Chapter Twenty
The moon is out tonight. Not a full one, but an almost full one, and strong enough that it casts a white glow over the lake, illuminating the space just enough that we don’t need any other light to see.
“We tried to figure out a way to put the dance floor inside,” I say. “But Adam called it a fire hazard, so we’re putting it by the lake. And we’re going to put flowers all along this wall,” I add, pointing to the bricks. “And a bar over there. More benches. A small stage for the band.”
“And the fireworks?”
“I’ve earmarked a field a five-minute walk away.
We’ll get everyone to meet back here and then we’re going to light up the trail with little torches by the west side of the forest. Have them walk around.
Set up some blankets. And then boom.” I waggle my fingers in the air.
“Beautiful and impressive fireworks exploding across the sky. The only thing is the path and field might get a little muddy if it rains.”
“But it’s not going to rain.”
“No, it will not,” I say firmly, leading him to the well. “Give me your hand.”
He does so immediately, and I bring his fingers to the stones, running them across the uneven surface until they reach the engraving.
“My dad did that,” I say, when he glances at me. “It’s their initials.”
Callum smiles. It’s a warm smile. An almost sweet one. “They met at the festival, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. “He was completely in love with my mam. Like dumb, teenage, head-over-heels in love. I swear, in every single picture I have of them, he’s just staring at her like an idiot.
Like he can’t believe his luck.” I trace over the letters again before dropping our hands.
“Granny said that he came home after their second date and told her he couldn’t get her out of his head.
He even tried to write her poetry, which apparently if you knew my dad, was the funniest thing in the world, and…
anyway.” I look up at him, not wanting to be sad tonight.
“That’s how they met. How did your parents meet? ”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to ask.”
“Are you close with them?”
“Yeah,” he nods. “They’re good people. You’d like them. I’ll bring them in for a drink if they’re ever around.”
I make a face, and he smiles. “Too soon to meet the folks, huh?”
“It’s not that,” I say. “I’d love to meet them. I just don’t always make the best first impression. I get nervous and—”
“Say things you don’t mean,” he finishes.
“Worse. It’s like my brain just latches onto one thing and won’t let it go.
My last boyfriend took me into the city to meet his mother for dinner and I kept complimenting her on her dentures.
Even when she told me she didn’t wear them, I insisted that she did and that my grandmother loved hers and she didn’t like that comparison, let me tell you.
And then the boyfriend before that took me to his parents’ house for lunch, and I started speaking in an accent?
Out of nowhere. His dad opened the door and I put on an accent.
And then I just had to go with it for the entire meal, and my ex thought I was doing this weird joke and then he got upset and then I got upset and then— I’m just going to stop talking.
” I clamp my lips shut at the strangled look on Callum’s face.
“What kind of accent?”
“I want to say vaguely Scottish,” I say, and he laughs. “I think I’m just not used to new people,” I admit. “Granny used to say it’s why I never wanted to leave here.”
“I doubt she’d want you to even if you did.”
I give him a dry look. “She’s been trying to get me to go for years.”
“Really?”
I nod. “I think she’s given up now. She thought I’d move away to college and never look back. She still sends me the odd job she comes across, even though she knows I never apply for any of them.”
“Jobs where?”
I shrug. “Dublin. London. Timbuktu. Anywhere but here.”
Callum grows thoughtful. “And you’ve never gone for one?”
“Nah. Too old. Plus all my friends are here,” I say. “Do you know how hard it is to make new friends as an adult? Extremely hard. I don’t want to move to a new place and be all by myself.”
“You wouldn’t be by yourself.”
“At the start, I would.”
“Not if I went with you.”
I keep my expression neutral, even as my heart skitters in my chest. “You’d go with me?”
“Why not?” he asks, as if that’s not a big deal.
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
“To Timbuktu?”
He smiles faintly. “If you asked nicely.”
“I always ask nicely. I’m very nice.”
“And that’s why you won’t have any problem making friends. Even as a wizened, geriatric twenty-eight-year-old.”
“I’m twenty-nine.”
“Ah, well, then you might have a problem.”
“Granny’s lived in this village her whole life,” I muse.
“But I guess she never had the chance to leave. She met my grandad when she was only a teenager, and they had my dad pretty young. And then she had to look after me and…” I trail off, realizing I’m heading into new territory, but when I don’t change subject, Callum picks it up.
“That first day here,” he says. “When you found out about Jack’s plans, you said your parents were gone, but I didn’t know if that was just…”
“The heat of the moment?” I ask, and he shrugs. “It wasn’t. They were in a car accident when I was kid.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.”
“And the car accident,” he continues carefully. “That’s why you got nervous in the car that time?”
I nod, and he drops his head back.
“And now I feel like an asshole.”
“You didn’t know,” I remind him. “And I’m not usually that bad. It’s better if I’m talking or distracted, but if I let myself think about it too much, I get…”
“Anxious.”
“Yeah.” I give him a weak smile. “Still want to go to Timbuktu with me?”
“I don’t mind walking.”
I look up at him, my heart doing that rapid thumpity-thump that it seems to do more and more when he’s around.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” I tell him, and then do just that.
A low, gravelly noise rumbles through him, and he starts moving, backing us toward the picnic bench, where he picks me up as if I weigh nothing at all and sits me on the table.
He doesn’t stop kissing me, and I inch forward, pressing myself against him and running my hands over the waistband of his jeans, just above where I can feel his growing desire for me.
He allows it for a few minutes until my fingers slip underneath his T-shirt and follow the trail of fine hair I find below his navel, going down down down to—
“Alright.” He pulls my hands away from his body, pinning them gently by my side. “Slow down.”
“Why?” I breathe, kissing his neck.
“Because you’re buzzed.”
“I’m not.”
“You downed two shots,” he says, and I grin against his skin. Bless his little heart.
“It’s going to take more than that to get me tipsy.”
“Seriously?”
I can hear the reluctance in his voice, so I pull back, letting him see my honest, sober self. “Seriously.”
He peers into my eyes, his expression clearing when he sees I’m telling the truth. “You’d tell me if you were?”
I nod, and reach for him, only to be blocked again.
“Stop doing that,” I groan, but he ignores me, kissing me again before he puts a hand to my chest, urging me down until I’m lying along the picnic table.
My legs dangle off the side and I take a breath, staring up at the stars as he slowly pushes them apart so he can stand comfortably in between them.
Oh.
The skirt of my dress rides up until it’s caressing my thighs and I’m pretty sure I stop breathing for a second as his hands roam upward, going all the way until gently, almost reverently, he slips his fingers underneath my underwear and slides them down my legs.
I tilt my head, chin to my chest, as I watch him pocket the pale blue cotton like that’s a completely normal thing to do and not the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me.
Oh, God. Oh God oh God oh God.
Callum smiles like he knows the exact effect he’s having on me right now and leans back over, pressing a kiss to my lips. He palms my thigh, massaging gently before inching up, and though I’m expecting it, I still jolt at the first touch of his fingers against me.
He pauses instantly. “You good?”
“Mm-hm.” It comes out like a high-pitched squeak, and I press my lips together in embarrassment as I try to relax. But I can’t do that. Not when I have Callum Dempsey standing between my legs.
“I’m not too bad with bodies, but I can’t read minds,” he says, his other hand finding mine where it’s clenched at my side. “So, you’ve gotta talk to me.”
I nod and then, when he doesn’t move, “I will.”
“You swear?”
“I swear. I don’t want to stop. I don’t want to—” I break off as he kisses me again, the pad of his thumb rubbing a slow circle into my palm.
With each sweep, the muscles in my body relax, melting bit by bit, and when he moves his other hand again, stroking down my center, I know he can feel how much I want him.
I know because he presses harder, his touch firm and sure in a way that makes my hips lift, chasing it instinctively.
The man is annoyingly good at this.
Our kisses grow increasingly uncoordinated until he pulls back, looking down at me as he rotates his wrist, applying pressure right where I need him to.
His brow furrows as he takes in my reaction, concentrating so intensely on each hitched breath I take, that it’s almost like he’s learning me, and the mere thought of that is enough to send me over the edge.
It builds slowly, an unfurling coil that then unleashes so suddenly I cry out.
Callum doesn’t stop touching me the entire time, even when I try and push him away, he stays right where he is, seeing me through it and murmuring words I can barely take in, that he’s there for me, that I’m doing so well, that I look perfect, feel perfect, am perfect.
When I finally come down, when I can open my eyes and catch my breath, it’s to find him grinning at me, his hair a complete mess from where I must have been pulling at it, and his eyes sparkling like he’s the one who just had his world rocked and not me.
“Katie?”
“Yeah?”
He leans down to peck my cheek and then my nose, before finally my lips. “Anywhere in the world,” he murmurs.
“What?” I ask, still a little breathless.
He eases back to sit beside me, his thigh pressed against mine as he laces our fingers together. “Anywhere you want to go. If you want me to, I’ll follow.”