by Ella James
“Do you always tend a bit high?”
He shakes his head, so slight I nearly miss it.
It’s likely a side-effect, then—of his withdrawal process. That or he intensely dislikes sitting near me.
I look at his handsome profile, gone from jovial to serious.
“May I ask…what was your last dose? Of medication,” I manage.
He blinks, his gaze still pointed straight ahead, and I realize my hunch was correct. He doesn’t want to look at me. “Tapered down to eighty,” he says.
“Eighty…”
“Milligrams.”
I lick my lips. “Of…”
“Valium.” His eyes find mine.
Eighty? Eighty milligrams a day of Valium was his low dose? My brain stumbles. I realize my mouth is open. I should say something. Something affirming. I just can’t process.
“Into the bath,” I manage.
Something harsh crosses his features. “Right.” He exhales and starts to stand.
“Wait.”
“I’m fine, Finley. I can’t be in here.” He tugs his shirt over his head and strides toward the door.
“What do you mean?” I call after him.
“What do you think?” His tone is hard, but as I reach his side, he pauses with his arm stretched toward the door.
“Because of all the medication?”
“Never let a junkie in the drug store, Finley. Didn’t someone tell you that?”
I see his hand shake as it wraps around the door handle. I don’t know why—perhaps because I can’t stand to see him trembling as he does—but I wrap my arms around his waist from behind.
I can feel the pumping of his torso with his too-fast breaths. I press my cheek against his back and hear his heartbeat thunder. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” His muscles clench as a shudder jerks through him. He turns around, escaping my grip with the movement, and I find his eyes are hard. His face is pale.
“For asking you inside. And—” I swallow against my aching throat before I whisper, “I’m sorry I can’t help. I asked for the location of the key to the controlled substances safe. I couldn’t get it from him. From Doctor.”
His eyes shut. “I don’t want it,” he whispers.
I’m not sure if I should touch him when he’s clearly upset, but I find I can’t help myself. I grab his hand, linking our fingers as his eyes open to find mine.
For the longest moment, we stand there staring at each other—and I feel his pain. I feel how lost and tired he is, how difficult it must be for him to endure. Then he tugs me closer, strokes his hand back through my hair, and lowers his mouth to mine.
His lips are firm and soft and warm. I feel like I’m falling through space and time as his tongue nudges into my mouth in a velvet surge that makes my limbs quiver. My fingers—still laced with his—curl.
Then it’s in and out; it’s sinuous and slow…tender and firm…and I can feel my body throb and clench as I try to return his kisses. His mouth is hard and forceful. Mine feels soft and stupid. I can’t breathe as he devours me.
Then his arm laces around my waist, bringing my hips flush with his erection.
He steps back.
I’m panting as he says, “Goodbye, Finley.”
And he’s gone.
Twenty-Six
Finley
Every time he throws the ball, a cold sweat prickles my skin.
“Did you see that?” Anna laughs. I curve my hand around my forehead.
“I’m not looking! Someone’s going to lose an eye.”
Anna chuckles, and I peek around my fingertips to make a face at wee Kayti. She gives me a gummy smile, and I peek at the field. Declan’s pulling his arm back to throw. My belly flips so hard, I fear I might be sick, so I look at my feet again.
A moment later, Anna says, “You can look back up, you ninny! Mayor Acton struck out.”
I lower my hand, forcing my gaze to sweep the mayor first. The tactic is a bit of a fail, though, as he’s exchanging words with Declan. I school my face before I dare examine his, finding he looks sheepish underneath the bill of his Sox cap. Sheepish and utterly delectable.
The afternoon is gray and misty. He’s wearing a baseball shirt—white at the torso, dark blue on the arms—that stretches over his chest and shoulders. Paired with it, cargo-style khaki shorts and sneakers. Every time he throws, his strong calves bulge and his forearm muscles tauten.
I can’t watch without a flipping feeling deep down in my belly. It’s like an illness. I can’t shake my automatic response. It’s not just my body, either. My mind is like a train that’s confined to a circular track, running as fast as its engine will allow but never getting anywhere new. I feel dazed. Hyper-focused on him. I’m lost in the shape of him, the way he moves. The way his mouth curves at the corners a bit shyly. The way he laughs.
Near the game’s end, Declan hits the ball off Daniel Smith’s comparably snail-paced pitch, and it sails high into the milky white sky. For a moment, he hesitates before he runs the bases. Then he’s moving like a golden god, and I have no good excuse not to watch.
“Quite amazing,” Holly says, echoing my thoughts.
“Might be more amazing if he wasn’t any good.”
The minimizing comment is designed to deceive. The truth is, I feel shaken by the force of my ardor. I’ve never felt this way before. I fear my voice could tremble at the mention of him. So I try desperately to appear nonchalant.
I pick at a cuticle as Holly and Dot cook up a plan to offer him some homespun cotton candy after the game wraps.
“You two are horrid,” I murmur, and turn around to patty-cake with Kayti.
Anna whines about the casserole she promised Freddy she would cook, and then she’s tucking Kayti back into her wrap so she can greet him by the field.
“I’ve got a check-in call coming from Doctor,” I say, by way of an excuse for myself. I can’t bear—indeed don’t dare—to walk down to the field with Dot and Holly.
And yet, I can’t quite tear myself away. I chat with Molly Green, a school girl, aged fourteen, who wants to learn to throw clay. I explain my wheel is still at Gammy’s house and Declan’s staying there.
“When it’s time for him to go—that’s in near two months—we can get started. How does that sound?”
She beams. Over her right shoulder, my traitorous gaze hones in on Dot, Holly, and him.
Someone taps me on the shoulder. Anna. She’s gotten caught up gabbing before going down to Freddy. Since I’m still about, she wants me to walk down to the field with her to congratulate him. He got a poor hit—but still a hit—off one of Declan’s supersonic balls.
I feel robotic as we file down the wooden bleachers to the makeshift fence, where I stand beside Anna feeling like a flashing light. I try to fill my lungs with air, but I can’t seem to. I focus on Freddy and then on Mark Glass as he stops over to chat. Declan’s not in sight. For that I’m grateful.
Finally, with a glance at my watch, I break away. I walk behind the bleachers, clutching my unused umbrella’s handle, chewing harder than is strictly necessary on a bit of gum, and start toward the Away dugout. Everyone is congregating at the Home side, so it’s good I need to head away from it to amble toward the clinic.
Much as I crave an encounter with him, I don’t need one. Certainly not with so many others about. Who knows what might be said?
Thinking of that weighs on my heart. It’s only a matter of time really. All of this—this infatuation—has an expiration date. I feel a horrid swell of empathy—of sorrow—for Mum; surely, she felt similarly. My eyes blur and I wipe them.
The sky has darkened with encroaching evening, and no one’s walking near me. I take a few measured breaths and start around the rear of the Away dugout.
And there he is.
He’s leaned against it, holding his injured shoulder with one hand and a red-tipped cigarette in the other.
His eyes are closed. They open for me, and th
e world curves in around us.
“Hey there, Siren.”
My heart turns over at the soft twitch of his lips. My body flashes like a light bulb.
“Hi there.”
It takes me a moment to realize the particular look on his face is perhaps a bit of bashfulness.
“I couldn’t watch you throwing.” A grin splits my face. “It worried me for Sean—the catcher.”
That makes him grin in return.
Spurred by a bit of madness, I pluck the cigarette from his fingers and take a choking drag. I blow it out in circles, like that caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland.
Then I hand it back and squint against the smoke. “They’re bad for you, you know.”
He chuckles. “All the good things are.”
I wink, and he says, “Come with me tomorrow.”
“Where to?” I fix my face in an impassive look, as if I wouldn’t follow him to hell and back.
“I thought I’d hike up to the peak.”
Behind us, I hear someone’s laughter. In that sliver of time before whoever rounds the corner, I give him a coy smile. “Perhaps I will.”
Then, before we’re seen alone, I trot away.
Declan
Knowing how she feels about propriety, I get to her door before the sun is up. It’s cold out. Cold enough to turn my breaths into white puffs and make me wish I’d worn more than a fleece. Overhead, the moon shines, casting a pearly sheen over her porch and gleaming on the door’s six small glass windows.
I should knock. I shake my head at myself, grinning. I feel like a kid at Christmas. Finally, I give a few hard-but-not-too-forceful knocks, then wrap my hands around the straps of my daypack and wait to hear footfall. If she doesn’t answer, I figure I’ll go at it again.
A couple seconds later, the door opens, revealing Finley and her wide-but-sleepy eyes. She’s got on a soft-looking brown robe, and she’s wearing a funny little smile.
“The sleepy Siren.”
“Declan!” She laughs. “What are you doing here?”
“Came to take you on that hike.”
She laughs again, her pretty face incredulous. “Right now?”
“It can be the other way around if you want—you can take me.”
“Of course it will be. Silly interloper.” She looks down at her robe, then up at me again. Her eyes are dancing, her cheeks round with a suppressed smile. “I can’t believe you’re here! I suppose I’ve got to get dressed.”
A small, white head peeks around her robe-clad legs, and I crouch. “I’ve got something for you…”
Finley laughs and whirls away. “Wait there, kindly. No coming inside.”
“I’ll be here.”
I reach into my pocket and get a little piece of apple, holding it out while Baby sniffs it. She takes it from me, and I smile like an idiot as I listen to her chomp.
“That’s the good stuff, right?”
A second later, her eyes rise to mine in a request for more. I’ve got a bunch of little bits of apple, so I keep her busy while we wait for Finley. When the door opens again, she’s got her hair in braided pig-tails and she’s wearing dark leggings, a light green jacket, and boots, with a hiking pack flung over one shoulder.
“Is that apple?” she asks.
“Hope that’s okay.”
“What do you think, Baby?” She reaches down and scoops the ewe up. “Her first apple.” She peers over Baby’s head, her lips quirked up and pressed together, making her look a little like an angry duck. “Very crafty, Carnegie. Win over the ewe.”
I laugh like I have no idea what she’s talking about. Like I didn’t spend a bunch of time dicing up an apple, mostly to impress Finley.
While she disappears inside with Baby, I step off the small porch, pacing over to some brush near the cliffs behind the doctor’s quarters. I hear the thunder of waves breaking below. I think of Finley, only ever looking down the cliffs—no thought of leaving. I wonder if she even looks down at all. Maybe she can’t.
A moment later, she reappears, closing the door behind her and pressing a small sticky note to it. She doesn’t speak, just smiles, a little bit mysterious as she steps off the porch and joins me in the grass. She covers the distance between us with one long stride and stops right by me. Near enough that my dick perks up and I want to touch her.
“Careful, Sailor. Just beyond the vegetation here is a steep drop-off.”
I look into her eyes and feel myself smile. Watch as my fingers brush one of her braids. “I like this.” My voice sounds low and husky, like I’m talking with my hard-on. Because I am. Fuck. I grit my teeth and shift my weight as she looks away shyly. “Thank you.”
“Let’s get moving while we’ve got a little darkness left. You good to go now?”
Her thin brows notch as if she doesn’t understand.
“Can you be away from work this morning?”
“Oh…mm, yes, I believe. For a bit. I left a note.” Her gaze moves to the door, and I adjust my pants. Goddamn, I love her voice. Love her accent, love the way she can’t look at my face. I feel a bolt of pure lust. Not just lust but life—that wasn’t there before I got here this morning.
“Did you tell them who you’re going with?” I smile as we start toward the dirt road.
She shakes her head, laughing. “Wouldn’t want to cause alarm. Who would trust the two of us together on the slopes?”
“I had that thought.”
“Don’t worry,” she says softly. “I’ll be a better guide this time ’round. I know all the trails, of course, and all the lookouts. It’s a bit of elevation, but you can choose how high we climb. I have perhaps six hours before I’ll be missed.”
Her elbow brushes my arm as we walk along the lane’s edge. Suddenly, I can’t think of a single thing to say. I think she just questioned my physical fitness with that shit about how we can stop whenever I want to. But I can’t even get my brain to work enough to toss that back her way.
“So, Carnegie.” She blinks up at me. “Tell me how you like it here.”
“Demoted to Carnegie again.”
She smiles, but it’s a little tight…or maybe coy. “I’d like to hear your impressions,” she says crisply. “What you’ve enjoyed and not about our island.”
Just a little hesitation over how to answer, and a cold sweat hits me. That’s how this shit is. Stuff that doesn’t ever make a normal person nervous makes my hands shake. It’s like this every day, though. I know how to hide it.
“I like it,” I say. “Good people, good food. Hey, that reminds me. I didn’t realize you moved out of your place for me. Thanks for doing that.”
She gives me a smile, and now I’m sure it looks a little strained. “Of course.”
I bump her arm with my elbow and smirk down at her, hoping to get her loosened up. “The tub’s my favorite.”
“Using all my bath salts, are you?”
“Nah. I used them a couple times, but not too much. I know you can’t get more.”
She waves her hand, not really looking at me. “I’ll get more eventually. I could put an order in and they’d come on the next ship. Not the next,” she amends, frowning, “but the one after. You’ll be gone then, I suppose.”
I swallow. “So what is that? How many weeks?”
“The next ship with supplies will arrive July.” Her face tilts up to mine. “Does that seem quite absurd to you?”
I lift a brow. “You ever heard of Amazon?”
“The river? Oh.” She snaps her fingers. “No—the mega-store.”
I grin down at her, and she elbows me. “I’ve heard of Amazon.”
“Welcome to 2018, Siren.”
She giggles. “You’re an arse.”
I catch her by the wrist. “Finley Evans. Did you just use a dirty word?”
I lace my fingers through hers, lightly swinging her arm as I aim a mock disapproving look down at her. With our joined hands, she punches at me. “Only for you. I never use perverse language except when i
nfluenced unduly.”
“Unduly influenced? Is that right?”
She lands a light blow to my chest.
“Finley, Finley…” I squeeze her hand. “What am I gonna do with you? Lashing out at me, using the devil’s language?”
She’s grinning, but I see her lips bend downward at the corners, like she’s trying to fight it off.
I stroke her wrist with my thumb. “Siren. I’ve been missing you.”
Color spreads across her cheeks. She bites the inside of her cheek before she presses her lips flat.
“Odd. You didn’t seek me out for company for near a week before I walked into a closet with you.”
Our path curves as we crest a small hill, and I see my borrowed cottage over on the left. Its underground window shines in the soft grass.
I squeeze Finley’s fingers. “Maybe I wasn’t sure you wanted me to.”
“I tried to track you down for your check-up. You were never there.”
“Did you?”
“I did.”
My pulse kicks up a little as I think about that first night back, when I woke up without her. All the other days… I exhale. “I’m sorry.”
What can I tell her? I’m too fucked up to be alone in a house so I kept going to the bar, but I hugged my pillow and I thought about her lots? I rub my thumb over her knuckles, hoping she won’t pull her hand away from mine. I touch a Band-Aid taped atop her hand and trace its rough edge. “What’d you do here?”
“Slicing something in the kitchen.” Her pretty eyes are still on her feet. I can feel her brooding, and it makes me want to wrap my arms around her.
Instead of that, I draw our clasped hands to me. I don’t know what I’m thinking. That I’ll kiss the back of her hand? Some kind of Casanova shit? Another wave of cold sweat sweeps me, and I wonder if my hand feels sweaty.
I take a slow breath as we pass the cottage.
Finley glances at its front door. “I’ll be by to pull the weeds soon.”
I swing her hand. “I can do it.”
“You’re not grooming my stoop, interloper. You’re the guest. You’re meant to relax.” She gives me a smile plus side-eye. It’s so fucking cute, it helps me get my bearings.
