“Complex? Me?” I’d been called a lot of things in my life. Most of them had to do with me being a complete bastard. Never had I been called complex.
She laughed and said, “Yes. You. I’ve told you all about myself, more than I’ve ever told any guy before. And when it comes to your turn, you clam up. I know enough about you to fit in this…”
I looked down at the hand she held out to me, seeing a tiny cockle shell.
I sighed inwardly, knowing she was right. I hadn’t really talked about myself much at all, but that was normal for me. If I didn’t let anyone in, they wouldn’t ever know the real me. Charlotte deserved more than that. I took the shell from her. Lowering myself down beside her on the sand, I said, “What would you like to know?”
She cocked her head, eyes squinting with a look of complete concentration. “What’s your favorite color?”
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. It took me a second to answer her. “Yellow.”
“Really…” she replied, giving me a look that said I’d surprised her in some way. “I thought guys were hardwired to say blue or black. Yellow… I never in a million years would have pegged you for that color.”
I smiled. “Yellow is a happy color. It’s warmth, sun, and flowers.”
She gaped at me.
“What?”
Her mouth snapped closed as she shook her head.
“What about you? What’s your favorite color?” I asked.
Her mouth turned up into a smile that cracked wide with a laugh as she said, “Blue.”
“Thought girls were supposed to like pink or fuchsia,” I said, reversing her stereotype about color designation to genders.
She shrugged. “It’s not just blue… it’s teal blue.”
“Ah, I see. That’s more like it… Magick Pony,” I said, turning toward her and tapping my finger against the end of her nose.
She jerked her face back and rolled her eyes at me. “Whatever. Okay, next question… what did you want to be when you grew up?”
“Luv, I’m a twenty-eight-year-old man stuck in a sixteen-year-old mindset. I never thought of it then, and I don’t now,” I answered with complete honesty.
“Yet you own a pub,” she said, nudging me.
“Inherited it. Been in my family for generations. Think I’d be lost without it honestly. I’ve spent most of my life there. Even if I’m not working, I’m there. It’s just… it’s a piece of me,” I answered.
She nodded, giving me a smile that held an echo of sadness. “I can understand that. I feel the same about The Raven’s Den. It’s like a piece of you, or maybe an extension of yourself.”
No one had ever understood it, but she did, adding one more thing to what we had in common.
“What about those?” she asked, pointing to my hands.
I looked down at the contrast of colors flecked against my skin. “They’re scars,” I said, gazing up at the clouds rolling in.
“I can see that,” she said on a laugh, bumping playfully against me. She waited a beat, and then peered over her shoulder at me. “How exactly did you get them?”
I knew she was fishing, digging into my past to know me on a deeper level. Normally, I’d close that door and lock it up tight, not wanting to let my demons come out and play. Other women had asked, but I blew them off.
But Charlotte wasn’t one of those women.
There was something about her voice, a soothing tone that opened me up and made me want to tell her more. That made me feel safe enough to let her in, even if just a little bit.
“Before I was given the pub, I did some… fighting,” I said, looking over to gauge her thoughts.
Her eyebrows rose up as she tilted her head slightly. “Some fighting?”
My shoulders pulled forward when I wrapped my arms around my knees. To tell her or not to tell her? What would she make of me then? “It was a while ago. Young and dumb, yeah? I wasn’t what you’d call a good person. I made a living beating the shite out of any bloke stupid enough to toe the line with me. I haven’t fought for a few years now though. Running the pub keeps me out of trouble since it takes up so much of my time.”
Her shoulder bumped into mine. When I looked at her, she gave me a smile that said she didn’t think any less of me. “Everyone has a past, Charlie. It’s what you make of yourself in the here and now that matters.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard those words. But hearing them from Charlotte? Just knowing it didn’t matter one way or the other with her was freeing.
“Looks like it might rain,” Charlotte said, changing the subject as she leaned back a little to look past me.
“Well, if it rains, it’ll be just like home.” I laughed, feeling lighter as I got to my feet and held my hand out to her.
As she brushed the sand off the back of her shorts, I slipped the shell she’d handed me into my pocket. A token of our afternoon together where I’d allowed someone other than my closest friends into my head. Even if it was something as simple as my favorite color.
THE RAIN SWEPT IN, TAPERED off, and then picked back up again throughout the afternoon. And as drowsy as we both were, we continued asking each other questions. Nothing deep. No more of my skeletons were rattled loose from their respective closets. Only light questions of interest, food, and places we’d traveled, or wanted to travel, came up in our conversations.
As the afternoon progressed, Charlotte made her way into the kitchen, shooing me out to relax in the living room.
The couch looked inviting, but I knew if I sat down, I’d end up horizontal and out for the night. Instead, I wandered over to the bay window.
I could see the ocean all frothy and spewing as the waves rushed up and crashed into an outcropping of boulders.
I leaned my arm along the windowsill, resting my head against it and watching with fascination. It was like seeing a visual of my life. Me, the rock, steady in one place, never changing no matter how many waves pushed themselves over me. I’d stay in my place and watch them wash back out, sending a new one in.
Over time, and experience, the surface would wear, become polished in some places, but again, it would be unmovable. However, like every stone that constantly gets tossed about, or slammed against, there would be that one wave, filled with enough sand to wear it down. Either make it crumble or into something better than it was.
Charlotte made me a better man. She was the wave washing over me. The one that would make me change.
And I’d realized it with a sudden clarity. All because I’d decided to stand at a window and look at a rock, I was in love with her.
How in the hell could I tell her?
What the hell was I supposed to do?
Lightning forked its way across the sky, sending fingers of white deftly through the clouds. The rock, once a dark hump against the storm, lit up like a homing beacon to show me the way.
Behind me, Charlotte fluttered around in the kitchen. Homey sounds like those of when I was younger were background noise, but welcome ones. The buttery- soft light coming from the kitchen reflected off the window, and when I focused my eyes, I could see her moving around, unaware I’d had a major epiphany.
One that would change the course of our lives.
“ARE YOU SURE YOU DON’T want more?” she asked, spoon hovering over the dish of homemade macaroni and cheese.
I shook my head as I clutched my stomach. “I’ll burst if I have another bite.”
She smiled. “Well, we can’t have that.”
“Be an awful mess to clean up,” I said, giving her a wink.
She rose from her seat and picked up her plate, a snort escaping her. “I was thinking tomorrow, maybe we can go to Coney Island. I’d planned to go with Hannah, but…”
“And what is Coney Island?” I asked, helping her clear the table.
She wiggled her eyebrows at me. “Junk food, rides… a boardwalk, things like that.”
“Rides? What sort of rides? Like a fair?” I asked.
&
nbsp; “Sort of, I suppose. It’s somewhere you can go and have fun, like an amusement park. I figured you might like to see it since it’s pretty iconic for New York,” she answered, clearing off the last of the dishes.
“Sounds like fun, but I have to tell ye… I can’t do rollercoasters,” I said, holding onto my stomach as if I’d just stepped off one.
“Motion sickness, huh?”
“Just thinking about it makes my stomach roll,” I admitted.
“Okay. No rollercoasters,” she replied, giving me a smile that warmed clear through to my backbone.
“How about a walk?” I blurted.
It caught her off guard, but she agreed. “Sure, just let me change.”
“Can I make a request?” I asked, halting her from slipping past me.
She stopped mid-step and turned. “Um, sure?”
“Do you have a dress?” I asked.
“A dress?”
“Preferably something easy to slip off,” I said, running my hands up her arms, brushing the sides of her breasts in the lightest of caresses.
Her nostrils flared as heat flooded her cheeks. She nodded.
I dropped my hands, releasing her. “I’ll get us towels while you change.”
WE WALKED ACROSS THE WET sand, both caught up in our own thoughts. My plan had been simple—take her to that damnable rock and lower her on it. Give her everything I had and hope I didn’t make a complete ass of myself.
I knew she had feelings for me. But feelings only went so far when two people didn’t live in the same country. Would she come with me? Take me as I was and damn the consequences? Would she make the same leap Hannah had in order to be with Ed?
“Where are we going? The rocks are that way,” Charlotte said as I linked my fingers with hers and pulled.
“I know,” I answered, getting a good eye full of them up close.
They were a lot bigger than I’d expected, and they were a lot more jagged. “Ah, there’s one,” I said, picking my way around the smaller stones.
“And just what are we going to do when the tide comes in? We’ll be stranded up here until it goes back out, because I damn sure am not stepping foot off it until then,” she huffed, but she kept pace with me.
“How long before high tide is in?” I asked.
“About three hours and it will be all the way in,” she answered, allowing me to help her up the last few feet until we were standing on the flattest rock in the grouping.
“Plenty of time,” I replied.
“For what? Because in about forty-five minutes, it’ll be past the point of either one of us going anywhere until the tide goes back out,” she said, giving me a look of confusion.
“How far up will the water make it? Or will it be the waves we’ll need to worry about?” I asked.
“They don’t come that far up. The water level gets a quarter of the way up. Depending on the waves, it might make it a little over halfway. The spray will get you up here though,” she answered, looking out over the black water.
The storm had moved on, but the clouds stayed layered like a thick blanket covering the moon. Every so often, it would peek through the cracks, but for the most part, the night remained enshrouded in a clock of ebony velvet.
“Perfect,” I said, dropping the towels and pulling her against me.
“Perfect for what exactly?” she asked in between kisses.
I nipped at her neck, making my way to my knees. She gasped as my hands went up her dress. In one long move, I worked the material up her body and over her head.
She wore nothing underneath it. I swallowed, feeling the tension coiling up inside of me. This woman was my equal match. As if she’d been made specifically for me.
I caught her fingers with my own and tugged gently, bringing her down so that we were at eye level. I kissed one, twining a hand with hers. Releasing the other, I ran the tips over the top of her breast up the column of her throat. Slipping my fingers into her hair with a twist, I bared her neck.
She panted, straining against me as I placed passionate kisses everywhere but her mouth. I needed her to be as unhinged as I was. As aroused and feral as I felt.
“I… need… you… inside me,” she gasped.
I pulled back, letting go of her long enough to lay both towels down. She didn’t hesitate; as soon as my hands were free, she snatched at the waistband of my shorts. I grabbed her hands, holding them firm. “I need to be inside of you too, luv, but first, there’s something I want to say.”
She flinched. “Is this the part where you tell me that all it will ever be is fucking and so on? Because if it is, save your breath and just get to it. I need you, and, right now, you have me at an extreme disadvantage because I’m ready to implode with or without you.”
I smiled at her as I laid her down and leaned over her. Her eyes were wide as she looked up at me. I said, “I pictured us here, while I stood in that window.”
I tipped my head in the direction of the house, and then paused long enough to stand up and drop my shorts down beside her dress. As I sank to my knees, she parted her legs, looking between them at me as the moon broke through the clouds.
“I saw ye just like this. Spread for me. Waiting for me to come to you. And I will come to you like a sailor home from the sea. You are home to me.” I slid inside of her slowly, feeling her body yielding to me in welcome.
She thrust her hips, making a noise to urge me on. I held fast and sank inside her as deep as I could go, watching her face until her eyes snapped open and met mine.
Her eyelids fluttered closed when I moved out. Body tensed for a quick coupling. Ready for it to be hard and fast. When I didn’t slam myself back inside her, her eyes snapped open again. Hips lifting, seeking something I wasn’t giving her.
“Harder,” she demanded.
“No,” I said, moving slowly.
Her eyes stayed open, focused on me as she hooked her heels into my backside. I’d known she’d try to entice me into a frenzy. It was easy enough to fall into one with her willing body so open for me to do as I pleased.
I braced my elbows and pushed back against her as she fought to bring us to a hard joining.
She vibrated under me.
“Keep your eyes open and look at me,” I said, watching her as I slowly slid back inside her warmth.
Her lashes fluttered, but she fought against keeping them closed.
She bit her lip with a strangled cry as I moved in and out of her body, setting a pace that not only pulled at all of my restraint, but also helped me focus on what I wanted to say to her as we were joined so closely.
“I saw ye laying here on your back, watching me make love to ye. This isn’t fucking. This isn’t getting off. I’m making love to ye, for the first time, but it won’t be the last. I’ll keep ye here, writhing under me and against me until ye cry out because it’s too much, and not enough.”
She gasped, muscles clenching hard around me as she lifted her arms above her head, mouth open on a silent scream as I pushed her over the edge with a twist of my hips. I leaned in, deep within her, and rocked, dragging another moan from her. My chest rubbed against the hardened tips of her breasts as I lowered myself to my elbows, taking in every single clench of spasms that tried to coax me to release before I said the words. I needed to say them. Wanted to say them as I emptied myself inside of her. Unsheathed for the first time in my life with the woman who’d stolen my soul.
I caught her face in my hands. Her eyes met mine as she whimpered.
Pouring myself deep inside of her, I said, “I love you.”
She shuddered along with me. Our cries of pleasure rang out as one.
My last thought was to gather her in my arms as I rolled us over. Her head rested on my pounding heart, and I swear I heard her say, “I love you too.”
Something… my heart, maybe even my soul, cracked wide open. And for once, I didn’t want to run.
THUNDERSTORMS ALWAYS MADE ME THINK of death.
When I woke the nex
t morning, the one after he told me he loved me, rain pelted against the window to our room in angry beats. Like shards of glass falling from the sky. Wind shook the shutters to the house, sounding like return calls to the thunder ripping through the sky.
Charlie was already out of bed, standing near the window and staring up into the dark gray sky. The clock said it was eight in the morning, but the sky looked closer to midnight.
I pulled the blanket under my chin and squeezed my eyes shut as my stomach somersaulted. I didn’t want to think about the day I lost my parents. The way the sky had an awful green color to it that contrasted against the rain soaking my grandmother on the porch after the policemen left. Or how my grandfather had to carry her inside and told me to wait in my room.
The memories came and went like bright, hot strikes of lightning to my soul. Hearing her cries. Stifling my own. Wondering if my parents were in heaven, but too afraid to ask.
My grandpa was the one to console me after my grandmother cried herself to sleep. He told me that our loved ones never truly left us, so long as we kept them in our hearts and our minds. And he told me I could live with him and my grandmother, and that he would always take care of me.
It stormed on the day of his death, and then again at my grandmother’s funeral.
And it was storming today.
“I think Mother Nature is having a bit of a fit, yeah? Maybe she’s stomping her foot about my upcoming departure?” Charlie joked as he let the curtain go and walked around to the other side of the bed.
“It’s just a good squall. It will probably pass by tonight,” I said. Time was tumbling past us in a flurry, like water down a drain.
“And here I thought I escaped the storms. I’m going to grab a shower.”
I nodded and watched him disappear behind the bathroom door.
Departure.
A word—something weightless and imaginary—shouldn’t have enough power to hurt someone because it wasn’t real in a physical sense.
But that one word, uttered flippantly from him, drove a hole clean through my heart.
He went and said the L word, and then I said it too.
When Two Hearts Collide (Game of Hearts Novels Book 3) Page 12
