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“Okay, no more tit talk. I am not made of boobs. I am simply a woman who is embracing herself in all her glory no matter what anyone thinks. We shall not dwell on how I look, okay? But thanks for the hot comment, Nik.”
She grinned in return.
“So what do we have planned for the day? A little oceaning, some drinking, maybe something out of the ordinary?”
“Oceaning?” asked Jason, confused.
“If you guys are okay, I was going to meet up with Siti a little later. He wants to show me some of the ‘hidden beauties’ of the island that most tourists don’t get to see.”
“Sounds like a way to get a lot of tourist booty, if you ask me,” I mused. To Jason, I said, “So, what are you thinking?”
“Um, well, I heard of this place over on Levuka where you can visit an historic site by walking up something like two hundred steps. Seems like it could be interesting. If you’re up for it, of course.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Can’t really top the zipline adventure, can you?”
“Not without at least twenty four hours notice, no.” His eyes also said, Unless you want to take me up on my earlier offer of staying in all day.
“Then I’m in.”
As Nikki got up to leave, she said, “I am sorry about last night, Gems. I’ll try not to let it happen again. It’s a good thing you had those noise canceling headphones, huh?”
Jason shot me a look. After Nikki was out of earshot, he asked, “You didn’t tell her?”
“She woke up after I snuck in. She had no idea I was even gone. And when I was about to tell her, she started giving me the third degree about ending it with Fred. I got angry and needed to calm down.”
“That explains why she didn’t say anything to me. If she’d known, she wouldn’t have shut up about it.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to keep it a secret from her. I promise I’ll tell her today.”
“I’m not mad,” he said and leaned close to me. “I just don’t want to spend another decade pretending this didn’t happen.”
A quick brush of his lips across mine filled me with warmth and an indescribable energy. For an instant, I pictured him draped in only the gauzy sheets of his bed, and a deep yearning began to grow below my navel. I was dangerously close to losing the entire day to my acutely insatiable lust. I pulled back reluctantly and said, “So, Levuka, you say?”
* * *
Not knowing the islands of Fiji very well, I had no idea that it would take a few hours to get to the tiny island of Levuka by boat, bus, and finally ferry. According to Jason, neither did he. But it was nice to see everything along the way, even if I did have to re-tie my sarong into a more appropriate cover-up for the journey. And wear shoes. I didn’t really mind, though, since I suddenly had no reason to hide my affections. We held hands, I let my head rest on his shoulder. I could not stop touching him in one way or another.
When we reached the tiny village set on the eastern beach of the island, it was nearly sunset. It felt wrong for the sun to be setting so early, but then again, I still hadn’t really adjusted to the time change here. We had a quick meal, then made our way to the site.
“So, my research on this place is a bit sparse,” Jason told me as we walked toward the site, “but apparently it’s called the 199 Steps of Mission Hill. Also, it’s allegedly a misnomer, since there aren’t actually a hundred ninety-nine steps.”
“Are there more or less?”
“Uh, my research was unclear about that. Apparently people are always too busy looking at the historical sites surrounding the steps than counting the actual steps. Lazy bastards,” he added, flashing an amused grin my way.
We passed by several historic sites on the way up. At the base of the steps was an old church with a Gothic-style stone tower on one side of it. At the top of the steps and along a path was the Mission House, the site where a man named Cakobau was proclaimed King of Fiji.
“I didn’t know there was a king of Fiji,” I said, reading the signpost.
“I think there’s been a king of just about everywhere at one point or another.”
“True.” I looked up at the sky growing purple in the east, a splash of pink and orange still glowing above the trees to the west. “It’s really starting to get dark now.”
“Yeah, we should probably get back while we still can. The boats don’t ferry people for long once it gets dark.”
We walked back along the path to the dirt clearing just above the steps, where I stopped. The view was breathtaking. We could see over the tops of all the buildings in the village, and clear out to the open ocean for days. “Whoa,” was all I could say at the sight.
“That’s amazing. I don’t think I’ve been up high enough to get a view like this since I landed.”
