Reveal (A Wild Nights Novel) (29 page)

“Mr Rydesdale,” the judge said, demanding his attention.

Both H and I turned to face His Honour, but not before I sought the eyes of Brad. I needed the solace they gave me before the sentence was handed down, and I needed him to know that this chapter of my life was only moments away from closing. Forever.

Concern was written all over his face, his eyes darting from me to H. I hated seeing him so worried, something he’d been pretty much constantly from the moment he’d walked into my hospital room.

Wanting to put him at ease, I mouthed
it’s okay
before gripping his hand tighter and resting my head on his shoulder.

“By reason of your very early and remorseful plea of guilty, you are entitled to a high discount on the sentence which otherwise would have been imposed. You have saved the state the time and expense of a trial and facilitated the course of justice. You have saved your victim the trauma of having to give evidence, and I am satisfied that you are genuinely sorry for your offending.

“Although your offence is serious, and taking your victim’s impact statement into account, I consider your actions to be a spontaneous and opportunistic exercise of appallingly poor judgment rather than that of an inherently deviant person.

“It is hereby that the sentence of the court is as follows:

“On charge one: Abduction or Detention, you are convicted and sentenced to be imprisoned for six months.

“On charge two: Assault with Intent to Commit a Sexual Offence, you are convicted and sentenced to be imprisoned for twelve months.

“I further order that upon release, you undertake a Community Corrections Order for a period of three years. Do you understand the terms and conditions that I have just read out, Mr Rydesdale?”

“Yes, I do,” H said, his voice clear and accepting.

The judge signed a piece of paper before him and closed a file. “That concludes today’s proceedings.”

“All rise,” the clerk announced.

We all stood as directed, and my eyes met H’s one last time.

From the moment we said hello,

goodbye was inevitable.

I feed from the desire he has for me.

It cures my hunger … my need.

It fills a void left by the ghost of another.

Then again, I was always told ghosts weren’t real
.

H was a ghost, a ghost that would be freed into society some time today. Over the past eighteen months while he’d been incarcerated, I’d toyed with the notion that if I’d pretended it never happened, one day I’d truly believe it hadn’t. And for the most part, that notion worked. H was out of sight, out of mind, and Brad was my primary focus. My only focus.

Sitting in front of my favourite turquoise and orange beach hut, laptop open and resting across my legs, and Brad, Josh and Cori in the water and performing ridiculously good dolphin impersonations, I could not pretend that H had never existed, because he had and he still did. And with continuing sessions with my psychologist, I’d come to realise that it was okay to accept that.

“You coming into the water, sexy pixie?” Brad asked, standing above me like a bronzed god, dripping water and overt sexiness.
Run your hand through your hair. Run your hand through your hair.

He ran his hand through his hair.

I sighed.

I smiled.

My vagina copied.

“Not just yet. I need to log in another half an hour on SexyTexts.”

He not-so-gracefully dropped to the towel next to me, turning to lie on his side, his head propped up by his hand. “Sucks to be you.”

I glared playfully at him. “Yeah, well, I have this new client. He’s only two days old, and he’s … er … different.”

Brad crept up the towel higher so that he could see my screen.

“I’ve called him S,” I said, giggling and swivelling my laptop to show him.

I watched Brad’s face as he read the sext in question, his eyebrows drawn, a smile slowly creeping onto his face.

Shoeman: What are you wearing tonight?

Lady N: S, I’m wearing your favourite.

S: The purple ones?

Lady N: Yes. Just for you.

Lies.

I didn’t own a purple anything. I hated purple. But apparently S liked that colour, so I gave it to him.

Brad chuckled. “The dude’s got a shoe fetish, huh?”

“Appears so.” I waited for S to respond.

“You should have some fun and get real kinky with him.”

I snapped my face toward Brad, loving that he was so supportive of my decision to keep professionally sexting after everything that had happened, and that he was keen to give me input. Sometimes too much input.

My role as a part-time sexter was one I was never ashamed of, because we should not live by the expectation of others. We should be who we were, and only who we were. No one else. Emily Davis was who I was: theatre actress, member of the Itty-Bitty Titty committee, lover of Tim Tams, lover of anal sex, and part-time sexter. I’d learned that flaws were not necessarily flaws at all, that they were there to strengthen our character, and if we recognised and used them to our advantage, we were ultimately unstoppable.

“Really kinky?” I asked Brad, amused, wondering if he knew just how kinky I could get. “What do you suggest?”

He stole the laptop from me and grinned devilishly.

“Brad! No! You can’t keep doing that. It’s wrong.” My scolding was half-arsed—he had a habit of hijacking my sessions.

The cheeky bastard scoffed and his grin widened as he typed. “Shoe fetishes are wrong.”

“What are you writing? Show me?” I tried to snatch my laptop back.

“Wait. Wait. There,” he said, pressing
return
before I could stop him.

He happily handed my laptop back to me, threaded his hands together, and rested them on his head, lying back on the towel while closing his eyes and smiling toward the sun.

“Shit! What did you … BRAD!” My hand shot to my mouth.

Lady N: So tell me, S,

if I asked you to slide a heel in and out of your arse,

would you? For me?

Pretty please?

I whacked him on the stomach and he hunched over, laughing. “I can’t believe you typed that.”

“What? He probably does it everyday.” Brad sat up and crawled behind me, his hands finding my shoulders and his fingers kneading my skin with perfection.

“Oh Godddddd that feels good,” I moaned.

His fingers pressed deeper and his thighs gripped my hips.

I moaned more. He had the best freakin’ hands in existence.

“Fuuuuuck,” he groaned, his voice strained and low. The warmth of his breath tickled the hair behind my ear. “You make me hard when that sexy-as-fuck sound leaves your mouth, pixie.”

I moaned some more for him. “Sucks to be you.”

Trying not to laugh at my cheeky retort, the flash of S’s name appeared on my screen, shifting my focus.

“He’s responded,” I said, excitedly.

Brad’s fingers paused their movement. “What’d he say?”

We both leaned forward and read the screen.

S: Anything for you, Lady N.

I’d even suck it clean for you, too.

I burst into laughter at the same time as Brad. “Ew! No thanks.”

“He’s a keeper, babe.”

“I hope so,” I said, opening my eyes wide with exaggeration while typing a response.

Lady N: S, you naughty, naughty man.

I like you.

“Hey!” Cori shouted from her position on top of Josh’s shoulders. “You two coming in or what?”

“Yeah, in a second,” I shouted back.

Logging out of the interface, I closed the laptop and slid it into my satchel bag.

Brad pulled gently on my shoulders, tilting me back to look up at him. “Right. This shoulder ride war is serious. Don’t hold back. Cori is not your friend out there. She’s your enemy. Remember that.” His eyes held my stare, unblinking.

I bit my lip to refrain from laughing. “Okay. Not friend. Enemy. Fight till death.”

“That’s my girl.” He jumped up and stretched his shoulders then swung his arms in wide circles like a windmill. “And don’t forget. If you fall, I’ll catch you.”

I nodded, knowing he would.

Brad’s expression changed, his smile and energetic shoulder-war preparation disappearing. He extended his hands to me and I accepted them, letting him pull me flush to his chest.

The delicate glide of his thumb trailed down the side of my cheek, as our eyes searched one another’s. “Always, Em. I’ll always catch you.” 

I knew he would. I knew that no matter what happened he’d be right there by my side to pick me up when I stumbled. And I would stumble. We all did. And we all needed that one person to catch us.

For a time in my life, when I’d had no one, H had kept me from falling. He’d kept me from drowning in darkness but didn’t bring me into the light. And that was the difference between a hero and a saviour. One carried you there and the other let you take those steps yourself. H was my saviour, but Brad was my hero.

One the past.

The other my future.

Before I head into my lengthy wordery of thanks, I want to let you in on a little secret … It’s one o’clock in the morning and I’ve just finished editing this story. I started at one o’clock in the afternoon and have since escorted a carload of ten year-old boys to a birthday party for my son, been out to dinner, had cake and sung happy birthday. After an evening of video games and movies, they all finally went to sleep.

Sleep … what is that? I vaguely recall it has something to do with the transition of one day to the next. Hmm … interesting, because for the past six months, I’ve seen the clock tick each day to the next. Every. Night. I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve climbed into bed before 2:00am, and that’s because I’ve been crafting, shaping, and developing the characters and story you have just finished reading. So I
really
hope you enjoyed it, because I enjoy sleep, lol.

Anyway, as I sit here, I have bits of Double Dipped Cherry Ripe stuck between my teeth because I needed a chocolate hit to keep my eyes open. And speaking of eyes, they’re blurry from having been constantly focussed on the screen for the past five hours straight in order to get this book completed for formatting.

I need to pee.

Everyone under my roof, bar me, is asleep.

My dog is snoring.

The refrigerator is humming.

I’m a little lonely.

But I love what I do. I’ve just written, edited, and finalised — in my opinion — my best novel to date. So even though I worked on and off during my son’s birthday and am exhausted and tired as fuck, I’m happy, relieved and proud of myself. I love
Reveal
. I love Em, Brad and H. And I love being fortunate enough to create stories that are read and appreciated.

That’s pretty cool.

And now I’m babbling.

Best I get stuck into my wordery of thanks then, huh?

Rightyo, as always, first on my list are Andrew and the kids: What. Would. I. Do. Without. You? I’d probably live in a shoe, that’s what. And as awesome as that sounds — provided the shoe has a red sole — I’d rather see your smiling faces each and every day. Thank you for being what grounds me when I get lost in worlds taking form in my mind. Thank you for reminding me that dinner still needs to be cooked, the toilet doesn’t clean itself, and Sunday mornings are pancake mornings. Oh, and, Andrew … you are the perfect Mummy/Daddy. I know it’s hard sometimes, but just think of the research that is required for specific scenes I write. Now stop complaining xo

Mum: We clash. We fight. We annoy each other. We also ignore one another. Okay, so I mainly ignore you, but seriously, my phone is switched off for a reason. And that reason is this 98k novel. And even though you probably won’t believe me when I say this, I really do appreciate your persistence and unwavering support of my career. You’re always there, willing and able, and I love you dearly for it. So thank you. And I’m sorry you didn’t like this book as much as the others. But shit happens. Xo

Trish: You’re my person and I’m yours. I don’t really need to say much more than that, because you know exactly what that means and how vital it is in this industry. So I’ll leave it at that. Oh, and your graphics prowess is da shit. Thanks for your vision xo

My other author friends who’ve been a constant support during the writing of this book: You know who you are. You’ve witnessed my good and bad days, talked me through moments of doubt and craziness, and distracted me in the best way possible. Thank you xo

Sal: I feel we should’ve sat back and had a ciggy after that beta session. We hit it hard, fast, and were both satisfied in the end. It was good beta. That said, if Em had let one slip at the BBQ …

Kidding. I wouldn’t do that to you. Well, maybe not ever. There’s always the next book.

Lauren: You deserve the award for Speediest of Editors Requested to Edit at the Speediest they Can Possibly Edit. Yes, you do. That edit was EPIC! And no, my brain did not shout that. The E the P the I and the C all came hurtling out of my mouth. Thank you for making me active even though I don’t mind being passive every now and again. Xo

And lastly, my readers: If it weren’t for you I’d be in bed right now. True story. I’d be asleep because I’d have to get up and go to work for someone I would more than likely pretend to like even though I wouldn’t. And that would make me sad. I don’t like being sad. I like being happy. Shoes make me happy. You buy my books, which allows me to buy shoes, which makes me happy, which means I can write, which means you get more books, which means I get more shoes. Do you see what I’m getting at here? We’re a team, you and I. It’s win win. So let’s do it again soon. xo bwb.