I can manage you, she thought, swinging onto the squeaky mattress and letting out a satisfied sigh when he straddled her. She’d been wrong before; he was fully nude. The sheets slid from his hips to reveal a thick erection standing out from that auburn nest of hair.
“Tell me something,” she said. “That night at the bar. Did you only come home with me because you were trying to distract me?”
He entered her, hard enough to make her gasp.
“Why?” he asked, a mischievous smile playing on his lips. “Was I a good distraction?”
???????
A cold breeze gusted across the water, stirring the salt-stiffened strands of Nadine Cullraven’s wet hair. In her hand was a pail of shells that she thought it might be fun to clean and craft with, assuming that she didn’t forget them this time.
It was a cold and misty day so the beach wasn’t that crowded, but she loved it anyway in spite of the cold. Maybe even more so because of it—the biting sting of the wind was a reminder that she was still alive enough tofeel.
She had always loved the outdoors because it was the best way to be alone without feeling alone. But there was something especially promising about the seaside. The salty tang of the air made it refreshing to breathe, like cold water after a hot run, and the ebb and flow of the tides gave her this satisfying impression of renewal: no matter how badly you were eroded by forces outside your control, you could still remain whole and beautiful.
It had been six years since that beach trip she had gone on with her sister, and one year since she had found out about Noelle’s untimely death. She thought about it a lot—not the descent into the cellar, which she had tried hard to repress, but about death itself. Would she have tried harder to inject more verve into that day they had spent together—and all those other days, for that matter—if she had known that her sister would no longer be alive in less than five years?
No, she decided eventually. She had loved her sister as hard as she could without making her pull away, just as she still loved her aunt, and her husband, and the new life that was slowly taking shape inside of her.
Noelle’s death was not her fault, and no amount of evil in that house could ever erase the fact that her sister had been loved, truly loved.
Something hard crashed into her and the pail went flying, scattering shells, as she was yanked backwards. A belated scream ripped from her throat at the touch of cold hands on her bare waist. The beach became a beige blur, and then sand hit her knees just hard enough to hurt before she was rolled onto her back.
Cal grinned down at her, on his hands and knees, a few loose locks of dark hair teasing her forehead as he bent down. “What were you thinking with that solemn expression on your face, sparrow? You’re supposed to be having fun with me.”
“I was thinking about how the last time I was on a beach like this, I was with my sister.”
His smile faded, leaving his face uncharacteristically solemn. “I hope it was a good memory.”
“More bittersweet.” She leaned back to look at him. “I miss her—so much. My family may not have looked like other families, but we loved each other and we had some wonderful memories together. What happened—doesn’t change that. As long as I breathe,” she concluded a little bitterly, “the truth of that can’t be destroyed.”
They lay there for a moment, not speaking. The look in his eyes became distant, and Nadine wondered what he was thinking. His complicity in Noelle’s death lay between them, and always would, but his strange, unshakable faith in sparrows and what they represented had made Ben’s ruthless murder of Noelle as much of a shock to him as it was to her.
She felt bad about hurting him, but not for giving voice to the truth. Because he had still participated in hiding the truth, and his desire for a soulmate had been rooted in decades of pain and abuse, twisting and twining through his loneliness like bloodied thorns.
“I hope to make some of those memories with you, you know. Good ones.”
“That sounds almost sentimental.”
“Lawyers don’t get sentimental. We just fuck people profligately, and without remorse.” The playful expression was back on his face. “You should know that, Nadine. It’s why you married me.” He bent lower, level with her ear now: “I do have a soft spot for you, though. I dare you to find it now.”
She let him nudge her back against the blanket, winding her fingers in his hair as he kissed her. He made a satisfied sound, going to one knee as he used his arms to keep himself partially raised from her body. True to his words, nothing about him felt soft at the moment. She shuddered as he squeezed one of her breasts, before letting his hand slide affectionately down the curve of her stomach.
“Sparrow and baby,” he said approvingly, taking her hand in his as he looked down at her with those brilliant, crimson-flecked eyes. “The two prettiest things on this beach, and they both belong to me.”
Nadine felt a blush rise to her cheeks. “Stop,” she said, when he tugged at one of her swimsuit straps. “You’re going to get us kicked off the beach.”
Cal sighed. “Sit on my lap then. No one will know.”
You fucking liar, she thought, but there was no anger in it. Not now. Not while she felt like she was slowly being seared by the desire in his eyes.
He made her want to be bad when he looked at her like that, goading her into succumbing to the darkness that only made her burn brighter and hotter in his eyes. He loved as fiercely as he did everything else and sometimes the vicious weight of his love terrified her—and sometimes, she felt a little uneasy at how much she didn’t mind.
Because for every time he chased her through his house in the dark before pushing her up against some hard surface—the wall, the floor, the stairs—and took her so hard that it hurt, there were at least a dozen more where he had held her on her lap (just like this, she thought) while perusing his legal briefs or woken her up with breakfast and a slow kiss. He was both stern and indulgent in his cruelty, but he was hers; and he was hers in a way that nobody else had ever truly been hers, in a way that chased away the loneliness that had always shaded her heart, and seeing his slow smile of pleasure when he looked at her made her feel cherished and loved, even if it left her breathless with the fear that this couldn’t last.
That he would turn on her, just like the men in his family turned on all their wives.
But Cal, in his twisted way, was a romantic. The boy who had sat in a parlor waiting for dead animals to return back to life had grown into a man who believed that finding true love could sate his desire to kill. The sweetest fruit that had ever fallen from a poisoned tree; that was what he had to offer. A love steeped in obsession.
