Chapter 14: All in

Dalon

After four hours of walking through the woods, Rejena taking photos of every possible thing she can, including myself and a few of us together, we finally make it to the river she had been swimming in yesterday. With the heat and the constant movement, the river sounded like a dream, and I didn’t bother to hide like Rejena felt the need to do when I changed into my swim shorts. You only live once, right? I tried not to turn around after I got dressed, trying to give her the time and privacy she needed, but I turned around, hoping to even get just a glimpse of her. What I didn’t expect was to get a front row view of her getting undressed. Her back is to me, but I don’t mind as I am an ass man.

Rejena is busy pulling on her bikini bottoms, her upper half behind the tree she was probably trying to hide behind, but doing a really bad job of. Unfortunately, I am too far away from her to see anything more than that perfect ass as she bends over to put her feet into the bikini bottoms. She slowly pulls the bottoms over her legs, taking her time to get dressed, and I wonder for a moment if she is trying to put on a show, and just acting like the shy girl because she doesn’t want to out right tell me that she wants me, but then she does this weird thing with her hands as she reaches for her top in her bag, almost like she is having a conversation with someone and using her hands to express better. She seems frustrated as she puts her hands in her hair and then sinks down into a squatting position. I realize then that she expects me to respect her privacy, and I am completely violating it by staring at her.

Feeling like a complete creep, I turn away from her and make my way into the river, hoping the cold water can help with the bottom half of my body that is clearly more than interested in Rejena, but will only give away exactly how I have betrayed her. When I step into the water, I nearly yelp as the water is freezing.

“You never just put in your toes, you know.” Rejena says from behind me, way closer than I expected her to be, and I really hope she stays behind me, or she might just see more than she signed up for with my dick practically trying to climb out of my shorts to just get a taste of her. Fuck, now I am thinking about tasting her, and that is not helping the blood pump back up to my brain.

“Oh yeah, and how would you do it?” I ask her, trying really hard to discreetly fix myself in a way that won’t make it completely obvious that I saw her naked.

“You simply just walk in. Don’t give yourself a moment to second guess it. The moment you give yourself the option to back out, that is when you make mistakes. You either commit to it, or you take the safe route. You can’t start the one and then decide to go with the other.” She says before she walks past me and right into the river before she dips in, going head under in the freezing water. There isn’t a gasp or a slight bit of hesitation. Is this woman freaken nuts?

“Screw it.” If she can be a bit crazy, then so can I. Besides, I have never been one to back out of a challenge. I take a few steps back and then I sprint into the river, admittedly screaming a little bit when that cold water hits my very hard appendage. “Fuck!” I scream and then take a deep breath and go under. It is still freezing, but my body quickly tries to adapt to the water.

“Was that so bad?” Rejena asks when I come up for air and I glare at her.

“Oh, you are asking for it.” I warn her before I dive into the water and grab her around the waist, lifting her out of the water before throwing her back in. Her laughter fills the air until her head goes under. When she comes back up, she is spitting out water, but the smile on her face lets me know she is okay.

“You know,” She says and she slowly starts swimming closer to me. I see the red flag coming, but like a bull, I feel more attracted to that red flag than repulsed by it. “I never thought I would like being manhandled, but there is something to be said about being thrown into the air like I am nothing.” She says, and I know I should heed the warning in her voice, the mischief in her blue eyes, but I am trapped, unable to move as she places her hands around my neck. With my feet on the ground, the water comes up to my shoulders, forcing her to hold onto me while she is standing on her tippy-toes. She tilts her face to look at me, squinting her eyes slightly against the sun.

“You enjoyed being thrown into the air?” I ask her, my voice sounding breathless instead of teasing. Even in the cold, she is making me hard by simply standing against me and at this point it is embarrassing how easily she turns me on. When is the last time that I slept with a woman? Oh yeah, I have been too busy making an ass out of myself on the racetrack to sleep around.

“I enjoy how easily you are enchanted.” She whispers before she moves so fast that I barely get time to register what she is doing. One moment she is slightly bending down, her mouth just under the water as she looks up at me, keeping me entranced, and then my head is underwater as she kicks my feet out from under me and uses my surprise to push herself up, her hands om my shoulders as I go down with no where to grab to prevent my head from suddenly going under. I barely have enough time to open my mouth to take a breath, causing my mouth to fill with the river water.

I quickly push myself back up, only to find Rejena swimming away while she is laughing so hard that she struggles to keep her own head above water. “How does it feel to drink fish piss?” She says, effectively reminding me that rivers have fish and I freaken hate fish.

“Oh, did you have to go and fucking ruin the perfect moment?” I ask her, not completely upset, but my boner has definitely deflated.

“There isn’t a single fish in here, well at least not what I have seen. The water is too cold.” She says and I take a moment to look around. The water is clear enough that if you stand still, you can see the bottom of the river and she is right, not a single fish that the eye can see. “I saw how far you were staying away from the fish in the kitchen. Even with it packed away, you refused to even go close to it.” She says and I have to give her credit for how perceptive she is.

“You were watching me?” I ask her, trying to get my head off the fish.

“I am always watching you.” She says so softly, I am almost sure I wasn’t supposed to hear it. She dips her head back under water before I can ask her what she meant or why she sounded so sad when she said it.

After half an hour of playing like kids in the water, Rejena and I are both exhausted. I might be used to exercise and driving at ridicules speeds, but after the long walk and playing around in the water, trying to catch the other off guard, even as fit as I am, I am tired.

“I need to get back to writing. What will you be doing when we get back to the guesthouse?” Rejena asks as we get dressed. She leaves on her bikini, only pulling her tights over her bottoms and then putting her running shoes back on, not even bothering to dry off. As she did this yesterday as well, I take her lead, leaving on my swim shorts and just tuck my shirt in the back of my pants. I am getting piss cold, but the idea that she will stop looking at me with those hungry eyes, gives me the courage to leave the shirt off.

“I think after this hike, I am just going to go take a nap. How you are going to be able to stay up and write, I have no idea.” I tell her, my eyes already starting to feel heavy. I am made for late night, not early mornings.

“I wake up every morning at four to go for a run. I go to work at six in the morning and then I have to focus at work. That is probably why I can only stay up until 10pm before my body shuts down. You are more of the late-night type and wake up late. I can’t imagine that many people can be both. Imagine waking up at four and then going to bed again at 2am. That little amount of sleep is bound to drive a person crazy.” She says, and I am taken back to the night before, where she was already starting to feel exhausted by 10pm, while I still had the energy to go on for a few more hours.

“Do you ever go out at night? Or does your parties start at 6p and end at 9pm?” I ask her, hoping that she has more of a social life than her work and writing.

“I feel like we already had this conversation, or I just hate admitting what a drag I am, but I don’t have a social life. Don’t get me wrong, I love to dance, love to get out and just pretend to forget about the world, but it has been so long since I had a night out. Goodness, the last night I had gone out was a disaster. I had tried to go on a date after Collen had passed away. The guy I went out with wanted to go to a club. As much as I love dancing and blocking out the world, I just didn’t want that to be the way I got to know someone. Anyway, the dude couldn’t look me in the eye, kept talking about his life and didn’t have a single question to ask me. At some point I gave in and agreed to go to a club. This guy just kept trying to convince me he can be the best sex of my life if I will just relax a bit and allow him to show me just how good he is.” She pulls her face in disgust, and I am almost dead sure that my face has the same expression on it. Some men are really just horrible. This is why men have a bad rep, and I can’t blame women for being weary.

“What did you end up doing?” I ask, hoping she kicked him nuts.

“I went to the bathroom at 10pm, booked my Uber and then told him that I am going home, alone.” She says and even though I wish the dude had lost his balls, I am proud of her for not putting up with his shit or giving in to more of his wishes or demands.

“So, is that why you are single? Because men are idiots or because of Collen?” I ask, hating myself for pushing on that button and still unable to stop myself.

“I don’t date because I don’t have a life, Jack.” She says, no smile pulling on her lips to indicate that she is joking. “I don’t want to go on dating apps, because that just feels wrong, even if it worked for a lot of people I know, it just isn’t me. I don’t have time to go out and honestly, when I do, that is the last thing I want to do, because I would have to do it alone.” She sighs like she is frustrated and I can honestly say, I understand her a bit more now. I understand her guilt and why she has thrown herself into her work so much.

“He wasn’t just your fiancé, he was your person. He was the one you felt comfortable with, the person you went out with, the person you never felt alone with.” I state what I imagine Collen was to her. Rejena practically deflates as if she can no longer carry the weight of loss she has been carrying around.

“He was mine. Do you know how long we dated? How long we were together before he proposed? Of course not.” She slaps her head as if she was stupid for asking. “Four months all together. That is how long I had him all to myself. We knew each other for about two years before we started dating, but we had only been together four months, engaged for a week of that. I haven’t really tried dating again, because I have filled my life with studies, writing, work and my dogs. The month after he passed away, I applied for my studies, needing something to keep me busy as I couldn’t find it in myself to write romance books when I was filled with grief. I needed something to fill those moments where I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wanted to be productive.” She looks around her like she is trying to find an escape from the conversation.

“If you had the opportunity to start traveling the world, would you take it?” I ask her, wishing that I can just come out with the truth, make all her dreams come true by taking her with me to races. It would be great to finally have someone of my own supporting me. Most of the guys have their women waiting for them at every race. As much as I love my parents, I would love to have someone that I can call my own, waiting for me at the end of the line.

“If you asked me tow months ago, I would’ve looked for every reason not to do it, but after I realized how stuck I have become, how I have stopped feeding that inner child of mine, I would give it all up to travel the world. Well, not my dogs. They would have to travel with me as often as possible, but the rest? I wouldn’t even think twice about it.” She says and my internal battle begins. Maybe I can tell her the truth, but I feel like that door closed when she had told me the truth and I had still been unable to tell her who exactly I am.

“I hope that someday, you will be able to live those dreams you had as a child.” I tell her instead of coming clean, and I feel like the window for telling her become smaller and smaller by the second.

“Well, not all of them. I also wanted twelve kids.” She says and, I trip over a rock that just jumped out in front of me. The evil laughter that keeps walking ahead of me has a smile pulling on my own lips even as I look at the scrapes on my knees.