Chapter Thirteen
Amber looked better already, an hour into the picnic — less like a girl who'd spent the morning learning her dad had lied to her about everything, more like herself, laughing at something Rowan had said.
Rowan drifted off toward the water not long after, giving us space with the kind of subtlety that fooled absolutely nobody, and I decided to make the most of it.
"Right," I said, standing and offering her a hand up off the blanket. "Time for a real activity."
"Is it dangerous?"
"Extremely. We're hunting conkers. Ones bigger than your head."
She squinted at me like she was trying to work out if I was joking. I wasn't, entirely.
"You have a bigger head than me you asshole." She snorted.
I grinned. "Biggest one wins," I steered her toward the treeline at the edge of the grove. "Loser has to admit defeat with dignity."
"And if I don't have dignity to spare?"
"Then you'll owe me a kiss instead."
That got a proper laugh out of her, bright and surprised. Until she realised I was not joking.
"Why?"
"Why not?"
"Because we're... we're family."
I shrugged. "If that's what you think then fine. But I..." I ran a hand over my face. "I don't. You're obviously family to me, but in... in a different way. In a way that means I want a kiss as a prize, if you want to give it. And if you don't then fine. We can pretend I said nothing."
My racing heart told me how much I was hoping for one answer.
Amber eventually smiled, "That's a very convenient prize for you to set. You get what you want twice over."
"I'm an efficient man. Multiple birds, one stone."
We spread out under the canopy, kicking through drifts of fallen leaves.
She crouched every few steps, inspecting candidates with far more seriousness than the activity warranted, muttering to herself about size versus shine versus "structural integrity," whatever that meant in relation to a conker.
"You're taking this very seriously," I said.
"I'm a competitive person. You've clearly forgotten that about me."
"I remember you crying at Monopoly that one Christmas when we were nine." I grinned.
"I was robbed. You got me to land on your hotel on purpose."
"I did not have that level of premeditation at nine years old."
She huffed. "You've always been suspiciously good at getting your way."
I let that one sit, because she wasn't wrong, and because arguing the point felt less appealing than watching her stalk off toward another pile of leaves with the single-minded focus of someone hunting treasure instead of tree nuts.
I let her win the first round on purpose, mostly to watch her face light up when she held her conker aloft like a trophy.
"Better than anything you've found," she declared.
"Debatable." I crouched, dug through a pile near an old oak root, and came up with one twice the size of hers, glossy and dark. "But I'll allow you the moral victory."
She narrowed her eyes at me, stepping closer, some competitive spark flaring behind them that I'd missed more than I wanted to admit over three years of not having it aimed at me. "You're just afraid to actually lose."
"I've never been afraid of losing to you." I closed the last of the distance between us, close enough now that her breath caught audibly, close enough I could see exactly how fast her pulse had picked up at the base of her throat. "I think we both already know how this ends, though."
"Do we?"
"You tell me. You never disagreed to my deal."
Her cheeks went pink, but she didn't argue the point, which told me everything I needed to know.
She backed up half a step until a tree stopped her, and I followed without hesitation, one hand braced against the bark beside her head, near enough that the whole forest around us seemed to hold still and wait.
"Claim your prize, then," she said, breathless, chin tipped up toward me. "If I wanted to say no, I would. And clearly I haven't so..."
I didn't kiss her. Not yet. I wanted to say something first, something I'd been sitting on for longer than either of us had probably realized.
"Can I tell you something first?"
She nodded, eyes wide, waiting.
"I've been in love with you for a very long time, Amber.
Since we were kids sharing a desk in Ms. Pemberly's class.
Long before our mums ever found each other, long before any of this got complicated.
" I kept my voice steady, though it cost me more than I let show.
"I never said anything, because it never felt like the right time, and then there was never enough time left to wait for a better one. "
"Why now?" she asked, quiet, searching my face. "Why tell me now?"
"Because the whispers are getting louder every day, and none of us know how long we've got before they stop being background noise and start being something you can't ignore anymore.
" I brushed a strand of pink hair back from her face, letting my hand linger against her jaw.
"I didn't want to run out of time and never have told you.
Not after everything else this town's already taken from people I love. "
Her breath hitched, something raw moving across her expression, and then she closed the last inch of distance herself, her mouth finding mine before I'd fully finished the thought.
It wasn't careful. Whatever restraint either of us had been holding onto snapped the second our lips met, her hands fisting in the front of my jacket, pulling me in like she'd been waiting exactly as long as I had.
I kissed her back like it was the only thing I'd ever properly wanted to do with my mouth, one hand sliding into her hair, the other pressing flat against the small of her back, drawing her fully against me until there wasn't a scrap of daylight left between us.
She made a soft, wrecked sound against my mouth when my thigh slid between hers, and I swallowed it greedily, already addicted to the shape of every noise she made.
"Orias." My name, breathless, her hips already rocking shallow and instinctive against my leg. "Please—"
"Please what, little witch?" I pulled back just far enough to watch her face properly, thumb tracing along her kiss-swollen bottom lip. "Tell me exactly what you want. I'll give you anything."
"Touch me." Her cheeks flushed darker, but she didn't look away. "Please."
I didn't need telling twice. I got her jeans open with hands that weren't nearly as steady as I wanted them to be, sliding beneath the waistband of her underwear until I found her slick and aching, and the sound she made when my fingers finally pressed against her went straight through me like a live wire.
"Good girl," I murmured against her throat, working her slow at first, savoring every hitch of breath and helpless little roll of her hips. "That's it. Let me hear you."
She didn't hold back. Every soft moan, every desperate press of her nails into my shoulder, every time she gasped my name into the cold autumn air — she gave me all of it, and I took every second of it like the gift it was.
Over her shoulder, past the treeline toward the river, I caught sight of Rowan standing at the water's edge, close enough to have clearly heard every sound she'd made, his gaze locked on us with an intensity that would've felt like an intrusion from anyone else.
He didn't look away. Didn't pretend not to watch.
Amber's eyes flickered open at some point, catching the direction of my gaze, and I felt the exact moment she noticed him too — the way her breath caught differently, the way her hips rocked harder against my hand the second she realized he was watching, unhurried and unashamed, like he had every right to exactly this view.
She liked it. I felt it in the way she clenched around my fingers a heartbeat later, felt the shudder that rolled through her entire body as she came apart against the tree, gasping both our names in a way that told me more than words ever could have about exactly how deep this bond ran between the three of us.
I held her through it, pressing slow kisses along her jaw as she came back down, and glanced toward Rowan one more time.
He held my gaze steady, something unreadable and heavy behind his eyes, and inclined his head just slightly — an acknowledgment, maybe even permission, though we hadn't spoken a single word about any of this out loud yet.
"You alright?" I asked, tucking her hair back, watching the last of the flush fade slow across her cheeks.
"More than." She laughed, a little unsteady, glancing past me toward the river before meeting my eyes again, cheeks going pink for an entirely different reason this time. "Rowan was watching."
"He was." I grinned, unbothered, brushing my thumb along her cheekbone. "Bothered by that?"
"No." Her smile turned slow, a little wicked, more confident than I'd seen her look all day. "Not even a little."
"Good," I said, pressing one more kiss to her temple. "Because I don't think either of us plans on stopping just because he's watching."
She laughed again, brighter this time, and did up her jeans with hands that were only slightly steadier than mine had been, glancing toward Rowan once more as she straightened her jumper.
"So," she said, tucking her hair back into some semblance of order, "does this mean I officially won the conker contest? Since you got distracted before we finished."
"Absolutely not. I still have the bigger conker."
"You cheated. You distracted me with feelings." She huffed.
"Strategic use of feelings isn't cheating. It's called romance."
She swatted my arm, laughing, and I caught her hand before she could pull it back, lacing our fingers together instead.
We walked back toward the blanket like that, unhurried, her shoulder occasionally bumping mine, and when Rowan finally made his way back up from the water a few minutes later, he didn't say a word about any of it.
Just settled back onto the blanket across from us, poured himself more coffee, and let the quiet fill in around the three of us like it had always belonged there.
I decided right there that I'd spend every day for the rest of my life finding new ways to earn exactly that kind of quiet again.