Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
MORGAN
C an I blame the heat for that interaction with Rhys?
He was right. He is right. We can’t. Ethan being caught can’t come quick enough. Then I can go back and get my life back on track.
“Morgan.”
“I just want to get back.” I start to dry myself off but pause when he gets out of the water, hating myself for the way I watch the rivulets of water run down his body. His chest has a smattering of hair, that I’m not mad about. I follow the trail of hair until it disappears into his pants.
What am I doing? I turn around. If I can’t see him, I can’t, well, see him. But I fear the image is burnt into my mind’s eye.
Wank-bank material.
I bend to put my shorts back on. A groan from Rhys has butterflies erupting in my stomach while my pussy pulses with need.
Perfect. It’s just because I haven’t had an orgasm since… since I rode his thigh. My face involuntary sc runches as I cringe at the memory. It’s not a bad memory, the opposite really. It’s just that I’ve never done anything like that, let alone on my brother’s best friends thigh.
“What’s with the face?”
I feel the heat of the blush that creeps up my chest and rests on my cheeks, “Ah, nothing.”
Shrugging, Rhys puts his shoes on and waits for me. Right, shoes.
Once I have them on, we start back.
I turn to say something to Rhys when his arms wrap around my waist.
“Hey!” I shout in protest.
“Snake.”
I turn around in time as the snake slithers across the path and into the shrub. My heart rate skyrockets, and I can’t catch my breath while my stomach falls to the pits of my body.
“Well, that got the blood pumping.” He chuckles.
“Oh, did it? Did me almost stepping on a snake get your blood pumping?”
“It wouldn’t have done much damage.”
“Really?”
“Well, no, it was a brown snake. They’re pretty fucking venomous.”
I just stare at him.
Once again, he shrugs, steps around me, and proceeds in the direction of the camp site.
“Hey, don’t leave me.”
After about thirty minutes we can see the car and swags. Looks like Davis and Beau have set everything up.
“I haven’t been camping since your grandpa took us. ”
“You mean since he took Shane and I, and you pitched a fucking fit until we let you join us.”
I raise my head high and pull my shoulders back, feeling proud about that memory. I strut past him, making sure to add some extra sway, because fuck him. “Exactly, that time.”
When I round the car, I freeze mid step. Beau and Davis are making out like teenagers, while Beau’s hand is wrapped around Davis’ exposed cock. I let out a little squeak, turn on my heels and leave while apologising.
Rhys catches up and asks “What?”
“Davis and Beau are… having a moment.”
Rhys rolls his eyes and walks past me. “Put his cock away, I want to cook this barbeque.”
“Fuck off.” Davis calls back.
Rhys ignores them and rounds the back of the car getting everything he needs, while I stand at least twenty metres away.
I can hear a grunt that tapers off into a groan. I guess Davis came. Still, I give it a minute or so before approaching.
When I reach Rhys, Davis and Beau also round the corner. Beau licks his hand and hums. I stare with my mouth agape, but when they look at me, I look at my feet and blush.
“Never seen a man wank another man?”
“Ah, no that would be a first.” I tell the group, “I can’t believe you guys kept going with Rhys there.”
“You think that’s the first time I’ve heard or seen them?” Rhys deadpans.
“I guess not. Hang on, they just have sex wherever?” There’s a long pause; they aren’t telling me something. “What?”
Rhys seems to be the one to break the silence, “Beau and Davis used to live in my house. ”
“Why move?” Again, the silence stretches on and that’s when it dawns on me. “Oh, because of me.” I look down at my feet. I uprooted their lives. Not just Rhys’s. Davis and Beau’s. Molly and Brent’s. All for what? Because I have a crazy ex?
“Don’t do that.” Rhys’s voice cuts through my downward spiral. I raise my eyes to look at him. But it’s Davis who speaks next.
“We were happy to.”
I mindlessly nod, playing over every interaction since I’ve been here. “I thought you said you didn’t tell them?” My voice has an edge to it.
“When the boss tells us to move, we don’t question it.”
“Brent being the boss, not this dickhead.” Beau nudges his head to the side to signal he was talking about Rhys.
Rhys ignores Beau completely and looks towards me. “I just wanted you to have space where you felt comfortable, and more importantly, safe.”
Tears prick my eyes. He thought of me, my safety and comfort. He thought of me more than just a victim or just Shane’s little sister. He thought of me as a person. My voice is soft, but he hears me. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Things have turned serious, and I want desperately to move on from it, so I turn my attention to Davis. “So, ah Davis, how’s the wound? Need it re-dressed?”
“Beau did that.”
I nod, and we shift to awkward small talk as Rhys cooks up a dozen sausages and a few steaks. He grabs some paper plates and throws a steak and three sausages on each. That’s a lot of meat. Digging through the esky, I look for a salad. Doesn’t even have to be a salad. Just bits of a salad .
Rhys watches me for a hot minute before asking “What are you looking for?”
“Um, a salad. Or a tomato or cucumber. Something that isn’t just meat.”
“Yeah, Cook asked if we wanted something like that, but I said nah.”
It takes me a minute to process what he said, then looking at him dumbfounded and I question. “Nah?”
“Yep.” He takes his paper plate and walks over to sit where Beau and Davis are.
I roll my lips over my teeth and into my mouth and bite down on them, letting them slowly free. It’s fine, I don’t need a salad, or vegetables or fruit. I can be one of the guys tonight. Sitting down at our makeshift camp site, Rhys decides to poke. “Right there, Princess?”
“Peachie.”
They all chat about bullshit I have no interest in. Fishing, cattle, car parts. Blah blah blah . I completely zone out chewing on a sausage, until I hear my name.
“Hmm?”
Davis speaks. “I saw you brought your sketchpad.”
I haven’t opened it since we’ve been here, but it is currently resting next to me. “Oh, yeah. Yep.”
“You good?”
“Ha, nah I just like to muck around when I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed.”
Rhys doesn’t like that answer apparently. “She’s good.”
“There was a girl in my year at our school, Dorothy. She was amazing.” I think she got one of her pieces in a gallery.
Rhys, not being able to let it go. “Learn to take a compliment.”
“Learn to shut the fuck up. ”
“Say, yes Davis, I can draw and I’m pretty good.”
“No.” I wish he would fucking drop it.
“Say it.”
I don’t reply, I just glare at him. Davis and Beau’s eyes bounce between the two of us. I bet Davis regrets asking now.
“Have some confidence.”
“Drop fucking dead.” I snap back.
“Only in your dreams.”
“Oh, don’t you worry, you do.”
The cocky asshole smirks at me, “So, you dream about me?”
I hate him. “Nightmares, more like it.” I cross my arms finishing this conversation.
Beau butts in, “Well, you two are a delight to be around.”
An awkward silence settles over us.
I get up, but Rhys, naturally, has an opinion. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going for a walk.” I say as if it isn’t obvious.
But before I can take a step Rhys is telling me what I can and can’t do. Again. “No, you’re not.”
“You can’t keep telling me what to do,”
“In this case I can. You don’t know the area, it’s on dusk, and you’ve almost stepped on a snake once today. So, no.”
“I’ll go with her.” Davis stands and walks with me. I notice he grabs my sketchpad as well. But I don’t say anything, I kind of want to see what he has to say.
Beau catches Davis’s wrist. “I already had to repatch you today, want to think on it?”
“Patch me up again then.” Davis winks at him, and I think that’s the most emotion I have seen him give.
We don’t go terribly far .
We find some picnic tables, and sit either side, facing each other. Davis passes me my book, “Show me?”
“Why?”
“My sister used to draw, and I miss her showing them off.”
I don’t miss that he said used to.
I open to the first page and turn to show him. It’s the first one I drew when I got up here. Again, I don’t say anything. I just flick through the pages. The last one isn’t finished. It’s just a Banksia; you’d think that would be easy. But it has lots of bristles and texture.
“Rhys is right. You’re good.”
Groaning, “Not you, too.”
“My sister was in a similar situation to you. She wasn’t so lucky?—”
I suck in a breath of air.
“Cops didn’t help, fucking useless. I was up here and didn’t know the true extent.
None of us did. She was only allowed to see or talk to mum, supervised.
He was a real piece of work. I got her away once, but he had her so conditioned, she went back.
I was planning a trip to visit home. Bought the ticket and everything.
I was planning on dragging her up here with me, to put some distance between them.
But two days before the flight I got a call from my mum.
Well Brent got the call; we were out checking the cattle.
When I got back...” He chokes on his words.
“You don’t have to finish.”
“It’s okay. Honestly, I think I knew on some level. All day I was feeling off. My head was foggy, and I had what I thought was heartburn. Brent was waiting for us at the sheds, which never means good news. Last time he was waiting for us, we had fucked up massively. ”
Davis pauses to let out a small chuckle, he shakes his head then continues.