I’d never forget the night James chased me out to that beach house and found me standing at the edge of the water, very much not dressed for the cold and wet.
I dropped my hand to meet his.
It had been the single biggest fight we’d had, and at the end of it all, I confessed to falling in love with him. I’d known he felt the same way. With or without the bond, we were head-over-heels for each other. Once I accepted that, it made loving him a whole hell of a lot easier.
The weather was freezing when we arrived at the beach house, so I huddled close to James. I let him get inside the front door before I pressed him against it and claimed his mouth. “Why don’t I get the heating started?”
“Mm, I can think of another way for you to keep me warm.” I took each side of his jacket in my fist and tugged, wedging a leg between his thighs.
It…almostworked. James indulged me, grinding against me for a moment before he wrenched away and spun us around so that it wasmyback against the door. Breathless, I said, “Bedroom’s that way,” like he wouldn’t remember where he entirely unraveled me after my romcom-worthy confession.
But then I yelped. James had dropped his body temperature to be freezing cold, causing me to lunge away from him. “Asshole,” I muttered, shivering.
He laughed. “My version of a cold shower,” he explained. “It won’t work after you turn though.” He must have felt bad at my sour expression, because he opened his arm to me. I was suspicious—until he brushed my cheek with a warm hand. I tentatively stepped up to him again. “Let’s find these cufflinks first, andthenI’ll spend all night keeping you warm.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Good, because you need to make up for pulling that stunt on me.”
While James got the electricity going, I took in everything around the house. Gloomy daylight illuminated the modern furniture and the white walls. Everything was exactly the sameas the last time I was here. My parents hired a groundskeeper to clean every couple of weeks, and they were doing a good job. The front door opened directly into the living room, and the open floor plan expanded into the kitchen on my right, where a back door opened up to the deck that led down to the beach.
A hallway to my left housed both bedrooms and the main bathroom. In the middle, between the two bedrooms, a pull-down door led to the attic. I raised a hand to tug on the string and lower it—and squirmed into James’s arms as he snuck up behind me and tickled my ribcage. “Hey!” I laughed, narrowly avoiding being hit in the face by the ladder as it slid down to the floor. “What are you doing?”
James weaseled his way in front of me, placing his foot on the first rung of the ladder. “Getting to the good stuff before you can hide it from me.”
He tossed me a wink, then disappeared into the attic.
Chapter 8
“Why are all of these censored?”
I looked up from the box of old school projects I’d been picking through. We’d found the cufflinks already, along with a thousand other things we decided to take home. To James’s delight, he’d stumbled upon my baby pictures fairly quickly. I decided to distract myself from that embarrassment by looking through my middle school science experiments.
“I knew my mom’s tactics,” I answered. “I did that the night before I brought Erin home.”
James snickered.
I remembered that night fondly. I was fifteen, and chugged coffee like a lifeline to stay awake. After my parents had finally gone to bed, I snuck downstairs and covered the embarrassing parts of the pictures with gold star stickers. Now that I was older, I found myself wondering why the hell there were so many.
I stretched out my sore back. James had been doing everything he could, but the venom was still trying its best to banish James’s healing almost as fast as he could perform it. I didn’t understand: If it was going to put me through all of this discomfort, why wasn’t I turning?
James’s warm hand between my shoulder blades relaxed me, and the pain faded away for what must have been the hundredth time that day.
“Thank you.”
“We didn’t have to do this today,” James said, sitting behind me and stretching long legs to either side of me.
“I know.” What I wasn’t going to admit was that the conversation with my mother had givenmebutterflies as well. I was as anxious as he was to start making it happen. “But we’re here.”
“You know…” James’s strong hands kneaded into my sore muscles. He kissed the cleft of my ear and nipped at the lobe. “Shiloh’s got the bar covered until tomorrow afternoon.”
“What are you suggesting, vamp—oh.” I moaned as James hit just the right spot.
Amused by my reaction, he kissed my ear again. “Let’s stay. I’ll go out and get dinner, and we can eat it naked in bed.” This time, James’s hand snaked around to dance down my stomach. His fingers curled around the growing bulge in my jeans, drawing another low sound from deep in my chest. “I’ll spend the night doingallthe things that I know pull that noise out of you.”
I squirmed. My cock clearly loved the idea, hardening beneath James’s touch. My head dropped back to his shoulder, my hips rocking into his hand. James didn’t stop me, so I eased into a rhythm. Lips on my neck, his nimble fingers worked my belt open, flipping the button on my jeans and shoving the zipper down. James sank his hand into my pants, massaging my erection with nothing more than the fabric of my boxer briefs separating my bare skin from his.
