Chapter 19
nineteen
FRANCIE
My daytimes are all about writing kick-ass heroines slaying their enemies while enthralling the dark and broody hero who can’t take his eyes off her. My night times, though, have become something altogether different. More intimate.
Every night for the past week, I’ve slipped beneath my sheets and let Asher command me through the guest room security camera. My body heats up as he guides me with his low, commanding voice that I can only dream of capturing on the page.
And I do everything he tells me to. Slowly, deliberately, loving the way it makes his voice go ragged and his breath speed up. I become a breathless wreck too, whispering his name like a prayer.
But he doesn’t touch himself. Not once. I hear the raw need in his strained voice as he tells me I’m his good girl, so beautiful, so perfect.
And yes, I might be a strong woman with my own agency, but I like hearing him say those words.
Sometimes, they’re dirtier than the profanities he whispers as I arch my back from the mattress.
I don’t know why he keeps holding himself back, but his restraint makes me feral. It makes me tease him, more and more, testing his boundaries.
I end up getting myself so worked up thinking about it, that after lunch, I take a run on the beach, needing an outlet to work off this buzzing energy that rushes through me every time I hear his name.
It’s a warm fall day, the sun is high in the sky, but the temperatures have dropped from their summer high to a much more relaxing low sixties.
I pull on my sneakers, swipe a hand over my messy bun, and step out of the lighthouse and head toward the cliff, taking the steps down to the golden beach below.
The beach is almost empty. The summer travelers – the out-of-towners, as the locals call them – are few and far between. It’s the quiet season, the lull between the summer crowds and the winter visitors looking for the kind of magic you only find during the holiday season.
I jog along the shoreline, trying to plan my next scene, but my mind keeps drifting to Asher. To the dirty things he whispered last night. Maybe I should just skip to the sex scene. Get it all out on the page.
Sometimes being a writer means you can fulfil all your fantasies, if only in your imagination.
The breeze from the ocean scrubs my skin, drying the perspiration on my face and neck.
By the time I make it back to the lighthouse – three miles later – all I can think about is a long, scalding shower and a cool drink.
Kicking off my running shoes, I drop my keys in the bowl by the front door and peel off my running gear, heading straight for the bathroom on the first floor.
The room is tiny. Small enough to fit a toilet, basin, and shower.
Every room in this lighthouse was specially designed by Autumn.
The shower is round with a little porthole window looking out over the ocean.
The white tiles are in a brick-style, and there’s a built in bench with a wooden seat below the modern light-up rain style shower, which I turn on, closing my eyes and luxuriating beneath the firm spray.
It's heavenly. Hot enough to sting in all the right places, pounding against my skin like therapy. I lather up slowly, letting the suds slide down my thighs as the steam curls around the tiny room like a cat.
Then I hear a loud buzz.
I freeze, blinking water out of my eyes. Was that the doorbell? It can’t be, nobody ever rings the doorbell here. I don’t have any deliveries or packages, or even mail, coming here. It all goes to the hotel to be picked up at leisure.
I wipe my face with the palm of my hand, glancing at the bathroom door, but the sound doesn’t repeat. Maybe it was a mistake. Or the wind. Turning back to the shower, I rinse the shampoo from my hair, then reach for the conditioner.
And that’s when I see it.
A spider.
No, spider isn’t a good enough description. This thing is a massive, eight-legged monster dangling from the corner of the shower like it’s auditioning for a horror movie.
My heart immediately starts to pound. I can deal with dragons in my writing. With blood and gore and even snakes, when I have to.
But spiders are my nemesis. There’s a reason I have exactly zero of them in my books.
“Oh hell no,” I whisper, backing away. My hand grasps for the shower door, but I hit the bench instead. My calves catch on the wood, my feet skid forward, and I flail like a failing backup dancer before slamming my head against the glass.
Stars explode behind my eyelids as I land in an ungainly, compacted heap, on the shower floor.
And then I feel it.
A light, horrible tickle against my shoulder. The spider.
I open my mouth and unleash a scream so bloodcurdling it could shatter glass. What I don’t expect is for the spider to say anything.
But it does. It says my name. So clearly that I think I must be hallucinating – either dead or on my way there, and the road to hell is filled with arachnids.
“Francie?” it shouts again.
I thrash, trying to bat it away, and catch the blurry outline of the shower door as I scramble to my knees.
The eight-legged demon is still winning.
I’m soaked, disoriented, and naked, but I manage to push the door open, which gives way too easily, making me sprawl half-in and half-out of the cubicle like a slippery, shrieking disaster.
Then a bang echoes through the house.
The front door. It takes a second for me to register that someone is inside.
Footsteps thunder down the hallway, fast, heavy, and furious, and then the bathroom door crashes open.
And he’s there.
Asher Fitzgerald. His chest is heaving, his eyes are wild with panic, and he has one hand clenched like he’s ready to throw a punch. He scans the room like he’s seconds away from launching into a fight.
Until his gaze lands on me.
Naked, wet, shampoo in my eyes. Curled in the corner like a drowned gremlin. The fury slips from his face, replaced by confusion, and something that might be horror.
Because while I’m trying to figure out how to breathe again, he’s staring at me like he walked into a crime scene and discovered the world’s weirdest boudoir shoot.
I open my mouth.
He opens his.
And instead of asking what the hell is going on, or why I screamed like someone was being murdered, he says the worst possible thing.
“Is that a spider?”
ASHER
I freeze as I stare at the scene before me. I swear I thought she was being attacked.
The second I heard her scream, all I could think about was that asshole I forced off the island and the fact my office had been broken into and ransacked, and now this.
It was like something primal detonated in my chest. I slammed my fingers against the emergency override on the front door and rushed into the lighthouse, because she was fucking screaming. She needed me.
But I wasn’t expecting this.
Francie scrambles onto all fours, eyes wide, breath ragged, trying – and failing – to cover herself with her arms. Water glistens across every inch of her bare skin, her hair clinging to her shoulders, her lips parted in shock.
I know I should look away.
But I can’t.
I’m frozen. For the past week I’ve watched her through a camera.
Heard her moan, seen her writhe, watched her fall apart with my name on her lips.
But none of it prepared me for this. For the woman I’ve been fantasizing about in real life, flushed and wet, droplets of water trailing down her collarbone and sliding into the crevasse between her perfect breasts.
“Oh my God, don’t look,” she screeches.
I don’t tell her it’s a bit too late for that. Instead I grab a towel, holding it out to her, and she snatches it from me like it’s a lifeline. Then something crawls across the tiles on the floor and she starts to scream again.
It took me a second to register what she’s screaming about. Then I realized it’s a spider. Casually strutting across the white tile like it owns the place. I reach down, scooping it into my hands.
“What are you doing?” she cries out. “Asher! No, don’t touch it.”
Ignoring her, I carry it to the front door, the soles of my shoes leaving wet marks as I walk. Opening the front door just wide enough, I release the little spider into the wild. It skitters off into the grass like it didn’t just commit war crimes against the woman I’m obsessed with.
When I return to the bathroom, she’s pressed into the corner, towel wrapped tight around her chest, her hair dripping down her back.
“I hate you,” she mutters.
“For saving the spider?” Maybe I should have killed it. But I couldn’t bring myself to.
She shakes her head. “For seeing me like this. This is not how our first encounter was supposed to go.”
“It’s hardly our first encounter,” I point out. “I’ve known you for years.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Her face screws up and I find it stupidly endearing.
A smile pulls at my lips. “I’ve seen you come,” I point out. “Multiple times. And you’re embarrassed about me seeing you naked?”
Her jaw drops.
“I’ve watched you beg for me,” I say, my voice low. “Heard you moan my name. And now you’re freaking out because I saw you wet and on the floor?” I’m not sure I’ll ever fully understand the way a woman thinks.
Francie scowls, clutching the towel tighter. “It’s not the same, Asher. You watched me on camera. This is different.”
“Different how?”
She lets out a huff. “I had some dignity for one.”
“You still have dignity,” I say softly. I take a step toward her, letting myself look at her again. Her cheeks are flushed, there are damp strands of hair clinging to her neck. I go to reach for her, to comfort her, but then I see it.
A thin trail of blood slides down from her hairline, weaving its way toward her shoulder.
“Francie.” I step forward, my tone changing. “You’re bleeding.”
She blinks. “What?”
She reaches up to touch it, and I catch the tremble in her fingers.
And for a moment, she’s not the confident, teasing woman I’ve been watching all week.
She’s vulnerable.
There’s something in her eyes, raw and unguarded – like she’s waiting for me to decide whether she matters.
And fuck, it undoes me faster than the spider ever could.
I reach out, brushing her wet hair gently aside, and see a small gash right behind her ear.
“Does it hurt?” I ask urgently. I’ve been first aid trained. We all have in the company. Security doesn’t only mean fighting the bad guys, it means taking care of the good ones.
But all the training doesn’t help the panic I feel at seeing blood running down her neck. “Jesus, we need to get you to the hospital.”
“It’s nothing,” she tells me. “I’m not going to the hospital. They’ll laugh me out of the ER.”
“Sit,” I tell her, nodding at the closed toilet lid. “I’ll get the first aid kit.” I know it’s in the kitchen. Every time Autumn moves, I make sure it’s stocked and up to date. With a determined step, I head toward the hallway, but right before I leave, I glance back.
Francie’s sitting now. Her towel is hugged around her. Her eyes meet mine and I feel it. That need, that ache. That constant want that’s taken me over.
My hands start to shake as I turn toward the hallway. Not because she’s half naked. Or bleeding. Or looking at me like I’m the only thing that’s keeping her together.
It’s not because I care. Not because I feel like I’d burn the whole world down if anything happened to her.
No. It’s just adrenaline. At least that’s what I tell myself.