The Son & His Hope (The Ribbon Duet 3)

I guessed I’d overstepped yet another welcome, driving her mad with my hovering and constant enquires on when her son would return. Although, she hadn’t asked when I would be leaving, and when Dad called, he didn’t push me to go home.

So that was something.

I didn’t want to go back yet, and luckily, the adults didn’t pressure me to give up this wonderful existence, even if Jacob turned it into an occasional nightmare.

So there I sat, bikini hiding the important bits, sun cream protecting my skin from crisping, a delicious, untouched lunch, and my e-reader full of books. I’d returned for it after tending to Jacob, but instead of reading, my attention stayed locked on the horizon, waiting for a glimpse of the wayward wanderer to return.

For an hour, I daydreamed of Jacob appearing, walking proud and tall from the trees. I indulged in a fantasy where he’d stride straight toward me as if he knew I’d been waiting for him, drink in my half-naked body, and stop being so afraid of the chemistry rapidly growing hotter between us.

He wouldn’t try to push me away or scare me off.

He’d slink his arms around my waist, grab a handful of my hair, and kiss me.

Truly, truly kiss me.

Not the teenage experiments I’d experienced with Brian. Not the in-the-dark fumbling where un-educated fingers pinched my nipples far too hard.

I hadn’t gone far in my sexual exploration. Brian taught me how to squeeze and coax him to an orgasm. And he’d promised to make me feel good with his fingers in my body.

However, it hadn’t felt good.

I hadn’t come.

He’d gotten mad.

It’d left me feeling mostly empty.

My experience lacked any spark or magic, leaving me disillusioned with the lust part of being in love. If being touched and made love to was so great, why hadn’t I managed to find a hint of it yet?

I scowled into the sunshine.

You’re lying to yourself.

Out of all my intrepid excursions into growing up and figuring out sex, I could list on one hand how many times I’d earned butterflies.

And not just butterflies, but cannon-exploding, powdery-wing-confetti butterflies.

And they all centred on Jacob.

A kiss from Brian was nothing, nothing compared to a stare from Jacob.

A single stare from the boy who wanted nothing to do with me managed to hijack my entire nervous system leaving me hot and cold, brave and jittery, dry-mouthed and wet-pantied.

My heartbeat quickened as I fell deeper into my fantasy. A fantasy where Jacob would kiss me until my legs collapsed and my mind turned blank. Where he scooped me up like any gallant hero and carried me back to his place. Where he stripped me naked, licked the sweat from my skin, and bit me in punishment for making him crave me as much as I craved him.

I shivered in the hot afternoon, goosebumps scattering over my arms as nipples tingled and lips throbbed for such a thing.

What would it be like to see him naked? To feel his body on mine, in mine?

A full flush made me very aware I was breaking some unspoken rule by having such daydreams about Jacob Wild.

Standing, I abandoned my lunch and e-reader. Moving closer to the pond, I padded down the small jetty someone had built. My pulse was erratic, my breathing shallow. I needed to expend my nervous energy in some way.

A swim would hopefully help.

In icy water to douse my needy thirst.

Spreading my arms, I leapt into the lily-pad decorated pond.

I expected a refreshing chill, but what I got was a tepid, sun-warmed bath.

Breaking the surface, I cursed my overly explicit imagination. My skin still sparkled for touch. My tummy clenching for something I hadn’t experienced before.

But none of that mattered as I twisted in the liquid, brushed back wet hair, and squinted once again at the trees acting as sentries around Cherry River.

And unlike before when the horizon had been empty of people, now, it held a solitary figure.

A boy.

A man moving stiffly, slowly with a small backpack on his bruised spine and a weathered cowboy hat on his concussed head.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Hope

* * * * * *

I MOVED FAST but not too fast.

After all, I didn’t want to seem desperate.

Hoisting myself from pond to jetty, I flew to where I’d laid my frangipani-flowered towel and quickly wrapped it around my dripping body. Looking over my shoulder to make sure Jacob was still there, I scooped up the lunch Della had packed and slipped my feet into glittery flip-flops.

Armed with a peace offering and barely dressed, I made my way out of the willow grotto and toward Jacob who laboured toward his house a paddock away.

He hadn’t seen me—either too focused on his pain or deliberately blocking everything out. Either way, it gave me time to delete some distance between us before I called, “Jacob. Hi.”