Page 41 of Lipstick Kiss

“I am wounded,” Luke replied.

He’d slaved over the noodle soup, practising several times before he was happy with the taste. It was Jason’s handwritten recipe, but Luke had bought the ingredients and made the chicken noodle soup.

“You made this?” she asked with a groan, her eyes half closing.

The sound alone had his dick paying attention, added with the first signs of an orgasm heightening. He was lost, mesmerised by Freya. Seeing her this way was jarring but welcome. If only she knew what she looked like when she was enjoying her food made by his hands.

“Yeah, do you like it?”

“It’s sensational.”

Luke wanted to punch the air, but he stayed where he was on the bench of the boat he’d taken her out on.

For the evening, he’d borrowed a boat from Keith, Jason’s best mate. Collected Freya from school and walked her home carrying her bag. She kept side-eyeing him like he was insane, but he was out to impress her. They’d driven in her buggy out to Keith’s shack to get the keys, and now they were slouched out on the benches eating chicken noodle soup.

“It’s been so long since I’ve been out on a boat. I take it for granted that it will always be an option and then never do it,” Freya said.

“Now that I’m back, I’ll make sure we take a boat out to eat dinner more often until the weather turns in late autumn.”

“Yeah, not a fan of choppy water,” she said.

Luke sat and watched Freya twist up her noodles with her chopsticks without dropping a single piece of food and eating it. She was so expert he didn’t dare try to get liquid down his shirt. He kept it safe and used a fork.

When they were finished, he took her bowl, screwed on the lid and put them in the hamper. Next, he brought out two flasks, two mugs and a plastic box. Then he lifted out a blanket and a folder. Luke was on several missions at once, so he didn’t risk looking at Freya in case he got stage fright.

He needed to show her the work he’d done with the online ancestral website. Then he needed to kiss her to see if she kissed him back.

“Come and sit down here. I’ve got something to show you,” Luke said.

He grabbed the blanket and wafted it out, so it lay in one sweeping motion. Freya clapped at his one-sweep motion and then dropped to her knees and then her hip. At anyother time, before he saw the ring on her finger, he would’ve hauled her over to sit next to him, slung an arm around her shoulders and huddled together to look at what he’d found. Now everything was awkward, even if it was only from his side. Everything was amplified.

Spring had arrived super early, which meant lighter clothing on Freya. Which was hell on earth when Luke couldn’t touch her the way he wanted to touch her. The skin flashed between her blousy top and her long skirt. Just a sliver of skin, but he wanted to trail his fingers along just to see how soft she was.

“You’ll need to get closer so we can look at my tablet screen,” he said.

Freya crawling on her hands and needs was almost the death of him. She wasn’t looking at him as she prowled to the space beside him. Freya arranged herself with her back to the bench behind them that ran the length of the boat. Luke got brave, wrapped his arm around her waist to pull her to his side, and told her to bend her knees. When she was in position, Luke mirrored her position and rested his tablet on his right leg and her left leg.

“I don’t know what to make of what I set up. There are leaves everywhere,” Luke said.

Freya moved her head to look at him, and they were inches apart, so close he could lean in and kiss her. Luke needed to save that until later on.

“What did you do?”

“I signed up to an ancestry website. You put your name in, and then parents and so on with what you know, and then they find the rest.”

“How far did you get?”

“For now, I put in my parents, grandparents and Aunt Cynthia.”

“Anything fruitful come back?”

“Not an awful lot, but you can see who lived at Turner Hall at each census. The latest shows who lived here, in 1921, and then it goes back every ten years. I thought we could map the headstones to the family tree, see who is left, and then dig around for birth and death certificates. They’re listed on here but only names. We can apply for them if any sound interesting.”

“I cannot wait to do that. Do you remember when we went hunting in the graveyard for the florins?”

“We never did find the treasure. Based on the letters I found in grandfather’s study, I still think they were in that cove.”

“We could go for another hunt. That cove is massive,” Freya said.

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