The touch of him and the taste of him was exactly as I remembered it. Sam had been the boy at the beach hut who had delivered my first unforgettable and never since matched kiss, not Joe. Sam had made my legs shake then and he was doing it again, only now with double the intensity. So, I hadn’t embellished this memory or woven it into an improbable fantasy, I had simply kissed the wrong man before and that was what made me think that I had, but now I had found the right one.
Lost in the moment, soft, slow, sweet and tender kisses rained down, before gathering in passion and purpose. This latest development was a brand-new addition and goodness only knows what we would have ended up doing were we not on the beach, at the party, just a stone’s throw from where other people were sitting, including Hope . . .
I was the one who stopped, and quite suddenly once the thought of Hope spotting us had popped into my head. I looked over to the group but no one was taking any notice of us and thankfully I couldn’t see my friend among them.
‘Tess,’ Sam murmured seductively, his voice thick as he dipped his head to kiss me again.
As much as my body yearned to reciprocate, as tempted as I was, I couldn’t let the magical moment carry on and I turned my head slightly away, but that didn’t help at all because he then began to caress and kiss my collarbone. Tiny kisses which blazed a trail and lit up every erogenous zone in my body, some of which, until that moment, I had no idea even existed.
We had decided not to have f ireworks at the party but my libido was experiencing the biggest display. The rockets launching in my loins far outshone those which lit up the midnight sky over the Thames every New Year’s Eve.
‘Sam,’ I managed to gasp, ‘stop. Please stop.’
He pulled back and looked down at me, pinning me to the spot with those green eyes that I had always found so intoxicating. His pupils were massively dilated and I realized now it was little wonder that I had felt that magnetic pull towards him from the very first second I had seen him.
I might not have been aware of it, but the universe had known he was the answer to a question which hadn’t even existed when I first arrived in Wynmouth. I didn’t know how it had happened, why Sam and Joe had switched down at the huts, or why I couldn’t remember Sam at all, but it had. For some reason they had swapped places; Sam had delivered that all-consuming first kiss and I had just been treated to a toe-tingling, mind-blowing second performance. Only now the boy was a man and he was the boyfriend of someone I had come to consider a very great friend.
It pained me to think that I could never kiss him again, but at least now I knew that there was one thing about Wynmouth that hadn’t changed. That kiss had been every bit as amazing as I had remembered and that had to be worth celebrating.
‘I’m going to get another drink,’ I said, tearing my eyes away from Sam’s handsome face and looking back to where the fire was burning like a bright beacon of hope. ‘Do you want one?’
I broke away from him and the chilly air which pushed its way between us made me shiver. Locked together we had generated enough heat to rival the log burner in the cottage, but now it was gone.
‘No,’ said Sam, shaking his head as his eyes followed my progress back up the beach, ‘not for me, thanks. I’ve had enough.’
I hadn’t. In fact, by the time I had taken the short walk back to the revellers I felt ready to indulge in at least another half a dozen measures of the stuff. I took a clean cup from the stack.
‘Any chance of some more rum?’ I asked the guy currently in charge of the ladle.
What happened after that soon became hazy. I was fairly certain another cup full followed it, and there might have been another after that. I was pretty certain there had been music and then dancing because everyone got a second wind as the moon appeared, bright, theatrical and full, above the horizon.
I know I looked for Sam and Hope among the happy throng who were partying with abandon, but finding neither, I carried on without them. Some time after midnight, I was struggling to remember what it was that we had all come down to the beach to celebrate and when I eventually settled on the sand under a blanket that wasn’t quite thick enough and gazed up at the stars, I found the sky was spinning, and when I closed my eyes, it whirled all the faster.
*
When I woke again, just a few short hours later, it was already beginning to get light and I could feel the blanket I had fallen asleep wrapped up in had left a haphazard imprint down the left side of my face. I was freezing cold and my body ached almost as badly as my head. Although not quite. My head seemed to be the real problem, or so I thought until I sat up and felt my stomach churn.
Gingerly, and as quietly as I could, I shakily stood, carefully stepping over the half a dozen or so other partygoers who had also opted to sleep under the stars and were still out for the count. From the little I could remember, we hadn’t ended up identifying the constellations, as had been the original plan, but we had had fun nonetheless. I also thought I had, at some point, been intent on celebrating something, but whether that was the solstice or something else entirely, I had no idea.
I steadily walked back along the beach and up the lane to the cottage. I trod lightly, feeling like I was taking the walk of shame, turning up on the doorstep in last night’s party gear, but I’d done nothing to be ashamed of, had I? After the classic painkiller, caffeine and dry toast combo, I took myself off to bed, barely registering when the letterbox rattled as my head hit the pillow and only coming back to life much later.
The letterbox had rattled courtesy of a note shoved through it from Joe. He said that he hoped everyone had enjoyed the party, that he was sorry to have missed it, that maybe he would be able to manage it next year if he was invited and then issued me with an invitation of my own.
With harvest waiting in the wings, I’m going to be around even less, so I was wondering if you would like to come to the farm for a tour of the place and then stay and have a meal with me, Charlie and Bruce after?
My curiosity about the farm had been piqued for ages, so I was keen to accept and, if I played my cards right, I might even be able to use my visit to work out how I could, discreetly of course, help Hope get Joe and Sam back on even friendlier terms. I didn’t know why, but I had the strangest feeling that I owed Hope a massive favour.
*
Later that day, when the world had stopped spinning and I had managed to cram enough carbs to stop my legs shaking, I walked slowly up to the pub.
‘Hey,’ I said, slowly raising my hand in greeting when I spotted Hope and Sam together behind the bar.
‘Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?’ Hope grinned, taking in my ashen complexion and Jackie O shades.
‘Don’t,’ I said, not daring to shake my head.
‘Feeling rough?’
‘Just a smidge,’ I told her, ‘and I’ve come to apologize.’
‘Oh,’ Hope giggled. ‘What for exactly?’
Sam was staring at me with the strangest expression on his face.
‘Yes, Tess,’ he said. ‘What for?’
Now he was looking at me like that, I wasn’t sure exactly what I was apologizing for, but I knew I needed to say sorry for not helping with the morning-after mess.
‘Well,’ I began, slowly removing my sunglasses now I was safely inside the pub which was always a little on the dark side. ‘Not helping with the tidy-up, for starters. As part of the party task force, I should have been around to help out, but instead I’ve been cowering under the duvet with the world’s worst hangover.’