Chapter 16
sixteen
LYDIA
Will’s already waiting on a bench outside the library when I walk up.
He’s changed his clothes since this afternoon, and it’s the first time I’ve seen him in something other than a sweaty t-shirt.
He’s rolled the sleeves of his flannel shirt up to the forearms, exposing his tanned skin underneath, and I seriously almost swoon.
I can’t let myself look at his hands without my mind straying to other places.
He stands as I approach. “Ready?”
“Sure.”
We head off toward the shore in silence, neither of us knowing what to say to the other. He doesn’t mention the randomness of my text, and I don’t offer an explanation. There’s clearly something between us, whether or not we’ve acknowledged it, but I have yet to figure out what it is.
“So you come down to the shore a lot?” I ask. I know my attempt at conversation is lame, but I don’t care. It’s better than silence.
“Sometimes, yeah. It’s nice to just sit there and listen to the waves crashing. Makes all the other stuff feel small.”
I glance over at him. “What other stuff?”
“You know.” He shrugs. “Family. Money. Regrets. Existential angst.”
“Regrets, huh? You got a lot of those?” I’m half playing, half really wanting to know.
Will raises an eyebrow. “I’ve got a few, sure. Who doesn’t?”
“Fair enough.”
The leaves crunch beneath our feet as we walk. I smell the ocean before I see it, the salty air stinging my nose. And then water comes into view, vast and wide and shimmering beneath the setting sun.
I follow Will as he makes his way down the path, then steps off into the sand and continues up the shoreline. When he finds the perfect spot, he stops and looks out at the sun that’s now melting into the span of dark, silvery water.
“The other thing I like to do,” he says, “is make a bonfire. Just a small one, of course—but it gets chilly out here.”
We gather branches from the trees that line the shore.
Once we’ve each got an armful, we toss them in a heap on the sand, and Will pulls a few pages of crumpled newspaper out of his satchel, which he balls up and throws on the pile.
Then, fishing a lighter out of his jeans pocket, Will waves me out of the way of the wind and sets the pile of sticks ablaze.
The fire starts slowly, crackling in the quiet of the evening air. Will waits to see if it’ll catch. And it does—it’s only a moment before the tiny flames start licking their way up the branches, dancing and flickering in tandem as the crisp autumn breeze sweeps across the shore.
Will drops to the blanket he shook out on the sand for us. He looks at the sea, sighing heavily. “Now, this. This is what I needed.”
I murmur my agreement. As the sun melts into the ocean, dissipating into a pool of shimmering, rippling color, I find myself loosening.
It’s as though the pent up, stuffed down tension in my body has been swept out with the tide and I’m simply free floating.
At this moment, I’m not even wishing for Dylan’s downfall anymore.
“It’s so calming,” I say. “Thanks for inviting me to come along.”
He looks over at me. He’s leaning back on his elbows, his long legs stretched out in front of him in the sand. “No problem.”
We’re quiet a moment, and then he says, “My mom loved the shore.”
I wonder about his use of the past tense, but I leave it alone. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. She used to take my siblings and me down here in the summers. We grew up in Boston, but she was from here—from Hawthorne Bay.”
I’m surprised. Hawthorne Bay is a pretty small place. I always assumed that since I’d never heard of any Holloways, Will had no prior connection to my town—that he was just another opportunist come to take advantage of the Salem tourism boom.
As if reading my thoughts, Will continues. “After she died six years ago, I was kind of lost. Somehow wound up here. Bought a house, moved my business. Sort of started over, I guess.”
“Why here?”
He stares out at the water for a minute, as if weighing his response. “Remember how you said you stick around the library because you’re hoping to, like, feel your mom?”
I nod.
“It’s like that.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Have you felt her?”
Will turns to look at me. I see him swallow, the muscles in his throat working. “No.”
He holds my gaze for a minute, and then breaks eye contact, looking down at the fire.
He grabs a stick and pokes it into the embers.
The fire crackles, flames biting anew at the branches.
Then he settles himself back on the sand, stretches his entire, muscled body out so he’s lying completely flat beneath the purple sky.
I see his chest heaving as he breathes in and out.
“Come down here,” he says.
I hesitate. I’m already unsure about whatever this is between us, and lying down next to him in the sand feels a little like—ahem—sleeping with the enemy.
But he looks so peaceful stretched out below me. Just… utterly calm. And I want that, too. Looking at the way his broad chest rises and falls is already making me feel things, but I can keep a handle on myself—right? I’m a grown ass woman.
I lie down beside him. The sand is soft beneath me as I stare up at the darkening sky, fully aware of how warm Will’s solid form is next to me.
I have the sudden urge to roll over into him, tuck myself into his warmth, find his hand in the darkness—but obviously I push it down.
I’ve been here before. I know how this goes.
And it doesn’t end with a man sticking around.
My dad didn’t stick around, and Dylan didn’t stick around. Hell, people don’t stick around.
“Told you this’d be nice,” Will says.
I steal a glance at him. His eyes are closed, and there’s a small half smile on his lips.
“You were right. I can see why you come out here.”
“Mmm.”
We’re quiet again. The only sound is the crackling of the bonfire, the rhythmic lapping of the waves on the shoreline.
I push myself up to my elbows and look down at Will. His eyes are still closed.
“Thank you, by the way. For redrawing the plans around the banister. I’m not sure I told you properly this afternoon.”
His eyes blink open. I think he’s about to say something, but before I’m even fully aware of what I’m doing, I’m brushing my lips to his stubbled cheek, and a split second later his mouth is on mine and his huge hands are around my waist, pulling me on top of him.
Will runs his hands up my ribcage, slides them up my breasts and to my shoulders, and then plants them on either side of my face.
His touch is firm, assertive, as he pulls my mouth toward him.
He kisses me ravenously, every bit as hungry as he was that day in the mystery section.
His hands tangle through my wind-swept hair.
“Fuck,” he groans into my mouth.
I pull back, still straddling him. We’re both fully clothed, but having his muscled body between my legs is doing things to me. If I were to slide myself down even just a bit…
I don’t have to finish the thought because Will does it for me.
He picks me up and sets my ass down right on his package, which I can tell even through his jeans is rock hard.
I lock eyes with him, rocking my hips back and forth over the solid mass of his erection.
He closes his eyes, his hands still on my waist, rocking himself in rhythm with me.
He moves his hands beneath my shirt, his fingers skimming my stomach as they slide upward again.
He keeps his gaze on me the entire time, like he’s making sure it’s what I want, and he draws in a sharp breath when his hands finally reach their destination inside my bra. My nipples are hard beneath his palms.
My voice is low, almost a whisper. “Will.”
“Yeah?”
He closes his eyes. He’s rolling my nipple between his index finger and thumb, and the sensation is making it hard for me to think. But I want to get this out. Because I can already sense that whatever line we’re about to cross here is one we won’t be able to inch back over.
“This isn’t very professional.”
It’s not how I intended it to come out, and know I sound like some kind of prudish schoolmarm, but Will chuckles low and soft and I feel his chest rumble beneath me.
He pushes himself up to the heels of his hands and makes eye contact, the flickering flames of the bonfire next to us reflecting in his pupils.
“Sure isn’t, beautiful. So if you want this, you better stop talking before I start thinking.”
And with that, his mouth crashes into mine and he’s kissing me so hard I can barely breathe. As his tongue sweeps through my mouth, he wraps his arms around me and pulls the hem of my sweater up and over my head. I shrug free of it, my skin bristling at the chill of the night air.
Will’s hands are rough as one braces behind my head, the other sliding my bra strap down and moving to my breast. He cups it in his hand, breaking our kiss to lean down and take my nipple in his mouth.
He sucks it hard, and I shudder at the wetness of his mouth, marveling at the ferocity of his movements.
Because Will isn’t being gentle or tender.
He’s fucking hungry, and I want him to make a meal of me.
So when he moves his mouth to my neck and rasps in my ear for me to lie back, I comply.
I slip down off his lap, and lean back onto the blanket, unhooking my bra and tossing it aside.
The breeze drifting in from the sea is chilly on my now bare skin.
Will’s kneeling in the sand, looking down at me spread out before him.
His eyes rake over my chest and he sucks in his breath.
“Fuck, Lydia,” he says. “You’re so fucking beautiful. Lying there like some kind of painting.”
He strips off his shirt, and I’m honestly floored as I watch his biceps ripple with the movement. He’s kneeling there in front of me, the firelight flickering on his fucking chiseled chest, and he thinks I’m some kind of painting? Has this guy looked in a mirror?
“I could say the same,” I murmur.