I emerge into sunlight, blinking.
It’s fine. It was just a kiss.
No matter how much I might want it to be more.
Axel
It was just a kiss.
No matter how I might want it to be more.
Jade has sparked something else in me, though. Something I’d thought was gone.
Hope.
The fact I want to peel her clothes off and discover just how low that tattoo goes will have to wait.
ChapterEighteen
Jade
Ieat breakfast the next morning while sitting on the veranda gazing at the surf, a plate of pastries and sliced fruit next to me, hot coffee in a mug. It still hurts that I can’t get out there into those pristine uncrowded waves, but I’m getting used to it. Sort of. My leg feels better, the wound starting to itch. Hopefully it’s healing quickly.
I’m heading in to see the doctor for a check-up today, and have fingers crossed he gives me the all-clear. Usually the ocean is where I go when I need to think, and right now there’s a hell of a lot on my mind. But being near it will have to do, I guess.
I stare out at the rolling waves and try to sort everything out in my mind.
Zach, first of all. I finally plucked up the courage to read the latest batch of messages he sent me. I sat there in the near-dark last night, alone in my big bed, the breeze catching the mosquito netting so it billowed around me like a cloud. It was utterly romantic, not really the place to read break-up texts.
Because we are well and truly done, now.
I’ll always love you, too. I fucking love you now. And you’ve broken me, Jade. I can’t believe this is it. We’ve split up before, but we always find our way back to each other.
I’d thought for a while before replying.
Not this time. I’m sorry, Zach.
It felt awful to be that harsh with him.
Will you at least tell me where you are?
What, so you can come here and try to talk me out of it?
Try and fuck you out of it. I miss your ass, Jade.
He just couldn’t resist. Zach was always gonna be Zach. I rolled my eyes.
Are you telling me you don’t have someone in your bed right now? Please don’t send me another photo if you do, by the way
None of them hold a candle to you
Sweet, I guess. But too little, too late. As well as confirmation that I broke up with him just over a week ago and he’s already been with multiple people. Meanwhile all I’ve had is a kiss in a cave and I feel bad enough about that, for god’s sake.
Yeah. The kiss. That’s the second big thing in my mind. Even though it was just a few moments– a few delicious, horny moments– it’s taking up rather more of my thoughts than I’d like. Especially as it doesn’t seem likely to happen again.
We shouldn’t be doing this.That seemed pretty definitive, I guess. But it doesn’t stop me thinking about the way Axel’s lips felt on mine, or his hard body. Or imagining what it might be like to have those lips on other parts of me. I might have thought a little too hard about it last night, ending up tangled in my sheets, panting, my blood roaring like the ocean outside.
I’ve never got myself off based on just a kiss from someone. Until now.
