31. Lex
Chapter thirty-one
When my mother left us, it was the first time I’d ever experienced self-doubt. I’d wondered if she left because I had done something wrong. Was it something I could change?
My dad stepped up to show Dylan and me what a real family could be. That every family looked different. He loved us well, and hard enough that we barely noticed her absence.
The three of us were all we needed.
When Dad died, I had those feelings of doubt again. My mother didn’t deserve to have us, but Dad did. Why did he have to be taken? I needed him. He was the first man I’d ever loved and looked up to.
He never found another love after my mother. I don’t know if it was because he still loved her or if he didn’t want to try again because the first time didn’t work out.
He never talked about her unless we asked. His sole focus was Dylan and me.
I didn’t want that to happen to me again. That feeling of loving someone so deeply, only to have them leave me behind, feeling forgotten or discarded.
Neither Dylan nor I have ever had a long-term relationship. Dylan was at a better age to understand things when Mum left, and in all the years that passed, I don’t know if Dad confided in him more, being older, or if Dylan just made his own assumptions like I did.
As I sit in my car, parked in the driveway with silent tears running down my cheeks, I overanalyse all the paths I could take to fix what I’m feeling.
A few months ago, I was on a one-track road to moving back home and working full-time with my brother.
Now, I don’t even know if I want to go. Life feels happy in Heart City.
Until I remember the look of disappointment on Caleb’s face over the fact that I’m moving.
Not that he’s my boyfriend and I should be altering my life plans for him, but the happiness he brings alters things for me.
I look up at the house taken over by darkness and have no desire to go inside. The path just beside it, running to the ocean, is calling to me. The streetlights illuminate it as if guiding me to follow.
There was a time when I hated the ocean.
I would sit on the shore, glaring and clenching my jaw as if it would change something.
Growing up in a beach town, it becomes embedded into your day, into your way of life.
I never expected it to be the thing that eventually took my dad away from us.
He was out for his morning swim and had a heart attack, right there in the surf.
It was so early in the morning that there weren’t enough people around to get to him quick enough, and he drowned before help reached him.
It was an entire year later, when Nan and I went back to Killara Bay for Dad’s anniversary, that I stepped foot on the sand again.
I took three steps, stopped, and turned away. When I was about to cross the road, a dog came running out of nowhere and knocked me over. His owner came following behind and, after making sure I was alright, clipped the dog with his leash and ushered him away.
The dog sat there staring at me, then back at the ocean, resistant to his owner’s pull .
When the owner said, “Let’s go, Jed,” my lungs seized. I looked back at the dog, who shared my father’s name. He stayed, staring at me, and then calmly stood and walked off with his owner.
Every time feelings of doubt, fear and sadness threaten to drown me, I feel a distinct pull toward the ocean. It’s become the place I feel closest to Dad.
As I push open the car door, I know this is one of those moments I need to feel my dad around me.
I drop my handbag on the front porch, then wander down the footpath.
The crash of the waves have an instant effect on my nerves.
The cool air and the smell of salt work to relax the tension in my muscles.
I stand at the end of the path for a few moments, staring at the dark water ahead, quieting my mind so I can process my overwhelming emotions. Reaching down to untie my laces, I pull off my sneakers and leave them at the edge of the path before heading further across the sand to my usual spot.
Everything in me freezes when I notice a figure outlined in the dark. He sits with his arms banded around his knees, black dress shoes sitting neatly beside him. His dark, wavy hair ruffles in the slight breeze.
“Caleb?”
His head whips around as soon as I say his name. He pushes to stand, brushing his sandy hands against his suit pants. His feet are bare, and the bottom of his trousers are rolled up just enough that they won’t pick up the sand as he walks.
“Lex? What are you doing out here at this time?”
He doesn’t make it all the way to me, stopping an arm’s length away, but I can still read the concern etched across his face.
I remember then that I’d spent the last thirty minutes crying and screaming. I wipe at my cheeks, hoping the darkness covers how wretched I must look.
“I just came to think,” I say. “What are you doing out here? ”
Caleb tucks his hands in his pockets. “Doing a shit job of keeping my distance,” he says.
My feet take a step closer. “Do you come here often?”
I didn’t see his car on my street when I arrived home, but I suppose I wasn’t all too concerned with my surroundings at the time.
“Will you judge me if I say yes?” The words are offered with bashful honesty, but that’s nothing short of what Caleb has always given me. His vulnerability, the admission of how I seem to affect him.
With another step, I get closer. I could reach my arms out and touch him now. But should I?
“Why do you come here?” My words are almost stolen by the breeze, but Caleb must hear them loud and clear. He takes the final steps toward me, erasing the distance.
His hand reaches up to tuck rogue strands of my hair behind my ear. Letting his hand linger against my cheek, I close my eyes and embrace his warmth.
“To feel closer to you, Siren. I wish I could understand this hold you have on me. But I also don’t care enough to fight it.”
When I open my eyes, meeting the sage green of his, I lose the fight as well. Having him as a friend for the last few weeks has been every kind of wonderful, but I can’t deny that my heart calls for more. No matter the risks.
I grab his tie and yank him down, bringing his mouth to mine.
The hand that was gentle on my cheek moves around my neck and holds me firmly in place while his lips devour mine.
Our tongues crash and our bodies collide.
I keep one hand fisted on his tie while the other finds the back of his neck, tangling in the short strands that sit there.
My fingers graze the back of his head, earning a groan of surrender from Caleb that I feel all the way down to my toes .
He bends down and with his free hand, he scoops under my arse and hoists me up against him.
I’ve never felt confident in my sexuality. I haven’t felt shy, but at the same time, I never felt like I knew what I was doing or brave enough to take charge.
With Caleb, my body is driven by instinct.
It leans into a sense of certainty. I can let go and take what I need or give in and be led by Caleb.
Because the moments in between, where I could get stuck in my head, there he is, leading the way with the demands of his body.
A perfect balance, like the ebb and flow of the tides; one takes, and one gives.
Without trying, our bodies know how to move with each other.
I let go of his tie so I can have both hands behind his head, holding him in place. My fingers claw at him, desperate to feel him against me, so close that no line can exist. No line to separate the emotions of my heart from the realities nagging in my head.
Right now, I just want to forget. Forget that I shouldn’t want this man as fiercely as I do.
“I can’t get enough of you, Lex,” Caleb whispers against my lips in between his hungry kisses.
“I hated when you left earlier,” I say, the confession making his fingers tighten where they lay against the back of my neck and thighs. “I’m trying to be smart, but you make my head feel so confused.”
He stops kissing me and rests his forehead against mine.
“I feel the same way.”
“Really?” My heartbeat thunders in my ears, and I pull back to look into his eyes.
“I’ve never had this before, Lex. This desire for someone. I need you like I need air.” He shakes his head. “Not just your body. I need your words, your attention. I need you .”
Tears gather in my eyes as my emotions overwhelm me. I just want to do what’s right for my family, but I’ve never met someone like Caleb, who constantly fights against my doubts and shatters expectations, only to build them up with action.
Fuck it.
I slip my fingers into his belt and pull.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
Making quick work before the noise in my head gets too loud, I undo his belt, button and zipper, then palm his length through his briefs.
“Lex.” I meet his eyes for just a moment before I sink my knees into the sand and pull his hard dick free.
My hand moves in a slow tease up and down his cock. He groans and puts his hand on my head, running his palm down the length of my ponytail before I feel him winding it around his fist and pulling, making my eyes meet his.
Desire is written all over his face. His mouth parts in awe, and his eyes appear glazed, as if he’s caught in a daydream.
Holding his stare, I lean forward and stick out my tongue.
I lick from root to tip. It’s a move so brazen, one I’ve never done before.
I’ve given head, but it was always to lead to sex; it wasn’t for my own pleasure.
But kneeling before Caleb, feeling how he shivers from my touch and moans in ecstasy, is empowering.
This man, who could have anyone, is, for some reason, captivated by me. When I run my tongue over him again and watch him come undone, I’m willing to believe it.
I stretch my spine and cover him completely with my mouth. Moving up and down, in tandem with my hand, I take him to the back of my throat as best I can.