Chapter 5
If I keep my eyes shut and sink further into the haze of half-sleep, I can almost feel him spooning me, every inch of him entwined with every inch of me.
It’s how I fell asleep, locked in his embrace.
But as the sun coaxes my eyes open, my attempt to delude myself slips away, and I’m faced with the cold, empty spot where Sebastian should be.
I hold my breath to contain the pain, because the sight of that bare pillow tries to squeeze the life from me.
Breathing hurts.
For one disoriented moment, I wonder if he was ever here at all. What if last night was just a figment of my grief?
Impossible. My body remembers.
The soreness between my thighs. The warmth still thrumming under my skin. The ghost of his scent on the sheets.
He’s alive.
It really happened.
A throat clears, and my gaze swings toward the foot of the bed to find Oliver perched at the edge.
“How long have you been sitting there?” Clutching the blanket to my chest, I push upright to face him.
“A few minutes.” He reaches for a domed silver tray on the rolling cart beside him and sets it on the mattress between us. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You, um…you didn’t. I just wasn’t expecting you so early.”
“It’s mid-morning, Novalee.” With a hint of amusement in his light brown eyes, he traps me in his sights. “I trust you slept well?”
“Apparently so.”
It was the best sleep I’ve had in weeks, with Sebastian wrapped around me. I tug the sheet higher, as if my nakedness will spill the truth.
That I’m no longer a…
Virgin.
An achy flutter dances in my core, and a flush of heat stains my cheeks before I can stop it.
Oliver studies me a beat longer, brows pulled together in a faint wrinkle.
Can he detect the change in me?
God, I need a distraction.
Forcing last night’s memories into the back of my mind, I lift the lid from my breakfast. A stack of pancakes drizzled in maple syrup waits for me, fresh berries piled alongside.
“This smells amazing. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I load a bite onto my fork and bring it to my mouth. But the simple act of eating won’t distract him for long, because Oliver has the patience of a saint…or a sadist who gets his kicks from watching me squirm. The way he stood in my doorway each night for weeks is a testament to his character.
“Where’s yours?” I ask, setting my fork down, full after a few bites. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
“I already did.” His thumb brushes a stray drop of syrup from my lower lip. “Did you get yourself off last night?”
He lets the question fly without warning, that casual tone making my mind stumble. I’m so caught off guard, I nearly choke on my words.
“Did I…what?”
“You heard me. Did you come?”
Yes. Too many times to count.
There’s no hiding my blush, especially from him.
A slow smile pulls at his lips. “Good girl.”
I let him draw his own conclusion. Let his assumption shield all the things I have to keep hidden.
“Now that you’re rested,” he says, shifting his weight on the mattress, “I thought we might get out of here for a while.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll find out soon enough. Dress warm.”
And that’s how we end up on the rocky coastline in the fog and rain.
The drive west from Portland passes easy enough. Three hours trapped in the back seat with him?
Not so much.
Within the first hour, moss-covered trees swallow the highway. Fog pulls loose between the trunks, like chiffon off a spool.
Oliver sits beside me, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, scrolling emails, oblivious to the beauty of nature blurring past us. Every so often, our gazes tangle, just a glance, before he returns to his screen.
And I can’t shake the feeling that he knows…something. That he senses the nervousness in my silence or the way I try not to flinch every time his elbow brushes mine.
Not because I find him repulsive.
That is not the problem.
Almost from the first moment I entered his house, something sparked between us, unwanted yet undeniable, refusing to be ignored.
But I have to.
Because I can’t slip up. He sees too much already, and the secret of Sebastian’s survival is too important to let it leak through the cracks.
Not even lunch offers the buffer of distraction. We stop at a café on the harbor, and Oliver barely touches his clam chowder. He’s too busy watching me eat mine. I gave up trying to slide the bowl away after the first three bites—all it took was a raised eyebrow and one finger pushing it back.
So I eat, and on our way back to the car, he rewards me with a small bag of taffy. Caramel and sea salt that teases my taste buds, sweet and useless against the unease shadowing me since breakfast.
Being trapped with him only makes it worse. Our driver does little to break the heavy tension or this stifling sense of isolation.
I need air.
A brown highway sign surfaces out of the drizzle, displaying a lighthouse silhouette over the words scenic viewpoint, and I reach for it.
“Can we stop at the lighthouse?”
His gaze cuts to the sign before settling on our driver. “Detour to the cape.”
The black sedan carrying our security detail follows us off the highway.
The cape sits at the edge of the world, or close enough to it, reminding me of Zodiac Island.
Oliver exits the car before the driver has a chance to push his door open, and an umbrella bobs over my head as he helps me from the back seat. His hand closes around mine, tripping my pulse, as if it doesn’t know better.
I hate that it doesn’t know better.
The second my heels find gravel, I pull free. Rain drizzles past the umbrella’s edge, obscuring a mountain of evergreens.
Ahead, a white lighthouse rises at the edge of the cliff, half-swallowed by the haze—a view that should inspire awe.
Instead, all I feel is the weight of his gaze on me, and I’m gut-certain he knows how the foundation of my world shifted last night…
even if he can’t put one of his manicured fingers on the specifics.
Smoothing my expression, I let him walk me toward the overlook. The railing is slick under my palms, worn smooth by salt and tourists and years of weather. Below, the Pacific throws itself against the rocks.
That’s what I love about the ocean—it doesn’t temper its existence.
It just is.
Waves folding over themselves, foam dissolving, seabirds sailing through the mist. The wind carries salt and pine, and I breathe it in until my lungs ache.
Oliver stands close enough that the umbrella covers us both. “Thank you for today,” he says, eyes on the gray horizon.
“You’re thanking me?” I glance at him, brows raised. “You planned the whole thing.”
“That doesn’t diminish the company.” The corner of his mouth lifts. “It was a good birthday gift.”
“Wait.” I turn to face him. “Today’s your birthday?”
“Tomorrow, actually. But we’ll be thirty thousand feet in the air, so today seemed like a reasonable substitute.”
I replay the last few hours. Breakfast in bed. The drive. The café, the taffy. All of it orchestrated in a way that’s just Oliver, and not once did he mention it.
“You know,” I say, flicking raindrops off my coat. “It helps if you tell the person you’re celebrating with that there’s cause for celebration.”
A low sound rumbles out of him, not quite a laugh. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“So you’d rather watch me eat chowder than actually be celebrated?”
“I’d rather spend it with someone whose company I enjoy.” He turns his head toward me. “You have a birthday coming soon, right?”
“In a few weeks.”
“You’ll get to decide who to spend it with. If you choose me, it’ll be my pleasure to return the celebratory favor.”
His tone stays playful, but the reminder of what he’s referring to presses on my sternum.
The choice I get to make on my birthday.
As if that’s a gift.
Another Brotherhood tradition—the one Liam weaponized.
I want your virginity.
The railing bites into my palms.
My virginity is gone, given freely to the only man I ever wanted to give it to.
And no one can know.
Not Oliver or Liam…not even Landon.
“Where did you go just now?” Oliver shifts closer, breaking into my mental spiral.
“Nowhere.” I loosen my grip, flexing life back into my fingers. “Just thinking about home.”
Just as his perceptiveness threatens to rattle my composure, the bark of seals erupts from below the cliff, giving me an out.
“Look!” I lean over the railing, rain forgotten, and gape at the colony sprawled across the rocks, their sleek bodies piled in a chaos of flippers and open mouths. A pup slides off its mother’s back into the surf before hauling itself out again with an indignant yelp.
A sound escapes me that I barely recognize.
Laughter.
Wanting a better view, I move along the rail to where the land drops into a steeper incline and crane my neck.
“There’s so many of them!”
Suddenly, I’m yanked back, my heels skidding across the pathway. The umbrella clatters to the ground as he pulls me flush against his chest.
“Don’t,” he chokes out that single word, jaw as hard as granite, but those eyes are the true betrayers.
Wide and unblinking.
Dilated…panicked.
“I was just looking at the seals.”
“You were hanging over a two-hundred-foot drop.”
“I was leaning against the rail.”
“The railing is old, Novalee.” Rain streams down the tense angles of his face, collecting in the hollow of his throat. “Maybe allowing you near a cliff wasn’t such a good idea.”
His veiled accusation cuts deep, curdling confusion in the pit of my stomach.
Because he knows I wouldn’t…
Doesn’t he?
“Why are you acting like this?”
“I shouldn’t have to spell it out.” Fear and pain bleed through his tone, and that expression tugs at the heartstrings still attached to him. It only takes a second for understanding to crystallize.
My attempt that night weighs on him, even now, despite how far I’ve come.
Despite time passing, because time…
It doesn’t erase trauma.
Doesn’t erase Talitha.
And now we’re connected in a way that can’t be undone.
I guess we both have misbehaving heartstrings.
“I didn’t mean to worry you.” My palm finds his chest, pressing flat against the violent drumming beneath his ribs.
His gaze drops to my hand, as if my touch is the most disorienting thing that’s happened today.
It stuns me too, because I touched him without thinking.
The moment stretches, held together by rain and the sound of the sea. Water hangs from his dark lashes, highlighting the vulnerability there.
His focus shifts to my mouth, and the air between us stalls altogether.
I’m frozen in his sights, unable to move or speak or think as his breaths ghost across my lips as if he might—
A seagull lands on the railing, startling us both. Oliver clears his throat and steps back.
Relief floods me.
But it’s mixed with a hint of disappointment, and that bothers me more than anything.
“We should head back before the rain worsens.” Dragging a hand through his soaked hair, he blinks several times before scooping up the umbrella.
I fall into step beside him, gravel crunching under our shoes, and the want that flared in my blood doesn’t fade with distance.
It turns to coal, searing under the guilt trying to smother it.
I gave myself to Sebastian not even twenty-four hours ago, but for one insane rain-soaked breath, I wanted Oliver’s kiss.
What kind of person does that make me?
The sedan waits with its engine running, headlights cutting pale tunnels through the fog.
Tomorrow we fly home.
Back to the island, the tower…the House of Aquarius.
I glance over my shoulder one last time. The lighthouse beam sweeps through the dying afternoon, a thin stroke of light swallowed whole before it completes the arc.