Sommer Marsden - Once Bitten Twice Shy

‘We do and we did.’ She kissed him.

‘What about your parents? Still freaking out? Still convinced we’re ruining our lives?’

She laughed, her lips pressed against his strong jaw. Stubble bit at her lips and she moved them softly to feel the sting of it again. ‘Yep. Of course.’

This time when he rolled, she ended up beneath him. He looked down at her, a length of overgrown sand-brown hair falling in his eyes. His beach-bum hair, he’d called it, skipping his normal cut at the barber.

‘Let’s forget about them, then, OK? We’re here. We’ve waited the three years we’ve been together to be here. So let’s…’ He rotated his hips, grinding his cock against the wet gusset of her bikini bottom.

‘Let’s…?’ She trailed her fingers up his back, feeling how smooth his skin was. Welcoming the heat that baked off him.

‘Let’s do one of the things we do best.’ Aaron rested on his elbows and untied her bikini top. He pulled the cups down and bent to suck one ocean-cooled nipple into his mouth. Heat flooded her. Heat that had nothing to do with the bright sun or the tropical temperatures. It had everything to do with the man she loved. Had loved for three years and counting.

And counting…

The thought left her head when his mouth closed over her other nipple, a line of fire on her skin from where he’d dragged his lips across her chest. She wriggled beneath him, hooking her fingers in the sides of her bikini bottom and tugging it down. August was only successful when he raised his hips to give her room. Then they were tangled, each of them trying to disrobe the other until they were laughing and naked and everything was perfect. Just as it should be.

Eighteen, out of school, future ahead. Everything perfect.

Aaron slid into her and she wrapped her legs around his waist, moving up to take him, brushing her lips over his when he kissed her. She tugged his hair lightly so he grunted but then he laughed. Then he was rocking into her, taking his time, playing her body perfectly with every motion of his. He looked into her eyes and said, ‘And this, August, is only the beginning…’

Then the sky caught fire.

The sheets were wet. Tears or sweat, she wasn’t sure. August stayed there, sprawled on her back, heart pounding. Sunlight, meagre and new, which meant it was just now dawn, slipped between the slats of the Venetian blind.

‘Fuck,’ she said. Wishing for the millionth time she’d bite the bullet and get a pet. Someone to hear the random words she spilled into the empty air every day.

She rolled towards the clock, towards the left side of the bed she always thought of as empty. Aaron slept on the left. She slept on the right. At least that was how it had been.

Three minutes after six. She should still be asleep. She should still be blissfully unconscious. Instead she was awake, in damp bed linen, with her heart doing a sickening little jig in her chest.

The explosion. She’d seen it in her dream. It wasn’t the first time, but even after all these years, that sound, that shock of orange and red glow, always seemed like the first time when she relived it. Awake or asleep.

She ran a shaking hand through her hair and found it, not surprisingly, plastered to her head. She needed a shower, coffee and to get into motion before the lethargy that renewed sadness often brought set in.

She pushed herself up, found her slippers and shoved her feet into them. Her cottage’s hardwood floors were lovely but viciously chilly this time of year. In the bathroom she stared herself down in the medicine cabinet mirror.

Dark circles under her eyes, dark blonde hair matted to her head, sallow. ‘It was just a dream,’ she said to her reflection. Almost surprised when the woman in the mirror’s mouth moved in time with her words. That didn’t look like her. That woman looked haunted.

‘After all this time,’ she muttered, slightly disgusted with herself. She refused to be a victim in life. It wasn’t fair to wallow. But sometimes, more than a decade after Aaron’s death, she still felt a hollow ache that threatened to buckle her knees. Today was one of those days, and she had no doubt at all it was a surging wave of guilt for finding one stumbling lawn guy attractive. Attractive enough to make her blood jump in her veins.

She stepped into the hot spray and did her best to push it all out of her head. There were canvases to plot and stationery orders to fill, and a day to move through – mechanically or not.

And Jack will be coming back…

The thought was as wispy as the steam that filled the small room. Yes, Jack was coming back. True. But Jack was coming back to do a job and nothing else. He’d asked her out, she’d said no as nicely as she could and that was that. Case closed.

She was towelling her hair dry when the phone rang. The landline, which only meant one thing.

‘Good morning, Carley.’

‘Good morning, sunshine! What are you doing up?’

Nosey as ever, August figured her best friend had earned the right. They’d been tighter than tight since grade school. It was Carley, above all others, who had gotten her through Aaron’s death. It was Carley who had forced her out of bed some days, brought food to her bed on the days she refused to get up, and it was Carley who had finally given her the kick in the ass to start shopping her paintings around and create her small indie stationery store online. Carley got to be nosey if she wanted to.

‘How did you know I was up?’

‘I saw light from your little window. I was on my way to pick up doughnuts for the office and shot down your street and there it was. The little glow of a little lamp. You up? Dressed? Alone?’ Carley snorted. ‘What I’m trying to say is I have an extra coffee – can I come in for a minute?’

‘Coffee?’

‘Yes, the lifeblood, August. Coffee. And if you’re up this early, with the hours I know you keep, then you must need it.’

‘Desperately. Use your key. I’ll be out in a moment.’

She pulled on her favourite paint-speckled black leggings, an Om tank-top – because she sure as shit needed some Om after that dream – and a big sweater that had once upon a time been Aaron’s. A marled grey knit, soft as sin. So big on her that she swam in it, and she liked it that way.

She was cuffing the sleeves as she wandered into the kitchen. A kitchen that blissfully smelled like coffee and doughnuts offered by a smiling face. She needed that smile as much as she needed the Om.

‘Uh-oh,’ Carley said, the smile caving somewhat.

‘What?’

‘What happened?’

‘What?’

‘You’re wearing –’ She pointed to the sweater as she handed August a large, hot cup of coffee. August quickly took a swig even though it burned. Perfect – cream, two sugars and hot as hell.

‘I’m wearing…? Clothes?’

‘ Aaron’s clothes,’ Carley said, sitting on a kitchen stool. ‘And that only happens any more on anniversaries, birthdays, severe sadness or…bad dreams. Was it a dream?’

August bit her tongue to try and prevent the tears that wanted to come. She failed. Only a few slipped out, though, and she felt some victory at that. ‘Yeah, dream.’

‘Big boom dream?’ Carley said. August sighed. The only person who could get away with describing it that way was sitting across from her, her dark-brown hair twisted up into a knot, and no doubt late for work. Despite the bare-bones description, Carley’s big green eyes held a lot of empathy and worry.

‘Yep. The explosion. I woke up all gross but full-on awake, so I got up.’ August shrugged. ‘Took a shower then my house was inhabited by a jabbering alien lifeform known as an early riser.’ She attempted a smile.