Burning Moon

by Jo Watson

  “Do you like my shirt?” he asked, doing a little turn.

  “I love it.”

  “I borrowed it from this real surfer dude, right after he showed me the scar on his leg where a shark bit him.”

  “Oohhh. Hardcore,” I said, stepping closer.

  “I figured that if we were going to make out, I should at least be wearing a clean shirt.”

  “Make out?” I burst out laughing. “I haven’t heard anyone say that since I was twelve.” I’d never laughed with anyone as much as I did with Damien.

  “So…how did you know where to find me?” I asked.

  Damien winked at me. “I’ve been watching you from a distance, Lilly.”

  A chill ran up my spine. “Really?”

  “No, not really. But it’s easy to find a celebrity. You’re the talk of the party.” He laughed again, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t ever going to live down that now-infamous photo.

  The laughter subsided and, once again, we found ourselves in yet another awkward moment. (God this was getting old.)

  Silent.

  Staring.

  Looks loaded with expectancy.

  We both knew what was coming next. It was just a question of time. Now it was about who was going to make the first move, and when.

  You know how that moment before you kiss someone for the first time can be so terribly awkward that you actually feel sick to your stomach? Well, that’s how I felt. In the silent, expectant looks I mentally screamed at him to kiss me, willing him so I wouldn’t have to make the first move. Even though I knew he wanted to kiss me, it’s human nature to be filled with just the tiniest bit of doubt that tells you if you lean in to kiss him, he’s going to pull away. (And consequently, you will die of embarrassment.)

  Then Damien walked toward me and took my hand. “Come, I want to show you something.”

  “What?”

  “I want to show you why it’s called Burning Moon.”

  Damien pulled me across the beach, through the crowds who were dancing to the hypnotic music. I hadn’t noticed it before, but there were some steps curved up the side of one of the smaller cliffs. Damien still had me by the hand and was carefully leading me up them. We reached the top and I gasped. Out loud. I felt like we were standing on the top of the world.

  The sea stretched out around us in every direction as far as the eye could see. The sun had just taken its final bow and the fat, silver moon was creeping over the horizon. I stood there in silent wonder and watched as the plump moon came into full view, but as I stared at it, I noted a subtle change in its color. The silver flushed with a warm pink.

  “What’s happening?” I turned and looked at Damien. He had the same look on his face the night he’d told me about the galaxies.

  “You’re about to see a full lunar eclipse,” he said, still staring at the moon. “And if we’re lucky, we’ll have a big blood moon tonight.” Damien turned and looked at me. “But this isn’t the best place to watch it from.” He took my hand again. “We need to get to higher ground.”

  Minutes later we were standing in a small alcove carved into the rock. It was perched on top of the cliff, only a short distance from the sheer drop into the waters below. Damien had spread a blanket out across the ground and scattered a few cushions around. He’d lit some lanterns, which drenched the walls in a warm glow.

  “Welcome to the party,” he said, ushering me into the alcove and pulling out a cushion for me to sit on.

  “So is this where you disappeared to?”

  “It’s always the first thing I do when I get to these parties.”

  “What is?” I suddenly had images of him making love nests for women.

  He smiled at me; he seemed to have this uncanny ability to know what I was thinking.

  “The main reason I come to these parties is to watch the lunar eclipse.”

  I was surprised by this revelation, especially after everything we’d been through to get here. “So every year you come to a party just to sit alone and watch the moon disappear?”

  “Basically. Some years it’s only a partial eclipse, but this year is going to be special. I told you, Lilly, I’m a bit of a nerd.”

  “You know, I think you’re the weirdest person I’ve ever met.”

  “Really? I was thinking the same thing about you.”

  “What?” I shrieked in genuine shock. “I’m about the most normal person you’ll ever meet.”

  Damien shook his head smiling, “Not a chance, Lilly. You are by far, by far, the strangest girl I’ve ever met!”

  “Oh please. How?”

  “Okay, first, I’ve never seen anyone dress like you did on that plane—”

  I cut him off quickly. “You know I had a perfectly good reason for it.”

  He continued. “Not only that, but then you somehow managed to become an Internet sensation, wearing arguably the worst pajamas ever created. And then to top it off, you are the clumsiest person I’ve ever met. You set yourself on fire, for heaven’s sake. Who does that?”

  I laughed. I couldn’t argue with that one.

  “You’re a little bundle of contradictions, because you’re also the strongest woman I know.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You made the decision to come on your honeymoon alone, that’s pretty brave. I don’t think there’re many women who could have done that.”

  Damien had said this before, but now I was starting to believe it. “And I’m very glad you did, come on your honeymoon alone…” Damien crept closer to me and I could feel the excitement churning in my stomach. He leaned in a little closer and my breathing quickened. He smiled at me. It was the sexiest, scariest, naughtiest smile I’d ever seen, and it made me shiver in the warmth of the evening air. The soft-pink light around us was changing with the moon and being whipped into a deep red. The color in the air only intensified Damien’s features and the sharp red shadows that trickled across his face made him look dangerous. Powerful.

  And then he leaned in and kissed me. The kiss was gentle at first. It was slow and soft and tender and warm. His hot breath licked my lips and made my body tremble. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me even closer, intertwining his fingers in my hair. He tasted sweet and salty, and I let out a moan as I felt his hand tighten around my waist.

  And then everything changed. As if that little breathy sound had ignited something.

  The kiss became frenzied.

  We grabbed at each other.

  Tore.

  It was chaos.

  It was hungry, angry, and frantic.

  Our lips and tongues engaged in a kind of desperate, erotic dance that went faster and faster and faster. Speeding toward something. Toward everything.

  It was so animalistic and insatiable that I no longer felt in control.

  It was the dizziest, most erotic moment of my life.

  “Is this okay?” he whispered, in between the kissing.

  I answered by arching my body toward him, and the pace of the kiss escalated until I felt Damien bite my lip, and then everything stopped.

  He pulled away panting. I was gasping for air and my body was heaving from the exertion. I finally managed to open my eyes, and when I did, everything was red. Our bodies were painted crimson and the world looked like it was on fire. The rocks were embers. The sea was churning blood; the sky looked like it had been ripped open, exposing what lay beneath its skin. And the moon…the big red moon hung low and ripe in the sky. He smiled at me. It wasn’t a scary, sexy smile anymore. It was something else.

  Something quieter.

  Something that enveloped us in our own little world.

  And then he kissed me again. It was slow, soft, and deep. There was nothing frantic or angry or rushed about this kiss; instead it felt like we had all the time in the world. That time was standing still just for us. He ran his hands through my hair and touched the side of my face, as the kiss became even slower…

  But the slower it became, the more exquisitely
intense it became.

  The intensity overwhelmed me.

  I reached up and put my hands on the sides of his face; it was the first time I’d touched his face, and his hair felt rough against my hands. The kiss ended, and just the tips of our noses where touching. We looked at each other, our hands cupping each other’s faces.

  He looked through me.

  In that silence, not a single word was uttered, but everything was said, and I’d never felt closer to another human being before.

  The light around us had become even redder. I looked at Damien. His shirt was off, and he was bathed in the glow of the moon. He looked otherworldly, ethereal almost. The light accentuated the strong black lines of his tattoos, and I reached up and touched one. I ran my fingertips up his arm, following the lines and shapes all the way up to his wrist. When my fingers reached his wrist, he opened his hand and I ran my fingers over his palm.

  He looked at me with eyes that seemed to ask a silent question. And I understood.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  The faintest smile made the corners of his mouth twitch, and his hands went to work on my sarong. He was quick and it soon fell to the ground. He moved closer to me still, wrapping his arm around my back and tracing his fingers down the length of my spine before stopping at my bikini strap.

  I felt it loosen.

  Both of his hands went to work on the straps, which he pulled down slowly, savoring the moment and letting his fingertips run over my shoulders and down my arms as he freed me.

  A bolt of panic shot through me as my bikini top started to fall; instinctually I crossed my arms over my breasts. I felt so exposed, so naked, and suddenly crippled by shyness.

  But Damien wrapped his hands around my wrists and pulled my arms away. “I want to look at you.”

  I shut my eyes tightly, not able to look as I felt my breasts tumble free into his gentle hands.

  There was a slight breeze and the warm air caressed my nakedness.

  “Open your eyes, Lilly.” Damien’s voice was gentle yet commanding, and it gave me the courage to look at him.

  That dangerous, hungry lust was gone now. Instead, he was looking at me the same way he’d looked at the stars.

  Damien smiled at me. “You are so fucking beautiful, Lilly, and…” He looked so vulnerable right now. “…and I think, I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  And with those words, I gave myself to him. Fully. I would let him take control and do whatever he wanted to do with me.

  I felt safe and cared for and…and, I couldn’t believe he’d said it, I felt loved.

  The red light drenched us both and we melted to the ground kissing. He never stopped kissing me, not for a second, as his fingertips encircled my breasts and lightly touched my nipples. So lightly sometimes that it felt like a gentle breeze. I threw my head back as his lips left mine and worked their way down my neck to my breasts.

  I could see the moon now. And I could feel the heavy bass of the party below, as the sound pulsed around us.

  The air around us prickled my skin and I was lost in the moment.

  His hands seemed to be everywhere all at once, and I was putty in them. The speed of the kissing increased again as he ran his hand down my stomach and then pushed my legs apart. I gasped as I felt the cool air rush between my thighs. His kissing grew deeper and faster still as he pushed my legs apart even farther and in one fluid motion, was inside me.

  I could feel all of him. It was slow and deep and every movement was deliberate and purposeful.

  “Are you all right?” Our eyes met, and the fact that he was being so gentle and considerate just made me want him even more.

  So I wrapped my legs around him, bringing him closer and deeper still. I wanted him to claim me.

  Our legs and arms and lips tangled, and I no longer knew where I ended and he began.

  We moved as one.

  The thick red light started to dim and blacken as our bodies moved faster and faster to the invisible beat that controlled us.

  The shadow’s black fingers were reaching out and leading us into their darkness as the moon began to slip into the blackness.

  I could feel it rising up inside me and I knew it was totally out of my control.

  It was not something I could stop, or temper or tame.

  Damien’s breath grew faster and louder as we dipped into the blackness together.

  “Look,” Damien whispered in my ear.

  I opened my eyes just as the moon completely disappeared into the void, and everything went black.

  The darkness awakened us.

  There were no longer rules or inhibitions.

  I felt free.

  I clawed at him, grabbed and pulled.

  Our bodies writhed and thrashed and I opened my legs as wide as I could, hoping he would disappear into me.

  We were now a singular entity, and we’d both lost control.

  I threw my head back and arched my back as the sensation slammed through me, almost breaking my body in half.

  I cried out his name over and over again until it was too intense to even speak.

  The music from below grew louder and the crowd roared.

  Damien lifted my hips off the ground and pulled me onto his lap.

  He let out one long guttural moan in the darkness.

  We held on to each other, shaking.

  All I could hear was our panting and thumping hearts.

  Our bodies went limp and he lowered me gently onto the ground and collapsed on top of me.

  He put his head on my chest and I ran my hand through his sweat-drenched hair.

  “Damien, I love you.” I hadn’t even been aware that I’d said it until I heard the words. It felt so good saying them out loud. Better than it had ever felt with anyone before. It was different with Damien. This was real. Damien was real love.

  Chapter Nineteen

  A lunar eclipse can happen only if a number of variables all come together in perfect symmetry, at the perfect moment in time. The full moon passes directly behind Earth and is swallowed up by its shadow. But for this to happen, the sun, Earth, and moon have to align precisely. This is known as syzygy.

  And that’s how my relationship with Damien was. So many things had to align perfectly, at just the right place, at just the right time, and in just the right order for this moment to have happened. For this moment to even exist. Look a little closer at the seemingly disordered chaos of the past few days and a pattern emerges. A pattern that is ordered, structured, and has a singular purpose.

  Michael needed to leave me at the altar. I needed to be so distraught that I wore my pajamas onto the plane, thus attracting Damien’s attention. I needed to enter the toilet at the exact moment that he was exiting so we could bump into each other and be introduced. I needed to get sick on the plane so that I would have a reason to talk to him later at the airport when I tried to apologize. We needed to be talking together and standing at just the right place and time for security to have seen and arrested us. We needed to be arrested so that Damien would lose all his money trying to save his dignity, and so that I would offer him a place to stay for the night. The following day we needed to be at the same restaurant, at the exact same time, and he needed to have brought me to Burning Moon.

  It was all so clear now. Everything had happened exactly the way it was supposed to. Coincidence. Synchronicity. Call it what you like. But this whole time when I’d been cursing Karma for causing my life to fall apart, it was actually all coming together. I just didn’t know it…until now.

  In fact, you could say that my entire life had been orchestrated so that this moment, right here, right now, could happen.

  * * *

  The light from the sun crept toward us, bringing with it the early morning humidity. I opened my eyes and saw that Damien was up and sitting on a cushion staring at me.

  “How long have you been awake?” I mumbled, still half-asleep.

  “A while.” He smiled at me, and his fac
e looked completely different this morning. Or maybe I was looking at him through cheesy rose-tinted lenses of love. “I’ve been watching you sleep.”

  This was one of those true Hallmark moments. The soft-focus final scene in the Hollywood romance where the music swells and the characters declare their undying love for each other. It was butterflies in your stomach and a whole new world of beautiful possibilities, and the anticipation of tomorrows spent together.

  It was all that and much, much more. The night before, I’d opened myself up to him and he’d filled me with love. God, I actually blushed at that thought. It was official, people: I’d been reduced to a puddle of corny sentimentality. A whispering-of-sweet-nothings, swooning, sighing, heartbeat-quivering kind of gal. And looking at him looking at me, I could see he felt the same way.

  Big sigh.

  “What are you thinking about?” I asked as the staring intensified.

  And, oh my God, Damien blushed.

  “Now I have to know what you’re thinking,” I said, perking up.

  The blush again. “Honestly, I feel a bit overwhelmed actually. Probably like someone who suddenly finds out they won the lotto or something. It almost feels too good to be true and it’s all happened so quickly. This has never happened to me before.”

  “Me neither.” Now it was my turn to blush. “I…I…also feel the same way,” I managed to stutter.

  “I’m glad,” he said with a smile that lit up his whole face.

  “So, Lilly, what to do today?”

  “What is there to do?” I said, holding my hand over my mouth for fear of morning breath.

  “There’s usually a big breakfast, followed by some more swimming, more partying, some more partying, and then a little more.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  But then his eyes suddenly darkened. “You’re so sexy in the morning, I think I’m going to have to do something with you first, though.”

  I was suddenly a coy schoolgirl. “What are you going to do with me?”

  “Everything. Absolutely everything I can think of.”

  He leaned over me and pushed me into the hard ground. He wasted no time and I felt his hands move down my body, pushing my legs apart. I gasped as he moved aside my bikini bottom and touched me. I surrendered to the feelings. Michael and I had done all this before, but never with the same kind of physical intensity I was experiencing now. Damien knew what he was doing, and with only the soft touch of his fingers, he broke me in half again. But this time I felt more comfortable with him, and all the shyness and modesty I once possessed were gone. My sexuality had lain dormant up until this moment, and it felt like Damien had turned on a tap that was not going to be closing anytime soon. I wanted him to show me and teach me everything I didn’t know. I wanted it all.