“You just need to stop wobbling.” Helen laughed, standing on her paddleboard like she’d been doing it for a lifetime. While every time I tried to stand up, I fell in.
“My board is broken,” I huffed, pulling it to shallower water so I could sit on it because there was no way I was going to learn to stand up today. “How are you still dry?”
She shrugged, looking far too smug.
“Well, I think the waves are picking up… it’s getting choppy out here.” That wasn’t true. “I don’t think you’ll stay on for much longer.”
“Jax,” she warned, but I ignored her, paddling closer to her board, grabbing the end, and rocking it side to side. She screamed, putting her arms out to her sides as I shook harder. “Stop… no, I’m going to—” I saw the second she lost her balance, watching in slow motion as she slipped from the board, hitting the sea with a scream and a splash.
When she emerged, she was laughing, promising to have her revenge as she wiped the seawater from her face.
“You want some lunch?”
She opened her mouth to say something before stopping herself. “I would love some lunch.”
Pushing our boards in front of us, we made it out of the water and back onto the beach. The sun was high in the sky and the air was warm. I pulled the strap on my wetsuit, unfastening the zip at the back and pulling the top down, so it hung around my waist, before stretching my sore-from-paddling arms up over my head.
“Your tattoos are beautiful. Can I?” She pointed to the one that covered the ribs on my left side and I nodded, not sure what she was going to do. “Is this for your mum?” She ran her fingers over the large, simple cross I’d had tattooed there when I was twenty-one.
I had to calm my racing heart before I could answer her. “Kind of. The cross was for her. Dad had her cremated and, to this day, I don’t know where he spread her ashes.”
Sadness filled her eyes. “Jax, that’s awful.”
“The flowers I added over the years. I like the fact I’m still honouring her memory and hopefully, she’s somewhere good, where she knows how much I loved her.”
Her hand splayed across the bright blooms that climbed and clung to the cross, making my nerve endings explode from her touch. “That’s beautiful. I’m sure she knows.”
Tears clogged my throat. I’d not talked about Mum in such a long time that the words felt alien.
“And the butterflies?”
I glanced down at the colourful wings that covered every inch of my arm from my shoulder to my wrist. “Because sometimes I need a reminder that even the shittiest situations lead to beautiful outcomes.” Feeling like this moment was getting too heavy, and I was likely to spill my secrets to Helen because she was so easy to talk to, I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Enough about my ink. Let me go, grab the food. Stay here and dry off.”
I paused just before I got to the car park, sucking in a breath, because Helen had me unravelling and I knew how dangerous that was. No matter how I felt about her or how much I wanted her, protecting my past and staying in control had to remain at the forefront of my mind. Because she would never want me… in fact, no one would, if they knew the truth.
After catching up with Tor for a few minutes, I carried the cooler full of food back to our little area. I let out a loud groan when I found Helen dressed in a navy blue one-piece swimsuit. Halterneck, with a low-cut front, it hugged her curves in all the best ways. Her face was tilted up to the sun, her eyes closed as she towel-dried her now wavy hair. She looked carefree. Happy. And the fact I’d made her look like that sent a pulse of pleasure to my cock, making me glad it was still trapped behind the tight neoprene of my wetsuit.
Turning, she paused, obviously panicking that I was seeing her like this. Just like she had in the water, she opened her mouth to say something that I guessed was a scathing insult about herself or an apology for not being covered up, but again, she stopped.
I stepped closer and her hands fell to her sides. Lifting a lock of her hair between my fingers, I twisted it before letting it go. “I like this look on you.”
She shook her head. “I’ve been straightening my hair for forever.”
“Well, you look beautiful either way.” A familiar blush flooded her cheeks.
“Lunch?” She pointed at the large paper bag in my hand.
“You like seafood, don’t you?”
She pulled a face. “No, I’m allergic.”
I let out a gasp. “Shit, I didn’t even think… I’m so—”
She laughed. “I’m joking. I love it. Come on, let’s eat. All that excellent balancing I did made me hungry.”
Helen insisted she clear away our trash while I laid back, stuffed, warm from the sun, and more content than I’d felt… well, ever. I’d been hard around her all day and the thought of kissing her was now tap dancing around inside my head, refusing to let me ignore it any longer. Helen lay next to me, still only wearing her swimsuit.
I didn’t know how Tor had managed it, but he’d found us a part of the bay that no one seemed to come anywhere near, so it felt like Helen and I were in our own corner of the world and right now, that wasn’t helping my need for a taste of her.