by Aubrey Irons
I’m sure he hasn’t.
I’m sure there’ve been so many girls too, since me. The thought makes my face hot, and the jealous demon inside claw at my heart. That stupid, roguish smile, those dangerous and gorgeous eyes. Those dimples, the grooves of his face.
The velvet temptation of that voice.
The things he does with his hands.
…Or with his tongue.
The heat comes unbidden, undeniable, like it always does. The flush in my cheeks spreads down my neck to my breasts, my nipples puckering even in the summer heat.
I blush as I turn back to the mirror, raking my teeth across my lip as I let eyes dip down over my naked body. My fingers move again to the ink on my ribs, but they don’t stay there this time.
This time, they wander.
I trace the soft curve of my breasts with both hands, moving my hands slowly up to and then over my nipples. The electric buzz of it tingles through me as I linger there, teasing the swollen pink buds as my body slowly responds.
I move one hand down, tracing over the softness of my belly, down under the waist of my panties until I feel the heat pulsing there.
The kind of heat that only comes from thinking of Silas Hart.
My eyes flutter shut as my fingers push between my lips, sliding wetly across my seam and rolling electrically across my clit. And I think of his hands, because I’ve never been able to forget them.
There’s a saying that you “never forget your first.”
Forget? Hell, I can still feel Silas’s hands on me. Eight years later, I can remember every touch, every kiss, every lick, every caress.
Every thrust.
The moan catches in my throat as I sink a finger inside of me, curling it as I push my hand deeper beneath the cotton of my panties. My breath comes quicker as I stroke that place just inside, letting my thumb brush across the throbbing clit aching for attention.
I force my eyes open, seeing how flushed and how red I am, which only make me blush even deeper of course. My eyes flit to the tattoo, and then move to the ring again, warm against my breast on its little chain.
I step back until I feel the bed behind me. The panties slide down my legs into a heap at my feet before I kick them off and fall back into the bed.
I can remember our first time in this bed.
After months in the cab or the back of his truck, or out on the sand by the breakers on low tide the night we went skinny dipping, we finally had the house to ourselves. My parents were at a conference in Worcester, Stella at college in Boston, Rowan also in Boston doing God knows what he was up to for the three years he spent there. Sierra and Kyle were both at friends’ houses for sleepovers.
The whole house to ourselves.
I remember feeling so nervous, almost more so than the first time. Doing that here in my childhood bedroom felt almost sacrilegious, even if it was in the most sinfully wonderful way. I remember the strange mix of childhood stuffed animals still on the shelves and teenage music posters on the wall, mixed with the very adult feeling of sitting astride Silas Hart riding his perfect cock until I screamed out my climax.
So wrong, so dirty, and so fucking good.
Here in that room again, I can feel my body beginning to clench as I replay the memories. My fingers stroke in and out, my thumb tracing lazy circles around my clit as my breath and my blood pumps higher, hotter, faster.
I remember him spreading my legs and taking me for a second time here in this bed that night - holding me, kissing me, claiming me.
Making me his.
All it takes is one more stroke of my fingers and one more rolling thumb across my clit after that before I’m rocking my hips off the bed and turning my head to bury my scream into the pillow. The memories sizzle through me, the ink on my ribs throbs, and the ring burns like a hot little coal between my breasts a I come.
I lay there after, chewing on my lip and toying with the ring pendant again.
And as hot as it just was reliving my past with Silas, all I can think about is how silly it is that I’ve kept it.
Because again, I’m sure he hasn’t. And again, I’m sure there have been so many women after me that he’s forgotten the memories I still relive as fantasy like some sort of silly girl.
The thought makes me furious, and then even madder that it has that effect on me at all, and I suddenly slide from the bed and skulk across the room to the dresser. I yank on an old softball t-shirt and sleep shorts.
I don’t give a shit what Silas’s done since us. Because that all ended when he left. Let him chase skanky townie girls in townie bars all night, exactly like he was always meant to.
Budweiser and Red Sox games, that stupid vintage pickup truck.
It was a lie I was chasing before, and I’m done doing that.
I’ve grown up.
I slump back into the bed.
Right?
Chapter 12
Silas
The jangling ring of my phone wakes me up in the morning, jarring me half off my cot in the back storeroom of O’Donnell’s.
I groan at the aching stiffness in my back as I turn over, only to be immediately confronted with the roaring of the hangover lancing through my head. Gingerly, I swing my legs out of the cot and sit up, wrinkling my face at the half-empty bottle of Irish whiskey sitting on the floor.
For a moment, I’m thrown back to those first few days after leaving Shelter Harbor. In my head, I’m back in the belly of the cargo ship owned by one of Declan’s Irish associates that I crossed the Atlantic to Ireland in all those years ago. Cold, wet, hopped up on whiskey and cigarettes with the rest of the pirates, mobsters, and general low lifes on board.
Missing the fuck out of the girl I’d left behind and trying to drown the screaming inside. Trying to drown the memory of walking away from the one thing I ever cared about and knowing I was doing it for her and that she’d never know.
I drop my face to my hands, rubbing my eyes as I slowly climb from sleep there in the back room of the bar. Back here, back home.
I gotta get a bed.
I groan again as I straighten up, feeling my back crack after a night on this godawful fold-up cot.
What I need to do is get a place that isn’t the sparestore room of a fucking dive bar. That’s what I need to do.
The thought stops me.
Getting a place here means staying here in Shelter Harbor.
I’m not sure where that idea comes from, but it stops me cold.
The thing is, I’m lost, and I know it. Five years spent sans-passport in another country being the guy I never wanted to be in order to dodge responsibility here, followed by another three years of being a damn nobody in Southie Boston.
I’ve been keeping my nose relatively clean. Trying to keep my hands clean too. Work-wise, I’ve been picking up the odd construction job for my landlord, who’s a contractor.
There’s also my plan - the one plan that I haven’t really told a soul about yet, because it’s not quite there yet. Which is a nice way of saying I need a fuckload of money to get it off the ground, and a fuckload of money seems to be something I’m a tad short on at the moment.
But whatever happens, I’m sure as shit not going back to Dublin, and there’s nothing really for me in Boston that I couldn’t walk away from, well, three days ago.
That sort of leaves Shelter Harbor, I guess.
The phone rings again, and I groan at the name that pops up across the screen.
Valerie.
Like I said, it’s not like I’ve been a monk for the last eight years. Valerie lives down the street from me - a loud, brassy, and if we’re being honest, trashy Southie girl. There’s nothing there but a warm bed, and even that was done with weeks before I came back here.
I wince, pinching the bridge of my nose as I take the call.
“Hey, Va-”
“Oh, so you ah fuckin’ alive?”
That thick, almost comically Boston accent with the dropped “r’s” hits me like a bu
cket of water to the face.
“Yeah,” I clear my throat. “Yeah, I’m alive.”
“Siiilaaas.” Her voice softens to a whine as she drawls out my name. “You didn’t come ovah last night.”
Yeah, no shit.
“You know Thursdays are our night.” I can practically hear the pout through the phone, and I can imagine those overly-plumped, thickly-painted lips puffing out, her hand toying with the frosted tips of her jet-black hair.
“I waited up for you, wearin’ that little thing you like so much. I got worried.”
I frown. “Feelings” and “worrying” about the other has never really been part of the equation with Val.
“Yeah, sorry about that. My uncle’s sick.”
I wish, I think with a grin.
“Awww baaaaby!” she brays into the phone. “You should come ovah and I could make you feel bettah.”
In another life, it’s a tempting offer. But not in this one.
Girls like Valerie are who guys like me are supposed to be with. Girls like her, with the fake hair, the fake nails, the smell of cigarettes on their breath and cheap wine on their lips are who guys like me who come from families like mine are supposed to end up with. They’re the ones I’m supposed to punch a ticket at the factory for and come home to, so we can watch Sox games in fucking track pants and bang out a fourth kid named for a saint.
Girls like her, and the stuff I’m supposed to do is what brought me to Ivy, and chasing after what I was never supposed to have.
“Can’t, Val. I’m not in town.”
“Well where ah you then?”
Her tone instantly changes again, this time accusatory, suspicion lacing her voice. Except there’s no groundwork for jealousy or suspicion with people like us. I know exactly who I am to her. I’m the guy she doesn’t bring around to her friends - not yet at least.
I’m the guy who has “a day” where I come over and fuck her hard, filthy, and fast. I’m the guy that she wants to call daddy or handcuff to the bed, or whatever crazy shit she’s afraid to do with a boyfriend.
But I’m the guy she gets her claws in and hangs onto.
And I don’t say that in some macho way or some bullshit misogynist way, I mean it cause that’s what girls like her do. I’m also five hundred percent sure there are three other guys in her life exactly like me, and she’s waiting to see which one ends up panning out as the best horse in the race.
“I’m at my uncle’s- look, Val, I gotta go.”
“Well where’s your uncle live?”
“Another time, Val.”
She clicks her tongue against her teeth, and I hang up.
I drop the phone back on the cot and slump back against the wooden wall. Immediately, I wince and jerk back up at the prick of the roofing nail that jabs my shoulder.
Wonderful, now I need a goddamn tetanus shot.
I gotta get out of here.
Staying or not, I need to improve my situation. And staying or not, there’s two things I’m here for. One, to see the man who basically raised me as a third son get a park named after him, whether he wants me there or wants me dead.
And secondly?
Secondly, I’m figuring out what the fuck I’m going to do about Ivy.
But first, I’m getting the fuck out of this bar.
“You work here?”
The voice startles me as I’m locking the back door to O’Donnell’s behind me. I turn to see a man in grey slacks and a white dress shirt - no tie, with the sleeves rolled up.
“Yup,” I lie, quietly sizing him. “Bar’s closed though.”
The guy sighs. “Damn, not even a quick one?”
I frown at him. He’s acting casual, but everything about his stance and his eyes says he’s fully alert, and not the day-time drunk he’s trying to pretend to be.
“Nope, sorry.”
I pull on the door to make sure it’s locked before I turn back and go to walk past him.
“We open at two.”
“Man, I bet it’d be open if we were in Dublin, huh?”
I freeze three steps from him.
“Ever been?”
I shake my head slowly as I turn back to him, my whole body on alert.
“Nope.”
The man grins at me. “You sure? You seem like the Dublin type.”
“Wrong guy, sorry.”
I go to turn, ready to get away from whatever the hell this is.
“No I’m pretty sure I’ve got the right guy, Silas.”
I whirl back to him, every muscle coiled and ready to spring, my hands in fists at my sides.
He’s holding a badge this time, the dopey look gone from his face.
“Special Agent Riley, FBI,” he says with a smug look. “I think we should probably talk.”
“About Dublin?” I shrug as casually as I can, swallowing the lump in my throat. “You want the best places for fish and chips? If you’re looking more for a cultural thing, the Natural History Museum has this great two-for-one deal on Sundays.”
Special Agent Riley smirks. “You done?”
“Oh, I could write a tour book on Dublin, Agent Riley.”
His grin fades. “I bet you could, Hart.” He tucks his badge into his back pocket and crosses his arms over his chest.
“How’s your uncle?”
I smile. “Cantankerous? Still full of shit?”
I know what this is. It’s an intimidation game. Agent Riley here doesn’t actually have anything on me or that night eight years ago or I’d be in handcuffs right now on my way to Boston.
But he’s not clueless either, that much is obvious.
We stand there another full thirty seconds, not speaking, before I finally throw my hands up and shrug. “Well, look, Agent, if you still want that drink, the bar opens at two.”
He nods slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. “I’m good. Just wanted to come by and see how my favorite ex-pat is doing back at home.”
“Aww, am I your favorite?” I clasp my hands over my heart. “That- gee, Agent Riley, that really means a lot. Thank you.”
He raises a brow at me as I grin right back at him. “I’ve got my eye on you, you know.”
Fuck him. Again, if he had something concrete, I’d already be in an interrogation room asking for a lawyer. I’m not entirely sure what he’s playing at showing up like this, but I do know damn well that the Federal statute of limitations was over three years ago.
“Just make sure you get my good side, okay?”
I wink as he shakes his head at me, his arms still crossed over his chest.
“Welcome home, Silas.”
“Enjoy our lovely town, Agent Riley.” I call back over my shoulder. “Try the lobster rolls down on Commercial Street.”
I wait until I’m a block away and around a corner before I almost drop to my knees, the wind leaving me in a whoosh.
Fuck. Welcome home indeed.
Chapter 13
Ivy
I leave my sandals on the beach as I head down onto the rocky shore. The water is cold, as it always is in New England, even in the summer.
I shiver as I let just the tips of my toes into the lapping waves, feeling somehow comforted by the feeling of the Atlantic against my skin.
Shelter Harbor doesn’t get big surf-type waves. That’s out on the breakers around the mouth of the harbor itself. Here in the protection of the bay though, we just get little lapping ones - the ebb and flow of the water teasing endlessly against the shore.
Tickle waves, my mom calls them.
I grin as I let them tickle my feet, feeling centered - feeling at home.
Of course, I’m also grinning because these tickle waves are about to become a $5,000 Instagram picture.
I push the little bottle of skin cream down into the soft brown sand and black pebbles of the shore, pushing it just enough in, right next to my toes, so that the water just splashes gently across it.
Perfect.
This week’s skin cream product pla
cement apparently specializes in minimizing high-heel-related calluses. Or, something. This one I’m not actually that familiar with, but my management team made sure it was part of the “to shoot” product bag - along with the sandals up on the beach, the sports bra I’m currently wearing, and of course the yoga pants that carry my brand - that I was supposed to come home with and photograph
“Make sure you really get enough of that quaint Cape Cod charm, okay, Ivy?”
I frown at Lori, my immediate manager. “Shelter Harbor isn’t actually on Cape Co-”
“Hon?” She looks down over the top of her tortoise-shell glasses at me from behind her wide, glass desk. “It doesn’t really matter, okay?”
Here in decidedly not Cape-Cod-located Shelter Harbor, I bring the phone up and point it down at my feet, framing it just right. Some people who do this kind of work hire a team, but polls have shown that people really dig my “home shot” aesthetic. They like that I’m “au naturale” and don’t use pro photographers. They like that I’m “so genuine” in my selfless quest to highlight-reel my life of endless yoga retreats, active wear, and goji-berry cleanses.
Right.
I mean, I’m going to Photoshop the shit out of these pictures later on my laptop, but sure - “au naturale” it is.
The sun’s perfect right then too, the light great for that mid-afternoon summer dazzle. I swap to a video, shooting a quick one with sound that I’m sure will get 300,000 likes by dinner time if I can get it up in time.
The skin cream along with my toes captured in about fifty shots, I make my way back up to the beach, slipping back into my sandals and climbing the wooden stairs back to the piers. My eyes dart across the harbor scene I could probably still navigate with my damn eyes closed. The smell of Halstead’s lobster-roll take-out window, the sounds of mechanical winches down on the docks loading empty nets onto trawlers or full ones off.
The cool wind of the Atlantic blowing through my hair.
I snap a few more random shots, getting that “New England charm” aesthetic I know the management team is looking for. I might’ve run away from this place a long time ago, but I will hand it to this town, charm it’s got by the damn bucketful. There’s a reason ferries and tour buses bring tourists by the truckload to this place between May and September. It’s charming, and quaint - picturesque enough that they’ve even shot movies here over the years.
