After #2
He didn’t argue, just shook his head and quietly held his ground. Bastard.
“I still have them,” she admitted. “They’re fine.
They’re here with me.” Were probably grouchy as hell for having been confined for so long.
They’d want feeding—her stomach gave another gurgle—and letting out for a stroll.
And their litter box was probably stinking out her living quarters —if they hadn’t just pooped on her bedding in protest over their neglect.
“Jodi, we didn’t,” he said, voice soft and utterly calm.
“What?”
“We didn’t… shag. Leastways, I don’t think so.
Pretty sure I’d remember that. I mean…” He shook his head at whatever he’d been about to say.
“I’ll admit that last night’s a bit of a blur, but I’d remember if I’d been inside you…
If I’d touched you like that…” He went quiet a moment as if he was waging war with the fog or else redacting portions of the evening he didn’t want to share.
Eventually, he shook his head. “No condom, because we didn’t. Sadly.”
The relief allowed her to take one full breath of air before anxiety got her heart in a pincer grip again.
Them not having shagged was something. A good something.
A lifeline to cling to, even, and maybe enough that she could bury this…
whatever it had been… under a bush and forget about it.
The fact that he didn’t seem as eager to do so, she chalked up to his ability to thrive in unexpected circumstances.
Honestly, she didn’t have the capacity to dwell on how unfazed he was.
Also, she had left him her number. She’d written it on the glass, and if he’d got the P.S. then he’d got the number. Not that it mattered, other than he wasn’t putting their lack of communication on her shoulders.
Breathe, Jodi. Breathe. Remember your grounding techniques.
Five… Four… Three things she could hear.
Bird song. The breeze rustling the leaves.
Her own hammering heartbeat. Two things she could—it’s okay, no hook-ups had happened.
No hook-ups were happening. Their past communications or lack thereof weren’t of relevance.
–taste. Taste? What could she taste? She couldn’t taste anything.
Didn’t matter. Next one. Next thing. She’d got them the wrong way round.
Taste was last. Smell, she’d forgotten smell. What could she smell?
She could smell him. He smelled earthy, of outdoors and summer sun, of dew, and grass, and hedgerows. Apples. She could smell apples.
“Okay, that’s good. It’s all good.” When life bowled a strike, you just had to be rational and logical about it.
Tidy things into an order, then work through the list until all was well again.
The past three years of her life were littered with such lists.
Sometimes, the lists were the only things that had kept her moving forward.
First two items: “I need to go. So where are my clothes?”
She found them fast enough, balled up in the doorway of their makeshift shack, entangled with his, grass stained and crumpled, but wearable with a bit of a shake. She tossed Paul his jeans while he remained on his back, watching her.
“Put them on.”
“Okay.” He shimmied into them, all snake hips and gloriously lean muscle.
Not that she was looking… Nope, definitely not. Were those abs for real? That Adonis belt? Um, careful with the zip, now.
Stop looking, imbecile.
No man had the right to be that sexy.
Fuck, but he was a sight and a half.
Why was she making him cover up?
“I can’t find your shirt.”
“It’s fine. Castle, it’s fine.”
“Right. Yeah.” She finished pulling her dress over her head.
How was she in a field with Paul Reed? What sort of stars had aligned so that he even remembered her?
It was hard not to grin over the sheer fact that he remembered her.
She’d convinced herself that she was long in his past, a single snowflake that had melted against his hot skin on a cruel winter’s night long—well, three years—ago.
It wasn’t like she’d given him an epic jaffle, or a blowjob to end all blowjobs—would she even get all that in her mouth? Did rock stars even consider that sort of shit memory worthy, or were sexual favours so commonplace as to be as noteworthy as a decent pizza?
Why was he here now when she didn’t need him, instead of back then when she definitely had? She’d prayed to every deity she’d heard the name of that he’d call. He never had.
Jodi bundled her leggings into a ball and headed outside.
Paul emerged from their makeshift nest a moment later.
That’s what it resembled from the outside—as if two elephant birds had decided to roost at ground level and thrown sticks and ferns together in a hopeful heap.
She was tugging at the knot in the ribbon around her wrist but only succeeding in pulling it tighter, while he indulged in a glorious stretch.
“Can you get this?” She held out her wrist to him.
“Yeah.” He broke off saluting the sun and flashed her a glimpse of the identical binding around his own wrist accompanied by a worrying smirk.
“I mean, can you get it off? I want it off. The knot’s pulled too tight. Can you snap it, or something?”
He tested the tightness by sliding two fingers between the ribbon and her skin. “It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not. I want it off.” She gave one end another ineffective tug.
“Keen to be shot of me so soon, Castle? I was banking on a longer honeymoon period.”
The proof was right there. It was mocking her every attempt to pretend otherwise. Jodi just wasn’t ready to acknowledge it. Nothing good would come of that. “We can forget about those, rig—”
Before she realised what he was about, Paul was leaning in. Kissing her. His lips caressing hers, firm but gentle. Then his tongue swept against hers, and his free hand closed around the back of her neck, drawing her to him, holding her where he wanted her.
Shock coupled with arousal and sent sparks through her body. She groaned. Her fingers curled against the springy muscle of his bare chest. One of his nipples tightened against her palm. She felt his cock stir too.
She tapped out, and he eased off a fraction. “Good morning, wife. Sure I can’t tempt you back into this love nest before I find you breakfast?”
White noise ate up the sounds of the festival around them. Jodi’s vision tunnelled in on his face. Wife! “Don’t say that. I’m not. We’re not. We did not get married.”
This was rural England, not Vegas. There weren’t any quickie ceremonies around. They were therefore not legally bound. Couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.
Paul clasped her hand in his, drawing attention to the twin ribbons, like he was making the oaths all over again. Worse, she could hear the echo of those promises in her head. Could hear herself reciting those ages old vows of bonding.
They might not be legally married, but they had got hitched.
“Wife has a certain ring to it though, don’t you think?”
“Paul,” she said firmly, looking up at him.
Not wanting to meet his eyes but knowing that she had to.
She needed to make this point absolutely.
“I’m really sorry, but I can’t. We’re not.
This isn’t… We need to cut these off and forget this was ever a thing.
We weren’t thinking right. We were high, or drunk, or something.
We need to rewind. This is going to fuck up our lives so badly, and unnecessarily. ”
Were there witnesses? Had there been witnesses? Someone must have officiated, but that was just one random bod, who probably couldn’t even remember what they looked like now.
Paul’s puzzled frown said he didn’t understand. One long finger stroked her inner wrist beneath the ribbon, creating shivers. Jodi snatched her hand away.
“Cute, Castle, but it’s not something we can just forget. We swore sacred oaths to one another.”
“While tripping our arses off on ’shrooms.”
She remembered that now, trawling the field with a host of other idiots.
Trying to tamp down her fucking anxiety by focusing on something, eating them because she’d read something and someone had told her about something, and it’d seemed like a bright plan in the heat of the moment, even though she hated any kind of mushrooms.
“No.” She batted him away or at least tried to.
God, any minute her knees were going to give way, which was why she didn’t completely shake off his hold when he clasped her forearms and held her in place, lowering his head so that he could look her in the eyes and forge a connection that had no business existing.
“Doesn’t matter if we were drunk, or high. A vow’s a vow.”
“Shit, you don’t get it. You don’t understand. I can’t be bound to you. I’m not free to be bound to you.”
“You are bound to me. We’re bound to each other.”
“This is going to ruin everything.”
“Like what? What’s it going to ruin, Castle?”
They’d had this conversation. She was damned sure of it.
She’d fucking told him. The memory flared—comet bright.
She’d been trawling the field. Passing time.
Waiting. Focusing. Never intending to actually partake.
She hadn’t even been looking for mushrooms. She’d just been trying to keep her head together while she waited for Nash to turn up.
But then, he…Paul, had appeared, like some faerie lord sliding between one reality and the next.
He’d lifted her off her feet, spun her around like she was a child.
“Jodi,” he’d said. “Jodi Castle,” as if it were a blessing.
Then, “I’ve been looking for you, Castle. ”
He’d kissed her. He’d brought those generous lips down on hers and breathed fire into her veins, and dumbstruck fool that she was, she’d let him.
She’d let him claim her, let him stamp his taste all over her, let his heat permeate her body.
The memories of him dissembled in her mind.
Around them, people had cheered and catcalled.
It hadn’t slowed him. He’d been thorough, and she’d been bewitched.
She’d wobbled when he finally put her down, lightheaded and near breathless.
Still, with the presence of mind to raise her hand and stop him before he’d completely enchanted her.
She remembered the soft brush of his stubble against her fingertips, how his lips parted in a way that made her want to graze her thumb across them.
She hadn’t though, because she wasn’t a cheat.
“Don’t. I can’t. I’m sorry.” She’d raised her other hand to show him the ring. “I got engaged, see.”