Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
EWAN
I’m trying very hard to keep my breathing even and quiet as Shiloh and I make our way back down the lighthouse stairs.
It’s a little humiliating how difficult even this small bit of cardio is for me.
Although, to be fair, Shiloh has been undressing me with his eyes all afternoon, standing too close, touching me, and generally just being a goddamned nuisance if one wanted to provide their brain with the correct amount of oxygen.
I’m a strange mixture of cold, hot and bothered, and dizzy right now, and two-thirds of that can be blamed solely on the lovely pair of shoulders and tight jeans in front of me.
Shit went from zero to sixty up there on that balcony, and now I’m frantically trying to remember the state of my body hair and how much effort I put into brushing my teeth this morning.
I wish I had a mint. I wish I had a comb and a little deodorant to spruce myself up with.
I wish I had a bed I could throw Shiloh down on and eat him, because I have been starving my entire life, and I’m tired of feeling hollow.
He was going to kiss me. Shiloh was going to kiss me.
Every single fantasy I’ve ever had has started that way, and five minutes ago, I was almost living the dream.
Now, the man is walking in front of me, dark blond hair tousled from the wind and soft, so fucking soft.
Exactly as soft as I always imagined it would be.
My fingers are still tingling with the afterburn, and my body hums with want.
If it were possible in the close confines of the stairs, I’d reach for his hand.
Anything for a single point of contact—an anchor to remind me that what just happened was real, that it won’t float away on the breeze but will meet us at the base of the lighthouse and ride home with us.
When he reaches the bottom, Shiloh steps off the metal stairs and looks over his shoulder at me. My heart kicks up a notch, and I smile at him, a bit unsure. I want to kiss his face off. I want to nestle myself against his chest, burrowed so deep there will be no separating us ever again.
“Do you have any other plans for the evening?” he asks, calm as anything. I gape at him. Do I have plans for the evening? No, I suppose, unless you count following him home like a lost puppy and begging to be let inside.
“Uhm, no?” I wait before adding, “But I could?”
“Dinner at my place?” he offers, taking a step to the side as though trying to walk toward the exit but unwilling to turn fully away from me.
“Sure. Yeah. That would be great.”
My voice sounds strange to my ears, squeaking and high-pitched.
Shiloh either doesn’t notice or decides not to comment, merely smiling and leading the way through the museum toward the exit.
I need to calm down. Right now, my pulse is teetering a little close to medical emergency territory, and unless I want our first kiss to be when Shiloh gives me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, it’s time to chill the fuck out.
It’s funny, because while I’m not super promiscuous, I do get around enough to keep the itches scratched.
I’m never this nervous. Never this strung out and jittery, as though coffee is the only thing I’ve ingested for days.
That’s how I feel right now, though, having felt Shiloh’s big hand on my hip and had his eyes on my face and his lips on my cheek.
I almost wish I could detach a little bit, pretend that it’s any other hookup or date with any other man. Nothing special.
But it is someone special, and this isn’t any other hookup.
If that’s even what’s going to happen. It’s possible we really are just going back to Shiloh’s house to eat dinner.
In fact, now that I’ve calmed down and think about it a little bit, the likelihood of hooking up is probably pretty low.
I very much doubt Shiloh is hitting up a dating app for someone to bang every weekend, and I doubt that’s where his thoughts immediately go with me either.
I don’t particularly care what we do, whether it’s eating or fucking or eating and fucking.
Whatever it is, I just want to do it with Shiloh.
After saying a rushed goodbye to Hailey, we pass a group of people showing up for their tour and climb back into Shiloh’s truck.
I fumble with the seat belt a little bit, my fingers stupid with cold and my heart stupid with hope and love.
When I finally get it snapped into place, Shiloh reverses off the lawn, hand on the back of my seat as he checks behind us.
I look at him while he does, my entire system buzzing with adrenaline.
“Do you want to stop and pick up something to eat? Or I could make something. I’ve got some salmon I could grill,” Shiloh offers, fingers tapping on the steering wheel as he thinks. How the hell is he able to focus on food at a time like this?
“Whatever you want. I can help if you want to cook.”
“I’ll handle dinner,” he counters, slightly more firm. Because I haven’t stopped staring at him, I catch the furtive look he sends me and raise my eyebrows in question. He sighs. “If I cook for you, it’s more romantic, and then this can be a date.”
“Oh, Shi, this is a date, no matter if we eat straight from your garbage can,” I tell him gently before hooking a thumb back over my shoulder in the direction of the lighthouse behind us. “So was that.”
“Damn. Our first date, and you couldn’t even remember to book the tickets in advance.” He huffs, shaking his head and trying to look disappointed.
“Worked out for me, though, didn’t it? I even got your hands all over me by pretending to be cold. Classic.”
He laughs, a pair of fine lines branching out from the corner of his eye.
Leaning my head back against the seat, I watch him and desperately try to stay in the present.
It’s hard not to hate myself a little bit every time we interact.
How could I not, when I wasted so much of my life being miserable and alone, and for what?
Right now, every reason feels flimsy and idiotic, like I went through all that trouble to ruin my life for nothing.
For seven years of success as an artist but a miserable and lonely personal life; for Shiloh spending that time reaching out to me and losing hope that I’d ever reach back.
I think I must be a real piece of shit, believing the only way to save myself was by hurting him.
“Uh-huh,” Shiloh says, tugging me back into the moment. “Those cute little shivers were definitely real.”
I’m saved from my pity party by personal affront. I scoff, scrunching up my nose. “Cute little shivers?”
“Adorable,” Shiloh confirms. “Like a little baby bunny left out in the cold.”
“Okay,” I drawl, dragging out the A and watching Shiloh press his lips together, fighting a smirk. “I’m not sure roasting is the best way to flirt on a first date.”
“Maybe not,” he concedes, raising a couple of fingers off the steering wheel to wave at a passing driver. “But I did all my flirting in those emails.”
“They were pretty romantic,” I concede, turning to face forward so I can look out the windshield at the passing scenery.
Smiling, I think back through the library of letters from Shiloh I’ve got saved on my phone and have already read through multiple times.
“You’ve actually got a nice way of writing. Very poetic.”
Shiloh turns away from the road long enough to spear me with an incredulous look.
I shrug, tilting my head in his direction once more and smiling at him.
It’s sort of funny how little I can remember smiling this way in the past few years—soft and real and easy.
Smiling, for me, became something that needed to be practiced in the mirror before a show, not something that came naturally.
But, as he seems to do in all things, Shiloh is able to brush aside the disingenuous and pull the authentic into the light.
“Poetic? Be serious,” he requests, shaking his head. “I’m pretty sure I sent you an entire email describing a blue lobster we’d caught.”
“You did!” That particular email is one of my favorites. I flagged it so I’m able to locate it easier when I need a little pick-me-up. “That one was the most poetic of all. Very lovely descriptions of the shell and the color of the ocean.”
He huffs a little bit, embarrassed by the sudden turn this conversation has taken.
I let it go for now, not wanting him to be uncomfortable.
I get the impression that he’s a little ashamed of all those emails, maybe even regretful of putting so much time and effort into such a one-sided communication.
I’m the only one who should be feeling those things, though, and I mean to make certain he knows how special all those letters are now that I’ve got them.
I don’t ever want him to regret sending me a message about the first snowfall of the season or the pops of crimson and gold as the trees changed in the autumn.
The truck bumps along the uneven road as Shiloh turns onto his drive.
I like that he left it unpaved—a little wild, with the grass and rock and sand.
It feels true to him in a way that a picture-perfect, manicured yard wouldn’t.
The house, too, which I know has undergone a fair bit of work, is rough around the edges.
It’s the sort of house that looks like it’s stood on the coast for decades, storm-battered and rough, bones strong and wood weathered.
It makes me unspeakably happy to see Shiloh settle in a place that is so him, that he didn’t conform or try to fold himself into the shape of current trends.