I was going to say something—snap at him for the little cheeky insult, but when his thumbs hooked the band of my panties and pulled, I lost every thought in my mind.
I was suddenly conscious of the cool breeze as he pulled my panties down and exposed me fully. The wild wind coming in from the sea rose and whipped my hair across my face as he smiled at me, took my hand and led me down to the rocky beach.
The rocks stuck into my soft feet, somehow making me feel even more alive than I already did, and when the waves swelled across my toes, I cried out with excitement and shock.
“Wow, that’s cold!”
“Come on, duchess,” Jay teased. “You’ve crawled in the dirt but never swam in the sea?”
“What is this duchess nonsense?” I quipped back.
“It seems fitting,” he replied. “Or would you prefer princess?”
“I’d prefer Rachel.”
“Okay, Duchess Rachel,” he smirked. I was going to reply but there was no time. Jay snatched me into his arms and raced into the waves. Freezing spray splashed against my butt and the backs of my legs, and just as I was about to cry out, Jay fell backwards, clutching me in his arms, submersing us both in the chilling waves.
“Oh my god!” I screamed as we surfaced. “It’s freezing!”
“Just be glad you don’t have boy parts,” he laughed.
I laughed, splashed the dreamy boy with water and we swam together until the sun fell beyond the horizon and it was too dark to see. We made our way back to land and got dressed, crawled back through the hedge of wild roses and held hands as Jay accompanied me back to my car.
“I—I want to,” I told him. “I just need time…”
“That’s fine, duchess,” Jay replied. “Whenever you’re ready. I’m not going anywhere.”
But that was a lie.
I smiled, kissed Jay and let him hold me in his arms before getting back in my car and driving home. But when I came back the next day, he wasn’t there.
Or the next day, or the next day or the next. In fact, that was the last time I saw Jay.
Sometimes I’d lie in bed at night and wonder if I’d imagined the whole thing. I’d tell myself to forget about him—that he was gone and never coming back—but then I’d dream about that night and all those emotions would come racing back again and I’d wake up in the morning with tears streaming down my face, wondering where the man who’d stolen my heart had gone.
Chapter Three
Rachel
Five Years Later…
“Honey, I like the blue,” my mother said with the tone that made me feel more like a show pony than a person. “What do you think, John?”
My father, who was sitting in a chair in the corner of the dressing room reading the Wall Street Journal, looked up over its pages and shrugged.
“Susan, you know you shouldn’t ask me that kind of question. Fashion is not my thing.”
“This isn’t fashion, John,” my mother snapped. “This is color. Caleb, what do you think?”
Caleb, my husband-to-be, looked over from whatever he was doing on his phone and nodded.
“I like the blue.”
“Green it is then,” my mother settled, setting the blue brooch aside and picking up the soft green one and pinning it to my wedding dress just below my right collarbone.
“Isn’t it bad luck for the husband to see the bride before the wedding?” I asked.
“Luck and superstition are for the masses,” Caleb scoffed. “We make our own luck.”