Strands of his copper-streaked hair clung to his neck and face, and his arse … oh my God, it fit perfectly snug inside a pair of Greenhills football shorts.
My Connor was very yummy, and as he stood by the riverbank, nodding to a tune he was playing inside his head, he looked happy, so I wrote a little poem.
At peace is he when among the fishies.
I giggled to myself and crossed it out, instead refocussing on the muscle definition of his arms and legs as he held the rod in front of his body. My face heated, and this time I not only sucked my bottom lip into mouth, I also bit down on it. Hard. The way he was standing was so erotic, and it delighted my girly parts as much as girly parts could be delighted.
Bringing my pen to my lips, I traced them from left to right, right to left and had the sudden urge to lick something, preferably him, the thought of exploring his body with my tongue and hands exciting me even more. I was done waiting and wondering, done skating across the surface of our need for one another. I wanted to experience sex, to feel it, smell it, taste it. I wanted to entwine myself with Connor’s mind, heart, body, and soul in a way we’d never done before. Where he ended, I started, and vice versa.
I wanted to become one.
It was time.
Jotting down ‘we begin where we end’, I closed my notebook and leaned back on my elbows, sounding a “psst.”
Connor twisted his shoulders to look at me. “Yeah?”
“No bites?”
He shook his head.
“Pity.” I pouted.
His eye twitched as he tried to assess my body language, so I helped him out and playfully opened and closed my legs a few times before adding, “Must be boring then.”
His stare dipped to my royal blue bikini bottoms now visible underneath my denim skirt then shot back up to meet mine. I smiled just enough to let him know I’d noticed the shift in his eyes then I opened and closed my legs again, this time slower, before leaving them open.
“Yeah, real boring,” he choked out, the muscles in his neck straining as he swallowed.
I draped my hand on the inside of my thigh and lazily traced my finger up and down my skin, teasing him, teasing me. His arm fell limp, his fishing reel clicking repeatedly when his finger slipped off the spool. It made me giggle, but it was also incredibly hot.
Reaching behind my back, I pulled the tie to my bikini top and removed it from beneath my white tank. “Maybe I can offer you something better?” I said, dangling it from my fingertip like a Matador’s cape.
Connor stabbed the fishing rod into the sandy bank then strode toward me. He removed his baseball cap and smoothed his hair back.
We stared at each other, our words unspoken but unmistakable. This was it. He knew it and I knew it. And as he stood there, holding his cap to his chest, his eyes searching mine, I realised just how nervous but truly ready I was.
“You sure?” he asked.
“I am.”
He dropped to his knees between my open legs and slowly ran his hands up the outsides of my thighs, pushing my skirt up to rest on my hips.
I sucked in a breath and smiled before letting it out. “Are you sure?”
His eyes lit up. “I am.”
Leaning forward, I kissed him then slid my hand into the bunched pocket of my skirt, pulling out a condom I’d stolen from Chris’s drawer at home. “Good.”
Connor and I made love under the Weeping Willow, the breeze carrying each kiss, sigh, moan, and murmured words of longing along the river just like it had carried his voice the day we met. His touch was gentle although tense and strained, and no matter the love I felt deep within, or how much my body quivered under his, it still hurt like a goddam bitch.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his body heavy on top of mine.
The burning increased with his repeated motion, so I lied. “Yes, I’m fine.”
I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to hurry up or not. It felt strange; I felt strange. My body ached from his touch while craving even more. More rocking of his hips, more softness from his lips, and more of the love that poured feverishly from each of his hungry fingertips. It was an exquisite torture I hoped became less torturous and more exquisite the more we did it.
“You’re so beautiful, Ellie,” he said, his voice strained. He leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “Are you sure you’re okay? Am I hurting you?”
I couldn’t exactly tell him his dick felt like a curling iron, plugged in and switched on, so I lied again. “No.” I winced. “It’s fine. Please keep going.”
Connor pressed his lips against mine and quickened his pace, and for a second—right before he stiffened and thrust deeper—the pain all but disappeared and a feeling so immense, so beautiful and pure, swept through me like a ferocious gust of wind, relief and satisfaction pinching his brows and piercing my heart. We did it. We had sex. We’re no longer virgins.
Bodies pressed, his chest against mine, I held him tight as his breathing slowed and the weight of his frame grew heavier. His back was sweat-dampened and hot, and I couldn’t move even if I wanted to, which I didn’t. I was perfectly happy laying on the blanket, the water reflecting the sun’s rays into my tired eyes. I felt whole, alive … loved.
Sighing, I closed my eyes and relaxed beneath him.
“Are you okay?” he asked for the bazillionth time.
I whacked his shoulder. “Stop asking me that.”
“Why? I want you to be comfortable and happy.”
“I am happy. Comfortable? Not really. You weigh as much as a baby elephant.”
“Shit! Sorry, baby.” He slipped out of me and rolled to his side, and the burn I’d forgotten for that split second rebooted to an inferno. “You’re hurting, aren’t you?”
This time, I couldn’t lie. “Yeah, just a bit.” I winced again. “But I loved it. I love you.”
His brow crumpled, and it pissed me off.
“Don’t do that,” I said, now frowning at him.
“Do what?”
I pointed to his face. “That. That regretful look.”
Connor gently trailed his finger down my cheek, his caress soft and sensual. “But I hurt you. I hate that I hurt you.”
“Well, get over it, because sex for the first time is supposed to hurt.”
He scoffed and diverted his gaze to the river. “Maybe I could’ve done something different, something to lessen the pain.”
“Maybe you could just stop sulking and tell me you love me too,” I suggested, or perhaps demanded. Either way, as my head lay resting on his arm, my eyes searching his, those three words were what I desperately wanted to hear, what I needed to hear. Never in my life had I felt so vulnerable and in need of reassurance.
Connor’s lips remained pressed together, his eyes a swirling storm of remorse. I could see his turmoil deep within, and it angered and pained me even more that he couldn’t just open his stupid mouth and say what he obviously felt, what I felt, and I what I could see—his love for me, blaring in silence.
“Don’t worry about it,” I sniped, sitting up so I could reach my bikini top and run far away from the hurt now squeezing my heart. I honestly thought once we’d made love that he’d say it. There was no reason for him not to … unless he didn’t love me the way he appeared to.
“Eloise.” Connor’s hand shot out and clasped mine. “Don’t leave.”
“Please let go. I can’t stay here right now. I need air.”
He didn’t quite chuckle but waved his hand at the space around us instead. “There’s plenty of air.”
“Yeah, but you’re stealing it,” I choked out, unable to hold back my tears. “You’re always stealing my air.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“You!” I said, shrugging out of his clasp so that I could point my trembling finger at him. “You breathe air into me and then you steal it, and I’m left gasping. Why do you do that? Why can’t you just let me breathe with you?”
Connor’s wide eyes searched mine, da
rting from side to side like a ball in a pinball machine. He looked so lost and helpless, so I elaborated. “Every second we are together, I feel alive. Every kiss, every touch, every unspoken word breathes life into me and I tether myself to it, afraid to let go. But then you refuse to tell me how you truly feel with the words you were given, words I know you can damn well say and choose not to, and it sucks that air right back out of me, and I … I can’t breathe.”
His eyelids fell shut, his shoulders sagging.
“Why’s it so hard for you to say?”
He didn’t respond. He just kept his eyes closed, as if I weren’t even there.
“JUST SAY IT,” I shouted. “Just tell me you love me. I know you do.”
“If you know I do then why do you need to hear it?”
“Because some words mean so much. Some words need to be heard and spoken.”
“Not those.”
“What? Are you crazy? Of course those. They’re the most important three words anyone can say.”
“No, baby, you’re wrong.” Connor opened his eyes, grasped my arms, and pulled me to sit on his lap, securing me tightly, his finger tracing a heart over my own. “My love for you goes beyond what words can say, so yeah, I choose not to say them. Those three words are empty where we’re concerned.”
I sobbed. “But I need to hear them.”
“You don’t,” he whispered, pressing his palm over my heart and placing my palm over his, the pressure firm, both of our hands unmoving. “Do you feel that?” A reverberating beat travelled through my body into his and from his into mine, our pressed hands a bridge, one beginning where one ended. We begin where we end.
What I’d written in my notebook before we made love hit me like a truck, and I jolted and gasped.
“What, Eloise? What’s wrong?”
“I get it.”
“Get what?”
“I get that you don’t want to say what you feel or that some words to you are empty. I get that, deep down, we don’t need words to prove our love, that what’s in here,” I said, massaging my fingers into his chest, “and here,” I added, twitching my other hand over my breast, “speak for us.”
A small smile crept across his face.
“But,” I continued. “Words mean a lot to me. You know that. They’re not empty where I’m concerned. They could never be empty.”
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “If you want those words so desperately, I’ll give you words. But they’ll be my words. No one else’s.”
“All I’ve ever wanted was your words, Connor Bourke.”
“Okay,” he said, cupping my face. “You’re. My. Ever. After.”
A tear spilled down my cheek. They weren’t the words I’d expected him to say and, yet, to him, they meant more. They meant always and forever.
They were perfect.
Sinking into his arms, I let Connor cradle me for what felt like an eternity, and I realised in that moment that an eternity with him would never be long enough, that always and forever was too short.
Chapter Thirteen
Connor
Ellie was my ever after and I knew she knew that despite my refusal to tell her I loved her because, saying so, did nothing. You could love a dog, a cat, a pizza topping, but when the thing or person you loved was gone, so were those three words, and then what good was saying them? Love had a time limit; ever after did not.
“I really like the sound of this media writing degree in Darwin,” Ellie said while tapping the page of her university career booklet.
It was Good Friday, and we were sitting on her bedroom floor, flicking through various booklets handed out by our Careers Guidance teachers. We’d just finished term one of our final year in high school, and we had some important choices to make, sooner rather than later.
I nodded toward her selection sheet. “Then put it down as your first preference.”
“What? Did you not hear me say it’s in Darwin?”
“Yes, I did hear that.”
She closed her booklet and rested it on her lap. “And you still want me to go?”
Using my finger as a temporary bookmark, I closed my booklet and gave her my full attention. “Ellie, you’re a talented writer. If the course in Darwin is the best one then you should apply for it.”
“It is, but … it’s a four-year degree. I’d have to move there. We’d be apart.”
“Not if I apply for a course in Darwin too.” I flipped open the booklet and pointed to the Bachelor of Arts - Music, degree at the same university as the writing course.
She furrowed her brow and leaned closer. “Really? But what about Melbourne Uni? I thought you had your heart set on that.”
“It’s no big deal where I go.”
“What do you mean it’s no big deal? Of course it is. Connor, this is your future. It’s what you’ve been working towards.”
“Uni is Uni, Ellie. I can study music anywhere.”
She took my booklet from me and placed it on the floor. “You need to take this seriously.”
“I am. If I study in Darwin, we can live together on campus, or maybe rent a small house.”
“That’s a big call. But, okay, say we both apply to the Northern College of the Arts, what about our families?”
“They’d visit, and we’d visit them.”
She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Okay. No. Wait! What if one of us gets in and the other doesn’t? What then?”
“We cross that bridge if and when we come to it.”
The lines in her brow slowly smoothed, her eyes once again glittering. “You’re right.” She twisted the hem of my t-shirt, her fingers skating across my abdomen. “You know,” she said, teeth clamping her bottom lip. “There’s also a course in Canberra I’ve been looking at. The university is not far from the National Institute of Sport …” She paused, her eyes searching mine. “If you started practising again, you could apply for a basketball scholarship, but only if you wanted—”
“I don’t,” I said, my response sharp and swift. I shifted beneath her, prompting her to get off my lap. “And anyway, you seem to forget I haven’t played in years. I wouldn’t be any good.”
Standing up, I choked down my disappointment at her bringing up something she knew I wanted buried. Basketball was dead to me; it died when Aaron did. I’d told her so time and time again and, yet, she wouldn’t let it go. Ellie was persistent at the best of times, a quality I admired and thought annoying although cute, but her persistence where playing basketball was concerned irritated the hell out of me. It had absolutely nothing to do with her. But it was Good Friday, and the last thing I wanted was to argue, so, holding my hands out to her, I changed the topic. “I smell hot cross buns. Please tell me you smell them too.”
She took hold of my hands and let me lift her to her feet, chagrin in her eyes that did not go unnoticed, only unaddressed. “Yeah, I smell them. Let’s hope they’re fruitless ones unlike last year.”
The memory of Chris and Ellie flicking sultanas they’d plucked from their hot cross buns at each other shot to the forefront of my mind, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Several had landed in Ellie’s forest of curls, and one in a vase on a shelf in their dining room.
“Well, I’ve got ya back … just in case they’re not fruitless.” I ran my fingers through her beautiful hair.
She closed her eyes for the smallest of seconds and then kissed my cheek. “And I’ve got yours. Always.”
Ellie’s Aunt, Uncle, and little cousins arrived shortly after breakfast, and Mrs Mitchell had avoided another hot cross bun war by making both fruit-filled and fruitless varieties. She was a great cook and was preparing a seafood barbeque lunch before Ellie and I were to head to my place for dinner.
We’d stepped outside to play with the kids and keep them out of Mrs Mitchell’s hair.
“Ball! Ball!” Thomas demanded, his chubby toddler hands outstretched and waiting.
“A ball?” Ellie asked him. “Where?” Sh
e pivoted in her driveway, her short, floral dress spinning with her, the sun’s rays illuminating her hair as she twirled. She looked adorable.
Thomas pointed at me. WTF? Last time I checked, I was human.
I pointed to me too. “Me? I’m not a ball, little dude.”
Ellie laughed and jogged toward the love swing I was sitting on. “It’s underneath you, you dork. Can you please grab it for me?”
“Sure.” I leaned forward and peered between my legs, spotting a basketball within arm’s reach. Blood rushed to my head, and I quickly convinced myself it was because I was upside down and not because I hadn’t touched a basketball in years, so I stretched my arm and inched it toward me with my fingertips, deliberately rolling it to Ellie so I wouldn’t have to pick it up. Unfortunately, I missed my mark and it rolled past her.
“Thanks.” She huffed and went to retrieve it then paused and looked back at me. “Hey, why don’t you help me teach Tom how to shoot hoops? He’d love it.”
I shook my head. “Na, you’ve got this.”
“Come on. It’ll be fun.”
“NO, Ellie.”
She rolled her eyes and murmured, “It’s just a goddamn ball” before turning and bouncing the ball with force on her way back to Tom who was waiting patiently under the ring.
The sound of leather smacking concrete shot through me like a bullet, followed by the next bounce and the next, my body warm and alert. In the past, I would’ve seized up and frantically searched within for a song to drown out the incessant noise, but as time had passed so too had my heightened levels of anxiety. Instead of closing down, I sucked in a deep breath and willed my memories laced with grief to subside, something that was now easier but no less painful, and although I’d found strength over the years to push past most of the pain by acknowledging Aaron’s death, I sure as fuck didn’t want to reacquaint myself with the memories for the sole purpose of entertaining a two-year-old boy.
“Say cheeeeeeeese!”
Ellie’s cousin, Corinne, slowly came into focus when she stepped in front of me, a toy camera covering her face. She made a clicking sound and then handed me a pretend photograph.
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