“You mean you should eat. You just polished off that entire bottle of expensive wine.”
“You helped. Besides, didn’t we buy two bottles?”
“We bought a whole case. It’s supposed to be a gift for Ryan and Fin. You know, after you dented his car.”
He lets me go and steps away, and the sudden distance leaves me cold. “He doesn’t really need it, does he?”
We move around camp the same way we’ve done a thousand times before. Getting plates, tongs, heating up the little grill, chopping onions. But Kyle’s eyes follow me tonight. I feel them studying me when he thinks I’m not looking.
It sets my skin buzzing as I slice tomatoes and rinse chopping boards and dry my hands on the tea towel that hangs off the tiny hook of the table. We eat together, and he cleans up after we’re done while I take a quick shower, washing off the grime and sweat from the afternoon hike.
Each task is one I’ve done so many times before, but it feels as if I’m doing it all for the first time. Even the face staring back at me from the mirror looks different. A little more tanned. Eyes a little more seasoned. The bruises faded. The girl inside me gone. She left a long time ago.
The air is charged when I return to the tent, dressed in a cream cotton camisole with lace trim and a little pair of matching sleep shorts. The set was something I thought foolish of Erin to pack. It’s flimsy and feminine, and I haven’t worn it before now because it felt too delicate for a camping trip. But my eyes kept returning to the set each time I opened my case, making me question myself. What’s wrong with wearing something pretty once in a while? I don’t have to be practical all the time, do I?
The pale fabric sets off my tan and highlights the long dark length of my hair, and the slide of the soft cotton against my skin feels incredibly good.
Kyle is already in bed, the sheet pulled to his waist. One arm is tucked behind his head, the other resting flat on his stomach. His eyelids lower when I step inside the tent, seeming to watch my every move.
My eyes shift to my own bed, the mattress flatter than a corn tortilla. The fitted sheet is curled in at the corners, bunching in the middle. My eyes shift back to Kyle. “Did you even try patching my mattress when you did yours?”
He shrugs and a smirk lingers on his lips. “No.”
“You’re so mean.”
“Says the crazy woman who stabbed a jagged hole in my bed just for funsies.”
I look to his lovely pumped-up airbed, my voice hopeful. “Share?”
“Nope.”
My mouth falls open. “I take it back. You’re not mean. You’re completely heartless.”
“Ask me nicely and I’ll share.”
“You want me to beg?”
His voice turns a little husky. “I’d love to see you beg.”
My chest feels a little tight. I turn and hang my towel up on the line we strung through the middle of the tent when we set up camp. “Please,” I mutter.
“You can do better than that,” he replies, and my lips mash together.
“You know what I can do? I can come over there and slap that smirk right off your stupid face.”
“Wow, how quickly you turn. One minute I’m beautiful, then I’m just okay, and now my face is stupid?”
I stomp over to my pathetic corn tortilla and lie down with a huff, yanking the sheet right up and over my face. “Can you get the light?” I mutter from beneath the covers, my back digging into the hard ground.
The rustling sound of Kyle moving around reaches me. Moments later the tent falls into complete darkness. Then my sheet whips back and I let out a little shriek.
“Come on, Little Warrior.” He slides one arm beneath my shoulders and the other beneath the backs of my knees. He rises, lifting me with ease.
“Kyle!”
He sets me down on his bed, the air mattress bouncing as he slides in behind me. After tugging the sheet up, he snakes an arm around my middle and pulls me backwards, settling my back against his front. His nose rubs against the heated skin of my neck and he sighs. “Go to sleep, Jamie.”
30
KYLE
I wake surrounded by warmth and the sweet scent of vanilla. My eyes blink open slowly. I’m wrapped around Jamie like a koala, my palm beneath her camisole, splayed across her belly.
My pulse kicks up a notch, stirring a hunger inside me that demands to be fed. I rub my hand over the smooth skin, knowing I shouldn’t, but I can’t seem to help myself. She’s soft and warm and so unbearably enticing.
My palm slides over her hip, skimming just beneath the loose waistband of her sleep shorts. She feels so damn good. I shiver, my cock beginning to harden from the simple pleasure of touching her skin. God help me, I want her. But our friendship is too important. We both agreed last night. So why wasn’t that enough to stop my eyes from following her as she moved around camp as we cooked dinner and ate it by the pale light of the moon?
“Kyle?” she murmurs, starting to stir.
I take a deep shuddering breath and roll to my back, my hand sliding free with reluctance.
“Yeah?” I croak, tucking an arm behind my head and sighing deeply.
“Why are we lying on the ground?”
“Because the airbed deflated overnight.” I’m suspecting my repair job was a bit shit. But I’m not all to blame. Jamie played her part in making the hole long and jagged. The square patch that came with the repair kit barely covered the edges.
“But you fixed it, remember?”
“Are you complaining? Because you’re the one who stabbed it, remember?”
“You suck,” she mumbles into her pillow.
“I would prefer that you did,” I retort, my chest rumbling with laughter because she makes it too easy.
Jamie rolls, and in the blink of an eye she’s straddling my hips, her forearm pressing down on my throat and her knees on my arms. She leans down, her tangled hair a long curtain that pools around my neck and chest. “You wanna try saying that again?”
Ah hell. My cock is now harder than stone. It takes all my strength to keep my hips from surging upward, but I won’t back down from a challenge.
“Suck,” I say with a squeaky wheeze, and she presses harder. I curl my leg around her hip and shove, rolling her onto her back. I grab her wrists and pin them to the ground. “My …” Her teeth grind together, a growl rising up from inside her chest as she shoves against me. I don’t budge. Instead, I grin down at her, watching her hiss like a fiery hellcat. “Dick.”
“Arrrrghhhh!” Knowing she can’t push back against my strength, Jamie slides her left wrist above her head, dragging one of my arms with her and putting me off balance. She hooks my feet with her own and thrusts upward and over. It tips me off, sending me sprawling across the tent ground.
Fuck me. That was brilliant. I tip my head back and laugh, but Jamie is apparently not done. She leaps on me; a terminator programmed to kill or die trying. I laugh as we roll across the tent until we’re wedged into the corner. Jamie lands on top and we take a moment, both of us gasping as if we just finished a sprint.
“That was hot,” I rasp.
Jamie stares at me, a million thoughts seeming to flicker across her face before she ducks her head and kisses me, hard and swift, pulling back before I can respond. We look at each other for a long moment, my blood pulsing and body parts heating. There’s nothing but the sound of our breathing and the ocean waves crashing against the shore, when I fist her camisole and drag her lips back on mine.
My tongue thrusts inside her mouth and my hand snakes around her neck, sliding into her silky hair, holding her with a firm grip. She kisses me back, her hips pushing against mine until she’s all I feel.
I groan inside her mouth, my lips mashing harder, needing more, deepening the kiss until everything goes dark inside my mind. There’s only this. Her. An endless pleasure that I never want to end.
Jamie breaks the kiss and buries her head in my neck, her breathing ragged. “I can’t.” Her lips move agai
nst my neck when she speaks, making me shiver.
“You can’t what?” I prompt when she trails off. It’s as if she can’t think straight. I take great satisfaction in her muddled tone, knowing I’m not the only one feeling whatever this is.
“I don’t know. We shouldn’t …”
Jamie pulls back, straightening, her eyes glazed in a way I’ve never seen before. Her lips are swollen and hair tangled, her nipples hard and pressing against the thin cotton of her camisole. She’s so incredibly sexy, the image one I won’t ever forget. It makes me realise that there’s no putting our friendship back the way it was. Not now. Not for me. It’s too late. Like Julius Caesar once said, “The die is cast.”
I know her touch. And her taste. And her scent. Every time I look at her, I’ll be thinking of it, and wanting more of it, until I slowly lose my mind.
“Hell,” I mutter, rubbing a hand across my eyes.
I know she can feel my erection. It’s pressing against her, hard and obvious. Desperate for friction. “Maybe we should go for an early morning swim,” she suggests. “Try and clear our heads.”
I don’t want to clear my head, I say on the inside, wanting to stomp my foot like a child denied Christmas. I want to stay here and kiss your mouth until I can’t breathe. And then I want to kiss you everywhere else.
But this time it’s Jamie being the voice of reason, and I have to respect that. “A swim would be good,” I force myself to say.
Jamie climbs off, leaving me cold and bereft. She crouches, giving me her back as she starts digging around in her suitcase. “What do we have planned for today?”
More of what we just did sounds like a good plan. Dammit. My sigh is heavy. “I think we were going to hang here for another night, but …”
She rises and turns, togs in hand. “But what?”
“After that hike…” I rub a hand across my chest as if reliving the heart attack of yesterday “…I wouldn’t mind packing up camp and moving on. Maybe we should make our way to Esperance today.” It’s a five-hour drive and the last stop on our road trip. The thought sets off a pang inside me. This holiday has been the best experience of my entire life. I don’t want it to end.
It’s not just the travelling. It’s Jamie. She’s changed. The furrow between her brow has slowly disappeared, and she laughs all the time. Teases me more. I’m hoping this trip has showed her that there’s so much more to life than the army.
“Okay,” she says, nodding and turning away.
I get to my feet, brushing sand from my hands and clothes, and start for the entrance, giving her privacy to change before I pause. “Jamie.”
“Mmm?”
I rub a hand across the back of neck. “About that kiss …” I want to tell her it wasn’t just a kiss for me. That it felt like more. But everything inside me is a jumbled mess, and I don’t know how to say it.
Jamie holds up a palm. “I was the one who kissed you, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have,” she says in a tone that’s far too breezy for my liking. “It’s already forgotten.”
My brow furrows. It is? “Well, okay then,” I say with a nod, tucking those unsure feelings away. “Good.”
We pack up camp after our morning swim, eating a quick breakfast before getting back on the road. There are loads of wineries in the area, so we stop at a couple on the way, not taste-testing so much the way we did last time. We stock up on more wine and a range of different cheeses and olives.
“What about this?” Jamie asks, looking across at me as she holds out her phone. She’s been Googling as I drive, her legs kicked up on the dash of the Hilux, the wind rushing in and blowing hair across her face.
I give her phone a quick glance. There’s an image of a suspended walkway over a huge granite outcrop. “It looks like a walk?”
“Granite Sky Walk,” she says.
My eyes return to the road. “How far?”
“About an hour, I think.”
It looks safe. The structure looks sound and fenced. Nowhere for Jamie to potentially slide right off. “Reckon you can handle it?” I ask, setting the challenge, because after yesterday my calves are tight and sore. Stretching them out will be good but it’s going to hurt.
“Pfffft. I could trek the Kokoda Trail walking backwards with a blindfold on.”
“I’d pay to see that.”
“How much?”
“A hundred.”
“Make it five.”
“Deal.”
She laughs and points in front of her as we near an intersection. “Turn left up here.”
I flick the indicator on. “You’re the boss.”
“What?”
“You’re the boss.”
“I didn’t quite hear you. What was that?”
I shake my head, laughing. “You’ve been spending too much time with me.”
Jamie turns her head out the window, giving me her profile, yet I still see the slight curl of her lips. She looks cute today, a little rough around the edges, which is incredibly sexy. Her tank top is loose and pink, and she’s knotted it at the side. Her denim shorts show off her toned legs. She’s paired it all with a thick pair of socks that bunches up above her ankles, and her worn hiking boots, found beneath the deflated airbed when we packed up the tent this morning.
“I like spending time with you,” she says quietly.
Her admission sets my heart pounding a little harder. “You do?”
“Mmm hmm.” I glance across at her. She looks at me, grinning before turning her head out the window. “I couldn’t imagine doing this with anyone else.”
Neither could I. Diving with the whales, I let her climb my back until she felt safe in the water. On our deep-sea fishing charter, I abandoned the fish I’d just hooked to help Jamie reel in her own. And when she went over the edge of that mountain, I dived to my belly and would have gone right off the edge with her if I hadn’t managed to snag her hand. I would do anything for her.
The thought is like a lock tumbling into place. Jamie isn’t just a friend. I’m in love with her. With the tangle of her hair and her unbending opinions, her dark eyes and playful words. I’m in love with her stubborn and ridiculous attitude, and the way she makes me laugh until I can’t breathe. I’m in love with the tiny hint of vulnerability that peeks out from beneath her wild, fearless heart.
Jesus Christ, I’m in love with my best friend. The revelation wipes the smile clean off my face, and I veer right off the road, actually feeling a bit stupid for not seeing it sooner.
“Kyle!”
I jerk the steering wheel. “Shit.”
“Are you okay? You’ve gone pale.”
I keep my voice low. Casual. I even tap my fingers to the beat of the music. “I’m good. I think I’m just hungry.”
Jamie drops her feet from the dash and rustles around in the satchel at her feet. We keep it packed with snacks and water and a first aid kit. A habit really. We’re soldiers. Always prepared.
She comes up with a small bag of popcorn, a salty/sweet combo. My favourite. She opens the bag, but instead of giving it to me, she tells me to open wide as if I’m a toddler about to get the aeroplane spoon.
I shrug and do what she says.
“You need to turn your head a bit more.”
I turn my head further, still keeping my eyes on the road.
Jamie laughs until she can’t breathe.
“Dude! What?”
She gasps a little more. “You look like those clowns at the carnival I went to all the time with Dad.”
“Yeah?” I perk up with interest. She rarely talks about him, and I get that. But I like how the good memories she has are floating to the surface. “He used to take you?”
Jamie’s smile is bittersweet. “All the time. We ate ourselves sick on dagwood dogs and fairy floss. I would scream myself stupid in the haunted house and ram everyone on the dodgem cars for hours until he dragged me off kicking and screaming. I can’t believe I forgot about that.”
“Sometimes th
e bad memories take up too much room. We start seeing more of the good ones when they start to fade.”
“How philosophical of you,” she says and pegs a bit of popcorn at my face. It hits me in the cheek.
“Hey! You’re supposed to get it in my mouth.”
“Well yours is big enough. I can’t believe I missed it.”
“If mine is big, then yours is the Grand Canyon.” Another bit of popcorn hits me in the face. “Try again.”
I open my mouth, and it flies past my face and straight out the open window. Jamie laughs her ass off.
“You suck at this.”
“I really do.”
Jamie tries again and gets it in. We both cheer as I crunch down on the salty, sweet treat.
We arrive at the Sky Walk soon after. I let her walk ahead, allowing myself the opportunity to ogle her ass, one I’ve actively avoided in the past. It turns out to be a bad idea. The round cheeks bob and sway with delicious torture as she moves, making me hard as stone.
I shove past her, mumbling something about her being slow as a fucking tortoise. She almost topples. I get ahead of her, hoping it will clear my head, when she hooks a foot around my ankle, sending me tumbling to my knees. I grab at the railing and she hikes her way around me. She even kicks me a little, though she makes it look like an accident.
“You’re so heartless,” I call to her back, pulling myself upright.
Jamie gives me the finger without turning around, and I hide the laugh. I even love the way she doesn’t take any of my shit.
We make camp later in the evening, planning to settle in for a few days, before we dress with a bit of effort and make our way to the Condingup Tavern. It’s a local country pub, the interior made of dark stone and wood. It’s also the place Jamie decides to get ridiculously, and unapologetically, drunk as fuck.
It starts with a game of pool. Bets are placed and loser has to buy the beer. I win the first and watch, smug grin in place while I sit on my stool, as she stalks to the bar and buys the cheapest draft on tap.
Fighting Absolution Page 31