Twin Flame (Coiled Flame #1)

1. One

One

Sara

At the edge of summer in early June, my tiny village on the French Riviera transforms, it becomes a destination that people cross oceans to experience, swarming with tourists drifting from the Cannes Film Festival’s red carpet to our yachts and clear Mediterranean waters.

For locals like me, born and raised in Saint-Tropez, the invasion during peak season, which goes until September, is a reprieve.

It’s the only time we can finally blend in, offering a rare chance to go into hiding.

This village is an intoxicating beautiful trap, a place where the slightest misstep or daring choice puts your name on tomorrow’s gossip, and dating one of the Laurent brothers does just that.

It’s like choosing the villain, and everyone swears it’s a mistake, yet impossible to look away from.

My name might be on everyone’s lips, but my mouth is busy kissing Joe Laurent, who has become my favorite habit, because I swore never to stay away.

The first time we started hanging out was in February, five months ago. Even though we had been neighbors for as long as I can remember, and while I had always known about the twins' reputation, the troubled, handsome-as-hell boxers with a rough childhood, there was a moment that shifted.

I was finishing a hip-hop class, dancing being my one true escape, but that feeling didn’t last long when I remembered it was my brother’s death anniversary. Turning the corner onto my street, I couldn’t recall a time before the loss, and I just stood there with my bag sliding off my shoulder.

My brother died six years ago, and shortly after, my parents separated.

It ripped a fault line through our house so deep, you could fall through the cracks, leaving my mother to descend and succumb to her depression.

My brother was older, brighter, and fun in ways I am not.

I am more closed-off. Especially after his death, my sole focus was to numb the noise: dance, friends, nightclubs. Repeat.

Then I looked up, and that’s when I saw him, Joe Laurent.

He was crouched over his bike, the last of the evening light catching the angles of his face with grease on his hands and a smudge on his jaw.

He was beaming at me. It felt as if he was finally seeing me for all the times I had secretly wished he would… and something rearranged itself.

He wasn’t just Joe, my neighbor I had crossed paths with plenty of times before, he was the dizzying spell waiting to knock me sideways, pulling me toward him with a force I didn’t expect at all. Even after admitting to myself I’d had a crush on him for a while.

His smile hit even harder.

We had barely spoken before that moment, or knew anything about each other besides town’s gossip, and my long dark brown hair had a better chance of turning blond than me ever predicting Joe would stare back at me the way he was, leaving me speechless.

He became an enigma that begged for my answers, and all I could hope for was to tell him anything he’d want to know.

I tried justifying it with the most logical, acceptable little box of reasoning my brain could muster: his piercing blue eyes.

One look turned into conversations. Conversations turned into my favorite pastime. Five months is a long time to orbit around someone before admitting gravity has won, and it took me three of those months to stop pretending he belonged in the friend zone.

Go to hell, friend zone.

He was easy to talk to because he never expected me to be someone else.

He felt safe.

So, I kissed him because I wanted to, and because I had wanted nothing more. And when he kissed me back, I knew everything would change.

He texted me this morning asking me to come over. I couldn’t wait to see him now that he was back from a week-long visit in Cannes to see his mom.

The path to his house awakens all of my senses as I cut across the lawn, surrounded by beautiful flowers dripping in bloody magentas and roses that choke the iron gate with their perfume.

Every time I try not to inhale too much, I fail and wish for more.

It isn't grand by Riviera standards, but it’s considered a generational treasure throughout our village, therefore untouchable to the money maniacs trying to “over-luxuriate” our almost-island.

I live close enough that I can walk the distance separating our houses barefoot, as the wet grass paints my feet green. It’s grounding if you ask me, and I need everything to keep me rooted, because your girl is about to float away.

A little piece of the turquoise rectangle pool shimmers through the trees like a mirage.

My fingers twitch at my side when ahead, a flurry of motion draws my eye to Liam Laurent, the other Laurent I’m definitely not here for.

His twin brother. Nature gave them the same lethal facial structure, the same blue eyes, the same devastating smile, and then made them opposites in every way that made a difference.

In Liam's case, that meant dark brown hair and a shitty attitude.

He's going to town on the heavy bag strung from a fig tree. Every step I take echoes as his tattooed arm whips out punches and he steps back to wipe sweat from his eyes with the hem of his shirt. It's drenched, plastered against muscle, and it’s a shame he’s such a defective human.

I slow my walk, letting my hair fall forward as it’s my trick to believe I’m now concealed.

I know he sees me. Liam always knows. He’s not like Joe or me, who pretends not to notice anyone unless forced to acknowledge their presence, and a smile tugs at my lips as I think of Joe's introverted nature.

The way he carries himself with a reserved air that appears almost deliberate, never quite able to get a full read on him being part of his charm.

“Shouldn’t you be at your house?” Liam says, startling me. So much for pretending to be invisible. He doesn’t stop moving, paces a wide circle around the bag.

“Sun’s out. Feels criminal to waste it on not seeing your brother.”

“Criminal, alright.” He shrugs, puts his fists to the bag again. We’re not friends but not enemies, either… at least I think so. We’re just two bodies occasionally occupying the same coordinates.

Incapable of handling the awkward silence, I ask where Joe is, doing my best to sound bored, nonchalant even.

“Check the garage or the pool.” He gives a glacial blow and the bag rocks violently on its chain, making me jump, wishing I could have concealed that better when the faintest cruel smile appears on his face.

I keep walking, hurrying now, resisting the urge to turn around, feeling as my legs are being watched.

The song “Two Princes by Spin doctors” echoes from the Bluetooth speakers that Joe insisted on wiring into every corner, and in the distance, the ocean stretches on, dotted with sailboats shimmering under the clear blue sky. It’s peaceful, and yet a string of angst and impatience forms at my navel.

At the far end of the pool, Joe floats on his back, eyes closed, arms splayed, completely at rest. Slicked blond hair, lips parted enough to catch the edge of a breath, I watch him for a few seconds, standing perfectly still.

He’s wearing the ratty old swim trunks I secretly love, the ones with a stupid cartoon shark on the thigh.

Sometimes I wonder if he knows how beautiful he is.

I sit at the edge and dip my toes in, making a brief splash for him to feel my presence. Joe’s eyes snap open, register me, and give way to a huge smile, it’s so immediate and genuine, my heart flutters.

“Baby,” he says, voice thick with greed and something warmer. “It’s early. I thought you’d still be sleeping.”

“It’s ten am! Even Liam is already boxing.” I tease.

“Of course he is, he never gets tired of violence,” he says, laughing.

I brush it aside and stare at the water, letting my legs dangle while the heat from the tile makes my thighs sting, but I welcome the summer sensation. My pulse beats overtime when I’m around Joe.

“Come here,” he says with a commanding voice that is also kind, one that hurries me to bury myself into his open arms.

Peeling off my dress to a navy-blue bikini underneath, I lower myself into the water from my elbows. The water’s shock only lasts a second as I glide toward him, and I can feel his eyes taking in my body.

Once I get close enough to the face I’ve memorized, I see the constellation of freckles across his nose that I love, the faded bruise on his cheekbone from a recent boxing match, and Joe is all raw physicality, sharp jawline and battered elegance.

The boy who doesn’t know how to inhabit his own body without damaging it a little, and somehow that makes him even more handsome. So handsome.

I open my mouth to say something along the lines of how the week without him felt like something was missing, how my chest ached a little.

But I’d never be brave enough to form the words, and that’s okay, because Joe’s hands close around my waist, and he yanks me against him, kissing me.

I melt into him like I’m made of nothing but liquid, making me one with the water lapping between our bodies, his warm skin against mine, and it takes everything out of me to not beg for the one thing I’m ready for.

When our lips finally part, I’m breathless, dizzy, my fingers still tangled in the damp hair at the nape of his neck.

“Hi,” I whisper, because that’s all I can manage when he’s this close.

“Shit, I missed you,” he whispers back, and my ribcage aches when he presses his forehead against mine. His breath warm against my lips.

“I—” My voice comes out shaky. I swallow. “Me too, I missed you too.”

He smiles, a knowing sense passing between us that whatever this is, it’s building into something neither of us might be ready for.

“So, what’s on the agenda today?” he asks.

I want to say “you,” but that would be too straightforward. Since I’ve never had sex, he wants us to wait.

“Don’t you have work?” I tease.