Chapter 20
Twenty
CALLUM
“ R ight here,” Evie breathes.
The tight leash I’ve had on my impulses around her since she woke up this morning snaps. Every last thought of putting distance between her, of trying to stay away for her sake, vanishes like the morning fog on a sultry day. Curling out of existence like it was never there.
“Is that you asking me to stay, Callum?” Her words are threadbare.
My heart flings wildly in its ribbed cage.
Yes. No?
Christ.
I can’t ask such a thing of this woman. She’s too incredible to be wasting her life away on an isolated island with just me for damn company. I can already see how it would end. Her hurt, me cemented into this life like the immovable, intolerable bastard I am.
Her face reddens when I can’t respond.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean...” She tilts her head, gaze fixing on some random point in the hut.
I take her face in one hand, sliding the other under her shoulders. Leaning back on my heels, I haul her up to me. That option, her staying and this thing having a real chance, will never make daylight. I’ll never let it.
She can’t want that.
This is her empathy talking. The sweet woman, with the big brown doe eyes and even bigger heart. It’s her way of trying to fix what she didn’t break. “You have a big, wonderful life to live, and this island ain’t where that’s going to happen.”
Evie studies my face. Her mouth works like she wants to say something, but she can’t find the right words.
I cup her face and dot a kiss on her lips. “Hey, don’t feel sorry for me. I won’t have that shit. You’re going to write your book, have an amazing career. Then one day, you’ll think back to the old guy on the island you spent nine months with. That’s all, baby girl.”
Releasing a huffy breath, emotion tightens her face.
“That okay?” I ask, hating myself right now.
She nods, and I tamp out my disappointment. I can barely get the next stupid fucking word out. “Good.”
“Good,” she echoes, and her chest rises and falls in quick succession. Her brown eyes are so damn dark, they appear black in the muted firelight.
“What do you want right now, Evie? Tell me, or I’m taking.”
Her arms move, lifting her shirt over her head.
She shakes her head, and her long brown locks spill over her shoulders, tickling the top of her perfect tits.
I tug at the bra straps and plant kisses to her shoulders, over her collarbones.
Impatience finds me, and I rip the lacy garment from her body.
The most tender squeak puffs from her as she startles and settles on my lap.
“Fucking mine ,” I growl.
My mouth closes around her soft, fleshy breast. Her moan sinks somewhere central to my soul. Cock throbbing, I work my way to her dusky hard peak. As my teeth close over her nipple, she leans back on both hands, flat on the floor, offering up a feast for this desperate man.
Mouth watering, I devour one peak and then the other. She wriggles on my lap, whimpering with every long, hard stroke I send over her nipples. The sight of her writhing on my lap almost takes me under.
I may not be able to give her everything, but I can give her this.
She’s so fucking beautiful like this, half dressed, lapping up every little movement my tongue, my teeth, my mouth make. Old wounds split right open against her skin on mine. My self-deprecating thoughts are tossed around my mind like rusted, blunt javelins. I don’t deserve happiness.
She’s not mine to have.
She deserves better.
She . . .
She—
“Fuck,” I choke out. “Eve, we shouldn’t.”
Her head snaps back up, confusion and lust warring for dominance in her eyes. She pants, “Why not?”
“I—You—” I lift her from my lap and scramble to my feet, making for the door.
Darkness swallows me as the sound of waves crashing floods in. I drag in a long, agonizing breath. It’s been a lifetime since I’ve wanted someone this way.
As much as I adored Ava, we never had this torturous chemistry. Where not touching her, not claiming her torches me, burning me to cinders. I could disintegrate to ash without her. It’s too much.
It’s dangerous.
It’s—
I groan.
Fucked. I’m fucked, that’s what I am.
I’m incapable of putting distance between us, if I have a choice.
I haul my ass toward the beach, praying Evie stays put in the hut. I drop onto a cluster of rocks, tilting my face up to the moon. Maybe this is my penance for everything that went down when I was younger. Finding the woman my soul talks to, only to be too old, too broken.
Evie is sunlight. She’s vibrant and bursting with life, even if she hides it away from the rest of the world most of the time. I see it when she thinks nobody is around. When she thinks nobody notices, I do.
To have her wrapped around me, to take what I want would be my own undoing. We’ve already gone too far. Haven’t we?
The waves roll in, keeping time with my bruised heart.
Hell, even now the thought of Evie leaving cracks me wide open.
Another curveball life thought was a great idea to toss at me.
Timing’s never been my strong suit. I kill another hour on the rocks trying to figure out a life where we all get what we want.
Coming round full circle to no solution for the third time, I push off the rock and trudge through the sand.
Walking along the beach, I let the breeze cool my frazzled nerves.
I came to the hut to put distance between us.
Because it’s the right thing to do.
Never before has the right thing felt so fucking wrong.
The moon is high in the sky when I turn back, heading for the hut.
The door is ajar when I make it back. I find Evie sleeping on the bunk on her side, room for me beside her.
Dappled moonlight spills in through the window and illuminates her elegant face.
She’s in her T-shirt and panties. A blanket covers her legs, but they have tangled their way into a mess.
Tugging my shirt off, I lie beside her. Turning onto my side, I brush a stray piece of hair behind her ear, and she murmurs in her sleep.
Her pretty pink lips curve as she moans.
She rolls away from me, and I slide an arm over her belly and tug her into my body.
Her head turns, back arching as if on autopilot with my touch.
As if her soul heard mine, even in her sleep.
I breathe her in, tucking this moment away as a memory I will treasure for the rest of my life.
“Cal?” she moans.
“Yeah, baby girl.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere, mo nighean. Go back to sleep.”
She hums, her body pressing in a little more.
Fuck me.
A moment later, her breathing settles, and she’s sound asleep again. My forehead tilts to press into her hair, and I close my eyes. Happiness is a man wrapped around the woman he loves.
The—
Jaw feathering, I tamp down the groan that’s painfully filling any cavity it can find.
I swallow hard, trying my best to dislodge the stone that grew in my throat with that last thought.
I know, this time round, it’s going to hurt.
More than I’ve had to endure before. Because despite our short time together, this woman has cracked open my seized-up heart, revived it, and sent it to bloom.
With her elegant ways, her fiery streak, her tenderness.
Something my hard old heart needed more than I will ever admit.
I needed her.
I need Evie.
But more than that, I need her to be happy.
Whatever that means for me.
The house comes into view, and for the first time in my life, I wish it wouldn’t. I wish the last few days, lost to the wilderness and just the two of us, could have lasted forever.
Squash that stupid damn thought, buddy.
Switch it off.
Stomp it down.
Ain’t happening.
Watching her hips sway in front of me for the last hour, those long legs, short fucking shorts... Hell, I’ve been hard for thirty minutes.
“God, look at that beautiful thing,” Evie says, a grin wrapping around her gorgeous face.
Her clothes are dirty, her hair is a mess, but her stride is busting at the seams as she all but runs back to the lighthouse.
Everything looks in place, no visible damage from the storm. The lamp is still on and oscillating.
By the time we reach the front door, I have a million things I want to say to her. None of them leave my mouth. She pushes through the front door and stops just over the threshold, arms out, head back, and eyes closed. “Did you miss me?”
I chuckle, stepping inside. “Shower, Evie baby.”
“God yes. You want to go first?”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “Why waste water?”
“Okay? But I thought we weren’t?—”
I dump my bag to the floor and grab her onto my waist. She giggles, sliding her arms around my neck. “Fine. Water conservation it is.”
I scale the spiral stairs with her legs tight around my waist and her arms draped over my shoulders, and I feel like the luckiest man alive. We bypass the bed and head straight for the bathroom.
“Down, please.” Her lips roll and she glances at the vanity.
“You have one minute. Or I’m starting without you.”
“I’d watch that.” Cheekiness lights up her face.
Christ.
I slap her ass and step toward the shower, peeling off my clothes as I go. She plucks her toothbrush and toothpaste. Of course.
I hold my hand out to her as I lean over to turn on the faucets.
My toothbrush drops into my hand, with paste in a long, neat line on the bristles.
The hot water bursts to life, and I adjust the cold tap until it’s perfect and steam starts to curl into the space.
Stepping in, I brush my teeth as days’ worth of fishing, hunting, and exploring the forest are washed away.
I can always appreciate the first shower after making it back from the hut, but this is the first time I’ve had someone with me.
As if on cue, one elegant foot slips past the curtain.
A heartbeat later, Evie stands with her hands by her sides just out of the water spray, her eyes set on mine.
Her gaze falls to my mouth. Toothbrush still working my teeth clean, I lean out to the basin and spit.
With the toothbrush forgotten, I move back into the water and open my mouth to rinse the paste from it.
Evie’s eyes track over my face, my body. Her breaths are coming in little pants, and I can’t help but reach for her.
God, we are both fucked.
Hands on her shoulders, I maneuver her into the water.
She simply watches me as I grab up her soap and wash her body before squirting a generous amount of shampoo into my palm.
Her long locks take a while to lather and rinse out.
I repeat the process with conditioner before her arms tangle around my neck, her brown eyes searching. “Your turn,” she whispers.
She sinks sudsy, shampoo-lathered hands into my hair, and my eyes shutter closed. Fine fingers work my messy hair clean. While the shampoo sits, she takes to my limbs, one by one, with her bar of soap. Running it over each muscle, each part of my body in turn.
Every sweep of her hand with the soap sends me higher. I’m hard as stone within seconds of her hands on me. A blush fills her face as she lets her hands wander, not stopping as she finishes her task.
Christ, I need more than I want her to give me.
I want to take it all. And by the way she studies my face as I struggle with this, she knows what’s going on in my head.
I rest my forehead to hers. “I can’t be gentle with you, Evie. You’re too much for me.”
“I know. I don’t want gentle, Cal. I want you.” The words are pleading. Lifting my gaze to meet hers, I find her desperate.
So. Fucking. Beautiful.
We made it three days in the forest without crossing this line. Now, back home, it’s impossible to control. She must feel it, too. This impossible, improbable thing between us.
“Promise me one thing.” I grip her hips with too much force.
“Anything.”
“Leave when your nine months is up.”
Her breath hitches and her hands splay over my chest, one covering my heart. Her face bunches before she schools it back and nods.
“Good girl.”
Her eyes flutter shut, hands tracking up my neck, fingers curling over my jaw. “Please, fear milis.”
My throat closes over. The words she found, the ones no one has ever said to me before, splinter my heart.
I slam her into the tiled wall, my grip turning feral. Tilting her head back, she opens for me. I sink into her, claiming her mouth. She’s pliable, soft flesh and warmth.
She’s mine .