CHAPTER 8
Ruby
I’ve had one heck of a day and I should be running on fumes, but somehow I’ve got energy.
We’ve not been in town an hour and we already have our tent set up and are making friends amongst a group of artists who are sitting around a bonfire playing acoustic guitar under the moonlight reflecting off the bay.
If this isn’t paradise I don’t know what is.
This is the life I had imagined with a certain someone else. Someone who apparently thought we were just on a trial run, or was it he was having a trial run with my bestie? Ex-bestie.
Either way I wasn’t put on this earth to be someone’s trial run. I’m here to give my all to someone and someone to give their all to me. Nothing less. Is that too much to ask? I certainly don’t think so.
I want to love fully and feel that full and complete love in return. That will never happen without honesty, attraction, and a bit of excitement thrown in.
I’m definitely attracted to Dan, and he seems to be honest so far, and he’s got the excitement part covered in spades.
But then he ups the ante a little too far.
“Anyone up for some four x?”
I look around the campfire and count the people. There are two other girls so I’m guessing he’s talking about me, them and him?
Am I missing something here or have I just been tricked into jumping out of a relationship with one jerk and into a soon to be very short-term adventure with another? That’s definitely going to be the case if he’s trying for a ménage à trois plus one more.
“I’m in,” one of the girls says with a smile.
“For sure,” another girl says.
I knew Dan was attractive, but I didn’t realize he was that attractive. It’s not a particularly attractive trait to me anyways to do such a thing. Not at all.
“Great. I’ll be right back,” he says.
I start thinking of ways how I’m going to slide out before he gets back, but he’s back before I even have time to properly plan my escape.
He’s carrying a big brown bag and he pulls out a bottle of beer, pops off the cap, and hands it to me.
It would have been the perfect ending to a long day, but not anymore. No amount of social lubrication is going to convince me to try something that involves multiple sex partners. Not now. Not ever.
I reach for it anyways, not wanting to be a Debbie Downer, figuring it will make the perfect excuse to slide out to the restroom and escape in about half an hour.
“I think you’re going to like it, especially if you’ve never tried it before,” he says.
I want to get up and slap him, but instead I just stare into those hazel eyes of his. Those same eyes that mesmerized me before are now getting my thousand-yard battlefield stare. The one where you’ve been in the thick of battle and are ready to go again. At least that’s what the war movies my dad used to watch led me to believe about this mythical stare.
He plays it off like it’s nothing handing out the other beers.
I look at the bottle and take a swig. I need to calm down.
It tastes pretty good. As I remove it from my lips I turn the bottle to look at the label.
Suddenly I spit out the beer and start laughing uncontrollably.
Beer comes out my nose and I begin coughing and wheezing.
“Are you okay?” he asks, consoling me.
It takes me at least a full minute to even be able to speak. Someone hands me a paper towel and I try and tidy up my face.
Thank god it’s dark out.
“Oh my god. When you asked who was up for a four x I thought you meant something else.”
“What else would…I…mean?” he says, suddenly realizing what was on my mind. “You dirty little girl!”
“You’ve never four x’ed before?” one of the girls asks.
“You never forget your first time,” the other girl says.
“I certainly won’t now!” I say.
I hold my beer up to my face and point at the label. XXXX.
Over the course of the night I learn it’s Australia’s most popular beer, and not some kind of kinky sexual fantasy.
I’m glad I didn’t huff and puff off like I initially thought, or even slide out as had been my backup plan.
I don’t know why I’m so uptight, or even why I hadn’t left until a couple more beers.
It’s because of him.
I just can’t get the idea of him out of my head.
I like nothing more than to read a good book and I’ve read plenty of damsel in distress novellas before, but I never ever in a million years considered any of them to be something that could actually happen.
I mean, that’s why a book costs money right? You pay for the fantasy.
But I got the fantasy. The real live thing.
And I’m not about to let it go.
Especially when it has a sexy accent, a hot body, and is more mature than any guy I’ve ever met. Even my uncles aren’t anywhere near this mature. They buy their favorite football player’s jerseys off the internet for big games and then wears them in public. And they have the other man’s name across the back.
But this guy doesn’t even wear shirts half the time. And by the build of him he looks like he’s an athlete himself. Not even a former athlete, but a professional right now.
How did he get enough money to travel like this after all? Aren’t most guys his age working somewhere? Have to be somewhere in the morning?
The night continues and as the temperature drops and the alcohol flows I somehow find myself cuddled up in his arms underneath a blanket next to the fire.
Eventually everyone has retreated to their tents and it’s just the two of us.
“This is really incredible,” I say.
“You’re incredible. Your skin. The way it looks in this light. The reflection of the moon off the water makes you look even more like an angel than you already are.”
I close my eyes and breath in and smile before breathing it out and letting my body melt even further into his protective human comfy seat.
But when I open my eyes the moonlight is gone, replaced with his face just inches from mine.
My eyes close again but this time I’m not the one kissing him for keeping me alive with the air in my lungs to inhale in the smell and experience the joy of moments just like these.
It’s him that’s ready to take my breath away.
And he does as he kisses me softly and instantly I know I’m a goner.
I’m his.