Burn With Me: New Adult Romance (Take Me Home Book 1) (Take Me Home Series)

by SJ Cavaletti

  I pulled back and wiggled my eyebrows. Jas pursed her lips and slitted her eyes. “Are you trying now? Because it looks like you are.”

  I leaned back down, trying to be as quiet as possible. Not that anything could be heard over the music if it wasn’t said directly into the ear canal. “Yeah. I’d love to. Totally my type but, don’t say anything, she’s here to spread her Dad’s ashes.”

  “What?! Like dead Dad’s ashes?”

  “Yeah, don’t say anything.”

  But Jasmine’s face contorted into a non-party look. She wouldn’t have to say anything if she kept that look going. I ran my fingers across my mouth. Zip it.

  She shook her head and slipped back into a neutral expression. She walked over the Maeve’s side; I knew I could trust Jas not to say anything, but it made me nervous, anyway. But Jas, good ol’ Jas, warm-hearted as any Hawaiian queen, wrapped her arm around Maeve’s shoulder and pumped her body in motion with Maeve. Breathing soul into her, not needing any words to do it.

  Maeve looked at Jas. That sunbeam smile of hers illuminated Jasmine’s face, and the women smiled at each other. The way women do. The way that women look at each other and bond instantaneously. Something men just do not do.

  We now formed a trio on the dance floor and Jas shouted, “You guys want another shot or drink? The captain of the ship invited me below deck when we stop and has espresso martinis.”

  “My God,” said Maeve, looking like she didn’t need much more alcohol, “What I wouldn’t give for coffee now.”

  “Wanna go?” Jas asked her.

  “Sure.”

  Maeve tucked hair behind both her fairy ears this time. “Thing is, Jasmine. I feel like a leech. I don’t have anything to give in return really.”

  “Maeve, people don’t expect something every time. It’s gifting. A gift is neither deserved nor expected.” Jasmine said.

  “Guess I’m very L.A. Strings attached to everything there.”

  “Anyway,” Jas said, “I’m the one with the gift for him.”

  Just then the ship halted next to a metal structure. I almost gasped, it was so intensely gorgeous. Three giant steel horses that looked like they galloped through the night.

  “Let’s go,” Jas grabbed Maeve by the hand and I followed. As did the rest of the crew, clearly already prepped by Jas.

  The layout below deck was like a small, intimate bar. Dark wood. Dark green. Dim light. It was an area about twenty feet long. We walked to the space at the far end where a guy who I assumed to be the captain of this ship, approached Jasmine. “Hey girl! Are these your friends?”

  Jasmine turned to us, introducing one at a time. “Yeah. Everyone this is Clyde. Clyde… Braddah Joey, Pika, Drake and El. And my girls Flick, Helena and the gorgeous black-haired vixen Maeve.”

  I knew that Jasmine being Jasmine, wanting to make Maeve feel especially welcome. The spirit of Aloha ran deep in all my Hawaiian crew. I’m pretty sure Maeve blushed, though with shadows from the dark space hiding her face, it was hard to tell.

  Blushing or not, she looked down bashfully, no idea how gorgeous she was. Humility and beauty were a rare combination.

  “‘Sup ya’ll,” Clyde said, “Welcome aboard. I told Jas she could come on by for cocktails and I made us…” he bent down behind the bar and grabbed an enormous jug with a spout, “Espresso martinis.”

  Clyde took proper martini glasses out of a protective plastic box, of which he had many, behind the bar. Plain dust would creep into everything if it wasn’t in an airtight container.

  I walked over to the counter with the others when Maeve took my arm, “Drake. I think this needs to be my last one and then I gotta take off.”

  Her doe eyes told a different story. Eye contact. Fearless eye contact. Did she want me to convince her to stay? Thing is, I was drunk, too, and my Mom taught me well: never trust your judgment when you’re drunk.

  “Well,” I said, “If you’re having a nightcap this one might rev you back up again. At least you’ll have the energy to get home. I can take you back,” I said, trying to make it sound like proposition, not peer pressure.

  “Let’s not think about that right now.”

  Disregard for the future. Yeah. She was drunk beyond me.

  She slid her slender arm through mine and pulled me to the bar. Jasmine gave a side glance and mouthed “nice” behind Maeve’s back.

  All having a martini glass in hand, we raised them, following Clyde’s lead, “To new friends. Especially ones that live in Hawaii and that might lend me a place to crash on my next vacation.”

  A slight chuckle from the galley. Communal glugs. Delicious.

  Maeve had let go of my arm but leaned into me. “Your friends are pretty damn good at getting a party started.”

  “That they are.”

  “How do you think Jasmine wangled this? She must be the master of persuasion.”

  “Her hips are.”

  “Her hips?”

  “Wait for it.”

  Maeve’s eyes widened, suddenly more alert with the adrenaline of intrigue. And possibly caffeine. I could see it all over her face. What on earth was I talking about? I watched the inner guessing game take place inside her head as she took another drink of her cocktail. Her flirty cupid’s bow poking out above the rim of the glass.

  Then I noticed Koa behind Maeve. He took his backpack from his back and pulled it around his shoulder to get it. His ukulele. Next thing we knew, he plucked at the strings.

  Pika, who was speaking with Clyde at the bar, snapped his head around. “Aw man! You need some beats, bra?”

  He tapped the bar countertop. Tap ta ta Tap ta ta Tap… The start of the only song our entire crew knew in Hawaiian. The song we would gift to Clyde.

  Koa strummed the melody and started to sing. “ʻMahalo piha, Mô'” 'o 'Enelani… Ku'i kou kaulana nâ 'âina pau… "

  Maeve turned to watch Koa, singing with his eyes closed. Immediately feeling it. He knew this song by heart. I knew this song. Even El knew this song. Queen’s Jubilee. It was one that our proud Kauai boy taught us the very first time we all met.

  The hard party vibes melted from the space as Koa’s voice, sweet as the soul it sang from, warmed the room, almost increasing the wattage from the dim light bulbs so we could all see each other more easily.

  Jasmine took her long coat off and revealed her figure in a flowing skirt and bikini top. She always wore an overskirt of ruffled fabric in the night, so if she had a chance to hula, her hips could sing more loudly.

  Pika continued to drum out a downbeat as Jasmine swayed her hips, side to side, her arms reached out and grabbed so gently at the air as if trying to delicately catch invisible butterflies. There was almost no better gift to be given at Uyu than hula.

  Maeve, mesmerized, concentrated so deeply, it felt like her consciousness completely disappeared. She watched but hardly blinked. Seeing her reminded me of the first time I saw hula, heard the beautiful traditional songs coming from a proud Hawaiian man’s mouth. I, too, was transported to another place.

  Music does that.

  If you let it.

  And she did. She let it consume her. And in that moment I found us irresistibly alike. We grew closer without her knowing.

  The song ended, and Jasmine finished in a bowing, curtsey-like position. Clyde shot his hands in the air and clapped them maniacally, whooping and hollering. “Hot damn!!!”

  Maeve, still entranced, but maybe super drunk, still stared at Jasmine.

  I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “You’ll never forget that.”

  She turned her head before I pulled mine away. We nearly touched. Her nose a millimeter from my lips.

  “I think you’re right,” she said.

  Damn, I wanted to kiss her. And because she didn’t pull back immediately, I was pretty sure she wanted to kiss me, too. Those ruby red lips that probably tasted like vanilla coffee, sweet and naughty.

  But… Mama said… never trust your judgement. I pull
ed back before I did anything stupid.

  “So you’re into your music?” I asked. “I can see that kind of thing in people.”

  “It’s in my veins. I grew up with music and musicians around all the time.”

  “Really? So your parents like music, too?”

  “You could say that.”

  “I only found music in late high school. My inner songwriter stuck in a jock’s body.”

  She eyed my chest. My arms. I knew when a woman was checking me out. But she didn’t flirt. More like curiosity. But I liked it and could help but wish she looked at me like that in some other circumstance.

  “So you write songs? Not just a cover band then?”She asked.

  “I hate covers. But, I think all bands have to do them in the early days.”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  Take a chance, Drake.

  “You should hang out with us this week. If you like music, we’re always jamming at the camp. And around the Plain, we find the best of the worst here. Since you don’t…”

  “…like techno. I know what you mean. Yeah, I’d love to.”

  9

  Liquid escape.

  Black curls I wanted to grab in my fists.

  A hula hip vortex.

  Lips I wanted to bite.

  Music I hated but made me dance.

  My night unfolded like lines of a poem. In part, it was the alcohol. In part, it was this man.

  Drake.

  Even his name was sexy. I needed to be careful. Recovery sex was a setup for more heartache. Sure, pain often leads to stratospheric orgasms, the relief exploding out like the big bang. I got it. Pain and pleasure were intrinsically linked. So it wasn’t a big surprise that I followed this guy into the desert.

  His pheromones called me from a mile away. The possibility of feeling better, of ignoring my grief, was so enticing. But that wasn’t all that was happening between us. I really liked him.

  Usually, using a man for emotional escape wasn’t like this. I’d done it before, so I would know. I fucked my ex-boyfriend dry when I had anxiety over law school exams. He would have enjoyed it more if he had thought I loved him. I wanted to. But I didn’t. Because like my Dad had said. I had trouble loving and being loved. My ex never talked to me about my anxiety. We just rode and rode and rode like two people trying to gallop off, away from the negativity, out of breath and not understanding what we ran from.

  Drake rescued me from sorrow but didn’t ignore it. He didn’t brush off my Dad’s death. It would have been easy to do it. He didn’t owe me a conversation. But he offered to be a part of this. To hold my proverbial hand.

  Maybe he didn’t mean it. Sure, he asked me to hang out again. Jasmine. It was for Jasmine. No. No, it wasn’t. How he looked at me…

  “Are you okay?” Drake asked, putting his arm around my waist.

  That powerful arm cradling me. Around my waist. His fingers sitting on my hipbone. Shit. We were both drunk. Touchy feely drunk. At least I was.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Great actually, why?”

  “You just went quiet. That’s all.”

  I watched his luscious lips dance, not altogether different from watching Jasmine’s hips.

  “I’ve just… had a lot to drink. I could really use some water.”

  And just like that, “Hey, El, you got some extra water for Maeve? I forgot my bottle on my bike.”

  El hopped to it, digging through his backpack. He pulled out a plastic bottle and brought it over.

  “I always bring a spare,” he said, handing me an Evian.

  “Thanks.”

  Glug.

  Swallow.

  Cool down.

  “I forgot my water at camp,” I said.

  “You need to be careful. Both of you,” he rebuked Drake, too, “It’s so easy to dehydrate out here.”

  I took another drink then turned to Drake, “Want some?” I asked, gesturing the bottle. After all, he had forgotten his, too.

  “Yeah, thanks, I’m gasping for some water.”

  I watched the neck of the bottle lift, almost as if in slow motion, like a soft drink commercial, up to his lips. Kissable, plump, juicy lips wrapped around the opening of the bottle. I wouldn’t mind pouring myself into his mouth.

  “You having fun?” El asked, snapping me out of my wet dream.

  “How could I not? I mean, Jasmine? Dancing like that? And Koa… the music. Another surreal experience on the desert plain.”

  “Totally. Sometimes, I love watching them so much, I think to myself, I could just die right now. Totally blissful and happy. You know?”

  It was a colloquialism. Completely normal and shouldn’t have jarred the conversation. But El’s comment was all too real.

  Reality. Reality was that my Dad was actually dead and like El’s whimsical wish, would be whisked away by dancing feet, hips and wild music. I thought about his urn and anxiety sizzled through my veins. My heart felt tinny and beat erratically.

  I knew in my heart that people didn’t really steal at Uyu, even so, I needed to get back to my tent.

  “Guys,” I said abruptly, “I gotta run. I’ll see you around.”

  “Wait,” Drake said, grabbing my hand as I turned to flee, “Stay.”

  Stay.

  That was all he said. Just stay. No excuses. No reasons. Just stay.

  And stay was what I wanted to do. I really did. But if anything happened to my father’s ashes, that I stupidly left in the tent instead of locked in my car, I would never forgive myself.

  I woke up in the morning thinking what a stupid ass I had been last night. Not only had I risked the safety of my Dad, I left Drake without asking where his camp was. My one saving grace was he knew where I camped. At least I had left that glass slipper behind.

  But would he try to find me again? Did he mean what he said about his song at the final ceremony?

  Laying in bed, staring at the ceiling of my tent, I baked. It had to be almost ten a.m. now. The sun heated my small abode like a greenhouse, and every inch of me needed water. Rolling over, I found my Chilly’s bottle, unscrewed it and had a drink. The water was warm and metallic, doing little for the queasy feeling I had in my stomach. I highly doubted an energy bar would be as useful as fried eggs right now. Or an Alka Seltzer. Neither of which I had.

  One thing was certain, living in this tent for the rest of the week would force me to experience Uyu and get out and about. The conditions were almost intolerable, and I didn’t have enough water to sweat all day. Even now, before noon, I wiped droplets from my upper lip and looked at them. Milky dewdrops. I hadn’t bothered to take off my foundation last night.

  I could only imagine what my face looked like. I didn’t have that many cotton pads left in my toiletry kit when I had left the house. I would need to ration them out over the week and decided last night to wait until morning to clean my face.

  Washing.

  Showering.

  Rinsing off the dust.

  Normally I’d have a million baby wipes, a solar shower and the caravan shower. My Dad had kept me in total luxury previous years. I dared my nose to bend down toward my armpit. Yeah. I smelled.

  It could have been worse. I had perfume and deodorant. But perhaps I was better off not seeing Drake this week, with panda eyes and smelling like a baboon. I’d be a full blown zoo by Saturday if I didn’t figure out a way to wash.

  Taking the rest of my body out of my sleeping bag, I put on a bikini and black hooded long-sleeved shrug, along with a long flowing bustle that would help cover my ass. At least I looked good.

  And lucky for me, Gina hooked me up with a camp that had a major necessity. Grey water disposal. It was strictly forbidden to put liquid on to the Plain itself. Pack in pack out was as extreme as it got here. I was certain there wasn’t a campsite in the world like it. Even if you wanted to spit out your toothpaste, or dump some curdling White Russian, you had to find a place where you would either be taking that liquid offsite for safe disposal (caravan toilets
worked) or put it on an evaporating pad.

  Being at what was essentially a sex camp, Sedna had provision for hand washing. In the communal area was a huge jug of water, hung from a metal clothes bar that used a foot pump siphoning water through a tube that acted as a faucet. This drained over a huge sink-like funnel that drained onto an evaporating pad on the ground below. It wasn’t possible to do long washes or the pad would over soak. It needed time to dry. But it was enough to clean hands, and if Tristan and Isolde were kind enough to let me brush my teeth there, it would save me spitting into the porta potty, which even after two days at Uyu would not be a pleasant experience.

  Portable toilets should be ass only zones.

  When I exited the tent, Tristan was at said basin. Brushing his teeth.

  Timely.

  An easy segue.

  “Maw-nin,” he said through a mouth clogged with toothpaste foam.

  “Hey… you don’t mind if I join you?” I wiggled my toothbrush in the air.

  Tristan gestured to the spot next to him and then leaned over to spit.

  My God, did it feel good when I put that minty clean gel into my mouth. It felt like there were years' worth of primordial ooze in there.

  Tristan finished. “No place for your grey water?”

  I shook my head no and spoke with a mouth feeling like it was full of minty marshmallow. “No. I can use the porta potty though.”

  “Oh no, you won’t. That’s just gross. You can use this whenever you like.”

  I spit out goo, “Thanks. That’s a lifesaver.”

  Just then Isolde came out of the dome.

  “Wow,” I said, “The dome opens early. Or is it like a twenty-four-hour thing?”

  “Ha. No. No entry after two a.m. Tristan and I sleep in there.”

  “Oh.”

  “You ok? Big night last night?” Isolde asked.

  “Yes, and no.”

  I would have hardly called it a bender but meeting a super yummy man who was actually a nice guy, too? Telling him my deepest secret and confessing my most sincere sorrow? That constituted a big night, right?

  “What did you do?” She asked.

  “I got on the pirate ship. Saw an incredible hula dance. Climbed the spider web installation…”