Page 28 of Naughty Irish Fate
Past another orgasm for her and into the start of another, I move inside her. Kiss her mouth, feel the way her hands lace with mine, look into her eyes. We don’t speak because I know neither of us has a clue what we could say.
No words could touch how perfect it is.
“Want you to stay.Inside me.Forever.” Bronwyn proves me wrong as tears slide down her temples. Again, she comes.
Calling my name, shuddering with pleasure and emotions I never knew came into sex. I come soon after. Kissing away her tears as I empty deep inside her. I don’t promise to stay inside her forever.
Even if it’s the only fucking thing I want.
Later, I carry her to the bathroom where we take a long hot bath together. We don’t talk as I hold her against my chest until she stops shaking. Until my chest stops aching and the sting behind my eyes stops too.
We don’t talk until I carry her back to bed and climb in beside her. Lying face to face, we watch each other in the darkness. Tracing my fingertips over her bare skin finally I find my voice.
“Wyn, I can’t leave you tonight. Fuck, I don’t know if I can leave you at all. Spent a lifetime at sea. Always searching. Never knew what I was searching for. Until I walked until your pub and you flipped that coin and let fate decide for us.” Cupping her face, I swipe away the tears that slip down her soft skin.
“Don’t make promises. My mother wasted away at the docks because of a promise. Don’t ruin it with promises.” I nod my head because she’s right; I won’t risk ruining this or her with promises. But I know in my heart, I can’t just walk away from her.
“What do you want, Wyn? Not from me. Not from this. Just what do you want?” I asked something similar that first night but never got an answer.
“Never truly let myself want for something. Until now,” Her eyes flutter as I touch her lips because I know she meansuntil me, “Now... once, as a child, I thought I belonged out at sea. Thought if I went, I might understand my father more. Or why I was never enough for him or my mother.” As a sob tears from her chest, rage burns through me hot and savage.
If I could get my hands on those who had hurt her—her parents included—I'd cause them ten times the pain they caused her. All I can think about is how beautiful and perfect she is and how no one deserves her light. Least of all me. I will fucking take it if she wants to shine it on me though.
“Maybe I make you my first mate.” I tease, kissing her forehead. Doing my best to keep this light. Knowing neither of us believe for a second there is anything light about this.
“Once I came to live with Paps and Grams, I thought I might finally feel like I had a home. I was enough for them. And yet, as much as I loved them for all they did for me, it still never felt like home. Don’t know if I have ever known what home felt like. Just because I grew up here, and it’s all I know... I realize I need more than a pub or a pier to make it my home.” Cupping her neck, I hush her words with a brush of my lips over hers.
Pressing close, I watch her silver-blue eyes glitter with sadness. Something about her vulnerability makes me realize since leaving Belfast, I’ve been searching for the same thing. For a place or a person or a feeling that made me feel like I belonged to it and it to me.
Feeling her press close, our hearts thundering to the same rhythm, her eyes holding mine, I know what we are too scared to say. We found in each other what we have spent so long looking for.
Bronwyn feels like home more than the sea ever has.
Gazing into her eyes, I see it’s the same for her.
I am her home just as she is mine.
Cradling her close, I kiss her lips. I don’t give promises in words, but there are plenty of promises in my touch. In my fingers at her skin and my lips against hers. In the way my arms draw her against my chest and close tight.
We both drift off, arms and legs tangled together. Can’t remember the last time I slept with a woman. Not sure I ever stayed long enough to get to the sleeping part.
Dreams haunt me for most the night. Nightmares, really. All the same: me on a boat drifting out to sea with Bronwyn on shore, screaming for me to come home to her. No sounds come but I hear it in my heart. I watch her crumble to the pier before the sea drags me under.
“No!” I shout as I bolt up out of bed sweaty and shaking.
Beside me, Bronwyn curls tighter into me, mumbling my name and talking about our home.Our home.I know as I hold her close and watch her struggle in her sleep, as I did in mine, that we can’t let this go. No fucking way we can give this up.
We found a home in one another.
“Do you realize what time it is?” Hyde’s grizzly voice is full of impatience and sleep.
“Yeah. I know. It’s daylight which mean the day has started. Need to talk to you, bro.” Pacing as I grip my phone with a shaky hand, I keep my eyes on my baby.
“Hell must be serious for you to call me. Ain’t had a heart to heart in... ever.” I roll my eyes and nod my head. He’s not wrong. I should probably fix that, too.
Spent my entire life searching for something I was never ready to find. Turned my back on the only family I had and I regret it as I think of all I’ve missed out on with my brother. Suddenly, I want to make it all right, I want to be there for birthdays and barbecues or whatever bullshit families do together.
I know I want to do it all with Bronwyn. I want to be here with her or back in Maine near my brother. Hell, I’d live out on the sea with her, if what she said earlier about wanting to go out to sea is what she wants.
