Page 15

Rubi gives me a strange look, letting me know I’ve fumbled the conversation. But Folk rescues me by returning to the fold and wherever my head is at decides he even smells wrong.

Yes, okay. Maybe I deserve the stare Rubi drills into the side of my head. And maybe I should take Sol’s offer of an early night. But as Rubi and Folk say their goodbyes and depart, I find myself not wanting to be alone with my thoughts. Or the constant cat and mouse I have to play with my phone and the monitor taped to my arm.

And so I stay and work the pop-up, and I am irrationally annoyed again by the time I walk home and let myself into the house Aras and I share on the seafront. It’s the smallest home I have ever lived in and I know I should move soon—for Aras as he grows. But tonight the house feels empty as the front door shuts behind me, high-ceilinged and cavernous, and I eat my last snack of the day in a kitchen as gloomy as my mood. Stab my phone screen with frustration that knots in my belly and makes me want to rip the monitor from my arm and stamp on it.

You do not do things like that.

I don’t.

Never have. And this loss of control, of my mind and my body, feels as wrong as the numbers on my phone screen. The emotion crawls on my skin with the same parasitical energy I felt on the boat, and the only balm for it is to leave my phone on the kitchen counter for a little while, trudge upstairs, and give in to the memories I rarely have time for.

I have time tonight, while I am alone in my bed, sheets bunched low around my waist, my body wired as tight as my mind. Restlessness humming in my veins as I replay a scene that feels so far away it’s hard to believe it happened.

Fragments come first.

Sensations.

The same hit of heady recollection I get during the day sometimes, when I have to force it down to be steady and present for the people and tasks that need me. But in my bed, with the dark pressing so close I have to shut my eyes to it, I lack the will to stifle it. To suppress the heat of a man’s hands on my skin, the memory of a fleeting, scorching kiss that swept me off my feet, and the dizzying grin he left me with.

He.

Him.

Poet Whitlock.

His name echoes in my head. In my blood as it pumps hotter than it has any business being at this hour, pooling in my groin, hardening my cock, sharpening the growing realisation that my encounter with him answered a question I’d never thought to ask of myself.

I cannot forget him.

Still.

Nearly two years later.

I drag a hand down my face, over my mouth, as though the action will derail the inevitable. But my fist finds my cock anyway and I relive every moment of that kiss on Moondust Farm as the practised pressure of my own hand overrides the fatigue and irritation I’ve brought home.

His sun-warmed skin and unshaven jaw. The apple-laced masculine scent I can’t shift from my senses, even when I’m elbow deep in shellfish and seaweed. As I sink into the pleasure coursing through me, I don’t hide from any of it.

From his deep voice and the way he handled and held me with purpose. From the craving for more his touch ignited in me that night, though I still have no real understanding of what it means.

Exhaling, I slide my hand faster, a groan knotting in my throat, arousal burning through every cell—and the insulin I injected downstairs, but I’ll worry about that later, when I give in to parental responsibility and fetch my phone. For now I enjoy the respite from the never-ending maths equation of my life, and I find relief in the first and only man I’ve ever kissed.

I kiss him again.

Nerves lit, muscles snapped tight as I feed into his pleasure and mine, knowing the map of him because I’ve done this before—we’ve done this before—and we’re good at it.

So good.

I push that wheat-blond hair back from his face and back him against my car. Another groan rakes my throat. I fumble with the car door and fully expect to topple him onto the back seat, but my imagination spins forward and when we land, we’re in the barn, sprawled among the apple crates and hay bales. I’m on top of him, I see him clearly, I feel him as we rock together, the specifics undefined, and those glimmering blue eyes hold me hostage.

His palms are on my chest, fingers splayed over my heart. Mine are everywhere, as if I know this is so temporary I have to memorise every inch of him while I have the chance. Before I wake up, even though I’m not asleep.

It doesn’t take long for me to hit a peak. My hips jerk from the bed with a release that leaves me airless and sweating, a climax I draw out with lazy strokes and long breaths as my mind clings to the past. Sated, and yet…empty as pleasure fades, euphoria ebbs away, and before I know it, I’m alone in my bed again with a mess to clean up. Alone as I try once more to picture Sol, Mal, Rubi—any man I’ve ever met in the same context I’ve just imagined a Norfolk farmer I’ll likely never see again.

Alone with the same stubborn truth I’ve danced around for two long years: Folk Whitlock’s kid brother was the first man I ever kissed. And as far as I can tell, he’s the last.

4 POET

I’ve always belonged to the ground on which I stand. To the earth and the elements we borrow to feed and nurture us. Deeper than fresh air and open fields, it’s a bond that sits under my skin and stays there, no matter how hard I have to work the land to bring it to life.