Rafferty (Default Distraction Book 2)

by A. S. Roberts

  ‘Let’s have a look at you then.’ I heard my mum’s voice as my jewelled flip-flops found our carpeted hallway. I turned my head to see her sitting at the kitchen table sipping at the coffee she was holding and smiling at me. ‘You look really nice, Lozzie.’

  ‘Thanks. Do you think Raff will like it?’ I touched my long, loose pony tail making sure it was still in place and looked down at my short denim ruffle skirt and the pink, crop vest T-shirt I was wearing. I’d bought my new clothes with my wages from my Saturday job and the two babysitting jobs I’d done this week. Even after buying my new clothes I’d still had some left to save.

  ‘He’ll love it. But then he’d love anything you wore. Where are you two off to?’

  ‘I’m not sure, for a drive maybe.’ I knew we would be going anywhere we could be alone. I tried to make my voice sound as nonchalant as possible and offered her a small smile to appease her questioning.

  Finally, she answered me with a knowing nod of her head. ‘Okay, well make sure you’re back by nine.’

  ‘Oh, Mum, really? I’m sixteen in ten days’ time, surely I can stay out until ten now?’ I heard myself tut, but somehow I managed to do it quietly.

  ‘You know the rules, young lady.’ Her eyebrows raised and I knew I was pushing my luck. ‘And so does Raff, your dad explained our rules to him. While we are happy for him to take you out, he has to remember that you’re three years younger than him.’

  Even now, when we had been seeing each other for six months, I had to pinch myself to believe we were together. I’d had the biggest crush on him for… well, since forever. I’d read in magazines that it often happens when one of your best friends has an older brother, but this was different. It wasn’t just a passing crush, an infatuation or even teenage hormones. I knew, even though I was only fifteen, that I would never love anyone the way I loved Raff. He was my first love, and would be my only true love.

  ‘But…’ I countered with.

  ‘No “buts.”’ She stopped my attempt at swaying the conversation dead in its tracks. My dad might think he was in charge in our house, but my brother and I knew it was our mum, and any argument or resistance we put up was often futile.

  ‘Okay, I know.’ I sighed in acceptance at what she had said, gripping the bag I was holding tighter with both hands. I needed this conversation to end. I was desperate to get outside and into the car that was waiting for me.

  ‘Two more weeks, Lauren, and you’ll be sixteen. Dad and I will up your curfew time then, as long as you treat our rules with respect now.’

  ‘Okay.’ I sighed in resignation, turned and fled down the hall to the front door, before she held me back any longer.

  ‘Have fun and be safe,’ was her parting call as I turned the handle and pulled open the front door.

  I found Raff on the other side. I gulped a breath of air and swallowed as I looked up at him. He didn’t seem to have stopped growing in the last few years and he was now well over six feet. I watched him smile at my reaction. His black hair was flopped down over one eye, but then it always was in at least one place, and it usually covered one of his deep silver grey eyes. His face was clean shaven, showing more of his inherited olive skin that was already tanned by the early summer we’d had this year. My eyes unashamedly took all of him in, his teeth biting his full bottom lip and finally, the Adam’s apple that seemed to be growing more prominent with every week that passed.

  His hand that had been lifted with his finger poised at my doorbell came down quickly to grab onto mine and he pulled me quickly towards him. I landed against his firm body, made hard with all the competitive rowing he did at the private school his father insisted he attended. My whole body relaxed against his and my eyes closed as his fresh smelling soap filtered through his thin black T-shirt. One of his strong arms came around me so he could hold me close.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ I spoke into his chest.

  His spare hand weaved its way into my long hair and he gently guided my head tighter into him. I willingly placed it against his heart and listened to the steady rhythm it offered. He leant down to me and whispered into my hair as he kissed the top of my head. My pulse beat in giddy excitement at his words. ‘Exams are over, now you’re all mine for the summer and forever. I promise, no more time apart, Loz.’

  Listening to his words and the sentiment behind them, made my skin tingle. I pulled one of my hands free to steady myself by placing it on his torso. The act didn’t steady me at all. As soon as my palm found his well-defined muscles, my pulse beat so strongly all I could hear was the sound of the blood whooshing past my eardrums and all I could feel, see and taste from the air around me, was him. The way I reacted to him was at first something I didn’t understand, but I was learning fast and now craved the heady way us being together made me feel.

  The memory was so powerful I could remember exactly the way he smelt, even now. I inhaled deeply and let the smell wash over me, but it was almost too strong.

  ‘I’m sorry if I upset you, Lauren.’ Raff’s deep voice interrupted me.

  My whole body jumped out of the semi-relaxed state it had been in and my eyes flew open. I looked down at the small heart I’d unwittingly drawn on the window beside me and immediately rubbed it away.

  ‘When?’ I answered defensively and I turned my head a little to look at him.

  ‘Just now.’ I watched his posture change as he prepared to stand his ground. He widened his stance and crossed his bare arms over his chest. It made his forearms bulge against the many leather cuffs and bracelets.

  ‘Oh, I wondered exactly which time you were talking about,’ I retorted sarcastically and shot him a quick look to see him raise an eyebrow at me.

  I swung my legs back down to the floor and slipped my loose Converse back on. I was going to stand up, but he was too close and effectively blocking my way. So, instead of standing and looking at his face, I was forced to remain seated and my eyes were made to focus on his well-fitting black jeans and black leather, studded belt. My hands gripped the cushion beneath me as I watched, unable to tear my eyes away, when he pushed his hands down into his back pockets, making his low-slung jeans pull tighter across his hips and then ride a little further down. His dirty T-shirt lifted from the top of his jeans, exposing the bottom of his abs and giving me a small glimpse of his dark happy trail. All of this was not helping me initiate the conversation I needed to have.

  I swallowed and hoped he couldn’t hear it.

  He rocked back slightly onto the heels of his boots and cleared his throat.

  ‘I’m so sorry for causing you so much pain.’ I knew the moment his words left his mouth that he wasn’t talking about a few minutes ago. He was thrusting both hands into the barely healed scars of our past. His fingers were tearing apart the delicate scar tissue left behind and hoping that by doing so, it would knit back together stronger and better able to bear the rigors of life’s demands. He didn’t know how wrong he was with his assumptions.

  I made myself look up at his face and our eyes met. There was so much emotion between them and feelings that had long ago been stored away as no longer needed. It would have been heart breaking to stand by and watch our silent connection, but to endure that moment was more than I could bear.

  I managed to clear the unyielding constriction in my throat to speak. ‘Is this the bit where you want me to smile and say, it’s all okay, Raff?’ I looked at him in question. ‘Because if it is, hell will freeze over first… because I can’t. You walked away from me when I needed you the most and for that I can never forgive you.’

  The first of many tears began to spill down my face. I wasn’t ashamed to show him the pain he’d left inside my heart and I did nothing to wipe away the evidence of the grief he had left me with. But I swore in my head it would be the first and last time that I would allow him to see the heartache I lived with daily.

  I saw his stance change and his hands appeared from his back pockets, they were now either side of my body about to touch
me.

  ‘Don’t you dare.’ I didn’t recognise my voice, as I threatened him with more strength than I could have ever imagined I even had. ‘Don’t even think about trying to touch me, you don’t get to offer me consolation. I’m not yours and I haven’t been for more years than I can even remember. I’m with someone else now.’

  ‘So, I’ve been told.’ His eyebrow raised and his voice deepened.

  I wasn’t sure but I think I saw him momentarily flinch at my words, but I carried on regardless. ‘I have lived without you now for over half my life.’

  I summoned every ounce of strength I had and stood up, making our bodies collide in the small space. The connection caused my breathing to immediately ramp up and the stupid bloody butterflies in my stomach to once again take flight.

  I made myself look up into his eyes and I could see my words had penetrated, pain and remorse were shining right back at me.

  Hell yeah, take some of that.

  ‘I deserve all of that and a lot fucking more.’

  I nodded at him and made to walk past him. ‘You’re not worth it. Excuse me,’ I muttered politely. Our conversation was over.

  I’d made it all of three steps when I heard him speak again.

  ‘This new bloke of yours, does he treat you well, Loz?’

  My feet stopped moving and the squeak my shoes had been creating on the recently polished Parquetry flooring faded away.

  ‘Does he make you feel, like you know I can?’

  ‘Leave me alone… I’m not interested in you!’ I shouted out into the now thankfully empty room.

  ‘I don’t for one fucking minute believe that and neither the fuck do you,’ he replied.

  I had to force my motionless feet to move one small step at a time, as it appeared they wanted to stay and listen to him. But I couldn’t, I wasn’t prepared to answer his questions, because he had always been able to tell when I was lying and I couldn’t give him that open door into my present life.

  I patted my cheeks dry as I walked the length of the ballroom and when I reached the main doors I convinced myself to smile broadly.

  Raff grabbed my rucksack and held on to one of my hands, threading his fingers through mine in the way he always did. I moved quickly trying to keep up with his long, powerful legs as he strode down our path and out to the old Ford Zephyr he had found in one of his family’s garages and subsequently over the last year, had painstakingly done up. As we reached his car that was double parked in our street, he pulled open the heavy looking, two tone door and as it let out an indignant creak, he threw my rucksack onto the seat at the back.

  I jumped in through the open door and sat down, adjusting my short skirt as he walked around the front of the car twirling the car keys around his finger. He jumped in, lowering his frame by gripping his fingers onto the roof of the car. He turned the key in the ignition, the engine revved to life and we pulled away. I let out a sigh of relief as the curtain twitching neighbours were left behind.

  ‘Come here. You’re too far away.’ His silver grey eyes looked me up and down fleetingly before his eyes went back to the road ahead.

  I slid over the bench seat as carefully as I could, which wasn’t easy in a short skirt with my bare skin sticking to the cream leather. The moment my right thigh touched his jean clad one, my heart rate leapt in response and goose bumps rose on my bare leg. One of his hands left the steering wheel and came to find mine. I watched as his fingers threaded through mine and he squeezed his reassurance to me.

  It wasn’t necessary, with him was the only place I felt fully comfortable in my own skin. The curse of being a teenager my mum called it. Apparently, everyone questioned who they were, how they looked, what their future held, and if they would ever find someone to see through the teenage pretence and love them for the truth behind it. But when I was with him I asked myself none of those questions. He gave me confidence in the fact that he loved me, when sometimes all I could see was an awkward, sporty, gangly looking girl with tits and hips that were too small to be an attraction to anybody.

  Thirty minutes later, Raff parked the large car in a very nearly empty carpark high up on the cliffs of Dover, overlooking the English Channel with France on the distant horizon.

  ‘Just look at that view. Apart from you, it’s the thing I miss the most when I’m away at school.’ His hand left mine and his arm came around my shoulders to pull me in tighter against his body. ‘Is here okay, Loz?’

  ‘It’s the perfect place, I didn’t care where we went this evening. All I wanted was you to myself. I’ve missed you so much. The last four weeks have dragged by.’ I turned my head to look up at him as looked down to me and I got lost in the depth of his grey eyes. The feeling coursing between us was still a wonder to me.

  Was it always like this between a boy and a girl?

  Or was it just us?

  I’d spoken to my cousin Amy, and Raff’s sister Winter, about the way he made me feel, and although they had crushes on boys neither were in a relationship and they couldn’t answer me. Only my nan seemed to understand as she too had fallen in love with my grandad when she was young.

  I knew he was going to bring his head down to kiss me and my body reacted instantaneously. I licked my bottom lip in readiness as his head came closer and a long strand of his thick, dark hair fell forward and touched my cheek. As his lips finally came to mine I heard myself sigh with the feeling of completion he gave me whenever we were connected in some way.

  His tongue caressed mine and I teased his tongue in the way that being kissed by him had taught me. Every part of the sensitive flesh around my lips was teased and flirted with. I felt my tiny nipples bud inside my bra and my stomach muscles as they clamped tightly. As our kiss continued I was silently asking him to touch me, desperate to feel his rough fingertips gently slide over my bare skin. Almost as if he had heard my plea his fingers, calloused from doing up his car and from his other great love, guitar playing, touched the bare skin below my new T-shirt and I gasped at the contact. I felt them brush over my side and slide behind my back as he pulled me closer into him and I opened my mouth wider to subconsciously allow him greater access. His tongue became more insistent, more demanding and I found it difficult to keep up with him.

  All I knew was I didn’t want him to stop. I never wanted him to stop.

  At last his fingertips returned and skirted underneath the bottom of my bra and then further upwards. My back arched further towards him as I lost control of everything and my body instinctively implored him to touch me. As his thumb rubbed over my bra-clad nipple, my body quivered in response and I groaned into his mouth.

  We had been here a few times and we both knew what was coming next.

  But tonight he broke away from me. ‘Raff?’ I breathlessly questioned as his lips left mine.

  ‘I can’t, Loz. God knows I fucking want to. But we can’t keep doing this, we’ve come to that precipice where I can’t fool around with you anymore without going the whole way.’

  ‘I want to go the whole way with you, Raff,’ I whispered. ‘I love you and I’m ready.’

  ‘I love you too.’ His lips came back to mine and he kissed me with love and tenderness, effectively pushing the passion to one side. As his lips left mine he spoke into the small fissure between us. ‘I love you so much, but you won’t move me on this. You’re under age for one and I’m NOT taking your virginity in a fucking car park.’

  My brain kicked into gear on hearing his words and I pulled away from his arms, sitting up straight and folding my arms over my chest I stared out to what I hoped would be the calming sea. Slowly, tears began to roll down my cheeks at his refusal to give in to what I had thought we both wanted.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t.’ His arm pulled me once again into his side, holding me tightly to him. The fingers from his other hand found my chin to tip my face up towards him and he kissed the tip of my nose. ‘Don’t pull away from me, Loz.’

  ‘What’s wrong with me? Why don’t you want me?
’ I childishly blurted out.

  His head shook from side to side as he wiped the tears off my cheeks and then ran his thumb along my jawline as he kissed me chastely.

  ‘There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. You are fucking perfect in my eyes and because of that, this between us is going to be done right. When we look back in fifty years’ time, everything we ever did together will have been done properly.’

  ‘You’ve had others, so why do I get the special treatment?’ The child in me was turning into a brat, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  His hold on me tightened as he stared down at me, narrowing his eyes and stopping me from seeing into his soul. Then he shook his head from side to side. ‘Because you, Lauren, are the only one I’ve ever loved. Because I will always look after you, Lauren, and I will always put your needs before my own. Because you are mine and will always be mine.’

  His hold changed on me and he lifted me up onto his lap and groaned in my ear as my body came into contact with his. He wrapped his arms around me tightly and lowered his head onto my shoulder as he fought to control himself. I could feel his denim covered erection underneath the bare skin of my leg.

  He lifted his head again and stared at the side of my face. ‘Can you feel how much I want you?’

  I nodded in answer, not daring to move a muscle. I wanted to, but my inexperience got the better of me and I sat still. But feeling him and hearing the strain in his voice helped to dampen down my fears.

  ‘I just know that I will always put what is right for you before anything else, Lauren… and that’s the way it’s going to be. Tell me you understand that?’

  Reluctantly, I nodded my head.