Your Kiss Is Like the Sweetest Fire

Jaime and Renee--a brother and sister by adoption but still believing they are related by blood…their father a borderline sexual predator…their mother an obsessive/compulsive control freak. Events and emotions drive Jamie and Renee closer and closer to each other…Renee beginning to realize that she and Jaime were adopted…a sudden surge of sexual desire in a teenage romance…a walk to the old mill pond in the twilight…a long kiss as the moon rises on the far shore. Excerpt: That first time! It had all begun while they were walking along a street near their house, talking in a secret language that only they could understand—sometimes, Renee would lean over and whisper into his ear as if she were telling him the world's greatest secret. She had always done that, practically from day one, but this time it was different. At first, he thought it was because they had hardly ever walked at this time of night before—and what a night it was! A warm and wild twilight in early May, with the strange whisperings of a gentle southern wind that made the new spring leaves rustle around with all their ghostly intimations. She had wanted to cut off the road and walk down to the old mill pond where they had so often hung out together. He wasn't thinking about anything at all, not yet anyways, as they drifted along with the wind, the whispering wind. As usual, she was walking in front of him and leading the way—just the most intense, determined person he had ever met. But tonight, there was something else in the air, something sweet—later, he could remember saying to himself that "it was something like forever." Only two young fools like themselves would walk down to the pond at this time of night. Lucky that the moon was full because by the time they reached there, it was so dark that they wouldn't have been able to see two feet in front of them. She told him she wanted to sit on the bench they always sat on when they came to this place--it was their special place in the world, the place where they always spoke their truest thoughts, the place where nobody existed outside of themselves. As twilight turned into night, he began to feel spooked because he knew that she was leading him to a lot more than a bench by a pond. It was the first time he had ever felt sexually attracted to her, but even so, it seemed like he was being dragged into it. Dragged was hardly the right word, and he probably only used it to cover up the fact that what they were doing was really wrong. He should never be thinking this way…he should just tell her that it was too dark and they should go back home. But it was a little too late for that—she had taken his hand in hers and was leading him down the path that led to the bench, the path that led to forever. The night before, she had told him that they lived in a world where no one really understood them or knew what was running through their hearts. But tonight, he was hoping that even she wouldn't be able to sense what was running through his heart. Not good—not good at all. Because he knew for an absolute fact that they were approaching a line they definitely shouldn't cross. But…if, God forbid, it did happen, then that meant that not only was he wrong, but also, she would have to be wrong. She couldn't be wrong—not when it came to something like this. And also, it would mean that this strange swirling wind on this night of the full moon would have to be wrong. And if everything was wrong and he was being led into a wrong thing, a terribly wrong thing, then it must be that he was just fated to be doomed or something. Because no one in their right mind would let them get away with this. Somehow or other, the truth would come out, and when it did…