'll be rescued. I promise. Night, Lilly.”

“Night, Damien.”

I woke up the next morning to the roar of an engine and the sounds of voices. I jumped up immediately, and to my absolute joy Damien had delivered on his promise. He was standing waist-deep in the sea and had successfully waved down a fishing boat. After some more explications and more waving the map around, the fisherman looked at us curiously before pointing.

We both followed the direction of his finger. There, within an easy swimming distance, lay an island.

“That's where it is?” I couldn't quite believe it.

The fisherman nodded profusely and seemed absolutely convinced. I turned to Damien and burst out laughing. “We could have swum there!”

It had been staring us in the face the entire time and we hadn't even realized it. Damien joined in until our laughing escalated to mad hysteria. I clutched my sides, I was laughing so hard. The fisherman recoiled, as if we might be dangerous crazy people.

Even though we could have probably swum to the island, we decided against it and jumped into the boat, and after a literal minute, we were there.

Two enormous pillar-like rocks came into view; they rose straight up into the air and were only a few feet apart, creating a thin passage between them. We entered the passageway, and it was so narrow that if I stuck my hand outside the boat, I could touch the cliff face.

We finally popped out the other end and entered a huge crystal lake enclosed by a large island that wrapped around it completely. Long white beaches ran the entire length of the shoreline and, from them, imposing rocky faces rose vertically. The boat stopped at one of the beaches and Damien and I climbed out. I indicated to the driver that he should wait while Damien took in the lay of the land and found the elusive sign. But within seconds, we both saw it; a bright-pink arrow painted onto one of the rocks. The fisherman turned and left us.

“Beautiful,” Damien said, looking around.

“Where's the party?”

“Ahhh, patience, we're in no rush to get there. Besides, I am sure it's going to be quite an adventure getting there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, that's part of the fun. They always choose a really remote location that's hard to access—keeps the rabble away.”

I looked around nervously; the only way from here was up. And that didn't thrill me at all.

“Do you think we'll be going up…there?” I looked up and pointed nervously.

“Well, there's nowhere else to go, is there?” He was nonchalant again, despite the fact that climbing one of those things would be madness and potentially detrimental to your health—i.e., you might fall and die.

“Don't worry.” He draped his arm around my shoulder. “I'll be there. It'll be fine. But”—Damien put his backpack down on the warm sand—“I'm not going anywhere until I've had a swim.” And with that, he started peeling off his clothes. First the shirt and then the pants. Although this was the third time I'd seen him half-naked, it still had the power to elicit the same silly, dizzy schoolgirl response from me. I tried not to stare, but there was no way I could ever become immune to the effects of a shirtless Damien, no way I could ever grow used to or blasé about seeing Damien like this. Immediate blush.

He was wearing only his boxer shorts now and confidently strode into the water. I involuntarily bit my lip and was glad he hadn't seen it. As soon as the water reached Damien's thighs, he dove in. I watched him disappear and found myself waiting breathlessly for him to pop back out of the water. He finally emerged, his back was to me, and for the first time I noticed, well it was impossible not to notice, a huge tattoo on his back. It completely covered the top half of his back and both shoulder blades. It was so complex and intricate, containing lines that curved, intersected, and wove their way around and through one another, coming together to form an abstract pattern. It's hard to describe, but let's put it this way, his naked back was now officially my favorite part of his body. He turned to me and I quickly wiped the stupid look off my face.

“Well…aren't you coming in?”

“I'm not wearing a bathing suit.”

“So put it on. I know you have one, I rescued it from the water, remember?”

I looked around; there were no obvious trees or rocks to change behind, only wide-open beach.

“There's nowhere to change,” I shouted back at him.

“Change there. I won't look.”

“No! Are you crazy? I'm not just going to change on the beach! What if someone sees me? What if another boat comes?”

“I'll keep an eye out. Besides, we'll hear the boat long before we see it.”

“I don't know…”

“Lilly, you're missing out big-time, trust me. And we've probably got a long hot walk ahead of us, so…come on.” He paused for a moment and looked at me very seriously. “I'm not going to look…you have my word.”

I looked around once more, I couldn't see anyone, and Damien had his back to me. I slipped my recently purchased bikini on and it immediately became apparent that it was at least one size too small for me. There was no way I was going to let Damien see me in this, so I put a T-shirt over it. But he was right, the water was amazing. Once it had reached waist height, I told him to turn around.

“Interesting choice of swimwear. Why are you wearing a shirt?”

“Just…you know…”

We smiled at each other for a moment. “You have to see the reef down here, the fish are amazing. Come.” Damien disappeared and I followed him. The water below was crystal clear. The sand was snow white and powdery. One big rock poked out of the sand and was covered in multicolored coral and hundreds of beautifully patterned fish fed on it. I wanted to have a closer look and then…