Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
LUCY
I’m having a moment.
I mean, I’m having the time of my life, I can’t lie, but I’m also having a moment.
I’m not particularly experienced in the matter of first kisses, but I’m pretty sure that was mind-blowing by anyone’s standards.
It was clear by the way Bram touched my arm in the restaurant that he’s a man who knows what he’s doing, but I didn’t feel an ounce of that in the way he kissed me.
It was honest, tender – like we had all the time in the world.
Like we were only at the start of the story.
It was every romance novel dream I’ve ever had coming true all at once.
And it was hot as hell.
He’s looking at me now like he isn’t quite sure what his next move should be, and if I’m honest I don’t know either.
I didn’t really have a plan beyond this – I was just exhausted by this crazy rollercoaster of a day.
The idea of falling into bed sooner rather than later was so tempting that I had to suggest it.
Did I hope that he’d want to stay here? Definitely. I mean, what can I say? I’m obviously into him. But I don’t know what I expected to happen after that. I don’t judge people who jump directly to sex straight away, but it’s not really my thing.
Though, the way my body is buzzing right now, I’m not sure it got the memo.
‘I’ll kip here,’ he says, gesturing to my overstuffed sofa, and I know that’s the sensible option.
I should kiss him goodnight and then get a good night’s sleep in my own bed, alone.
That’s what Old Lucy would have done. But I’m a different Lucy now, irrevocably changed by the cut of Jon’s betrayal.
By speaking my truth on a windswept hillside. By a kiss which hit like a meteor.
And New Lucy is sick of always doing the right thing. I’ve made the safe choice every single time, and it’s never got me any closer to what I really want. And what I really want right in this moment is to be close to the beautiful man in front of me.
‘Would you stay … with me?’ I ask, and I see his eyes burn with heat for a moment before he collects himself.
‘Luce, I…’ he starts, reaching a hand for my waist, and though he doesn’t finish his sentence, I can tell that he’s arguing with himself somewhere inside his head.
‘I don’t mean … y’know,’ I add quickly, and I see something wash over his face – something between disappointment and relief. It’s a feeling I can relate to in this moment.
One hand goes into his hair, tugging at the roots. ‘God, I want to,’ he says, earnest as hell, ‘but I don’t want to mess any of this up.’
I take a deep breath, tell him the whole truth. ‘It’s been a lot, today.’ There’s a shake in my voice, but I don’t break eye contact. ‘I just don’t want to be on my own tonight.’
His face changes again, softening into an expression so understanding that it makes my heart ache. ‘Of course,’ he says, and he reaches for me, pressing his lips to mine in a kiss that feels like a promise.
And I can’t help but smile, wondering how a man who looks so dangerous could make me feel so safe.
I left Bram perusing my book collection while I nipped to the bathroom, and ten minutes later I feel like a new woman. I quickly showered and brushed my teeth, then changed into the least dowdy pyjamas I could find, and now he’s taking his turn while I wait for him in bed.
There’s a buzz in my chest, a heady swirl of nervousness and excitement which should keep me awake, but the last few hours have been such a ride that it isn’t long before I feel my eyes tugging shut.
I’m almost asleep when I feel him slipping into the other side of the bed.
He pauses for a moment, like he’s not quite sure where the line is, before he shuffles up behind me and presses a kiss to the side of my jaw.
I’m wide awake again in an instant, unashamedly breathing in the scent of him.
He smells sweet, like spearmint and my lemon sherbet shower gel, with just the barest hint of something more masculine beneath it.
‘G’night Luce,’ he says softly, but there’s a rough edge to his voice that draws a line of heat down my body, and before I know it I’ve spun into his arms and I’m kissing him.
And this time I don’t hold back.
I feel tension grip him for a moment, like he’s unsure if he should be doing this, before he mutters something to himself.
And then he’s right there with me, hands in my hair, chest flush with mine, kissing me like he’ll never get another chance.
His lips part as I deepen the kiss, and when our tongues meet, the smallest of growls rushes out of him.
It’s a beautiful sound, rough and primal, and it makes whispers of heat ripple through me. It’s almost enough that I want to beg him to take me right there and then, but I know deep down that’s too far – too fast for me. But I can’t quite bring myself to stop, either. He’s addictive.
My hands find the gap between his boxers and the T-shirt he’s wearing and skate across his bare skin greedily, mapping out the contours of his body, the dips of his muscles, the hard balls of his nipple piercings.
His skin’s smoother than I thought it would be and as cold as his hands, which I’ll probably think more about when I’m not quite so distracted.
Right now, all I can focus on is how strangely refreshing that cool skin feels against the burn of mine.
My mind skips back to when I watched him sleep that first morning at the annexe, and I try to mentally recreate his tattoos, frowning when I can’t.
He senses the change in my expression and pulls back, green eyes searching mine. ‘You ok?’ he asks, voice rough but eyes gentle.
I nod. ‘It’s just … can I see your tattoos?’ I suddenly feel small and awkward, and I can’t help but look away from him. ‘I don’t want to be a tease, and it’s not like a fetish or anything, I just—’
‘Lucy,’ he says, gently interrupting me. ‘It’s fine.’ He reaches over his head and pulls off his T-shirt, muscles twitching and flexing as he does. ‘I’m not going to complain about getting more naked with you.’
Good God, he’s a beautiful man. I mean, if I think about it, beautiful seems too soft a word for all that inked skin and muscle, but nothing else seems to do him justice.
I can’t believe he’s really here, half-naked in my bed.
I feel like I’ve fallen asleep in front of an action film, and I’m having a really vivid, really hot dream about one of the heroes.
He lies back on the mattress, and I lift a leg to straddle him, my fingers finding the lines of his tattoos while his rub slow circles on my thighs.
I trace the outline of them – the stingray that wraps over his shoulder and up his neck; the array of rock pool creatures that span a full arm; the octopus that wraps around his left side, its tentacles curling in all directions – up to his collarbone, across to his other side, down around his hip.
One goes even further, disappearing underneath his waistband.
My finger follows it, dipping behind the elastic a little way before I overthink it and pull my hand away.
When I look up at him, he’s watching me from under hooded lids.
‘You,’ he grits out, cool hands stilled on my legs, ‘are going to be the death of me.’
I shift slightly, and that’s when I feel him underneath me, hard as a rock and trying like hell not to move. A rush of guilt rattles through me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, my brow creasing. ‘I’m not meaning to tease you.’
But he just huffs an almost-laugh. ‘It’s not a criticism,’ he says, with a small smile. ‘I’m enjoying the dying process a great deal.’
I shake my head. ‘It’s not fair on you though.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ he says. ‘I’ll probably have to take a hundred cold showers before I go to sleep, but I’ll survive.’
My frown deepens. ‘Bram…’
‘I’m kidding.’ He reaches a hand out to cup my face. One thumb strokes my cheek. ‘I’m a grown man, not a teenage boy. You say stop, we stop.’
I open my mouth to argue, but he shakes his head before I can. ‘Trust me,’ he says, slowly, like he’s saying something important. ‘I want you so badly that it hurts. But when I rock your world – and believe me, I will rock your world – I want you to be ready. Ok?’
My heart swells as I think, not for the first time, about the assumptions I made when I first met him, and exactly how wrong I was. I don’t care what I’ve heard and read about him, Bram’s good. I know it.
‘Ok,’ I reply eventually, almost a whisper. He smiles in return.
‘Good.’ He pulls me back down for a kiss, and I melt into him. ‘Now, let’s get some sleep. It’s been a long day.’
I nod, but I don’t stop kissing him. Not until those tattooed arms wrap around me and roll me to the side. I land on the mattress with a bump, giggling as I turn away from him and burrow down into the familiar softness of my sheets.
I mean to keep teasing him, but what actually happens is that he curls himself against my back, his kisses little more than whispers on the skin of my shoulder, and I feel something I’m not at all familiar with.
I’ve always felt a little out of place my whole life.
Always felt I never quite belonged. But right here, cocooned in Bram’s inked arms, I feel like I’m exactly where I should be, protected from the dangers of the world.
‘You’re the dangerous one,’ he mutters then, voice heavy with sleep, like he’s read my mind somehow. But I don’t have time to ask him what he means before his whole body relaxes around me and the tiniest of snores rumbles through him.
And it’s so calming, so peaceful, that I can’t help but give in to it too.
It’s light when I wake up, and the clock by my bed reads 8:03.
I turn over and have to stifle a giggle.
I thought on that first morning that Bram was tangled up in his sheets because the tiny sofa made for a restless night’s sleep, but he’s just the same now: limbs flung out like a starfish, bedclothes everywhere.
God knows how he was able to get into that position without disturbing me.
On a normal night I wake up at least a couple of times, but last night I slept like the dead.
I take a moment to sneakily eye him up, just like I did that first morning, but it feels different now – now that I know the man behind the torso.
I don’t feel a single ounce of shame as I take in the ridges of his abdomen, the angle of his hips, the fine smattering of hair across his chest as it rises and falls with his breath.
I look at his skin, the tattoos of sea creatures drawn across the pale surface of it like a story.
My eyes follow the form of the octopus around his body, trailing a tentacle I didn’t notice last night – one that curls around his sternum, close to his heart.
There’s something different about this one, an irregularity to the pattern which isn’t on the other tentacles, and as I look closer I notice that the negative space forms letters. I strain to focus on them.
Forever the wind in my sails, the words read. Forever my anchor in the storm.
My chest tightens. He’s from a seaside town, so sailing metaphors make sense, but there’s something more about the words – the way they’re worked into the texture of the octopus’s skin, almost hidden – which makes them feel significant. Like a secret hiding in plain sight.
I feel a hand close around my hip, and Bram’s weight shifts in the bed beside me.
‘Are you watching me sleep?’ he asks, his voice deliciously gruff, and when I look at him, he’s looking back at me through one eye, like a sleepy, unfairly hot pirate.
‘Yep,’ I chirp, sinking back down to the mattress and nestling in beside him. My hand strokes a brazen trail across the skin of his chest. ‘Got a problem with that?’
He laughs, closing his pirate eye again as he turns to gather me in his arms. His lips find my neck, the graze of his teeth against it sending shivers down my spine as his arms pull me in.
Even my faint but lingering concern about those teeth isn’t enough to stem my happiness at this moment.
I think if I were given the choice right now, I would be quite happy to spend eternity exactly here.
‘Absolutely not,’ he mutters into my ear, and then he pulls back just far enough for his lips to find mine.
It feels different this morning. His kisses are softer, more leisurely. It’s like we do this every day, and something about the familiarity makes my chest swell, a warm glow building behind my ribcage.
You could be happy here, I think, and before I can stop it, the idea takes root, finding a plot in my chest to grow in.
I try not to think about how difficult it would be to get it back out.
I just enjoy this moment, the feel of Bram’s hands on my skin, kissing me like he hasn’t got a care in the world.
It’s around nine when we get out of bed, and I’m floored when he offers to cook, throwing a surprisingly good breakfast together from the odds and ends in my fridge.
He doesn’t put his shirt back on the entire time he’s cooking or eating, which I thoroughly appreciate, and when he catches me unashamedly checking him out, he just grins, his wild mop of morning hair falling over his eyes as he does.
He puts a delicious-smelling plate of food in front of me and leans across the breakfast bar to kiss me before sliding onto the stool opposite.
‘I have to see my mum before we go back to Whitby,’ he says, and I notice that he doesn’t quite meet my eyes. ‘You can come if you want.’
I’m not sure what to say, but my face must have its own reaction to the question, because he smiles softly and reaches for my hand.
‘I mean, I’d like you to come,’ he clarifies, his voice earnest. ‘I just don’t want you to feel like you have to. It can be a lot.’
I shake my head. ‘I’d like to come.’
He doesn’t say any more on the matter, and I don’t press him. I can tell by the set of his jaw that he’s still worried about her. He’s quieter than usual as we eat together, and when he gives me some privacy to get dressed, I start to worry that perhaps something’s wrong.
But that melts away to nothing with the look he gives me when I step out of my bedroom. I’m not sure I can even describe it. It’s like he can see into my soul. He’s in front of me in two strides, reaching a hand out for my chin and kissing me soft and slow.
‘Come on,’ he says, with one last brush of his lips, and then he shrugs on his leather jacket, feeling for something in the pocket before he follows me out of the door.