Gone (11 page)

“I know.” I sigh. “
I just find her interesting.”

Dan is staring off into the distance, his mind on something else before he snaps his attention back onto me. “Maybe I should spend some time with her, see if she can fix me too, hell maybe she can fix us all before she leaves.”

Bile rises in my throat.

“Stay away from her, Dan.”

“What? She’s a holiday maker, that makes her my territory not yours. I’m sure I can show her a good time. Something to remember St Agnes by.”

I know he is drunk, but I’ve never wanted to hit my oldest friend so hard in my life. I’m going to kill him for even thinking of touching the girl made of sun.

“Stay away from her.” I repeat again.

Dan focuses on me, “You do like a challenge don’t you, hey, mate?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well you know, you spent years chasing Ai—"

“Don’t you dare say her name.” My body literally throws itself into his space as anger pulses through me.

“Just saying, maybe you should aim for something a bit easier this time. I could hook you up with someone in your league and you could leave the redhead to me.”

I shove my hands against his chest forcing him towards the door.

“Get out, Dan, before I do something I’
ll regret.” My teeth are clenched and my limbs are burning with a need to thrash out.

Dan laughs and turns for the door. He is halfway down the stairs when he calls back up, “You’d do well to remember your friends who’ve been looking after you for the last half year. Enjoy your fling mate.”

I don’t have anything to come back with. I am just standing there burning with anger as I look over the painting in the middle of the room.

Bex.

I need to see her right now. I need to make sure that no one else has touched her. I need to make sure she is safe at home where I left her.

Grabbing my keys I dash down the stairs, a faint thought lingering in my mind that I hope Dan has got away because otherwise I may punch him as I run past.

It only takes a few minutes to reach Bridge Cottage, once there I screech to a halt unsure how to proceed.

I have no idea how I am going to be received after the fall on the bed situation from this morning. Truth be known, I don’t really want to be ostracised from Bex’s life for the next few days, so instead of knocking on the door like a sensible person, I decide to break and enter instead.

I look for the drain pipe that leads to her room; I know it is there, I have climbed it before. I place my foot into the familiar foothold and hoist myself up. It’s been a while since I negotiated the walls to this cottage but I still clearly remember where every dent in every brick is. It only takes me a couple of minutes and before I know it I am perched on her window sill wondering just what the hell to do next.

What am I going to do now I am up here?
I did not think this through at all.

I peer through the window like a peeping-tom up-scaling his criminal activities. She is not here.  That’s good, it gives the sensible part of my brain time to kick in and make me go back to the solid ground below.

Or not.

The crazy part of my brain wins, and instead of shimmying my way back down the drain pipe I open the sash window. Swinging both feet into the room I sit there for a moment contemplating what to do next. Am I going to sit here waiting for her until she has finished whatever it is she is up to downstairs? Part of me wants to creep down the passageway and find out what she is doing, but thankfully I don’t have to worry because Bex walks into the room just as I am making my master plan.

“Ah!” she screams.

I bounce off the window sill and come towards her, my hands reaching for her skin, eager to feel the sensation of it against my fingertips.

“Shh.” Instinctively I pull her in towards me until our bodies are aligned, her breathing is rapid and I can feel her chest rising and falling against my own.

“What the fuck, Joshua, what are you doing here? I nearly had a heart attack.” She looks like she is going to continue, like she might be working up into a rant so I stop her words with my lips, coaxing her closer and closer as I do.

There is the briefest moment of hesitation and then she kisses me back hungrily, like having a surprise visitor through the window is the best surprise she has ever had and I should be rewarded for my efforts.

“I’m doing that,” I say once I have pulled my lips away.

“But, how?”

I stop her words again. This time as I move my mouth against hers I run one of my hands up her spine and along her bare shoulder. I can’t resist it. I slide the strap to her vest top off the curve of her shoulder and lower my lips to the smooth skin. She smells delicious, and feels warm like the sun, as I knew she always would. My concentration is focused on my lips against her skin, but in the back of my mind I register a gasp escaping from her mouth and it makes me pull her even closer. Lifting her in my arms I step for the bed and lower us onto it, leaning my body into hers. I can feel every bit of her against me and it makes me feel this dark urge to be with her. I slide my hand along her belly and up and over her ribs. I want the crazy short shorts off. I want to slide her top over her head and feel her skin meshed with mine, burning into mine. More than that I want to feel what it would be like to be inside her. I know I could lose myself inside of her, and I want that. I want to feel nothing, apart from the sensation of being lost inside her.

Bex pushes me back slightly and her amber eyes seek mine. Slowly she traces a finger along my eyebrow, brushing it over the ring on my brow before sliding the finger along the side of my face all the way to my jaw. Her eyes never break their hold over mine. It is the single most intimate thing anyone has ever done to me. The gentlest of touches which somehow brings me back from the dark edge of need and want I was teetering on. Pushing myself away a little I glance over her face. The amber’s are still trained on me, waiting for me to make a move.

“Sorry.” I let out a slow breath with my words. The blood pounding through my system eases with the release.

Bex smiles but gives me a firm nod, her hand grazing down my waist.

I shift myself away before her touch reaches the waistband of my board shorts. I may have gained some resistance but it’s not that strong.

“Bex, no.” I say as she reaches for me.

Sitting up a little she pushes a hand against my chest. “I don’t know what you think. I’m not that kind of girl.”

Something about her anger makes me want to laugh. “What kind of girl?”

Her entire countenance changes instantly. The angry girl defending her virtue seconds ago is gone. Her eyes flicker with a direct challenge and she slides another hand down my torso, her reach determined and firm. There is something in her expression I can’t read. What is that? Determination? Repulsion? Acceptance? I catch her hands easily in both of mine and lift them above her head. I lean my mouth back down to hers and flick my tongue along the edge of her lips tasting the sun and fire that linger there. I lower my mouth and kiss along the arch of her throat and then all the way back up to her lips.

“Why are you stopping??” She pouts with her words.

“Okay.” I take a deep steadying breath. This is uncomfortable. The guilt crushing me is breathtaking. I never thought I would be back in this house, wanting something from someone, not from a person that I don’t even know. Believe me I want it. I want her hand to reach their goal, I want to feel myself in her firm grasp and find some form of guilt ridden release in it. But that flicker in her eyes just moments ago is pulling me back.

It hits me in a blinding moment of clarity. She thinks this is what she
should
do.

I feel sick. And then a little bit more. I move my body away from hers creating some space from the heat between our bodies.  “Bex. I don’t want anything from you.” I try to smile with my words, I’m not sure I succeed.

“What do you want then?”

What does she mean, what do I want?”

“Uh.” Another long breath. “I just want to spend time with you, I’m not expecting anything. You know?”

She looks at me blankly. The ambers gazing at me widely.

“I just,” I lean in back towards her. I can’t stop myself. “I just want you to want to be with me, to spend time with me, and see where that goes.”

In that moment I say words to someone that I never expected to say again. “I want you to be with me.”

That’s it. I didn’t know it, but now I do. I am not going to rush one moment with her. I have ten days to make the girl made of the sun
want
to be with me. Not just do it because it is something that is expected. I have ten days to be with the girl made of sun, and not just want to lose myself inside of her because I want to erase old memories. I have ten days to find myself inside her.

“First base only?”

I grin in response. “Maybe second.”

“Am I allowed to take some clothes off?”

I chuckle as I glance down, she is barely wearing anything, just bare feet and tiny shorts with a stretched out vest top that leaves little to the imagination. I know this because my imagination has already had them removed and on the floor.

“What do you plan to take off exactly?”

“All of it.”

“Well then that would be a no.” But the voice in my head is screaming
yes yes yes.

She gives a dramatic sigh and gets up from the bed. “I’m going to clean my teeth, and then I am coming back for my make-out session. Be prepared.”

“Can I stay over?” I ask as she walks away.

Please don’t make me leave.

She turns and looks me over, her eyes dark and intent.

“I wouldn’t let you leave.”

And as unexpected as it is to me, I know that I wouldn’t want her to let me leave.

TEN DAYS TO GO

Bridge Cottage

St Agnes

Cornwall

17th August 2013

Dear E,

He knows about my bangles. I feel kind of bad because they are our thing, me and you. He doesn’t know what they stand for but he knows how much they mean to me. I don’t know how I feel about that.

After he watched me count them he kissed me. And the truth is I don’t know how I feel about that either. At the time I felt guilty. Guilty about you, guilty that he had distracted me from my bangled punishment. But then he distracted me and made it feel like my guilt and worry just washed away. Later when I went to talk to mum and dad about it they weren’t even bothered. I thought Dad would be, especially after what happened the other week but he just look
ed amused. I don’t get it. It made me confused so I made a huge mistake and called Josh-u-a my boyfriend. I know he’s not.

He came back later and did it all over again. I don’t know how he got in my room but I think he may have climbed the wall outside. He strode across the room and grabbed me, kissing me, making me feel something deep in my centre, a feeling I’d never had before. It burnt so hot in my stomach it felt like I was going to catch alight.

It made me want something. Him. Then I remembered all those things people were saying about me in London and I tried to stop myself. I can’t be that girl. I know I never have been but I don’t want people thinking that I am like that. I don’t want him thinking it.

I wish I could talk to you.

Miss you as always

B.

xx

Rebecca

Breakfast

I didn’t mean to call him my boyfriend in front of my parents. That was a huge error and I regretted it instantly. I saw Mum pull that ‘Happy Mum Face’ where for a split second she thought I could be like other daughters and manage to make it through a few days or weeks without getting in some form of trouble. But we all know I can’t. My dad looked like he was not going to be fooled into believing I could be changed. But then I guess out of the family he has seen me at my absolute lowest; a vision that my mum can’t even contemplate. Emily sees me as some form of warrior protector. I don’t even think she truly realizes I am the reason behind most of her troubles. My mum sees me as a girl that she used to know who got lost somewhere. It’s only my dad who has seen enough to know the truth.

Even last night I could feel London Bex start to rear her ugly needy head.

The switch flipped when he asked me “What sort of girl” I was.

I feel repulsed at myself this morning.

Joshua stayed all night and the whole night I battled the switch. Part of me hating him being there and wanting him to touch me. The other half of me trying to edge him into taking it further.

He didn’t. No matter how hard I pushed in my darker moments.

Finally he pulled away from me, a wide smile stretched across his face, a beautiful smile.

“Rebecca Walters. Stop trying to steal my virtue, a no is a no.”

I could feel against me that he didn’t really want to say no. The fact that he did instilled in me some calm that I haven’t felt in a long time. I don’t have to be anything that I don’t want to be. I don’t have to give anything or do anything I don’t want to.