‘We’re not our families,’ I agreed. His breath was warm on my lips and I felt a tingle of magic begin to spark under my skin. ‘We’re just us, we belong to ourselves.’
‘And to each other,’ Wyn murmured against my lips. ‘I’m yours, Emily. Forever.’
Any doubt in my mind disappeared the moment I kissed him. Tipping my head back, I pulled him down to me, hands lost in his hair, his mouth hot and firm against mine. My feet skidded out from under me as he pressed my body against the kitchen counter, but I didn’t fall. Wyn held me so tight in his arms, I couldn’t tell if I was standing or floating and I didn’t care either way. It could’ve been raining fire outside for all I knew. The only real thing in this world was his kiss.
My whole body trembled with the force of my desire, a secret I’d kept even from myself. Wyn was mine and I was his and nothing made more sense than to stay here with him until the end of time. I was silent as his lips drew a line along my jawbone and down to the hollow of my throat, testing and tasting, until I heard myself moan and guided his mouth back to mine. It was uncontrollable, inevitable, and I liked it. Slowly at first then all at once, the apartment filled with light lavender smoke, hazy and beautiful. Wyn’s eyes were closed, blissfully oblivious to the white flames that began to flicker all around us. Or maybe, I was the only one who could see them. When I reached out to touch them, there was no heat, just a pure and perfect fire, protecting us both from anything that could ever hope to harm us, and as we staggered over to his bed, collapsing in a tangle of limbs, everything became crystal clear.
As long as we were together, nothing could touch us.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘It’s kind of late in the season for azaleas?’ Wyn remarked as we rushed back down Harris Street towards Bell House.
‘I’ll have to take your word for it,’ I replied, staring at the bold pink and red blossoms. There were flowers everywhere, exploding in a riot of colour, all around us.
‘Were they even here this morning?’ he asked with a frown.
‘They must’ve been. Flowers don’t appear out of nowhere.’
Except sometimes they did. I anxiously bit my bottom lip, listening to the whispers meant just for me. The trees, the plants, the flowers, the moss. They were full of love and as happy as I was. The afternoon had passed too quickly and there was no time to worry about spontaneously blooming azaleas when I was five minutes away from being late for dinner with Catherine.
‘So, I was thinking about Cole,’ I said, pulling down Lydia’s still damp but thankfully clean dress when it rode up my hips. It was not made for speed. ‘Do you have a recent photograph of him? I won’t say anything to anyone but two pairs of eyes looking out for him have to be better than one.’
‘This is the last photo I have.’ He pulled his phone from hispocket and handed it to me. ‘It’s not his best look but it is the most accurate.’
As we came to Lafayette Square, I slowed my pace, making a complete stop underneath our oak tree. The man on the screen looked much older than Wyn but the resemblance was clear. Their matching skintone, the same cheekbones. Cole’s hair was wavy like Wyn’s but longer and a few shades darker. In the photo, he wore a flannel shirt with ripped jeans, and even though he was undeniably handsome, the sneer on his face left me cold. He scowled into the camera with a middle-finger salute.
‘Not exactly North Carolina’s most charming gentleman,’ Wyn said as I zoomed in on his brother’s face. The colours in his eyes were just as complex as Wyn’s, maybe a little more golden than grey.
‘He looks so angry,’ I said, aching with sympathy as Wyn tucked his phone away in his pocket. ‘What happened to make him so mad?’
‘No idea, he’s always been that way. Doesn’t mean I’m not worried about him though.’
‘We’ll find him,’ I promised, smoothing away the anguish on his perfect face. ‘And if we can’t do it on our own, we can always draft in Lydia and swear her to secrecy. She’s like a one-woman FBI.’
My palm buzzed against Wyn’s skin and I could almost see his worries drift away, replaced by the same marshmallow puff of happiness that filled me all the way up. He leaned down as I reached up and the kiss that followed was different to all the others we’d shared that afternoon. They were hungry, exploratory, insatiable. This kiss was sure and slow, our passion building until I stumbled backwards, out of breath.
‘No,’ I muttered, holding my arms out in front of me as I fell to my knees hard, flesh scraping against dirt.
This was the kiss. The kiss I’d seen on my first night in Savannah. A strand of Spanish moss slid off a low branch and curled around my wrist before the world went black and a thousand confusing images flashed through my mind, all in the same moment.
‘It’s fine, I’m fine,’ I insisted, Wyn’s worried hands clutching at my shoulders before I even knew what had happened. ‘I tripped is all.’
‘You’re sure?’ he asked, unconvinced.
I nodded and he bent down to kiss me again. I let him, curling readily into his chest and the warmth of his arms. Only this time I kept my eyes open, too afraid of what I might see. Of what I had already seen.
Bonaventure cemetery. A full moon. Catherine screaming in the night and a huge, bloody, fearsome wolf lunging straight for my throat.
Lydia hadn’t lied. The Olde Pink House was exactly that, big, pink and old.
‘This particular mansion has a long history,’ Catherine said, a daredevil squirrel sprinting across our path as we passed through Reynolds Square on our way to dinner. ‘It was built in 1789 as a private house for the Habersham family.’
‘It’s even older than Bell House?’ I replied, eyeing the Pepto Bismol pink exterior.
‘It is. But unlike Bell House, it has been a bank, an attorney’s office, a bookstore, a tearoom and finally a restaurant. A fate our home will never suffer.’
‘Because you would never sell it,’ I said as though the answer was obvious.
