Page 62 of Crocodile Tears
I took it all in with a sigh, admiring the beauty for a split second before turning to Deacon curiously. “Why are we at the Sea Pearl?”
“You know this place?” Deacon asked, and I shot him a look. “Right. Small island. Of course you know this place.” He set the bags down and opened the front gate to the stone-lined path that led to the front door. Drifts of orange wildflowers danced in clumps throughout the rock garden. “I’ve rented it for the week.”
“You rented a house? When?” I answered my own question before Deacon replied, “Luca.”
That explains why he was hastily texting him in the car yesterday.
“Nothing as palatial as the Holloway Estate,” Deacon replied as he carried our bags toward the front door. “Thank God, that place was creepy. I swear it was haunted by a bunch of posh ghosts.”
“I believe it.”
“This seemed just as beautiful but far more cozy.” He gave me a sideways look. “I thought I’d get ahead of it before your mom offered for me to sleep in the monkey house again.”
I let out a sharp laugh. “I don’t blame you.”
Deacon fished his phone out of his pocket. “Luca sent me through the code for the lock box?—”
“It’s 3441,” I chimed in. Deacon’s head whipped up, brow arched in question. “We come run the water in winter, make sure the pipes haven’t frozen and stuff. I think the twins were once in charge of weeding but . . .” I waved a hand over the yard. “Seems like they have forgotten.”
Deacon huffed. “I think I like it like this, wild and a little chaotic.” He slung his arm around my shoulders. “Just like you.”
“What a ringing endorsement,” I teased, leaning into his hold. “The owners haven’t been on the island in years. They mostly just use it for weekend vacation rentals now. A shame,it’s such a beautiful house.” I admired the little driftwood and abalone sign beside the door proclaiming it the Sea Pearl.
“Well, it’s ours for the next week.” Deacon brushed a kiss to the side of my head.
“Ours?”
“You’re staying with me.” He hesitated. “Unless . . . that’s too much? Too fast? If you want to stay at the zoo, I understand. I just thought that?—”
I lifted onto my tiptoes and kissed him, pausing his frantic words. “Oh, I’m staying here with you,” I murmured against his mouth.
“Good.” He smiled against my lips, cradling the back of my neck. I could see it in his eyes: the last two days together, all of the feelings bubbling up to the surface. “And this way I can have you all to myself.” With a mischievous grin, he dropped his mouth to the shell of my ear. “I’m going to have you on every surface of this house.” I bit my lip, my cheeks flushing with heat. “You’ll be grateful for the roar of the waves when I make you come so hard you scream my name.”
My hands twisted in the fabric of Deacon’s shirt as I swallowed thickly. “Maybe I can start my shift late today . . .”
Deacon let out a husky laugh, placing a slow, lavish kiss to my lips. “You’ll be very glad to not have your siblings’ constant interruption when I?—”
“Well, if it isn’t Freaky Deaky!” Finch called, her faint voice cutting over the roll of waves crashing onto the stony shore.
“You’vegotto be kidding me,” I gritted out. “She’s like freaking Beetlejuice.”
Deacon and I turned to find Finch and Frankie on the boardwalk a few yards beyond the house’s gate. Simon was in a baby carrier strapped to Frankie’s chest while Finch pushed an empty stroller filled with what appeared to be an entire toy shop full of baby toys.
“What are you two doing here?” I shouted as they abandoned the stroller and wandered over the rocks toward the house.
Finch took out her phone as if texting someone. “Heron owes me twenty bucks.”
Frankie swatted the phone down. “I thought you were going to stop betting about your siblings’ love lives?”
“I made no such promises,” Finch said with a wink.
I crossed my arms. “You justhadto be walking past this house at . . .” I checked my watch. “5:30 in the morning?”
Frankie swayed side to side as she spoke. “Simon is only sleeping while he’s moving at the moment,” she announced, doing a half-rock, half-squat movement like some kind of crazed, interpretive Oompa-Loompa dance. “My internal clock is set to 4 am anyway—baker’s curse—and since there’s no more café work until summertime, I offered to take him so Hawk and Hannah could get some sleep.”
“But enough about us,” Finch cut in with a shit-eating grin. “What areyou twoup to?”
I rolled my eyes. “I think you already know.”
