“Dude. No way.” Eli shakes his head solemnly. “No photos of the café in the café. That’s too meta and you need some more, like, natural scenes.”
Meta, huh? I try not to snort at the ten-dollar words he’s learning from that Tara girl.
“You know,” Fliss says, taking him seriously as she glances around, “I think you’re right.”
As she turns her head, she catches my eye and blinks.
For the briefest moment, she looks startled to see me standing here before she ducks her head, peeking at me past her hair with a shy smile and her eyes lit like a wintry sunset.
My pulse booms in my ears.
Goddamn, I’m hooked.
Hooked on her and the way she fits our lives so effortlessly.
No denying it now—not that I ever did.
If we had our chance, we could be perfect together.
We could be right.
Then again, I felt that way about Katelyn at first, too.
As rotten as she turned out, she also didn’t come with a parade of murderous drug-dealing psychopaths chasing after their stolen blood money.
If I want something more with Fliss, I need to be sure it won’t bite me in the ass. Especially when it’s getting harder by the day to pretend we’re still pretending.
Those kisses taste as real as her coffee—bold, bright, and electrifying.
Can I save her in time?
Can I convince myself I’m not making another big-ass mistake all over again?
I try not to dwell on the cupid shit too much as I finish hauling things into the storage room and help Felicity tidy things up and close everything down.
Right now feels good.
Right now is enough.
Almost feels like we’re faking it in a different way, believing this could actually be real when there are so many reasons why it could go absolutely haywire, spark, and burn our worlds to cinders.
Still, I don’t want to stop.
So I cling to the illusion for a little while longer, marveling at her shy smiles and breathing the air in her wake.
I enjoy becoming a drumming heartbeat just shy of seven feet tall because now my pulse drums for her.
Later, after Eli’s in bed and zonked out snoring, I coax Felicity to the back deck and the hot tub. We could both use the relaxation tonight, I think.
A little time off, a moment to soak and be human together. Not two people caught up in enough trouble for twenty.
With how she frets and gets caught inside her own head, I don’t expect her to agree with me so easily.
I definitely can’t take my eyes off her as she emerges from the bathroom in a sleek strapless bathing suit.
Holy shit.
I swear, the outfit doesn’t know if it wants to be a one-piece or two-piece. It’s all strategically wrapped bits of paper-thin white cloth that spiral around her gorgeous frame, covering all the best parts but her face.
Barely.
And it covers a lot less when she sinks into the hot tub with a soft purr, stretching out and turning that fabric semi-translucent the moment it gets wet.
I don’t realize she’s talking to me just yet—not when I’m this hypnotized.
She lifts her arms to pile her hair on top of her head and away from the water. Her tits rise up gleaming from the surface of the water and—
“...I just can’t help thinking how much it would cost,” she says, and I blink, tearing my gaze up to her face.
Her eyes are up there. Shit. Okay.
“Sorry, say that again? My mind started wandering...”
Felicity gives me a wry look like she knows exactly what was going on in my dirty damned head.
“I was just saying if I ever build a real house one day and leave that mess I grew up in...I want to have a hot tub like this. But I can’t help wondering how much it would cost.”
“Less than you’d think,” I say with a smile. “Honestly, if you bought a hot tub at the old place, I could install it for you. Save you a lot of money. No new house needed.”
There’s a stillness between us then.
Because what I’m saying implies we’ll be in each other’s lives after the trash gets taken out.
We can be friends, right?
I clear my throat, looking away, because when I look at her the last thing on my mind is friendship.
“I know what you mean, though. About wanting a home and not just a place to live. This cabin won’t be a forever thing for us either.”
“No?” Even without looking at her, I hear the teasing smile in her voice. “Not going to be the Charming Inn’s resident polar bear?”
“Careful, woman.” I splash a hand her way, flinging a palmful of water, and she squeals with laughter. “Just saying. I came here looking to make a life. I still want to make that life for me and for Eli, no matter what.”
“I hope you can. I hope you do,” she murmurs. Soft and wistful words. “It’s nice being optimistic, but I’m glad you have that optimism.”
The sadness in her voice draws me back to her—her pensive face, the way the lights of the hot tub shine on her skin in soft spangles.
“Fliss?”
“It’s nothing. Don’t—I mean—I don’t want to drag the mood down.” She smiles self-deprecatingly, flicking a loose strand of cinnamon hair off her shoulder. “I just keep thinking...I’ve always wondered if I could ever have things like that. A normal life. Something that would break the Randall curse and would let me stop being so...so broken.”
“You’re not broken,” I growl, shifting closer to her. “You’re not cursed, either. Leave that shit to bad horror movies where curses are no match for the characters’ sheer stupidity. Everyone has bad streaks, Fliss. Yours can’t go on forever.”
“...is it really a streak if it’s been my whole freaking life?”
“It won’t be. It doesn’t have to be.” I slip my hands through the water to find hers, gripping them with the heat and wetness of the water between us. “We’re gonna make this right. We’re gonna keep you safe. And then no one else’s bad decisions ever have to be your problem again.”
She looks at me like she wants to believe it so much.
The same look she gives says she’s had too many promises broken, too.
When she leans in to kiss me, I understand. More than I think she even realizes exactly what she’s saying.
If we don’t put it into words, it can’t become a lie. A broken promise. A lost faith.
As long as I don’t talk—not with words—I can’t let her down.
Just as long as I kiss her with so much meaning it could write whole volumes in how much I care.
Kiss her and draw her through the water till she’s in my lap again, feeling what she does to me.
I love her this way, I realize—this delicate woman straddling me like she’s in control, when we both know I could take over at any moment.
It’s not about that.
It’s about letting her feel loved without making her feel trapped.
Her silky skin glides against me as she moves over me, against me.
The water adds to the blazing heat between us till we’re all rushed sighs and tingling skin.
Until the thin scraps of fabric between us aren’t enough to stop the wildfire that makes me feel naked against her, her slip of a bathing suit no barrier that stops me from feeling every inch of her skin.