Burning Moon (14 page)

I was blinded.

T-shirts should come with warnings that say,
If you swim underwater with this, it will billow and puff and cover your face.
I resurfaced to peel the wet, sticking fabric off my face with Damien close behind me. The T-shirt was clinging uncomfortably, and I was forced to tug and pull it back into position.

Damien looked at me curiously. “You know, you really can take it off. I'm not one of these guys who gawks and whistles—no matter how good the view is.”

My stomach moved up into my chest and my heart fell into my stomach. Damien disappeared under the water again, and I continued to fiddle with the wet, uncomfortable shirt, which was really starting to piss me off.

Why the hell not, right? And so I whipped the thing off and followed him under.

We swam and laughed and splashed each other like little kids, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd had so much fun. It also dawned on me that I hadn't thought about Michael the whole day. Not once, well, until right now.

And then Damien abruptly ended our fun. “Come, time to go.”

I'd completely lost track of time, so I quickly stood up out of the water and headed back toward the beach, and then I realized…

I was walking in front of Damien in my bikini, and stuff was probably (no, definitely) wobbling.

Crap.
I suddenly became very self-conscious and took a deep breath, hoping it would suck it all in somehow. I started to walk in a rather robotic way in an attempt to minimize any unwanted movement of my subcutaneous fat cells. I put my feet down gently in case the impact would jiggle something loose, and I tensed my muscles in the hopes it would give me the appearance of sleeker legs and a perkier bum (wishful thinking). At this stage, I was concentrating so hard on defying nature, gravity, and all known laws of physics that it was already too late by the time I saw the rock. And so I walked straight into it, stubbed my toe, and stumbled backward.

And then—you couldn't have orchestrated a more clichéd-yet-perfect moment if this had been a Hollywood rom-com—I felt two strong hands catch me. I found myself pressed, hard, against Damien's naked chest, and I'd never felt more turned on in my entire life. Which was a very odd sensation for me.

Right now, squished against his naked chest, the feel of his arms wrapped around me, the intense sensation of his hot hands resting on the small of my cold, wet back, and our wet bodies pushed together tightly, every inch touching, made me feel like all the blood rushing through my body had changed direction and was suddenly swirling around my nether regions. I wanted him so badly it literally hurt. I wasn't looking at him yet, but I willed my face to tilt upward and my eyes met his. The air between us was electric. His eyes moved down to my mouth and although he wasn't touching my lips, they were stinging…

We'd both been fighting this feeling for days now, and it was officially no longer possible to fight it. It was too big. Too overwhelming and I was certainly giving up. And judging by the look in Damien's eye right now, it was clear that he had given up the good fight, too, and was ready to surrender. Kissing Damien was all I wanted. And I'd never wanted anything more in my life…

“Lilly.” His voice was a whisper.

“Yes, Damien…”

He was still staring at my lips, and moved his hand up to touch my face. His finger traced its way down my cheek, and I shivered in response; my skin rose up in goose bumps that covered my entire body. He moved his fingers down to my mouth and I felt his thumb trace my bottom lip.

Then he moved his mouth closer to mine. Our lips were now only inches apart. I could feel and smell his breath. And it was sweet and hot and I wanted to drink it in.

“Do you mind if I kiss you, Lilly?”

“Yes…” I whispered back to him. “Kiss me.”

Woooooooo-hooooooo!

Yeah!

Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!

Woooooooooo!

Screams reverberated around us. The sounds bounced from one cliff to the next like a psychotic Ping-Pong ball until it felt like the screams were coming from above, behind, between, and in front of us.

What the hell?

Damien stared toward the tunnel; the screams grew louder and the roaring engines were coming closer. The boat finally burst into sight, sending white rippling waves out in every direction as it sped toward us. I could see four people on board, and judging by all the whooping and woo-hooing, they were all in party spirits. And then…
hang on
…suddenly Damien sprinted across the beach.

Why? Why was he waving and shouting? And then I looked closer and my heart not only dropped, but it climbed out of my body, jumped into the lake, and sank to the bottom to sleep with the fish. Leaping—no, springing gracefully like a baby gazelle in a tiny bikini—was the brown-haired hipster chick. I pressed pause in my head and she stayed suspended in midair. I looked closely at her. She was smiling. She was springing with open arms. She was excited and she was about three sizes smaller than me. I mentally pressed play again and she went pirouetting onto the beach and into Damien's arms, the arms that I'd just been in! My arms! Not hers.

They hugged. It was gut-wrenching.

He spun her around in the air. It was heartbreaking.

They tripped and collapsed onto the sand. It was nauseating.

Suddenly I really hoped there would be a human sacrifice tonight.

I was glaring at them so intently that I hadn't even noticed that Blondie-Blue-Tip was also there. She also went leaping and flying and diving onto the sand with them. I cringed.

I looked back at the boat and a guy stepped off it and started walking toward me.

When my mother gets sent a play, before even reading it, she goes through the character descriptions. These are short, concise tidbits that give you an exact image and understanding of the character. And if the guy walking toward me was a character in one of my mother's plays, this is what it would say…

Flash back three days ago: If I'd seen this guy walk through the door, I would have melted. Dissolved into a puddle and looked up at him with puppy-dog eyes, but now, I couldn't care less about him even if he took all his clothes off and did jumping jacks in front of me so that his willy flapped in my face—no matter how big it was.

There was only one person in the world I wanted, and he was frolicking on the beach with Hipster Barbie.

“Hey, I'm Jerry.” Suddenly he was in front of me.

“Huh? Oh…yeah, yeah…Lilly, whatever.” I sounded totally disinterested, but I didn't care.

When Damien and the slutty slut-sluts finally emerged from their dry-humping session, Damien dragged them across to me and I had a sneaking suspicion I was not going to cope with the encounter very well.

“Hey!” The brunette was running toward me smiling. “You must be Lilly.”

I was thrown, especially when she hugged me. Why was this strange woman hugging me?

“Uh…how do you know?”

“Damien hasn't stopped telling me about you. I basically get a message every five minutes.”

“Really?” I perked up a bit and looked to Damien; he was blushing and moving his toes around in the sand.

“Yep. He's been going on like a stuck record. Besides, you're also pretty famous.”

“Famous?”

Suddenly Damien elbowed her in the ribs and shushed her.

“What's going on?” I asked suspiciously.

“You haven't seen the pictures?” Strange Slutty Girl asked with genuine surprise.

“Jess,” Damien hissed under his breath at her.

“What pictures?” I demanded.

“Sorry, I didn't know you hadn't seen them…” the Jess character said to me.

Now I was worried. Something was definitely up and I didn't like the sound of it.

“Damien, what's going on?”

“Show her,” he said to Jess, who immediately proceeded to take out her phone. She pressed a few buttons then held it up to me.

I gasped. “You took a photo of me on the plane in my pajamas, with my hair like that, and you sent it to her?”

Damien jumped in quickly to correct me. “No! I would never. But someone did, and it's kind of gone viral.”

My eyes widened in shock. “What do you mean, viral?”

Damien and Jess exchanged another look—it was one of those loaded looks that not only contained subtext but a whole thousand-page novel and then some.

“Guys…” I just knew something bad was going on.

“Remember that photo of Angelina Jolie's leg and how everyone started Photoshopping it onto things like the Venus de Milo statue? Or the photo of that woman who fell asleep at the mall and got Photoshopped onto a stripper pole?”

“Yes…” I said tentatively.

“Well it's kind of like that,” Damien said as gently as possible.

“I don't understand. My leg is on a stripper pole?”

“No, not your leg.” A quick look passed between Jess and Damien.

“You're making no sense!” I grabbed her phone angrily and started flipping through the pictures.

And there I was. In my
SPOONING LEADS TO FORKING
pj's with my massive hairdo, my black-stained mascara cheeks and lipstick-smudged face standing next to Shrek…and there I was riding a giant spoon through the air, Photoshopped onto the Mona Lisa, climbing up the side of a building swatting planes out the air, and yes, someone really had put a flock of seagulls in my hair.

My jaw fell open.

I was an Internet meme. I was everywhere. I was viral, like the angry hamster and Psy. I know I should have been totally mortified, but I was still too focused on Damien's plus one. Correction, plus two.

“You kind of have a hashtag, too,” Jess added tentatively.

“Really?”

“Hashtag spoonforker.”

“I see.” I felt surprisingly calm about the whole thing, especially for someone who was viral. “How long have you known?” I turned to Damien.

“Since yesterday morning, a few people at the hostel showed me. Sorry, I should have told you but—”

I shrugged. “It's fine. What can you do, hey? So I'm trending, so millions of people are looking at the worst picture ever taken of me…So what!”

“That's the fucking spirit!” Little Miss So-and-So smiled and hugged me again.

Who was this chick, and why was she hugging me?

“Lilly, this is my best friend, Jess,” Damien finally said.

“So nice to finally meet you.” She was smiling at me again. “Oh, and this is my girlfriend, Sharon,” she said, pulling the other chick toward her.

Now, it took my brain a while to compute the information: Sharon was Jess's girlfriend, they were a couple, so that meant that
she was a lesbian
. I'd never been so happy to meet someone in my entire life. I threw my arms around her and hugged her way too hard before moving to Sharon with the same enthusiasm and then declared that I was “delighted, simply delighted, ecstatic, in fact, to meet them.”

This seemed to make Damien happy and he beamed at us.

“Oh…” Jess piped up again. “And this is Sharon's brother Jerry and his friend Chris.”

The introductions were finally over, but I still hadn't gotten my kiss. There was a lot of chatter, some laughter, some general catching up, and some more hugging while Damien helped the
lesbians
—
yeah!
—get their bags out of the boat.

I watched Damien intently, like a lioness might watch her prey before pouncing and biting off its head, but out of the corner of my eye I could see Jerry inching closer. And then he started trying to make conversation with me. So in between my adoring Damien stares, I grunted a few words here and there. There was nothing wrong with him. In fact, he seemed polite and nice and interesting. Well, at least that's what I would have thought a few days ago, but not now.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha, that's so true, Lilly!” Jerry suddenly burst out laughing and playfully hit me on the arm.
Huh?
I must have said something funny to him, but what?

The laughter obviously caught Damien's attention, because he turned around and glared at us with a rather strange look. In one swift movement he was off the boat and making a speedy approach. And then seconds later he was at my side, arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer and eyeing Jerry. And then it became awkward. Jerry took a step back.

“Oh, sorry, dude. I didn't know you guys were together.”

Automatically, without even thinking about it, I quickly replied, “Oh, no, we're not—”

But Damien cut me off. “Not together…yet!” He pulled me even closer, and those were the best words I'd ever heard spoken.

Jerry smiled at Damien. “Sorry.”

Damien held out his hand in truce. “No worries at all.”

And then he pulled me closer and put his mouth to my ear.

“I want to kiss you so badly.”

I melted.

“So kiss me.” I'd never been so brazen before.

“I don't think we want an audience, do we?”

I liquefied. My body turned to unstable, watery jelly and my legs shook. I could feel his lips touching my ear.

“Lilly, if I kiss you, I don't think I'm going to be able to stop there.”

Damien looked at me meaningfully. I hadn't thought beyond kissing Damien, but now I was. Suddenly I started having these thoughts, unfamiliar…
naughty thoughts
…about sex. Hot, naked, sweaty, acrobatic, porn-star sex.

I wanted to have sex with him, fuck him, make love to him, in whatever way, shape, and form I could. (OMG, I couldn't believe I was even thinking these things. What had happened to me?)

I wanted to.

I needed to.

And it felt right.

It also didn't feel like it was coming from an impulsive, mad place that was reeling in shock and in rebound mode, desperately seeking out a male to fill the hole. And I mean that in the purely figurative sense.

I wanted to do this with him. I put my lips to his ear and whispered, “I don't think I'll be able to stop there, either.”

Damien's hands tightened around my waist and his body stiffened against mine. I'd never felt sexier and more desired in my life.

I was floating on cloud nine; nothing could touch me. I was in a Damien daze and it was so intense I barely noticed that I'd climbed a rickety string ladder up a cliff face, or that I had waded through waist-high water and hiked through a dense—spidery—jungle. All I was aware of was Damien and the intense looks that were flying between us. Every now and then he would come up behind me and wrap an arm around my waist. He would hold my hand, he would stroke my back, and at one stage he came up behind me and whispered, “Jesus, you are so fucking sexy it's killing me.”

And then finally Jess announced that we'd arrived at the last hurdle. We were standing in the middle of a clearing in the jungle, and in front of us was a small brilliant blue lake. Like the others we'd seen, it was completely surrounded by high cliffs, but looking around, I saw no string ladders or steps anywhere. Jess bent down and began feeling the ground around her, until she found a rope and pulled it. A trapdoor of sorts opened up, and I burst out laughing.

Everyone turned and looked at me.

“Seriously, are we on
Lost
? Is the island going to start spinning and going back in time, and am I going to see black smoke coming out of the jungle?” This whole thing was ridiculous: “Mysterious party” was an understatement. Everyone laughed with me and agreed that it was all indeed a little like
Lost
, but hopefully without the unwatchable final season.

“Okay, so the map says we can leave all our bags and electronics here and just take our essentials.”

“Leave our phones here. Why?” I asked.

“Well”—Jess looked at her phone again—“it says, ‘Swim across the lake to the white cliff directly in front of you. Look for an arrow carved into the rock, take a deep breath, and you'll find a tunnel under the rock. Make sure it's a deep breath, because it's quite a long tunnel. There's an air pocket halfway where you can take another breath, and then swim the rest of the way. See you guys soon.'”

“Um…” I hated the idea of swimming under a giant rock. What if I ran out of air and started to panic?

“Don't worry. It's gonna be fine, hon.” Jess put her arm around me and gave it a squeeze. “Besides…” She was smiling now. “You have big, strong Damien to rescue you if anything goes wrong.” She followed this sentence with a playful eyebrow raise, which made me blush like an idiot. “Think about it, if you started to drown he could give you mouth-to-mouth, maybe even slip you some tongue.” Jess then looked at us, flicking her eyes between Damien and me. “Ah, that would make such a cute story to tell your kids one day. ‘I almost drowned your mommy.'”

Damien lunged toward Jess. “Jess, you're such troublemaker.”

“I know. That's why you love me!” And then she winked at us and jumped into the water with a loud splash. I avoided all eye contact with Damien now; I was worried that if I looked at him, he'd notice that I'd been reduced to a dithering puddle of hormones. So I jumped in and followed.