I lean against him, resting my head on his shoulder. “I’ll be back in California, and you’ll be in New York.”
“But we’re both here right now.”
Can it be that simple? Just living in the moment, no care or worry for what will happen tomorrow?
I let it go and read my book. From his position behind me, he reads along. I don’t even know he’s doing it until he asks me to turn the page back, that he’s still on the last paragraph.
I tilt my face back toward his. “Do you want me to catch you up?”
“Seems to be a lot of sex. I think I’m caught up.”
I blush. “It’s more than just sex.”
He raises a brow. “If you say so. It’s cool. It’s kinda hot. You want me to tie you up too?”
My mouth drops, but I don’t say no.
He licks his lips before dropping his mouth to my ear. “Turn the page. I’m getting ideas.”
We read together, pausing only when either of us gets up to grab some food or goes to the restroom and then when our plane starts boarding. Reading a hot book is one thing. Thinking everything that’s happening to the main character might happen to you is a whole different experience. I can’t remember the last time I finished a book as fast.
Our flight is twelve hours. We’re able to sleep at least six each on the plane. When we land and once we’re through immigration, we head straight to our hotel. We have connecting rooms overlooking the harbor. Adam ignores his room, dropping his things in mine instead.
We don’t have anything planned that day, other than wandering the city and enjoying the views of the harbor. I suggest we have drinks after dinner, but Adam seems in an awful hurry to get back to our room.
It seems he does want to tie me up. Seated in the armchair that faces the bed, he asks that I strip. There’s a dresser with a large mirror above it behind him. I watch my own eyes widen. This is turning him on. From where I stand, I can see the bulge in his pants straining against the fabric. I step out of my flats, pushing them with one foot away from the bed. I have a gray cardigan on. I slide it off one shoulder and then the other, and I let it fall to the floor behind me.
I unbutton my jeans, and then I slowly slide the zipper down. I turn, so my back is to him, and I bend at the waist as I ease them down my legs. I glance back at him and see him breathing heavily and shifting in his seat.
I step out of my jeans and turn back to him as I start unbuttoning my shirt. I’m teasing him, going slowly from one button to the next. After I free the final button, I let my shirt hang open for a moment and look at him again.
“Off,” he commands, his tone raising the tiny hairs on the back of my neck.
I peel the shirt from my body and let it fall on top of my jeans. I start to reach to unclasp my simple white bra, but he gets up and strides over to me. He takes my hands and places them on his chest. I can feel the thump of his heart beneath his T-shirt. He slips one of my bra straps down, trailing its descent down my shoulder with his lips.
I lean into him, my legs tingling. He repeats the motion and the trail of kisses on my other shoulder before spinning me so that my back is to him. He releases the back clasp, and my bra falls to the floor in front of me.
I sag against his chest. His hands reach around to cup and toy with my breasts. Turning me again, he claims my lips, his hands now in my hair. My hands move to slip under his shirt. I want the weight of his chest pressed against mine.
“Easy,” he murmurs onto my lips.
He eases me onto the bed. I scoot back toward the pillows and watch him, mouth open, as he pulls off his shirt. His body is a thing of beauty. The tone of his chest, the definition of his abs and arms. I love touching him. Even now, my fingers itch to explore him.
His eyes are locked on mine as he slowly slips his belt off. He doesn’t drop it to the floor like he did his shirt. He holds it in his hand, his jeans now sagging in a way that makes my mouth water, as he makes his way over to me.
I watch, almost detached, as he binds my hands together and then secures the belt to the headboard.
“But I like touching you,” I argue even though I’m excited.
He lies between my legs, holding himself up over me. “I know you do.”
He lowers his lips to my rib cage. It makes me think of him as the first man again, inspecting his stolen rib through my skin. His mouth moves lower to tease the hem of my underwear. It’s funny to think the quick-dry ones my mother ordered from a catalog turn him on as much as they do. Maybe it’s because the material is so thin. He kisses me through them, burying his face between my thighs. It’s amazing but not enough. He’s teasing me.
I don’t want that strip of material between us. I want his lips on my skin. I buck my hips against him, groaning in protest. If my hands were free, I could just take off my own underwear, but I’m at his mercy. He can toy with me as long as he wants.
I know he’s turned on though, so I plead, “Please, Adam. God, I want you so bad right now.”
He looks up at me, tilting his head to the side, his fingers stroking the skin above my underwear. “But you wanted to stop.”
I can’t believe he’s bringing that up. “I don’t want to stop.”
“Are you sure? Because if you do…” His voice trails off.
My body is practically humming with want. I throw my head back and squeeze my eyes shut. The way he turns my words against me, reminding me that I tried to stop us, stings. I don’t understand why the idea of us going our separate ways is already killing me. Bound, unable to touch him, knowing soon I’ll never be able to touch him, is too much for me.
He knows something is wrong. He crawls up my body and sees my eyes pinched shut. He frees my hands from his belt before pulling me into his arms.
“I wasn’t trying to upset you,” he whispers before kissing me.
My hands drown in the feel of him, roaming shamelessly over his shoulders and down his back. “I just need to touch you right now.”
“Okay,” he murmurs, pushing me onto my back.
His earlier patience is lost. He attacks me, and I’m overwhelmed by the pleasure in my surrender. His lips search for mine as he fills me. We cling to each other, spent.
“I was supposed to be watching my cousin.”
I look up at him and see rain clouds in his eyes. I don’t say anything. I just let him keep speaking.
“I was seventeen, and my uncle’s house was on the river. There was a place where we used to swim but always with one of our parents watching.”
He drops his head to my shoulder and takes a shaky breath. “I had just turned seventeen, so they thought I was old enough to watch the younger ones. There were five of us out there that day. I was helping one of them out of the water when she went under. I hadn’t seen her swim that far from the dock. The river was high, the current a lot faster than normal. My cousin, Mandy, got stuck in it. I tried to reach her, swim after her, but I was so slow. I couldn’t get to her in time. She was ten.”
I pull him closer, wrapping my arms around him.
“I lost the weight after that.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I whisper.
He lifts his head, his eyes haunted. “I know that now. It’s just…I was supposed to be watching them.”
I kiss him, and we hold each other. I run my fingers through his hair, reeling at his confession. I do the math in my head, realizing that the cousin who died was born the same year own his mother had died. What a horrible, tragic coincidence.
Chapter 19
We’re up early the next morning for our excursion, a guided day tour. Neither of us mentions his confession from the night before. I don’t know what to say to him.
Our pickup for the bus is near our hotel. We sit together near the middle and watch as the bus fills up at each stop. Our first stop is a hands-on wildlife park an hour outside of Sydney.
I’ve always been an animal lover, so I’m in heaven. The animals in the section of the park we’re in are tame
. It’s an exotic petting zoo. Adam is in full-on paparazzi mode as he takes my picture with all of them.
A young koala steals my heart as he clings to my chest. One of the guides explains this koala is nicknamed Sparky. He was displaced from his natural habitat by a wildfire. He’s here in this park to be rehabilitated and hopefully released into the wild.
We explore one enclosure after another to see animals native to Australia. There’s one interactive enclosure where we get to feed kangaroos. For some reason, they prefer me over Adam. They make him so nervous that he takes most of his pictures of them from outside their enclosure.
The park gives each of us a souvenir, a small stuffed koala or kangaroo, on the way out of the park. We both get kangaroos and Adam gives his to me.
From the park, our group goes to lunch near Leura. After lunch, we have time to wander the town, which has a healthy number of tourist shops. I am with Adam when he asks me to pick out the next charm for my bracelet. I can’t decide between the Sydney Opera House, a boomerang, or a bear. I finally settle on the boomerang just because of the way it was painted, and it would add some color to my wrist. Adam gets me a bear as well, so I can remember Sparky.
We travel to the Three Sisters next, possibly the most famous landmark within the Blue Mountains. Three rocky peaks, standing side by side. The legend behind the sisters is sad. There were three sisters—Meehni, Wimlah, and Gunnedoo. They lived many years ago in the Jamison Valley and were members of the Katoomba tribe.
They were beautiful and had many suitors, but they fell in love with three brothers from the Nepean tribe. Tribal law forbid their marriages, and the brothers, angry, decided to kidnap the sisters to force the marriages.
A giant battle broke out between the two tribes, and in an effort to protect the sisters, a witch doctor turned them to stone. His intentions were good. He had planned to turn them back once the battle was over and they were safe. Instead, the witch doctor was killed during the battle, and there was no one else who could reverse his spell. So, they stand to this day, frozen in stone for all time.
Our tour takes us to a place called Echo Point. There’s a platform there, overlooking the Three Sisters and the valley. I move away from the rest of the tour to the edge of the platform, not closest to the sisters and everyone taking pictures.
The three sisters remind me of the relationship I had with my mother and Ally. Ally wasn’t truly my sister, but it felt like she was. She acted in so many ways as the bridge between my mother and me. I can see her represented in the rock, holding my mother and me together.
I sit down and cross my legs, holding the small plastic box. I speak to her, tell her what Adam shared with me the night before. I wish she could have been there to tell me what to do. I miss her guidance. I tip the box over the edge of the platform, letting her ashes fall into the valley below.
That morning, when I poured some ashes from the wooden carved box into my smaller plastic box that fit in my purse, I was shocked at how little was left. I only have two more places where I plan to release her ashes. The thought of that, the end of my good-bye trip with her, scares me.
Adam hangs back, knowing I need my space. When I’m finished, I go to find him. He’s taking pictures of the joints of the railing that enclose the overlook platform. I’m sure he also took pictures of the sisters, but I love that it’s still the way things come together that most interest him.
We ride a yellow cable car next to get a closer look at the sisters and the valley below. The floor is made of glass, and it’s like we’re floating over the rainforest. The height makes me nervous. I think I would have felt more comfortable sitting than standing. I use Adam for support, wrapping my arms around his waist. My cheek is to his back as he takes pictures of our journey.
A railway car pulls us backward and brings us back to where we started. The railcar also has a glass ceiling. We sit and look skyward at the full green-limbed branches above us. There are white birds, maybe a type of parrot, with a yellow crest that remains undisturbed by our skyward jaunt. The sensation of being pulled backward and not seeing where we’re going does not agree with my stomach.
I’m thankful I didn’t get sick from the motion by the time the ride is over. Walking around with my feet on solid ground helps the feeling pass before we get back onto the bus.
From there, we head to the Parramatta River. We’ll take a cruise back to the Circular Quay of the Sydney Harbor and be back where we started. The boat is crowded but not overly so.
We sit on the top deck. I pull a hair tie out of my purse and make a feeble attempt at pulling my hair back. It’s grown a bit on the trip but still isn’t long enough to hold in a ponytail. I settle by pulling it half up. My hair still whirls in the wind but now mostly off my face.
There’s a British family we haven’t met before also on our tour. Their teenage daughter seems taken with Adam. I smile quietly as she asks him questions about his camera and the States.
“Do you have a car?” She bats her eyelashes at him.
He inches closer to me on our seat. “Where I live, you don’t need one.”
I slip my arm through his and bite back a smile at her annoyed expression. She finally gives up and leaves to chat up some Australian boys a few rows away.
“Were you ever like that?”
I think back to when I was in high school before Ally got sick. “I had a boyfriend for most of my senior year, but I was a bit of a flirt. I don’t think I ever hit on an older guy though.”
He looks offended. “Older?”
“I’m not saying you’re old.” I laugh as his expression of mock horror relaxes. “But to her. You might be almost twice her age.”
“So, if she comes back, I should mention my retirement savings to scare her away?”
“See, I don’t even have that.”
“No 401(k)? I only have one because my company matches my contribution.”
I look out over the water. “I don’t even have a job.”
He slips his arm around me, pulling me closer. “So, my spoiled comment wasn’t that far off?”
I do my best to look offended. “I might be unemployed, but I don’t think I’m spoiled.”
He pretends to think about it for a moment. “I guess not.”
“I’m not sure what to do once this trip is over. Do I go back to school or just get a job and move out? I was hoping I would have had some sort of epiphany on what to do with my life by now.”
“I still don’t know,” he admits.
“You seem to have it together though. You have a job and an apartment, you travel, you…” I wrinkle my nose, trying to think of more things. “Tweet?”
His brows come together at my last comment, and he shakes his head. “I have a boring job that I stay at to pay the bills. I have possibly the smallest apartment in the city. I’m not even going to touch your tweet comment.”
“What would you rather be doing?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just treading water until I figure it out.”
“Are you…do you ever talk to your dad?”
He inhales sharply. “Not that much. We email more than anything else. He likes me to send pictures from my trips.”
We’re both quiet the rest of the cruise, the bus ride to the drop-off spot, and then the walk back to the hotel.
I use his laptop to check my email.
“Conner can drive up tomorrow,” I tell him, looking up from the screen.
“Great.” He sounds annoyed.
“Don’t be like that,” I grumble, knowing he isn’t thrilled to see my partner in bungee-jumping crime again.
He lifts his hands innocently. “Like what?”
I set the laptop on the table next to me and walk over to him, wrapping my arms around his waist. “Conner is just a friend. Don’t be grumpy.”
He leans down to kiss my forehead. “No jumping off of bridges. Deal?”
I pop up onto my toes and kiss him. “Deal.”
Wip
ed from the day and the days before, we order room service for dinner. We then share a bath, now somewhat revived from dinner. There’s a deep circular tub in the bathroom that overlooks the harbor. I sit in his lap, my back to his chest, as we watch the ships pass by.
We lose interest in our view when his lips move to my neck. Water laps over the edge of the tub and onto the floor as we move together. Any secrets my body held from him in the beginning, he long ago unlocked. He knows where and how to touch me to bring me the most pleasure.
***
Conner drives up from his home in Wollongong to meet us at our hotel. We check out and load our bags into his car. His eyes widen when he sees my hand in Adam’s, but he doesn’t say anything.
I sit up front with Conner. We drive to Bondi Beach. It’s close to Sydney, so Conner can have us back in plenty of time for our flight that night. He tells us all about the rest of his trip with his family, and I tell him all we’ve seen. He seems really interested in going to India. He’s trying to talk his folks into that being their trip next year.
He parks and looks over at me. “Pity it isn’t warmer. This beach is topless.”
I cross my arms over my chest and avoid Adam’s eyes, knowing he’s probably pissed. Once we’re all out of the car, he reaches for my hand. I look up at him then, and yep, he’s glaring at Conner. This should be fun.
We eat at a Japanese place for lunch before walking out onto the beach. Despite the chill, there are surfers in wetsuits catching waves. I carry my sandals in my hand and lift my long maxi skirt to keep it from getting wet. The water isn’t warm, and I back away quickly. Adam looks at me, curious.
I shrug. “I’ve grown up within driving distance of this ocean my whole life. Now, I’ve seen it and felt it from both sides.”
We do the cliff walk from Bondi to Coogee. We stop in Bronte for a smoothie and watch the surfers. The water is beautiful, almost mint-colored from our vantage point. It’s nice to focus on that instead of Conner and Adam trying to one-up each other. When we were in Africa, the vibe I got from Conner was almost brotherly. Here, he’s definitely flirting with me.
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