Brave Enough To Love Again

Chapter 12

Keane

By the time we were almost at the restaurant, after our walk on the beach, I started to doubt my decision to just be friends with Eden. Her reaction to my half naked body earlier and mine to her in my shirt wasn't normal friends only behavior. I couldn't explain my sudden change in attitude towards her. I gave her a flower just because I felt like it and I thought it would conjure a smile in her face.

Those gestures belonged to the old me, to the time before the cancellation of my wedding. I was surprised about myself, not really sure if it was a good or a bad change in me. Furthermore, I realized that her presence had awoken my hunger for physical intimacy. My libido had been in a slumber for a while and she was the one who more and more whet my appetite.

Thoughts of us in hot embrace, kissing and engaging in intercourse were images that had been popping in my head constantly and increasingly since our steamy make out session in my apartment. I had to make sure I didn't get too close to her because a regular hard on was becoming more and more of a bother. I needed a release as soon as possible.

Walking hand in hand with her on the beach, my gaze checking her up and down, I was happily enjoying the view from above. Her ample bosom, her whole delectable body was blocking the blood stream to my head because it was instead directed downwards to my very eager male friend. I remembered the softness of her breast in my hand and I began to salivate.

I had stop myself. I needed a distraction.

Looking around the sea shore, a memory of my mother and me as a little boy picking up shells for our collection appeared in my head. It made me smile. This place would forever hold a very special place in my heart. The sound, the smell and the feeling of the sun and wind on my skin had been engraved in my brain. From then on, memories of Eden and me, pleasant moments will be added to those I treasured with my mother.

It felt familiar and comforting, strolling the same paths I had passed numerous times with my mother, with her.

When she asked me about living in the cabin, I could have kept my reply brief. I didn't have to tell her so much after only knowing her for such a short time. But I just couldn't stop myself. The words kept coming out of my mouth like a breach in a dam which was my self-restraint that I had erected to keep people away, from getting too close.

I found out the hard way that opening up to people and telling them too much about yourself was like giving them ammunition to hurt you. They could and would misuse that knowledge against you given the right circumstances.

But with her I felt safe.

Was it my gut instinct or my witnessing the pain and fear in her eyes, that revealed that she had been hurt too, telling me that she was trustworthy? I really didn't know what caused me to tell her all of those things about me.

After seeing her reaction, I felt the knot in my gut that began to tie up in anticipation of her response to my past, disentangle. Her tears caught me off guard, each drop pricked at my heart like tiny needles. I disliked seeing someone cry especially women I care about.

It didn't happen very often, but whenever I saw my mother cry, I couldn't stand it. She used to cry whenever she thought I wasn't around. I watched her through the window a few times, and once I came to comfort her, she just wiped her tears away and plastered a forced smile on her face. The reason for her tears were always the thoughts about my father who died before I was even born. She couldn't bring herself to talk to me about him, and I didn't push her because of her heart problems. I knew nothing at all about my father. Not how he looked like. Nothing. There was no trace that led to him.