Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
KIT
Ican’t get the taste of her out of my mouth. I’m hoping you tell me… Could I have sounded any more twelve if I tried?
I can hear Maisie and Isla talking in Maisie’s room and there’s this solid ache inside of me that I can’t move around.
Her kiss. How can something be so different and yet still the same all at once?
I’m waiting for the guilt to awaken inside me, that slumbering monster that lives and breathes every day that I get to live my life with Maisie and Jess doesn’t, but it’s still quiet, slumbering.
The framed picture of Jess, Maisie and me blinks at me from the wall above the sofa.
Jess’s grin is so wide, the wind lifting her hair.
Her gaze meets mine across the living room and there is no recrimination there, which doesn’t make sense.
I just kissed another woman in her house.
Shaking my head, I climb the stairs, but with every tread I recall our conversation in Maggie’s old kitchen this morning. Could everything have been so different, if I’d just been brave enough to ask her to stay?
But what does that mean for the life I’ve lived? For Jess and me, and Maisie?
Isla always felt like the firefly I’d never be able to keep, shouldn’t be able to keep, too bright to trap in a jar. What’s that they say? If you love something, set it free?
I think whoever came up with that might have been cooked on some Class A.
What a mess. Ten years spent pretending not to care, and one taste of her mouth and I’ve unravelled.
On the landing I pause, listening, and peek in.
‘And this one,’ Maisie says, holding up a pale pink conch with reverence.
She’s cross-legged, sitting by her pillows, while Isla is cross-legged at the other end of the bed.
Between them are a scattering of Maisie’s favourite shells, and Isla is holding one up to the light, her attention mirroring my daughter’s as she takes in the tiger stripes on the rare shell Mais found down at St Agnes Bay.
‘It makes the ocean sound if you put it to your ear,’ Maisie is telling her, ‘even though it’s not really the ocean, it’s just the air moving around inside, but it sounds exactly like it. ’
I watch from the doorway as Isla puts down the striped shell and takes the newly offered one, her eyes widening with exaggerated wonder as she holds it to her ear.
The soft light from the bedroom lamp catches in her hair, turning it to liquid gold in the pink-and-blue-hued room my wife chose for our daughter.
‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘That’s incredible. The sea is always with you.’
Maisie beams, triumphant. ‘Dad found it for me. On the beach after that really big storm last year. He says it came all the way from the Caribbean.’
Isla glances up, catching me in the doorway. I’m sure her lips still look slightly swollen from our kiss. Or maybe that’s just my imagination.
I should regret it. I want to regret it. But watching her now, with that shell pressed to her ear, with my daughter’s complete adoration shining up at her, all I can think about is crossing the room and doing it again.
‘I should get going, it’s getting late,’ she says, returning the conch to Maisie’s hands. ‘Thank you for dinner. And for sharing your collection.’
‘No, wait! You can’t go yet, it’s not bedtime,’ Maisie insists, with all the determined authority of an eight-year-old making plans. ‘I still haven’t shown you my rock collection or my special mermaid book or—’
‘Maisie.’ My voice comes out rougher than intended. ‘Put your PJs on and I’ll come and read you a bedtime story.’
Disappointment clouds my daughter’s face, but she nods with forced maturity. ‘Maybe another time?’
‘I’d like that,’ Isla says, rising from the bed.
She smooths her hands down her jeans, a nervous gesture I remember from years ago.
Some things never change. ‘The fish was delicious, Kit. Not at all cold. Thank you.’ The flash of her gaze, the quirk of her mouth does something twisting and uncomfortable to my stomach.
Desire, so dormant, so deeply buried, blasts its way free, as an ache settles through me that’s almost eye-watering.
‘Anytime.’ The word escapes before I can consider its implication.
I follow her downstairs, aware of every inch of her.
She grabs her jacket, shrugging it on in silence, and then I walk her to the door, hyperaware of each step, each breath, the careful distance she maintains between us.
Maisie trails behind, chattering about her upcoming school week and something about her art teacher that I can’t focus on because all my attention is locked on Isla’s profile, the curve of her neck, the way she’s deliberately not looking directly at me.
‘Thanks again,’ she says at the door, finally meeting my eyes. ‘For everything. It was … nice.’
Her gaze drops to my mouth for the briefest second, a small hitch in her breathing. ‘I should—’ she starts, then falters. ‘I mean, I’ll see you … around.’
She brushes her fingertips against my forearm – a touch so light it might be imagined – and then she’s gone, limping slightly down the path towards Maggie’s cottage.
I stand in the doorway watching her go, a hollow feeling expanding in my chest.
My skin burning where she touched.
‘Right, PJs.’ I turn to Maisie, clearing my throat. ‘Teeth and into bed.’
‘But it’s Saturday,’ she groans, shoulders slumping until she slouches like a sloth.
‘And tomorrow is Sunday, and maybe we will think of something fun to do.’
She opens her mouth and I can almost sense the name, Isla, on the tip of her tongue. I press her lips closed with my forefinger and thumb, making her giggle, and press a kiss onto her nose. ‘PJs. Your story is getting shorter by the moment.’
With a flick of her dark curls, she turns and runs back for the stairs. ‘Two minutes,’ she calls back.
‘You’re supposed to clean your teeth for two minutes!’ I holler, but my instruction is lost under the echo of her feet on the stairs.
When she’s gone, I open the door and peer down the lane, checking that Isla got safely back into Salt Cottage.
I’ve been pacing the living room for an hour.
Back and forth across the worn rug, past Jessica’s knitted throw still draped over the chair, past Maisie’s homework spread across the coffee table. The house is quiet except for the rain that blew in again, hammering the windows, and my own ragged breathing.
Upstairs, Maisie’s been asleep for hours. I checked on her twice already – both times finding her curled around that battered stuffed rabbit, peaceful in a way I haven’t felt since Isla came back.
Since I let myself want something I swore I’d never want again.
My hands curl into fists at my sides. I’m being ridiculous. I should go to bed. Should let this go. Should stop thinking about her face after I kissed her, the press of her fingers to her lips, like she was capturing the taste of me there. The scorch of her touch across my arm as she walked out.
I stop pacing, grip the back of the sofa hard enough my knuckles go white.
Two years. Two years since Jessica died and I haven’t so much as looked at another woman.
Didn’t want to. Couldn’t imagine wanting to.
The idea of touching someone who wasn’t Jess felt like a betrayal – to her memory, to Maisie, to the vows I made.
To be happy. To live fully. To love again someday.
Jessica’s voice in my head, soft and certain, the way she was even at the end when the cancer was eating her alive.
Promise me you won’t stop living, Kit. Promise me you’ll let yourself love again.
I promised. But I didn’t think it would hurt this much when I finally did.
Because I do. Love her. Still. Again. The difference doesn’t matter when it’s tearing me apart.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I grab my phone and call Jude.
He answers on the third ring, voice groggy. ‘Someone better be dying.’
‘I need you to come over,’ I say. ‘Stay with Maisie for a bit.’
A long pause. Then, more alert: ‘What’s happened?’
‘Nothing. I just – I need to go out. Won’t be long.’
‘Kit, it’s nearly midnight—’
‘I know what time it is.’ My voice grinds in my throat. I soften. ‘Please, Jude. I just need … I need to do something.’
Another pause. I can practically hear him putting it together. ‘This about Isla Quinn?’
I don’t answer.
‘Right,’ he says. ‘Give me ten minutes.’
When he arrives, I’m already out the door, boots hitting the wet pavement, Salt Cottage’s porch light flickering at the end of the row.
It’s less than a hundred steps, but it feels like walking into a storm. I hammer on the door, and there’s movement from inside, a thud followed by a curse. The door opens a crack, chain on. ‘Kit?’
She closes the door to undo the latch and I swear my heart is a steel-pan band inside my chest. When she opens it again it’s to reveal her wearing only a baggy T-shirt and some old tracksuit pants with a hole torn in the knee that definitely weren’t her grandmother’s.
She steals my fucking breath.
I step in, pressing into her space, fingers cradling her jaw, thumbs tilting her face up to mine. ‘Isla.’ It’s a whisper.
A prayer.
My mouth is on hers, her lips opening beneath mine, letting me in, a warm stroke of her tongue as she twines her fingers into my hair. I groan and stumble further into the cottage so I can kick the door closed with my booted foot.
I can’t get close enough. Warm enough. The frost that’s been living within me is seeking out the warmth of her.
Our tongues slide, I tilt her head back so I can reach in further, tasting every stroke.
Her chest rises and falls, pushing the shape of her into me, and my entire body springs to life, heat in my veins, strength and desire washing through every cell that makes me human. Makes me exist.
‘Isla.’
‘Kit.’ She catches my face, holding me tight, like she’s scared I’m going to disappear. ‘I want you so much.’ Her declaration is stolen by the kiss she frantically places on my mouth. ‘I’ve never needed anything the way I need you right now.’
I pull back, finding her gaze, sweeping across the flushed spots of her cheeks. She’s breathless, wild, lips parted. ‘It’s got to be you, Isla.’ It makes so much sense to me now. That she had to come back, she had to be the one to make me feel again. ‘It’s just you.’
She nods and bites on her lip. ‘I know.’ It’s just a whisper. Then she tilts her chin. ‘So what are you waiting for.’
I catch her in my embrace, pulling her in, mouth back on hers, hungry and demanding. ‘Bedroom.’
Her smile against my mouth, I swear, is the sexiest thing. We stumble back, one step at a time, heading for the stairs, until I remember her ankle and lift her, throwing her over my shoulder and pacing up the creaky old stairs. ‘Which room?’
‘Front,’ she huffs against my back, stealing in a giggle as I accidentally knock her against the doorframe.
In the room with the old brass bedstead, I launch her onto the mattress, leaning my weight into the space between us, wanting to absorb it and make it disappear until I don’t know where she ends and I begin.
My mouth is back on hers and her hips tilt, grinding against the hardness I’d forgotten I could even create.
I’m watching as her eyes blink shut at the feel of me.
I drop a kiss to her throat, the spot behind her ear that twelve years ago made her groan.
It still does now, a breathy little gasp that shoots right through me.
‘Top off.’ I can barely speak. I’m just vibrating with this intense need.
This heat that’s burning through me. She nods, and I shift just two inches so I can help her draw it off.
She’s braless and perfect beneath the T-shirt.
Bending, I catch a nipple in my mouth, sucking it in and rolling it with my tongue.
‘Fuck.’ She clutches the back of my hair, pushing my face closer to her flesh.
I don’t answer, just swap to the other one, leaving a trail of wet kisses across her beautiful skin.
When her hips start to rise and fall in little desperate circles, I pull at the waistband of the tracksuit pants, slipping my hand underneath, hoping she’s …
fuck yes, knickerless and fucking wet for me.
I slip a finger through her core. She’s slick, warm and perfect.
‘Oh my God.’ She pushes into my hand, almost feeding herself onto my fingers. ‘Kit.’
I slide one finger in, then another, watching her face, eyes closed, mouth parted.
With my thumb circling her clit, pressure on, pressure off, I use my fingers to bring her to the edge, but then pull my hand away, remove the tracksuit bottoms completely and gaze down at this woman who is more beautiful than the finest work of art.
Slipping off the sofa, I spread her knees and kneel in reverence, gazing at the glorious sight of her pussy wet and gleaming.
Her hooded gaze watches me as I tug her hips down the cushions, dropping my face between her legs, tongue seeking her out.
‘Kit, I can’t.’
‘Sure you can.’ Although whether she can hear me as I feast on her, the taste of her, the smoothness, the intoxicating scent, is up for debate.
I’m all in as she bucks her hips, fingers pulling my hair, my nose pressed into her, tongue deep as she comes into my mouth and I continue sucking and licking, getting it all.
Her legs tremble, shuddering, and I glance up across the smooth flat of her stomach, her small pert tits, and find her sobbing.
‘Fucking hell, why are you crying?’ I shift back, closing her legs, rising so I can see her face, and smooth her hair from where it’s stuck in strands across damp cheeks. ‘Baby?’ Her gaze meets mine, brilliant blue pools of watery lapis.
‘Call me that again.’
It takes a moment. I tilt my head. ‘Baby?’
She nods, sobs again, reaching for me, pulling me down. ‘Now, fuck me properly.’