The canoe continues on to the side of the fort where we turn with a ninety-degree angle at one of the sides. As of this point I spot the small stretch of land we will use to get on the island. It’s not very large and is mostly sand and some rocks, but at the end of it, smack dab in the middle of a long stretch of the fort, is one tiny door. It’s the only point of admission to this so-called park I’ve seen.
The canoe hits the shore hard, my tired fingers latching on to the sides to stop me from tumbling overboard, but it’s not needed. With a twist and turn Bennett positions the boat to his side, jumping out, and pulling us to shore before I even realize what’s happening. When more than half the boat is on dry land, I scoot to the middle and step out. Bennett wraps the backpack around his shoulder and takes my hand before heading to the small doorway cut out of the large fortress.
The overbearing stone doors open and Bennett walks through like he knows exactly where we’re going. There is darkness as we walk through the sole enclosure, under an archway of smooth rock.
“Oh my God,” I whisper when we reach the other side and daylight falls on the space. The middle of the fort — and the island — is a lush green tropical expanse of land. A green carpet of forest floor surrounded by the walls of the fortress. And unlike Bennett’s earlier statement, someone has definitely been here and mowed. The grass is cut short to the ground and smooth, making the area around us a symposium of straight lines — the intersection of man and nature.
Bennett stops walking, but I continue until our hands stretch out between us. “Do you like it?” he asks.
“Do I like it?” I spin in a circle making sure to get every single view. “I love it. How did you know I’d like this?”
Not every girl would. A bird flies overhead — probably a seagull — squawking and throwing a fit before it heads back out to the ocean. I smile watching it fly away. I love this place, it’s like its own little hideaway from the rest of the world.
Bennett laughs stealing my eyes from the sky. He pulls me to him with one flick of his wrist and kisses me. Quick but tender, enough I want to forget the landscape and spend the rest the afternoon with him somewhere private.
Before I suggest the option he pulls away. “I don’t know. But the eight episodes of ‘The Most Beautiful Places in the World’ you made me watch on the Travel Channel was a clue.”
It’s one of my favorite television shows. I made Bennett watch the reruns every night after Liam went to bed when I was at his home.
“But this wasn’t one of the places.” I’d remember if this had been on one of the episodes.
Bennett twists me around, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “No, but it’s one of the most beautiful places I know.”
“Can we go anywhere in the fort?” The place we stand, created by tall stone pillars and arches breaking up every single section of the wall, catches my attention again. I’m already eyeing one of the openings in the corner edge.
Following the line my eyes travel, Bennett walks us in the same direction. “We can explore everywhere if it’s open. I’ve heard more than one cannon was left behind and you can find them in the overgrown bushes.
“A cannon?” I ask excitedly as we walk underneath the first arch. “We are definitely finding the cannon.
Bennett lets go of my hand allowing me to walk a little way ahead.
“You lead and I’ll follow,” he calls after me.
The opportunity to spend the day with Bennett exploring an old abandoned fort on a random island off Maine’s coast was worth the concern of leaving Tabitha in charge of the bakery for an afternoon.
**
“Are you ready for lunch?” Bennett jumps down from a pile of rubble a few feet from where we found our third hidden cannon. It was lying deep within the underbrush and I almost walked right over it if he hadn’t told me to stop and look down. He takes my hands and I jump off the rock. His palm lands on my ass when he helps settle my feet as they hit the ground.
I decide to let it go rather than call him out on his handsy action. “Here?”
He drops what I assume to be a military-issued green and grey camo backpack on the ground. Bennett unzips the top and pulls out an assortment of supplies. Cups, bowls with lids, and a Ziploc baggie full of silverware.
He hands me a large rolled up blanket. “Can you put this down?” he asks without looking at me for confirmation.
I snap the blanket out to the side so we have a great view of the interior of the fort. Two pieces of dark blue fabric fall out and land on the grassy ground. I retrieve them and pass them on to Bennett who lays out an assortment of food on the blanket. “Cloth napkins?” I didn’t take him for the type of guy to have anything elaborate.
He takes them from me for only a moment before dropping them on the ground. “Liam said cloth napkins are fancy and if I want to win a girl, I should use them because girls like fancy stuff.”
I flop down on the blanket next to Bennett, the material bunching under my legs. “His argument makes a lot of sense to me. I do like fancy things.”
Bennett hands me one of the navy blue napkins, eyeing it a little more closely this time. “So you would say the napkin is working then?”
“It’s making me feel fancy? Absolutely.”
He shakes his head, not replying, but busies himself with taking lids off different mismatched Tupperware bowls. “We have cold macaroni and cheese, cold turkey sandwiches, and a select assortment of warmish Go-Gurts.”
“Well now today is special if Liam was willing to part with one of his precious Go-Gurts.”
“I think he likes you. It’s a pretty big sacrifice for him to give you one of his favorite snacks.”
“Have I ever complimented you on your son’s good taste?” I ask all too innocently while batting my eyelashes a few times for emphasis.
Bennett laughs. “He gets it from his father.”
“If he grows up half as charming as you, then all the girls in Pelican Bay are in trouble. Do you want me to get the plates?” I ask in a half-assed attempt to do something to avoid a conversation I made way too personal too soon.
“Well…” He laughs the word, but I sense Bennett is frustrated. Not something I’ve ever seen with him. “I forgot the plates.”
The smile that hasn’t left my face since the minute we stepped foot on the island grows. “You forgot the plates?”
“Hey, I remembered the fancy napkins.” He flips his napkin around a few times.
It’s enough to lighten the mood. “Well then, pass me a fork.”
I grab the bowl of macaroni and cheese before he has a chance to stop me. We eat sitting on a black and white checkered blanket on a grassy section of a forgotten fort — Bennett and me together.
It takes a while, but eventually we’ve each had a sandwich and taken a turn eating macaroni from the bowl. The conversation is easy, revolving mostly around my future plans for the bakery. Bennett and I share a few pointed looks between us, but for the most part, I’m not caught ogling him from my side of the blanket. At some point during our meal it went from two people enjoying a picnic together to two young single people who find one another attractive lying on the ground together in a deserted fort with no one else around.
“Where are all the other tourists?” We haven’t seen another single soul all day.
Bennett scans the surroundings. “The park isn’t widely known and the one way to reach it is by boat. It doesn’t get many visitors.”
“So it’s us right now, but that could change at any minute.”
“Theoretically,” Bennett’s eyes meet mine before they drop lower to stare at my chest in a not-so-undercover way. “But this late in the day I highly doubt we’ll have any new visitors.”
A seagull squawks from some invisible perch above us, as loudly as the last one to fly overhead. “There are a lot of birds.”
Bennett looks up, trying to find the noisy neighbor as well. “The birds don’t care if I kiss you.”
“Are you
planning to kiss me?”
He smiles, popping the lid back on the macaroni container. “I’ve been thinking about it all day.”
“Oh.” My body comes alive. Not only from his words but the way he looks at me, his eyes full and bright like he sees something magical in me. Something I don’t. We’re surrounded by beautiful landscape, but the one thing I see is him. My stomach jumps, filling with butterflies and that nervous sensation you get right before you know there’s a kiss coming. A kiss you want.
Bennett leans forward and I lean back, keeping the same space of distance between us. There’s no rhyme or reason for it because my body screams to fling myself on him. To jump him right here in the middle of the field. For some stupid reason I’ve decided to play hard to get.
Bennett inches closer and this time I don’t hedge back.
When I let his lips meet mine, I regret every second I leaned away. My arms wrap around his neck and I twist back, taking him with me until I’m flat on my back against the blankets with him on top. Our kissing is fast and heavy, a frantic pace set between us. As if now that we’ve finally gotten started neither of us will ever finish.
Bennett’s hand trails along my side following the curve of my butt and resting on my thigh. One of his knees parts my legs. He leans forward and pushes his leg along the inside of my thigh.
The two of us twist and turn on the blanket. I’m caught up in the moment but yet want more. He pulls back to give me a moment to catch my breath and places kisses across my neck, small little pecks with every few a suck or nibble. I drag air into my lungs, trying to calm my racing heart, and my lower body edges up rubbing my core against his leg. It’s shameless — a little bit high school even — to be practically dry humping the former SEAL in the middle of a national park, but at this moment in time nothing is going to stop me.
“Bennett…”
He sucks on a piece of my skin. “Yeah…” He bites the same area, pulling.
I moan. “Did you bring any…you know…protection.”
Bennett stops kissing my neck and I immediately regret the question. My need to keep going too high. “You mean a condom?”
“Yeah, one of those.” I pull on his shirt, not letting him get far away.
“Anessa, I’ve been more prepared than a Boy Scout since the first moment I saw you.”
Well that’s interesting to know, but I don’t necessarily have time to work out what it means.
“Are you sure you want to?”
“Positive.” I start working to unbutton his flannel shirt, more than ready to have Bennett naked in front of me.
He drops forward rifling through his backpack, and I work my way further down. When he returns he lines his body back on top of mine. Bennett drops the foil package next my head and for a few seconds simply stares into my eyes.
His hand carves a short path down the side of my face while he cups my cheek to align my head with the rest of his palm. “You are so beautiful.”
The undivided attention of the hot guy on top of my body makes me nervous and I laugh, not able to believe his words. The final button pops through the material and I spread my hands against his chest. I can’t wait another second before I touch him. My excitement builds at my ability to turn fantasies with Bennett into life. I’d never imagined it would be possible.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“You can tell us if you did. We won’t judge you.” Katy taps Tabitha on the shoulder and both girls nod their heads doing their best to look innocent.
“They’re lying to you. Katy will ask one thousand embarrassing follow-up questions.” The fourth person at our table shakes her head, giving me advice I already know.
Katy scoffs, the main lights in the town’s newest bar casting weird shadows on her face. “Winnie! I can’t believe you say such lies about me.”
“I can’t believe you’d deny it?” Winnie, not at all perturbed by Katy’s comment, pulls a piece of her long blonde hair behind her ear. She slowly blinks, her green eyes telling Katy she’s not buying any of it. “I’m not warning her of anything she didn’t already know. Am I?” She looks to me with the question.
“No,” I respond. Katy would probably ask me to draw a diagram of what Bennett and I did.
“See?” Winnie tips up a shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. One of Katy’s high school friends who now lives in Vegas, she’s back in Pelican Bay for a few days visiting family, and I love her. She could totally be one of the girls if she didn’t live so far away.
Katy takes a sip of her drink, sucking the last of the liquid from the bottom. “Fine, you don’t need to tell us. Every woman at this table knows you had sex with Bennett on your date yesterday. You’re glowing.”
I roll my eyes, but quickly hide the smile that creeps up with my glass as I pretend to drink.
Tabitha doesn’t buy it from the way her eyebrows wing up, and she tilts her head in my direction. She may wait to ask me until later, but there’s definitely questions coming eventually.
“So, Winnie, what’s it like to live in Vegas?” I ask in a poor attempt to get attention away from me and what happened with Bennett.
She instantly lights up. “I love it. So much better than all the snow you get here.” She shudders like the thought of snow alone is enough to make her cold. “My boyfriend, Archer, and I manage a club and do all the club promotions.”
She continues to talk about her life in Vegas, sitting under the sun and all the fun places she visits managing promotions for her club and various others. A few sentences later and I lose interest. It’s not that Winnie isn’t awesome, because from what I’ve seen she fits perfectly, but I have no interest in living in Vegas. I’ve been before. A girl’s bachelorette party a few years ago, but I grew up on a coast and it’s no coincidence I ended up on another one. I love the water even if it means I’ve never seen a temperature above ninety-two degrees.
A cymbal crashes to the floor, the disruption echoing through the small room and forcing all of us to cover our ears. One of the three guys setting up the instruments on stage shouts out a quick, “Sorry!”
The Loft is a brand-new club in Pelican Bay. The first of its kind, I’m told—at least in this city. I’m pretty sure everywhere else in the world had these in the eighties. Stationed on top of a store on Main Street, tonight’s grand opening is expected to be busy. It’s the only reason I allowed Katy and Tabitha to pull me out of my kitchen four hours before the first band is due on stage.
The bar owner, Noah billed the place as the spot to hear local bands and also made promises of larger groups as well. He graduated high school in Pelican Bay — two years ahead of Katy. She and Winnie have spent at least ten minutes each telling us about how he was the heartthrob of every girl in their grade. He left town for college, but now he’s back and causing quite a stir by opening a dance club.
Pearl loves it, which means every other person hates it. Most of the gossip revolves around complaints about how the noise will distract drivers. Since no one drives on Main Street past eight o’clock most nights, I’m not sure it will be an issue.
“When does the first band go on?” Tabitha checks her watch, her fingers clicking a noiseless pattern on a tall Long Island Iced Tea glass she holds in one hand.
Winnie casts a look around the room. “Nine, I think. I also need to hunt down Noah and congratulate him on his opening night.”
“Don’t lie. You want to see if he’s as hot as he was in high school.” Katy flicks a piece of straw wrapper at Winnie’s head. “I’ve heard he is.”
She’s able to bat it away quickly before it makes contact. “Well yeah. So do you. Plus I want to ask how his sister is adjusting.”
Katy sighs. “I’ve seen her around town. Seems to be okay.”
A member of the band on stage plays a few quick notes on the drums garnering everyone’s attention before I can ask what the sister is adjusting from. Every moment I spend in Pelican Bay tends to make me nosier. Soon I’ll be asking Pearl to add me to her phone tr
ee list. I wouldn’t mind a seven o’clock update. Kind of like the local news, but delivered personally. Except this news includes all the juicy details we always want to know.
“Are you ready to party?” a tall guy with bleach blond hair shouts like he isn’t already holding a microphone standing in the middle section of the stage. It works.
All heads turn to him and the conversation in the room stops. “My band is Scorpion’s House and we’re greatly honored to be the opening band at The Loft. Congrats, Noah, you fucker. May we spill lots of alcohol on these wooden floors.”
He raises his microphone in the air, making a toast, and the entire room cheers. Not exactly my taste, but I suppose. I clap along and smile at my companions even though being in a room full of people who have lived in Pelican Bay their entire lives makes me feel like the odd one out. No one is even looking at me, but I feel like the girl in English class wearing nothing but underwear.
I steal a glance across the table and see Tabitha smiling and clapping away. She turns, meets my eyes, and both her shoulders come up in a shrug like she’s silently saying, “This town? What are you gonna do?”
The lead singer, whose name I’ve already forgotten, waits until the crowd calms. When it’s quiet, but not too quiet, the drummer strikes. A quick countdown leads the band into their first number. It only takes a chord or two for me to recognize the familiar beat of Sweet Home Alabama — a classic they’ve put their own spin on.
“Come on, ladies. Let’s dance.” Katy pushes off a stool standing beside the table and waits for us to jump up as well.
Neither Tabitha nor I hurry to move. She takes the last drink of her Long Island Iced Tea before leaving it on the table.
FUTURE RISK Page 10