Jacinda closed the laptop and shut her eyes. She’d worked late enough, and these chapters were turning out even harder to write than she’d thought. She looked at Velvet, snug in her cat bed, surrounded by sleepy kittens, and wished she could shrink down and hide in there with them, warm, purring, and oblivious to the world. Then Velvet looked up, suddenly alert—and a second later, there was a knock at the door.
“Good ears,” Jacinda told her, getting up from the sofa. Maybe it was Riley, stopping in after closing at Clarion Call. She wondered if Kerry or Jess had mentioned the incident last night. Jess’s blunt, revealing comment still echoed in her head. He obviously couldn’t live without you after you disappeared like that.
She opened the door, and her heart twisted in her chest. Liam.
“Jacinda.”
The rasp in his voice hit her low in the belly. A slow, dangerous burn. Oh, God. She put a hand on her hip. “What?”
“I…” He passed a hand over his face, where stubble darkened his jaw. There was a matching darkness in his eyes, and whiskey sweetness on his breath.
“You what?”
He stood on the threshold, wavering, not meeting her eye. Finally she grabbed his arm and pulled him through the door. “For God’s sake, come in.”
In the living room, he stood on the rug, looking anywhere but at her, running a hand through his already rumpled hair. The whole rugged, tormented thing was stupidly attractive on him. She stood by the wingback chair and waited, trying not to think about kissing him again, or him kissing her again…feeling that stubble against her skin, running her own hands through his hair. Eventually, he cleared his throat and spoke.
“How’s your foot?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you came to say?”
“No.” He looked toward Nana Mac’s old-fashioned drinks cabinet in the corner. “Do you have anything to drink?”
“Probably.” She went and opened the cabinet. Amongst the sherry and port and brandy, she spotted an almost-full bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and grabbed it out. There were heavy, cut crystal glasses on the cabinet’s mirror top, so she sloshed a generous helping into two of them. He wasn’t the only one who needed it.
He took the glass and emptied it by half in his first sip. She matched him, the liquid hot and bracing as it went down. If he was ready for another round of whatever this was, she was too. Just…thank God he had a shirt on this time.
“What then?” She didn’t bother making it sound encouraging.
He shifted his weight. “Connor and Dane came to see me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You remember them?”
Where was this going? “Yeah.”
“They remember you.”
“Okay.” Her voice was wary. “And…?”
“They remember that summer.”
“Well…so do I. As you know.” His cryptic sentences were like pebbles before a rock fall, warning of something bigger on the way. She couldn’t stand it anymore. “Just tell me why you came over.”
He finished his drink, then took the bottle from the cabinet top and refilled his glass. She held hers out too, and he topped it up. Then he began to talk.
“When Ethan realized you’d gone, he disappeared.”
Instantly, her heart started pounding.
“The same night you left. We called him, looked for him, asked around, but no one had seen him. My mother was worried, but I told her he’d be okay.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, memories etched into his face.
“Dad said we couldn’t report him missing—if he was old enough to go out drinking, he was old enough to get himself home. So she walked the whole of Sweet Breeze Bay, searching, until we convinced her to go home and wait there. He could have gone over to the Other Side, or anywhere. Better if she was there when he came back.”
He swallowed the contents of his glass in one go, then set it down. She held her breath, waiting, needing to know but not wanting to hear the words.
“About three in the morning, I went to the only other place I thought he might be. There’s a tiny bay around the bottom of Mount Clarion that we always used to go to as kids. It was like our secret place. You can only walk there at low tide, but I swam around. The moon was really bright.”
She remembered how she’d looked out at the moon from her window seat on the plane that night. The same moon that hung over Sweet Breeze Bay, and watched as everything fell to pieces.
“There was a bottle of vodka smashed on the rocks. And I found him…washed up.”
The beginning of a sound escaped her lips, but she swallowed it back. Nothing she felt now could compare to what that must have been like for Liam, or to the fear that must have overwhelmed Ethan as the sea—once his playground—dragged him down into its cold, churning blackness.
“You brought him home?”
He nodded. “The water was high by then. He was heavy.”
The image of Liam struggling through the water, bearing Ethan’s body, taking him home, imprinted itself in her mind. She knew then that it would never leave—Ethan’s last journey and Liam’s moment of horror and loss would be a scar on her heart, forever. But it was so much worse for him.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
He nodded again, just once. “I know.”
It was the nearest thing to forgiveness she’d had from him, and she held it close. She wanted to hold him close too, find some way to make the unthinkable somehow bearable. But he stood in front of her, unmoving, his gaze fixed on the wall over her shoulder. She bit her lip, and asked the question that had been tormenting her all week.
“It was an accident though, right? He would never…”
“I don’t know what was in his mind.” Finally, he looked at her, his blue eyes as dark as the deepest ocean. “But yeah…I think it must have been.”
At that, something broke inside her, or healed, and the pain and relief welled up. She reached out a tentative hand, not knowing what she was offering, or reaching for, only that the distance between them was too great.
He took one long step and collided into her, the momentum carrying them backward as he crushed her close, her empty glass falling to the floor. With one swift movement he lifted her up, and she wrapped her legs around him. For the first time, their mouths met with equal intention—a blind, urgent need to swamp the past with something here and now, real and hot and overwhelming. Still in the middle of the room, they clung to each other, an island of broken hearts and seeking tongues and rising heat.
When they paused for breath, she slid down to her feet, a blur of emotion, each one fighting with another. Desire and regret. Remorse and hunger. Pain and hope.
“We shouldn’t.”
But he said nothing. He took her hand and led her to the stairs, his grip firm and his purpose clear.
She didn’t resist.
In the doorway of her bedroom, she hesitated, and he turned back to look at her.
“This room…” she said.
But he pulled her in, and pulled her closer. He took her head in his hands, his fingers tangled in her hair. Reflected in his eyes, she saw the longing of her own heart—connection, comfort…and lust. Each of them was off limits to the other, but their common ground was where need and desire met.
She grasped the hem of his t-shirt and pushed it up, exposing the chest that had distracted her so unexpectedly, and inappropriately. He was sun-kissed and broad and strong, and she lay her hands where they’d wanted to go the first time she saw him again over the gate. He tugged the shirt over his head, and then reached for her blouse. She leaned over slightly to help him pull it off, not bothering to undo the buttons, and when she straightened up his eyes were fixed on her bust. He lowered his head and kissed her neck, his lips traveling steadily lower until he was at her cleavage, breathing her in, losing himself in the lace-clad curves. She threaded her fingers in his hair as his warm mouth roamed the soft skin, one hand cupping each breast, his thumbs finding the hardened buds of her nipples under pale pink satin. As he brushed against them, an answering hot tension intensified between her legs. Suddenly impatient, she reached down, and he stood back to give her room as she undid his belt. Then the button of his jeans. Then the zip. With one determined push, she shoved the jeans down, and he shucked them off and kicked them away. Inside his fitting boxer briefs, the evidence of their game-playing rose large, and hard, and so damn tempting. Her pulse kicked up another notch. Off limits, and out of her mind, nothing but a mess of need. But if he wasn’t stopping, she wasn’t either.
Now he undid her jeans, his fingers unsteady against her skin. Instead of pulling them down, he lifted her up and tipped her onto the bed, where the moonlight cast strips of pale light through the open blinds. She lifted her hips as he worked the jeans down and tossed them in the corner with his own. He propped himself above her, and she reached up, running her fingertips across his chest, over the rise and fall of his abs, down to the lowest point of his belly. Then she paused, and looked up. He looked right back at her, his eyes heavy and dark, flooding her with desire that she knew she couldn’t, wouldn’t fight.
“Oh, God. We’re in trouble.”
At her words, he lowered his head and kissed her, carefully at first, but within a moment the kiss ignited, and the last whispers of hesitation evaporated in her hunger for his mouth. He tried to reach around to her back and undo her bra, but she pushed his fumbling hands away and did it herself, tearing off the lacy constraint. Then she reached down and tugged at her panties, desperate to be rid of everything standing between them. Maybe everything in the real world was standing between them, but right now, here in the midnight glow, was exactly where they were meant to be. Where they needed to be.
When they were both naked, he lay next to her and gathered her into his arms. She pressed against him, tangling her legs with his, and he held her tighter as their lips and tongues said everything they never had with words. She wriggled upward, trying to position herself so that she could slide against him, hungering for that sweet combination of rigid heat and slippery wetness.
“Wait.” As he pulled away, a groan of disappointment came from her, and he smiled, just a little. He went to the tangle of jeans on the floor and pulled something from his pocket, then came back to the bed.
“You brought them with you?” she said, propping herself up on her elbow. He looked equal parts guilty and uncertain, and she took the little packets out of his hand. “Three?”
He frowned. “I didn’t mean…”
“Yes you did.”
She considered the foil squares. While she’d been here, trying not to think about him over there, he must have been doing the same thing. Which was terrible. There was no way either of them should have been thinking any of it. And yet, here they were.
When she looked back at him, his expression was still unsure, and she realized he might be having second thoughts. God, no. Not now. If he left now, she’d die of sudden loneliness and frustrated lust. She gave him a push. “Roll over.”
When he obeyed, she straddled his waist, the teasing moisture between her legs dampening his skin. Beneath her, his chest rose and fell as he breathed harder, his lips parted, and she knew he wasn’t going anywhere. As he watched, she tore open one of the packets and pulled out the condom. Then she backed up until she was sitting across his thighs. With her own breath coming faster, she held the tip of the condom and rolled the rest of it down the length of him, hot anticipation shooting through her as she realized just what kind of length, and breadth, she was dealing with. Then she leaned forward, her mouth barely brushing his, holding herself oh-so-slightly out of reach.
“I wanted you,” he said, his voice husky, the words a painful confession. “Did you know it, back then?”
“I know now,” she said, and lowered her hips in one exquisitely deliberate motion. His body arched and his head tipped back, a groan escaping his lips as every inch of him was suddenly, completely inside her. She heard her own answering moan as she began to move, the instinctive rhythm taking over. He matched her movement, pulling her down so that her breasts swept against him with every thrust and return. The ache in her heart was stilled, replaced with an ache to have him deeper, deeper inside her.
Then he flipped her over with a restrained growl, pinning her underneath him, holding still, holding his breath. She tried to grind against him, but he held back.
“Hold still,” he said, his voice rough.
But she couldn’t. She’d gone beyond holding still, or holding back. With a determined effort, she freed her arms and wrapped her legs around him, lifting her hips and forcing him down into her.
“Fuck. I can’t…” he said, and surrendered with a low groan, driving into her once, twice, again and again. She tightened her thighs against his sides and tucked one ankle around the other, desperate to stay close as they moved together. The world narrowed to nothing but skin and heat and the sound of their breath blurring in her ears, and her hands roamed up the sides of his chest, across his shoulders, down his hard biceps, her fingertips savoring every taut muscle. Oh God, this man. Even if this was the one and only time she touched him like this, she’d never again think of him as the teenager she knew back then.
Back then.
For one cold, hard moment, the words froze in her brain, and she was abruptly thrown out of their mutual escape…the sweet, hot deception that neither of them could justify.
He must have felt the change. He slowed, and stopped, and looked right at her. And she couldn’t look away. In the hazy bedroom blue of his eyes, she saw the same desire and doubt that was doing battle in her own heart. They held each other’s gaze, silent and deep, and in that moment he seemed like the one safe place she never knew existed.
“It’s you,” he said.
She nodded.
“You,” he repeated.
A sudden intensity came into his eyes, and she felt him rise and strengthen inside her. Her body instantly responded, the heat igniting around him again.
“Me.”
He caught his breath as she pressed her hips upward, bringing him deeper. Then he dropped his mouth to hers and she opened her lips, letting him in, his hunger quickening her own as his tongue met hers again. Jesus, he was starving, and so was she, and there was only one way to relieve this exquisite desperation. She reached down and pressed a hand on the small of his back, as far down as she could reach, her palm riding their thrusts as they moved together again.
Maybe it was nothing but collusion, or delusion—the wrong thing to do, for the wrong reasons. But something had been lit, and all they could do was let it burn up and burn out. Because it was happening, and there wasn’t a single thing she planned to do about it.
There on the bay, in the attic room full of history and regret, she felt a tidal wave rise in her body, from the incandescent point where he was plunging into her, through every nerve and vein and pore, drenching her with an unstoppable heat. With sudden strength, she arched upward, lifting him with her as she came, and they fell to pieces in the same instant, lost and found, abandoned and rescued…made whole, just for a moment.
He collapsed onto her, his breath hot on the side of her neck, the room quiet apart from their unsteady breathing. She put a leg over him, welcoming his weight, not wanting him to pull out and be gone. Not wanting it to be over.
She really was in trouble.
But he levered himself back up, not meeting her eye, and pulled out, carefully taking the condom with him.
“In there,” she said, pointing to a trash can by the dresser.
When he came back, he lay down and pulled her close, her back to his chest. He pressed his forehead against the back of her head, burying his face in her hair. She threaded her fingers through his and nestled in, warm in the quiet afterglow.
But after a while, the quiet turned into silence. Too much silence. She listened to his breathing—he wasn’t asleep. Maybe he was waiting for her to say something.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “You?”
Not as good as she’d been five minutes before, and less okay with every awkward second that passed. “I’m fine.”
“Good.”
Silence resumed.
Oh, shit. What had they done?
“Get some sleep,” he said, untangling his fingers and patting her hand.
Patting her hand? She wanted to turn around and slap him in the head in return. Tell him not to fuck her and then fuck with her. Force them back to a place of truth.
Then again…maybe that wasn’t where they were meant to be after all.
She rolled away slightly, plumped up her pillow, and said goodnight. And waited for sleep to come.
An insistent meow broke into her consciousness, and Jacinda opened one eye, just a tiny bit. Velvet, hungry again. Okay. Breakfast.
Then the events of the night before came flooding back. Liam. She turned over, not sure what they’d say to each other in the cold light of day, but instinctively hungry to see him, touch him again.
He wasn’t there.
She looked to where their clothes had lain together on the floor. Her jeans were there, crumpled alongside her blouse. His things were gone.
Of course.
If a heart could really sink, this must be what it felt like. She closed her eyes again, and pressed her fingers against her eyelids. It seemed like his second thoughts had shown up after all, only after they’d had the best sex she could remember—bare naked in every way, body and soul.
How convenient for him.
How fucking humiliating for her.
She pulled the duvet over her head, embarrassment and anger doing battle as she relived the confronting, redeeming, passionate night. What was it really about, for him? He wanted her, he’d said. Well, he came prepared, and he had her.
Anger won.