Page 90

The sun came out when they exited the campus, but they were still soaked from the earlier downpour.

Oliver grabbed her hand as they dashed to their hotel. Inside their room, he blasted the heat. It helped, although it felt like she’d never be dry again.

Stripping out of her soaked clothes down to her underwear, she went to hang them up, but he caught her around the waist, pulling her against him.

Their room above Dublin was flooded with sunlight. The rays glanced off Oliver’s features—the pale skin, the indentations, the scars. Unable to help herself, she studied the markings that made him… well, him.

“No. Don’t do that.” He angled away. “I want you to see me when you look at me, not…”

She brushed a wet lock of hair from his forehead, grazing his marks. “I do see you. Only you, Oliver.”

“Addy.” He crushed his mouth to hers. Rough. Possessive. Dropping to his knees, he stripped her of her underwear and shifted her thighs apart, worshipping her with his mouth.

Grasping fistfuls of his drenched locks, she rocked against him, needing more—

Falling to her knees next to him, she tore at his wet layers until she could wrap herself around him without barriers.

Oliver pushed her down the rest of the distance—his hands, his mouth everywhere. Somewhere in his discarded pants, he found a condom and sank into her, driving again and again as she clung to him.

She shouldn’t have fallen in love with him. It would hurt to say goodbye.

Chapter 46

The next morning, Oliver woke up feeling odd.

The headache that had tortured him every morning was… gone. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up without feeling his brain being torqued from the inside out. He didn’t move, half-convinced it was still coming, but even as he sat up—nothing.

Who’d have guessed what a few nights of wild sex could do. What a pretty stranger could do. Because that’s what she was to him. Somehow, it was getting hard to remember that.

The man he used to be deserved her. That Oliver would take her on adventures, show her Greek ruins, take her swimming after dark, whisk her away somewhere warm. That Oliver would never let her go. But he wasn’t that person anymore. And she was Yarrow’s sister.

He craved her with an intensity that frightened him—wanted her more than his focus back, more than his former life. But it was a fool’s wish. What could he offer her? An unemployed, scatterbrained professor still bitter enough to make her choose between him and her brother?

Addison flitted about the room, pulling on clothes and brushing out her hair. When he said her name, she stopped and turned to him, her beautiful eyes uncertain.

Her words from yesterday finally caught up to him. She’d said it so casually, he hadn’t known what to do with them then. “Addy, you can’t be falling for me. You’ve only known the worst version of me.”

She dropped her brush on the table by the window. “If this is about your face—”

“I don’t mean my face. I don’t know myself anymore. The things I’ve done—the way I’ve behaved since the accident—”

“Your life changed overnight, Oliver. Things you used to take for granted have been robbed from you. And we both know painfully well who was responsible. I don’t expect you to do anything more with what I said yesterday. I just needed you to know.”

Somehow, he couldn’t think of a single thing to say—not even a fucking syllable.

Pain crossed her face before she turned away.

Fuck. He didn’t want to hurt her.

She rearranged the brush. “It’s okay. I get it. But this means we have to stop. If I let it go any further, I’ll be heartbroken. And I can’t go through that again.”

Get up and go to her, idiot. Kiss her and make her stop thinking. But his body wouldn’t move. He just sat there.

“We have to meet Brendan soon,” she continued, focused on anywhere but him. “You have just enough time to shower.”

And that was that.

The Jameson Distillery hadn’t produced a drop of whiskey since 1971, when operations moved to Cork. What remained on Bow Street was a visitors center, offering guided tours, whiskey tastings, and access to a well-stocked bar. Mandy and Roman met them in front of the building, wound around each other like lovebirds.