The Acorn Tattoo: The Neverland Series Part 1 Anniversary Edition

by Miller, Alyse

  When the silence grew dense and threatened to break Davie charged purposely through the open doorway of the bathroom, propelled by some invisible force. He thrust his arms straight into the bath water, lifting Claire out of the tub like a sunken treasure. A waterfall rushed out beneath her and she flung her arms around his neck as her wet, naked body pressed against the cool fabric of his snow-dampened suit. She made small, half-protesting sounds of surprise as he thrust the other arm under her hair at the base of her neck, twisting his fingers in her curls as he stared into her eyes, the desperate man on the sidewalk driven now by desire with nothing left to lose.

  Chapter 14

  Claire had only a second to draw in a breath before Davie kissed her, his lips hungry against hers and devouring her with unrestrained passion. For a moment, Claire hesitated. Then she kissed him back with everything she had, with wanting lips that had smiled and laughed and cried with those against hers, that had spilled secrets and dreams and desires. It was a kiss of undoing, of abandon. A sudden desperate need rode the air, pushing them past the imaginary boundaries they’d barred themselves behind. It was as if they had been waiting their whole lives for this moment, this kiss.

  Without pausing to breathe, Davie set Claire down and sank in front of her, his mouth dragging down her neck and throat as if they lacked the strength to leave her body. His lips pressed hot and wet against her breasts, then falling to massage with tongue and lips and teeth the tender surface below her navel. His hands raked smoothly over her skin, cupping and squeezing and rubbing flesh, until Claire’s body shuddered against his. Moans fell from her lips, and with trembling hands, she grabbed at his shoulders, rolling her fingers into the slick material. She twisted them roughly into his wetted curls.

  Davie hooked his arm around Claire’s bottom, lifting her as if she weighed nothing. His lips still forceful against hers, Claire wrapped her legs around his waist, fastening her feet behind his back against the slippery fabric of his ruined suit jacket that was drenched in hot and cold patches of melted snow and soapy bath water. She held either side of his face in her hands, riding him and kissing him as if her life depended on it. A strangled growl pulled from his throat, and his arms locked like a vice around her, forearms taut against her back as he held her head with his hands, keeping her mouth tight against his.

  When his knees bumped the edges of the bed, Davie fell forward with Claire under him, dropping her lightly against the mattress as he caught himself above her, palms flat against the bed. He crooked an arm beneath her back and lifted her as he crawled forward over her. Without taking his mouth from hers he ripped the suit jacket from his arms and flung it to the floor, then fumbled with the buttons of his shirt until finally, with a frustrated groan, he ripped the shirt away, sending buttons flying across the room in its wake.

  He was magnificent above her, the rippled outline of his body edged in a dark halo of light that shone around him from the bathroom door. Claire reached up to touch him, but he grabbed her hands and pushed them back down into the bed as he used his weight to press her body deeper into the mattress.

  “Now do you see me?” he demanded, tearing his lips from hers. The man looking at her had the same melted chocolate eyes as Davie, but whatever trace of that little boy that was left had gone, traded for this handsome, commanding man that something deep inside her craved, needed so desperately that she would die without. She was compelled, almost obsessed, with the need to touch him, to feel as much of his body against hers as she could, but he held her hands pinned against the bed, trapping her between his body and the mattress, waiting for her response.

  “Yes.” It was a moan. She stared up at him and she did. And in that moment, she belonged to him.

  Chapter 15

  When they were spent, Claire lay quietly with her body twisted around David’s, relearning how to breathe. The night outside her window was beginning to lighten, the first hints of daylight dampening the blue of the midnight sky to paint Claire’s bedroom in warm shades of indigo. David’s head rested in the hollow space between her ribs, his tangled curls tickling against her skin as he looked up at her, his breath gusting across her chest like a lazy summer breeze. Her heart beat in her chest, a slow, steady, relaxed rhythm as she played lightly in his curls with her fingers, exploring his face with changed eyes. She had worried that once the moment of passion had passed, they would look at each other with regret and try to figure out how to undo their undoing. But Claire felt freed instead, loosed, like something had unlocked within her. Her heart still wasn’t whole, but it somehow just didn’t matter right now.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  David’s voice was softer than she’d ever heard it before. A worried look passed over his eyes. His fingers brushed tentatively against her cheek as if he wasn’t sure if he could touch her.

  “No.” Her own voice was lazy, a smile faint on her lips as a pink tint crept into her cheeks. David had always been so refined, so mannerly, but the man she’d encountered last night had been strong, demanding even, manipulating her body with an urgent forcefulness she didn’t know he’d possessed. And it had been glorious.

  “Are you sure?” he asked again, propping himself up on and shifting so that he looked down at her.

  “Yes,” she laughed and wrapped her arms around him to pull him down to her. She ached still, but in a totally amazing kind of sore she liked very much.

  She felt David’s lips curve into a smile on hers. “Good. There is something I would like to ask you.” He rolled off her and onto his side in a single fluid motion. With his hand on the curve of her waist they lay, side by side, facing each other.

  “You just asked me something,” Claire teased.

  How David could lie down and still shake his head, she didn’t know, but he did. “I suppose I did,” he smiled back, indulging her. “However, there is something else I wanted to ask. Something, I believe, which is slightly more of an…entanglement.” He said the last in a deeper, teasing tone, grinning at his own pun, and pinching the skin of her ribs lightly.

  Claire blushed. “Then by all means, Mr. Hunter. I am on pins and needles.”

  “Come back to Seattle with me, Claire. Let’s start a life together there.” His voice was serious now.

  He paused as a tight look of apprehension hardened across his face. The thought that, after all this time, the first man to lie beside her in her bed was David, blew across Claire’s mind like a fleeting tumbleweed. How wonderfully surreal.

  “Seattle?” Claire wasn’t sure she’d heard him.

  Asking her to move away with him was, for some reason, the last thing she had expected. She had anticipated something easier, more mundane, like what she might want for breakfast, or what she’d like to do tomorrow. She was overcome with that familiar falling-off-the-world feeling, and she twisted her hands into the rumpled sheets of the bed at her waist, holding on. This was all moving so fast. Just when she thought she’d caught up, she was behind again.

  “Yes, Seattle. I know it’s a lot to ask so suddenly, but it feels right, like it’s what we’re supposed to do now. I know it’s a big decision, and there are many details to consider.” David caressed her hands with his thumb as he talked, smoothing away her anxieties. “But I will take care of everything. All you have to do is say yes.”

  Claire lay with her head on David’s chest, considering his offer while his hands moved from her palms to her back, stroking in yawning circles. As stunned as she was by David’s request, it did seem only natural that she would go to home with him. After all, the thought alone of not being with him, especially now, was almost enough to bring tears to her eyes. She snuggled tighter against him, inhaling his scent of basil and nutmeg and leather. They had been loosely discussing the idea of closing the gap between them for weeks already. He had even mentioned the topic on their last phone call. And that was before…before this. Now her need for him was ever so much greater. She needed his companionship, his presence, his comfort, just as much as she
desperately needed his touch, his kiss, this amazing sense of permanency blooming in their newly redefined relationship. Going to Seattle with David might be the beginning of a happily ever after.

  “Yes,” she answered finally. “Yes, I’ll go to Seattle with you.”

  David smiled at her, that beautiful, perfect, genuine smile reserved only for his happiest moments. He kissed her softly. “Then by all means, Ms. Baker,” he whispered against her lips, kissing her between each word. “Let’s go home.”

  Chapter 16

  “Must you really leave already, Mr. Hunter?”

  Claire pouted into her coffee mug, the steam curling around her nose like a creamy potpourri. Lounging on the couch, sipping coffee and watching David scan the newspaper in the armchair beside her, Claire was blanketed in cozy nostalgia.

  It was a morning like so many that had happened before—her in a fluffy house robe with her hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail while David reclined nearby, already dressed in slacks and tie and reading the paper, every detail perfectly starched and polished. Except, this morning was sprinkled with the prickling tinge of change, like the expressions on a familiar painting had been erased and redrawn differently. It was the subtle difference that would forever alter the world if the Mona Lisa’s careful smile had been painted into a grin, or if the American Gothic farmer and his spinster daughter had tossed away their pitchforks and scowls and held each other instead.

  “I must prepare the details of your arrival, Ms. Baker.” David peered at her over the top of his newspaper and gave her a playful wink. “Unless, of course, you would prefer to come with me now, instead? Although, I fear you would have just a small amount of trouble boarding the plane in your current state of disarray.”

  He folded the paper and set it aside, smirking like a dashing devil knowing well that there was little more than flesh hiding under the folds of Claire’s house robe. Then, as if that reminded him that she was his now, and he was allowed, finally, to touch her, he moved eagerly to the couch. With her body cradled against his crisp white shirt, David relaxed into a firm pillow beside her. It was a natural gesture, as if he’d done it a million times before, and they fit together easily, like jigsaw pieces joining.

  Claire burrowed her face into the crook of his neck. She would almost have been distraught that he had shaved away the stubble from his face if clearing away the rough shadow hadn’t exposed the soft creases that framed his lips like crescent moons when he smiled at her. Without the stubble Claire could watch clearly as the right side of his mouth pulled up just a bit higher than the left when he smiled, betraying the perfect symmetry of his face with what some might mistake as an imperfection. That rare crooked smile hinted at the boy he’d been in youth—Claire’s best friend.

  She kissed the underside of his jaw, enjoying the feel of the rumble in David’s throat that vibrated against her lips. It was marvelous that every touch, every kiss she gave him brought an immediate reaction from him. Claire couldn’t remember ever having that effect on anyone, and it was immensely flattering. Even more so was the rumble that answered inside her from some deep inner place within that knew him and loved him too.

  David brushed his lips against the top of her head and blew kisses into the mess of her hair. Claire wondered if she should be embarrassed at how frowzy she looked, but not caring about her appearance was part of the delight of being with David. It simply didn’t matter.

  “I think you have some business to attend to here, as well,” he reminded her gently. His fingers played along the fraying edge of her robe belt, tugging it loose so that it yawned open, exposing a triangle of pale flesh that was quickly covered under the planes of David’s palms.

  Claire gasped a little as his hands rubbed lightly over the tender skin, his lips pressing small, teasing kisses on her face and neck. The smooth skin of his freshly shaven jaw rubbed along her skin.

  “I do,” she breathed. “I have to make some arrangements at work to transfer to the west coast, and there’s so much to tell Nik. Her head is going to spin with what has happened in the past few days. I didn’t think it was possible for life to move too fast, especially for her.”

  David fingered the silver chain around Claire’s neck. The acorn pendant rolled across her throat like a small weight anchored directly to her heart. “I believe you are forgetting something, Ms. Baker. There are other loose ends to tie up in New York as well,” he said without being particular, his words cloaked in vagueness. He was making the decision hers—her decision to stay or to go, or who would earn her heart.

  Claire frowned. She hadn’t thought about Jake at first, and his face sprang into her mind. Before Jake, she hadn’t known the sweetness of love, hadn’t known she could fall so completely into someone with just a kiss. She was beholden to him for giving her the intangible gift of First Love. Seeing him, with his sparkling green eyes and Lost Boy grin, hiccupping confessions with fallen leaves encrusted in his hair, made Claire’s heart whimper as she thought about the unreasonableness of it all. It wasn’t so much the pain of it, but the unfairness. He who had first taught her how to love hadn’t been the one who had already claimed her heart. Now she was left with the responsibility of not only her own heart, but of two more to tend to.

  David, now standing, turned Claire’s eyes to his so that she looked at him upside down. “You have a lovely romantic heart, Ms. Baker,” he said, the impatience in his eyes thawing into compassion as he studied her. David’s brunette eyes had always been wise beyond his years, but today they were filled with a dark, almost ominous wisdom. “But the actualities of love are harder than wishing on stars, Claire.”

  When David had finally left her apartment in a flurry of impassioned kisses that lifted her from the floor—the tips of her toes brushing the living room carpet as he swept her into a tight embrace—Claire showered and dressed with a heavy heart. It had been their longest goodbye, maybe the one that had hurt the most, as if he were taking a part of her she’d only just discovered along with him back to Seattle. She would be leaving New York in a week, a length of time that felt both terribly long and terribly short, all things considered. The clock was ticking. In a week, movers would pack up her apartment and ship her things to Seattle, and she would take up residence in David’s swanky high-rise condo that overlooked the downtown of the Emerald City. Much of her future was uncertain, but she was calm and satisfied, confident that David would manage all the details for them, keeping her well taken care of as he always had, even if she was sometimes frustrated with his imperiousness. The only matters that were dependent on Claire were matters of her heart, which were possibly the most difficult matters of all.

  David was right that it was time to let go of immature impressions of love, but still it felt foreboding. She couldn’t help but think of his role in this as both the hero and the villain. Claire ticked through the clothes hanging in her closet, frustrated at what she now perceived as an overabundance of dresses and skirts that felt too innocuous for the complicated set of emotions that played her heartstrings like a thick, meaty harp. The soft, flowing fabrics and dainty details were little more than relics of the past, belongings of the girl she used to be before she stopped believing in daydreams and forgot forever how to fly.

  The thought of flying brought her mind immediately to Jake, and she swallowed a sob. In her mind he was still the sheepish, dreamy boy she’d met in the coffee shop, and also the tempting, quixotic man of her fantasy, a combination of traits almost as frustrating as those she now saw in David, who was himself simultaneously captivating and vexing. Claire wondered if they saw the same duality in her, and the role she played in each of their lives. She knew David had struggled with his own battles when it came to her. She’d seen it since she’d found him sleeping on her couch. But Jake was still as much an unsolvable mystery as always. With a bitter exhale, Claire turned to the back corners of her closet, where she’d hidden the much more practical adult items of her wardrobe, including many of the items David had
sent her. If it was time to act like an adult, she may as well dress like one.

  She slipped into the sharp teeth of a black and white houndstooth skirt that zipped high onto her waist and a sensible, contrasting pair of pointed patent leather heels the color of burnt sunshine. She finished with a ruby cardigan with a ruffled but sophisticated tulle collar. It was a good compromise, Claire decided, changing from girl to woman like a caterpillar to a butterfly, one layer at a time. Pinning her hair in a low knot at the base of her head, Claire faced a new woman in the mirror, one toughened a bit by the bitter realities of what it meant to love—a soft heart encased in a hard candy shell.

  Slowly, and with steely resolve not to cry, she unclasped the crystal acorn pendant from her neck and laid it gingerly in the blue jewel box on her bedside table. If she couldn’t hold onto Jake, she must give his kiss back. It wasn’t hers to keep.

  Chapter 17

  When Claire knocked on the door to Jake’s loft apartment, she was prepared to break his heart. She had rehearsed her goodbyes so many times on the cab ride over that she felt almost confident she could recite them like a seasoned actor, word for word without breaking character or revealing the hole inside herself that would be left empty with him gone. But when Jake lifted the gate to greet her, Claire’s brain short-circuited, rendering her speechless. How anyone could resist this boy was completely beyond her. How she could just let him go, another mystery.

  He was shameless and breathtaking, standing shirtless in front of her with one arm stretched above his head, pulling the muscles in his arms and chest taut like brawny rubber bands. The small acorn tattoo blinked into view under the frayed waistband of worn jeans left unbuttoned. His hair swirled in a dust storm atop his head. He must have known how incredible he looked, but the innocent Lost Boy grin stretching under shining eyes was only the smallest bit coy. It was like gazing at a star that twinkled brightly, unaware of its own brilliance.