Chapter Seven
CHAPTER SEVEN
Adrenaline is pumping through my body as we collect our rucksacks from lockers at the train station – I’m so glad I followed Ash’s lead and brought mine with me to Sintra instead of leaving it back in Lisbon; I’d be gutted if I didn’t have my things.
Climbing into a waiting taxi, Ash pulls out a map and shows the driver, pointing at a beach.
‘Retro,’ I tease after he’s leaned back in his seat.
He shoots me a smile that livens up the butterflies that have been residing in my stomach since the cave. ‘Get on board, Ellie. You’re off-grid now.’
I love it when he says my name.
Our rucksacks are on the seat between us and I’m glad of the separation. I need a minute.
Turns out I need half an hour, which is about how long the journey takes.
When I started seeing a counsellor in the wake of Stella’s death, it brought up other things I’d never dealt with, and my counsellor recommended that I wait until I’m in a proper relationship before getting intimate again. But what I’m feeling for Ash – it does feel like the start of something real, something permanent. The thought of it makes me breathless with hope.
We’re high up on a cliff when we catch our first glimpse of the ocean through the taxi windows, and then we wind our way down a dirt track, between tall wild grasses blowing in the wind, and come to a stop at the edge of the sand. On our left are a café and surf school that have already closed for the evening, and way over on the right is a wooden walkway with steps up to a restaurant and other buildings.
I climb out of the cab and stand for a moment, breathing in the fresh, salty air and watching clear green waves crash onto the white sand in the not-too-far distance. Suddenly I can’t wait to get in the water and wash off the dust and sweat from the day.
Behind me, I hear Ash arranging a return journey for nine o’clock in the morning. I feel a flurry of nerves at the thought of the driver not showing and stranding us here, but then I think, what’s the worst that could happen? If I miss my train, I’ll find another internet café and email Alison to let her know that I’m on a different one.
The sense of freedom I’d felt at letting my parents’ PA know that I was delayed by twenty-four hours was addictive. It’s so rare for me to choose to follow my heart, to do what I want to do rather than what’s expected of me. I could get used to this feeling.
Ash slings his rucksack over his shoulder and saunters over to me. He nods towards an outdoor shower near the wooden walkway. ‘En suite.’
I laugh and he smiles at me.
‘There are toilets there too.’ He points them out behind the café.
It’s almost six o’clock and the beach is emptying, but it still feels weird to be the only two fully dressed people walking out onto the sand. We head left, away from civilisation. On our right is the shoreline and on our other side are jagged cliffs the colour of peaches and cream.
‘Are you allowed to sleep on the beaches in Portugal?’ I ask Ash as we pass the last couple of people on this stretch of sand.
‘Um, it’s not strictly legal,’ he says.
‘What?!’
‘But I’ve had no trouble so far,’ he claims. ‘It’s not like we’re putting up tents or making a fire, and we’ll clean up after ourselves. It’ll be fine, I promise. We’re heading for those rocks.’ He lifts his chin to indicate a crop of boulders. ‘We need to stay away from the cliffs in case of rockfall, but we should be quite sheltered from the wind.’
‘What about high tide?’
‘The tide’s going out.’ He points at a line on the sand. ‘It won’t come back up past this line tonight – it’s a waxing crescent moon.’
‘What does that even mean ?’
He nods at the pale white C in the clear blue sky. ‘Yesterday that was a new moon – it rises and sets with the sun, so you don’t see it at all. When the earth, the moon and the sun line up like that, the pull of gravity is at its strongest, so the tides are more extreme. You get the same effect when it’s a full moon too, but for the next week or so, the tideline will continue to recede.’
‘I’m so clueless, it’s embarrassing. I used to think that the earth’s shadow caused the different phases of the moon. I still don’t really understand how it works.’
‘Do you want to know?’ he asks tentatively.
‘Sure.’
We’ve reached the rocky outcrop, so he drops his rucksack onto a boulder and gets down on his knees, drawing two circles a few inches apart in the sand to represent the earth and the sun. ‘Now imagine this is the moon.’ He draws a circle to the left of the earth, but a little higher. ‘Half of the moon is almost always lit by the sun.’ He draws a dotted line straight from the moon to the sun, then picks up a stone from the sand and moves it in a flat circle through the air. ‘As the moon orbits the earth, our perspective of it changes, so the only time we see the whole half that’s lit up is when it’s a full moon.’
He’s so cute right now.
‘I’d love to know more about the stars,’ I say with a smile.
‘How much time do you have?’ he asks with a grin, discarding the stone.
‘I’ve got all night.’ Did that sound flirty? ‘What about you?’ That definitely did.
‘I guess I’ve got all night too,’ he replies in a similar tone, his eyes glittering.
Heat flickers over my skin and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as his gaze darkens. He makes a low noise at the back of his throat and tugs his eyes away as he gets to his feet. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m up for a swim before dinner.’
I suspect it’s taken some effort to sound casual.
‘Definitely.’ I sure as hell need to cool down.
I face the other way while Ash gets changed into his swimming trunks and then I spend the next twenty seconds half-heartedly hunting out my costume while watching him walk, half-naked, towards the water. I’m unbuttoning my dress when he dives straight into the waves, and when he surfaces and flicks his hair out of his eyes, I let out an audible sigh.
I need to get a grip.
‘What’s the water like?’ I shout as I drag my bikini bottom on under my dress.
‘Beautiful,’ he shouts back.
He’s still facing away from me as that was our deal, but I don’t tell him when I’m ready as I’d rather be fully immersed in the water before he sees me. That plan goes out the window as soon as a wave crashes over my legs and I let out an ear-splitting scream.
‘It’s freezing!’
He looks over his shoulder, laughing. ‘You should try wild swimming in Wales. This is balmy in comparison.’
He turns around and sinks beneath the water, eyeing me as I wade in deeper.
I flinch as waves crash over my thighs, too consumed with how cold it is to worry about what I look like. He’s out past breaking point, so his body is rising and falling with the swell.
Taking a deep breath, I slip under an incoming wave, forcing myself to stay in up to my neck. My teeth are chattering as I swim out to Ash, glad to find that my feet can still touch the sand.
He’s been watching me, a small smile on his face. I’m waving my hands and arms rapidly under the water, trying to warm myself up, while his movements are languid and unhurried. We’re both moving in a slow circle, facing each other. Right now, the sun is at my back and shining on his skin. He’s golden in this light. My eyes trace the contours of his broad shoulders, the shadows under his collarbone. Even if I wasn’t gasping at the cold water, I suspect he’d take my breath away.
‘Now you’re reminding me of Ariel from The Little Mermaid ,’ he says in a low voice as I take my turn facing the sun.
‘Oh, I’m a cartoon character now, am I?’ I ask with a laugh.
Before, it was a comic-book character.
I let my hair down before I came in and I can feel it floating around my body, caressing my chest, back and upper arms. My bikini is a dark forest green and there’s not an awful lot of it. I was feeling brave when I packed it.
Ash smiles and shrugs and sinks further beneath the water so his mouth and nose are submerged. We’ve changed positions again and the sunlight is bouncing off the dazzling water onto his eyes, making them seem an even clearer, lighter brown than ever.
I mimic him. We’re a few feet apart and we’re still looking at each other, rising and falling with the waves. My body has grown used to the temperature now.
Ash comes up to breathe, but he’s still staring at me.
‘I can’t work you out,’ he says out of the blue.
‘In what way?’ I ask as I also surface for air.
‘You come across as super confident sometimes, but …’
‘The rest of the time I’m a needy people pleaser,’ I finish for him.
He frowns. ‘I’m not sure I’d put it that way.’
I like that he wants to make sense of me. ‘As you’ve probably gathered, my parents are kind of domineering. They don’t let a lot stand in their way if they want something, not even me. I’m different when I’m around them. More insecure, I guess. With Stella and my grandparents, I could be myself. They brought out the best in me.’
‘Would you say that this is the real you?’ Ash asks, lifting his chin at me.
‘This is the me I wish I was all the time.’
‘I like that,’ he says with a smile.
‘I guess you bring out the best in me too.’
We keep our eyes on each other as we start another slow circle.
‘Taran brought out the best in me,’ he admits. ‘I used to wish I’d grown up at his place, with his family. I felt so at home there.’
‘What was Taran like?’
‘ So weird,’ he says with a grin, making me laugh. ‘Seriously, he was quirky and funny, and he didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of him.’
‘He sounds like Stella.’
He smiles. ‘I wish we could all have hung out. Fuck, I miss him so much.’ The sight of his sudden agony and his eyes filling with tears has me moving towards him.
I’m not thinking as I wrap my arms around his neck, and he doesn’t hesitate to draw me close. It’s only when our bodies align under the water that I remember just how barely dressed we are. My heart is bouncing off my ribcage as I feel his sleekly muscled body flex and clench against the goosebumps shivering over my skin.
Blood rushes through my ears as he lifts his head to gaze at me, his pupils darkly dilated. One second passes, two and then three, before his mouth slowly comes down to mine in a brief, gentle kiss.
The heat left in the wake of his lips as he pulls back to study me sears through my body. And then I’m very quickly lost to sensation as our mouths reconnect, our tongues gliding together and his grip on me tightening. My legs encircle his waist and his hands hold me in place, warm and strong. He tastes of salt and spearmint and summertime. There’s not a millimetre of space between us and yet it doesn’t feel close enough. Then suddenly he breaks away.
I register the hard press of his erection only after the cold water has flooded the space between my legs.
‘Gah, sorry,’ he mutters.
My ankles are still hooked together around the backs of his thighs and his hands are on my hips, holding me inches away from him. I can feel the tension in his muscles, the restraint.
‘I thought it was too cold for that, but I underestimated my attraction to you,’ he says against my neck.
The sound of his lovely, lilting accent, his rough voice bashfully admitting that he wants me, unleashes something in me.
I strengthen my grip, using my heels to close the space between us, and as our hips reconnect, he loses whatever control he had. Our tongues lock and tangle and I realise that we’ve been moving into shallower waters as waves crash over our legs. Then he’s lowering me onto the sandy shore, and his hard body is coming down over me. We’re a tangle of limbs and lips and grinding hips and, oh shit, there are people on this beach!
Ash seems to remember this at the same time I do, because suddenly he’s lifting himself into a press-up position, bracing himself above me, his biceps bulging. We stare at each other, chests heaving, shell-shocked. His irises are almost entirely black, and I’m guessing my lips look as bee-stung as his do. He rolls away onto the sand beside me, adjusting himself beneath his swimming trunks.
‘ Fuuuuccckk ,’ he says in a low groan, dragging his hand across his face. His other hand is still trying to hide his considerable length without much success. He casts me a sheepish look. ‘Sorry. It’s been a while.’
I lean in and give him a quick kiss before saying, through a smile, ‘I might go and take a shower.’
‘Okay.’ He sits up. ‘I’ll get dinner sorted.’
There’s hardly anyone left on the beach now and no one is using the showers. I rinse myself off before walking back along the shoreline, trying to collect my scattered thoughts. Going by what’s just happened, I’m not confident I’ll be able to follow my counsellor’s advice about waiting until I’m in a proper relationship before taking things to the next level.
Would it really be so bad if we had sex? Our connection feels different to anything I’ve experienced before. There have been occasions in the past when I’ve clammed up or frozen around guys, but Ash makes me feel safe.
And if we got even closer, maybe I’d have the conviction to stand up to my parents, to keep travelling through Europe. With him.
It occurs to me that I’m depending heavily on someone I’ve only just met to help me rebuild the sense of self I lost after Stella died. I’d hoped travelling on my own would do that, allow me to know my own mind and grow my confidence, but it’s had the opposite effect. I’m disappointed in myself, knowing that without Ash there’s no way I’d even consider defying my mum and dad.
There’s a cool breeze blowing in off the ocean, but there’s still heat to the sun so my skin dries as I walk back to Ash. He’s laid his sleeping bag out on the sand, unzipped like a rug, and the picnic he’s prepared looks incredible. He went to grab some bits from a delicatessen in Sintra while I was at the internet café.
I get dressed again and comb out my hair, my thoughts still swirling.
‘Where did you go?’ Ash asks as I sit down.
From the look of apprehension on his face, I realise that he doesn’t mean geographically.
‘It bothers me that, without you, I wouldn’t feel strong enough to carry on interrailing, or go against my mum and dad,’ I admit quietly.
‘Ellie,’ he murmurs sympathetically, reaching out to take my hand. ‘It’s okay to draw strength from a friend, you know. I used to do it with Taran. I still do it with Beca. Our parents might have raised us and put a roof over our heads, but mine didn’t always make me feel that safe and secure growing up and it sounds as though yours didn’t either?’ He waits for me to nod in agreement before continuing. ‘It helped getting some independence when I went to uni, but you didn’t have that, still living at home.’
‘I feel so trapped at times,’ I admit, and suddenly it’s all spilling out. ‘I want to please them. I want to impress them and make them proud. I went to the school they wanted me to go to, I studied furniture design at the university they wanted me to attend, and soon I’ll take up my place full-time in a business I’ve been involved with part-time for years. And I’m okay with that. It might not be my first choice of career, but I’m a decent designer. I know I’ll make them money. But I just don’t think that anything I do will ever be good enough. They’re always going to want more from me.’
My eyes prick with tears and he lets go of my hand and slides both of his around my waist. I’m pulled into his lap and he wraps his arms around me, holding me close and allowing me to soak up his warmth and the feeling of someone caring enough to try to understand me.
‘I’m sorry it hasn’t been easy for you either,’ I say.
‘My mother’s fine, but my father is complicated. It’s a double-edged sword with him, though, because on the one hand I’m glad he leaves me alone in favour of my brother, but on the other it hurts that he doesn’t even seem to like me.’
I squeeze him hard. ‘ I like you,’ I whisper against his skin, my lips pressed to his neck. ‘I really, really like you.’
‘You have no fucking idea how much I like you ,’ he replies.
I close my eyes and let that sink in for a moment before saying, ‘I’m going to come travelling with you.’
He pulls away to look at me.
‘I mean it,’ I say firmly. ‘I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll meet you in Madrid next week.’
The sudden joy on his face makes my heart cartwheel. He curves his hand around the back of my neck and draws me in for a kiss, our teeth knocking together because we can’t stop smiling.
We eat and drink and kiss and talk and when we’ve finished eating and drinking we kiss and talk some more.
He tells me about Taran and how they used to camp out under the stars in a clearing in the woods near their homes, how they started when they were boys and continued right up until a couple of months before Taran’s body succumbed to his illness.
Ash was there with Taran’s parents and brother when Taran died and he watched as the last breath left his friend’s chest. He still has nightmares about it and wishes he could wipe the memory from his mind.
I kiss away his tears and assure him that one day it won’t hurt so much and he’ll be glad of the comfort he brought Taran and his family when they needed it the most.
I confess that I wish I’d been with Stella when she died, but instead she was with her boyfriend and uni friends, whom I hadn’t much cared for when I’d gone to visit. The thought of them all freaking out and not staying strong for her as she fell unconscious keeps me awake at night.
And he holds me when I cry, and kisses away my tears too.
We speak more about our parents and how when mine drink, my mum gets meaner and my dad gets louder. His parents drink on their own and socially, but rarely together.
He tells me more about Beca and how there was a weird moment just before he came away when she looked at him and he thought he saw more than friendship in her eyes. And it worried him, because he doesn’t feel that way about her. I feel both jealous of her and sorry for her at the same time, because who wouldn’t fall in love with Ash if they’d known him all their life? He’s been in my life for less than three days and I can already feel my heart loosening its grip.
As the sun dips towards the horizon, lighting up the ocean with a blazing glow, we get dressed in warmer clothing and snuggle in close, staring out over the water. I sit with my back flush to his chest, his arms wrapped around me, and he presses kisses to my cheek as we watch the colour show in the sky.
We speak about our past relationships and how neither of us has ever been in love, and when the sun disappears from sight, we use the cover of my thin sleeping bag and each other’s body heat to keep ourselves warm.
When the night sky darkens, I ask him to tell me about the stars and the planets, and I have a surreal feeling that I could listen to his voice for the rest of my life and it still wouldn’t be long enough.
Hours after the earth has rotated away from the moon and our faces are lit only by the light of distant suns, we stare at each other, finally lost for words.
He reaches for me at the same moment I reach for him, but this time our kiss is slower and more intimate. I feel as though I’m pouring myself into it. I want him to take my heart, my soul, all of me. I want to give myself to him, emotionally and physically.
I know that I tend towards overthinking, but when the voice inside my head cautions against rushing into things, I shut it down. I trust Ash, and I want this.
As I move on top of him, I make my intentions clear. His hands cut a slow path down my waist, hips and thighs, tucking me against him. We’re still fully clothed, but I can feel that he’s already exactly where I want him and the low moan that emits from his throat is the biggest turn-on of my life. We begin to rock together, the need, the desire growing in intensity. Our kisses have become deeper and more demanding and I am so ready for him, so close to exploding, that I can barely find the words to ask if he has any protection.
‘Are you sure?’ he whispers once he’s hunted out a little foil packet from an inside pocket of his rucksack.
‘So sure,’ I whisper back.
He unzips my hoodie and slides it off my shoulders while I unbutton his shirt. He moves to tackle the much smaller buttons on my dress and as our hands clash and get in the way of each other, we laugh and see to ourselves.
All our amusement dies once we’re fully undressed. His eyes are glinting in the starlight and goosebumps chase the path of his hands over my skin as he pulls me onto him. I feel weightless and grounded at the same time, like I’m floating in the ether and yet connected to the earth and to Ash in a way that feels deeply profound.
Neither of us lasts long, and as the sound of our breathy moans pierce the darkness, I know with acute certainty that I’ll remember this night forever.