CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I arrive at the lighthouse just before eight on Monday morning, carrying the box of drawings and my usual work supplies. Flynn opens the door before I knock, his posture tense and guarded.
My heart tightens. He’s a mess. Dark shadows ring his eyes, his jaw is scruffier than usual, and deep grooves bracket his mouth. He’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday, his hockey sweatshirt rumpled and fraying at the edges.
“May I come in?” I finally manage to ask.
He blinks, as if coming out of a trance. “Yeah, sure. I mean… of course. Come in.”
I pass him and set the box on the desk. He steps back, shoving his hands into his pockets.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
“It’s Monday. A workday.”
He scratches his head. “You… uh, you still want to work?”
“I want to finish cataloging the collection, yes.” I place my hand on the box. “I spent most of yesterday looking at your drawings. I read the story too.”
He looks away, regret clouding his features. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize anymore.”
“I should have told you.” His breath expels on a heavy sigh. “It didn’t even occur to me that you’d see similarities between my work and what that bastard did to you. I didn’t think you—”
“Flynn.” I hold up my hand. “Stop.”
He meets my gaze, still wary. Anxiety clenches me. I dig deep to find the courage that has been so stifled. It’s still there, pushing through the dirt like a little green shoot. Seeking light and air.
“For a long time…” My throat closes over. I swallow hard. “I didn’t think I would feel anything again except fear and shame. I was so devastated by everything that happened. So humiliated. I stopped talking to people, especially men. I hated knowing they’d seen the pictures of me, that they were probably imagining the things I’d done… everyone was…”
Flynn tightens his hands into fists. “Eve, you don’t have to—”
“Wait. Let me finish.” I take a breath and keep going. “When I moved here, I hoped it would finally be a new start. A smaller life, one in which my past could at least stay in the past. But I discovered quickly that my reputation had preceded me. And if you hadn’t come after me that day at the museum, I don’t know what I would have done.
“Working here and reconnecting with Uncle Max’s collection, finding an artist to study, running alongside the ocean, even learning how to repair things at the house… it’s all been more healing than I could have imagined. And you…”
Tears blur my vision. Flynn steps toward me, then stops as if he’s uncertain how I’ll react to his nearness.
“You gave me something else to think about and focus on. I spent so much time wondering about you. And even though you didn’t know it at first, you helped me… um, relearn how to like my body. To appreciate feeling attractive and desired again. Even you looking at me felt good because I knew you weren’t seeing the horrible pictures or speculating about what I’d done.”
“All I ever saw was you.” His voice is rough, like rusted metal, his gray eyes burning.
“I know.” I press a hand to my chest. My heart hammers against my palm. “It was just one of the reasons I trusted you even though I knew so little about you. That and knowing you’d been friends with Uncle Max. He could sense a black-hearted person a mile away. He’d never have befriended you if you’d been anything less than honorable.”
His expression hardens. He looks past me to the window. “I’m not honorable, Eve. I steal secrets. Keep them.”
“I think you do that because it feeds whatever is inside you. Whatever makes you create art. It’s why you stole my secret, isn’t it? Why you didn’t tell me who you really are, why you’re so guarded and protective of yourself. Your secrecy gives you freedom.”
“I wish it were that pretty.” He shakes his head, his jaw tightening. “It’s not. I’m a selfish coward who thinks it’s easier to hide than deal with the world. If people think I’m strange and even dangerous, they stay away.”
“I don’t want to stay away.”
He jerks his gaze back to me. Our eyes collide with sudden heat.
“You…” He swallows and rubs a hand over his hair. “You need to stay away, Eve. I’m not good.”
My insides clench. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“No one who creates such beauty is anything less than extraordinary.”
A hoarse laugh breaks from him. “Right. I’m so extraordinary I used you without your consent, just like he did.”
Pain stabs me. “That’s what I thought at first, yes. But I’ve looked at every drawing, every sketch. I read your story of Fiamma. You didn’t manipulate and exploit me. You didn’t attack, ruin, or threaten me. You didn’t think I was worthless. A nobody. You saw me as a woman strong enough to defeat evil. As fire.”
“That’s not how I saw you.” His eyes glitter. “That’s how you are.”
The rich golden light encircles my heart again. I nudge the box in his direction.
“Take these back. I want you to have them again.”
“No.” He stills, his shoulders slumping. “I don’t give a damn about the book anymore.”
“I want you to write it.”
“After what I did to you?” He shakes his head. “No.”
“Flynn.” The courage inside me has broken through the dirt and is spiraling upward, spreading through my veins. I will give him everything he sees, everything he believes me to be. Everything I am. “I feel more for you than I’ve ever felt for anyone.”
His head jerks up, disbelief crashing over his face. I cross to where he’s standing and rest my trembling hand on his chest. His heart hammers against my palm. He stares at me like he’s seeing me for the first time.
“I’m not telling you because I expect you to say the same thing to me,” I say softly.
“Eve, I…” His voice cracks.
“I’m telling you because I haven’t felt something so powerfully good in a very long time. And you’re the reason for it. I want to be the loyal girl who braves the unknown forest, who solves mazes, who dares to look a villain in the eye even though her knees are shaking. I want to win battles and walk out of the darkness. I want to be the woman who will do all of that for love.”
A rapid pulse beats in the hollow of his throat. He lifts a hand and touches my hair.
“You’re killing me, Eve,” he mutters.
“You’re bringing me back to life.”
A groan breaks from him. As if he can’t do anything else, he slides his hand to the back of my neck and brings his mouth down on mine. My body goes up in flames, blood rushing straight to my core. I curl my hand into his shirt and open my mouth to let him inside. My confession opened a box inside me, freeing whatever inhibitions I might still have had.
He brings his hands to either side of my neck, tilting my head to just the right angle, and presses his lips to mine. For the first time in my life, with him, I know what it means to be kissed right to your soul, to feel a kiss in every inch of your body.
He urges my lips apart with his. Our tongues meet. My veins surge with light, like a million flickering fireflies. I slip my arms around his waist, pressing our bodies together, loving the sensation of his heat flowing through my skirt and blouse.
He murmurs something low in his throat, caressing the arch of my back and down to my hips. I nestle closer, rubbing my breasts against his chest. He unzips my skirt, letting it puddle onto the floor. I ease away only long enough to unfasten my blouse and push it off my shoulders. Flynn’s eyes darken as he rakes his gaze over my navy lace bra and panties.
He cups my breasts, his thumbs flicking over my hardening nipples. My pussy clenches with growing urgency. I lift my face to his again, desperate for more of his intoxicating kisses, and then he tucks his arm beneath my legs and lifts me against him. He takes a few strides to the sofa and lowers me onto it.
Bracing himself over me, he kisses me again and again. The weight of his body combined with the deliciousness of him fills me with light and pleasure. I run my hands over his back, delighting in the feel of his muscles beneath his shirt, and part my legs so he can settle between them. His erection presses against my thigh, the sensation eliciting a new wave of lust.
Tension rolls through his body. He unfastens my bra and drops it to the floor. A rumble of appreciation echoes in his throat as he presses his mouth against the swells of my breasts and rolls his tongue over my nipple. Heat fires through my body. I arch to rub against his erection.
“Touch me,” I whisper. “Please…”
He mumbles a response against my skin and slides his hand down my belly, into my panties. My body flames, a haze of lust descending over my mind.
“Ah, fuck, Eve…” His breath is hot against my neck. “I need you…”
I need you.
The words reverberate inside me, like a violin string plucked and vibrating.
He slides two fingers into my body and circles my clit with his thumb. Desperate need floods me, sweeping me into the pleasure of his heated kisses, his muscular body pressed against mine, his fingers stroking me. An explosion of heat and light bursts through me, wrenching a cry from my throat.
He pulls at my panties, tugging them down my legs and off. His hot gaze strokes my naked body like the most fervent of touches. He lowers his head, and then he’s kissing my breasts, trailing his lips down to my belly, his tongue circling my navel as his hands glide over the curves of my waist and hips.
I melt, closing my eyes. An ocean rolls and pitches inside me, whitecaps licking at my blood, riptides surging beneath my skin. I tangle one hand into his hair, brushing it back from his forehead as he moves to press kisses against my thighs, my hips, over my arms and shoulders. By the time he reaches my lips again, I’m tingling all over with fresh desire. I open my mouth under his for another slow, hot kiss.
“I want to touch you now,” I whisper, easing myself to a sitting position.
We adjust our bodies so he’s lying on the sofa, a vision of masculine beauty with his long body and tousled dark hair. I straddle his thighs and pull off both his sweatshirt and T-shirt. My heart races at the sight of him—the slopes of his hard pecs, the ridges of his abdomen, the trail of hair disappearing beneath the waistband of his jeans.
His gray eyes lock to me as he watches me spread my hands over his chest, his muscles rippling with the force of his breath. Urgency sizzles my nerves. I run my finger down the line bisecting his pecs, trace the flat circles of his areolae, skim my palms over his hips and thighs. He’s so much more than anything even my vivid imagination could dream up.
My pussy throbs in response to the restrained tension of his powerful body beneath mine. I move back on his thighs to unfasten his jeans, releasing his thick, erect cock. I close my hand around his smooth shaft and run my fingers over the pulsing veins. My heart hammers.
With a groan, Flynn grasps my wrist. “Can’t take much more.”
I slide back up the length of his body, pressing my fingers between my thighs, shivering as another explosion rocks my insides. He eases me onto my back again. Our bodies press together, his body heat warming me to the center of my being.
“I need you,” I gasp, sweat trickling between my breasts as he glides his fingers into me again. I arch toward him, aching. “Do you have a—”
He fumbles to get his wallet from his jeans and take out a condom. I roll it onto him before he moves between my legs to align our bodies. Anticipation unleashes inside me.
I grip his shoulders, weakening with lust as his thick erection slides into me. For an instant, he stills, his cock throbbing against my inner walls, sending pulses of stimulation into my blood. Our eyes meet, his glittering with heat and passion.
An emotion floods my heart, something I can’t name, but that feels like all the good and wonderful things in the world wrapped into one. Trust, power, hope. Happiness. Truth.
In that instant, Flynn lifts a hand to my face, cupping my cheek as if I’m precious to him. He presses his forehead to mine. Our breath puffs between us, our eyes linked by a bright silver thread.
“Okay?” he whispers.
“Oh, yes.”
He pulls back and eases forward again, filling me, stretching me.
“Flynn.” I slide my hands down his back, my whole body vibrating with pleasure. “You feel so good.”
He lowers his mouth to mine. Our lips crash together in a collision of urgency, our bodies tensing and flexing. He slips his hands beneath my thighs, opening me wider, and thrusts again and again. My world distills to the sound of our moans and gasps, the friction of our skin, the thrust of his cock driving us both toward bliss.
I come first, crying out his name and tightening my pussy around his shaft as quivers rock and spiral through me. His body tenses, pressure uncoiling as he increases his thrusts and drives into me with a deep, heavy groan.
“Christ, you’re incredible.” He rolls off me and pulls me against him, his breath hot on my forehead. “I can’t believe you came back.”
“Believe it.” I run my hand down his damp chest. “Because I’m here.”
He brushes his lips against my forehead. “Don’t leave.”
“No.”
I close my eyes, listening to the sound of his heartbeat and cadence of his breath.
Come with me, Eve.
Since the day I followed him here, we’ve been creating a place that belongs only to us. A place of slow-building trust, comfortable silences, hot looks, and fairy tales. And, as it turns out, a place where our imaginations transform and envelop each other. Maybe even a place where dreams come true.