XIX WALKING ON SUNSHINE （ELLE）

I can't stop thinking about the way August looked at me.

Standing there with the sunlight pouring through the hallway windows of that school, looking like he just lost a fight with a can of silver spray paint, telling me no.

He'd made an excuse, but I knew what he was really doing.

Drawing a line between us.

Being careful.

Because even if we kiss and touch so casually, neither of us knows what we're doing, and he's made his doubts clear about whether we should be doing anything at all.

So he told me no.

Reminded me of my place.

And he looked at me with such longing it nearly cut my heart into a thousand tiny slivers of want.

God.

How can a man look at you like you're water in a desert? Like he wants you more than life itself?

And how can that wanting make me feel lonely?

It's because I'm not with him, I realize.

Because I'm falling so hard for the man behind the defensive walls and knee-jerk reactions, and every time we're apart it's like this hole opens and eats me up inside, swallowing more and more of me up without August there to anchor me in place.

I curl up in my bed in my pajamas, a little rose pink silk cami and shorts set with lace embroidery on the edges. I eye my phone.

My notifications are still popping at a good clip, but I can't even look.

Some of it's nice, some of it's ugly, some of it's dick pics, and after considering for a moment I just tap and uninstall the Twitter and Instagram apps.

They're not what I'm thinking about, though.

I pluck my lower lip with two fingers, eyeing Google.

I shouldn't.

I shouldn't, but . . .

He already told me about Charisma, didn't he?

Is it really that bad for me to look up how long ago she died?

It couldn't have been too many years.

If it happened before I left for college, I'm sure I would've heard about it. The whole city would have talked about little else for at least a week.

I just can't help thinking that's part of why he puts that wall up.

I still worry that deep down, he's still in love with his dead ex-wife.

And I need to know the truth.

I need to know where the lines really are.

Just like I need to crush this ridiculous hope inside me that maybe, maybe he could feel something for me, when I know he can't.

Just because he didn't push me away after sex the last two times—just because he held me and read me to sleep as tenderly as he read to those kids—it doesn't mean anything.

It just means he was humoring me. Being nice.

The same gentle niceness he showed today at the school.

I had to call in a favor with Lena to make that happen. Just showing up at a random school and asking to play with the kids is begging to end up on a federal list somewhere. But the veterinary practice Lena works at does puppy days with the kids every so often, especially when they've got a new litter on the shelter side and want to socialize the dogs so they'll get used to being around noisy kids with no concept of personal space. She's friends with several of the teachers, so she talked Mrs. Morris into letting us weasel in for the day.

I just did it to make a point.

I hadn't expected my ovaries to implode as I watched August bond with that little girl and patiently let her glitterbomb him.

He's going to be pulling that stuff out of his teeth for a week.

And I'm stalling.

Why am I even having a crisis of conscience about this?

Do it. Do it.

charisma marshall date of death,I search.

Oh.

I don't know why I'm surprised she's got a Wikipedia page. She was an actress, after all.

My Gawd, she was stunning.

Seriously more beautiful than model-pretty Marissa Sullivan. I guess August has a thing for brunettes. She was smoky and smoldering and lived up to her name, with large green-brown eyes and a mouth so gorgeous I might start questioning which way I swing just looking at her.

I wryly tweak a strand of my own hair.

Definitely not his type.

I could never pull off her presence and elegance.

She looks like she'd have fit with him perfectly, though.

Meanwhile, in every tabloid pic I see of August and me ...

I look like someone cut me out of a photo of someone's tacky backyard barbecue and photoshopped me in with him.

Totally out of place.

I skim the details. They started to divorce seven years ago, and the article cites it as a bitter, drawn-out one, contested by insane alimony demands. The article says they were part of her attempts to funnel his fortune into her newfound religion. It's no different from what August told me, but hearing it described this way feels so cold and clinical, draining the reality and depth from it.

Never mind the loss.

Soon, she was dead, before anything was finalized. Not leaving him a widower, technically, but it definitely left him with some heavy things to carry.

Five years.

It's only been five years, even if they officially split seven years ago.

But grief has no timeline.

When you have so much unresolved guilt, maybe you can handle a fling, a little pleasure, but someone prying at your feelings? Your heart? Trying to insinuate her way into your life like a spoiled child? Wanting to selfishly pry up those feelings you've held so close to your heart?

I close my eyes, curling over my phone as I press it to my chest.

I've been such an asshole.

Sinking my teeth into my lower lip, I straighten as I look down at my phone and swipe to August's contact.

You up?I text.

He's probably buried in work, phone muted or even dead—

But my phone buzzes back.

August: Yes.

I stare down at the blinking cursor.

I don't know how to say I'm sorry.

How to explain everything swirling in my head.

How to tell him I've been a jerk and that I shouldn't have needed to look up that information to respect the clear lines he's laid down, even if I'm not the only one who's been blurring them again and again.

I don't think I can just type it all out.

It makes me think too much of those cold, clinical words describing Charisma's downward spiral.

Screw it.

I stand and stuff my feet into my slippers, then grab my long, fuzzy robe.

I'll just tell him to his face.

It's only eleven.

I can be there and back in an hour and a half. Say what I need to say, let him send me packing, and then go home and get a good night's sleep before it's back to wrangling this strange situation I'm in with Clara tomorrow.

I go flapping down the stairs in my robe and slippers.

Pants? Who needs them?

As I swing past the kitchen, though, Gran blinks up at me, looking up from rolling her dough into a lump for morning. Dusting her hands off, she leans out the kitchen door.

"Elle, dear? You're going out this late?"

"Just running over to August's," I call back, belting my robe shut as I head for the door. "You know. Have to keep up the game."

After picking up a damp rag and wiping her fingers off, Gran follows me.

"Is it just a game, love?" she asks, watching me with concern. "Or is he playing games with you?"

I stop with my hand on the doorknob and slowly let it fall, turning to face her with a smile.

I don't know why I suddenly need to see August now, but it can wait a few more minutes when Grandma Jackie's looking at me that way.

"He's not. I promise you he's not."

"Good." She reaches up to cup my cheek with damp fingers. "Be careful with your heart, dear. It's a shiny thing, but enough dirt can dull its light."

"Poetic, Gran." Smiling, I lean into her touch. "Actually, I don't know what I'm doing. But I'll be a little careful."

"And a lot reckless, because you live your life out loud, and I wouldn't have you any other way." Her eyes glitter with good humor. "I love you, my dearest granddaughter."

"Love you so much, Gran." I pull her into a hug, squeezing her tight before letting go. "If I'm lucky, I'll drag him back here for breakfast in the morning." I swipe her keys from the hook by the door. "I'm taking the Audi!" I call as I pull the door open and race outside.

"Drive safe!" drifts after me before she pulls the door shut, laughing.

I tuck myself behind the wheel and back out into the road, pointing the Audi toward Alki Beach and August's house. Suddenly, I'm not in such a hurry, and not just because I'm going for my Safe Driver merit badge.

I still don't know just what to say.

But since I'm on the way, I might as well go through with this crazy impulse.

I try practicing on the drive, muttering to myself beneath the flicker of golden streetlights. "I'm sorry," I say. "I'm not trying to come between you and, uh ... Charisma's ghost?" No—crap, that sounds dumb. Um. "I'm sorry I made too much out of casual sex? I know you don't really like me, you're just paying"—ah, crap. Now I sound like a hooker. Wait. Am I a hooker?

My reflection in the rearview mirror doesn't answer.

Anyway.

Before I know it, I'm turning onto the quiet private street running parallel with the beach. I'm way too close to his comfy house with my brain blanking, but I'm here and parking and now I've got to face this.

We'll start with I'm sorry and see what happens next.

The cold hits me as I step out of the car. I linger next to his G80 for a moment, shivering in my robe.

Would a pair of jeans have killed me?

My slippers make slapping sounds on the planks as I cross the water to his house. The lights in the house are dim. It's possible he isn't even home, and maybe Rick left the car here while August stayed late at the office. It'd be just like him.

Still.

Stomach twisting, I stop in front of the door and knock.

No footsteps. But then—

"Out here, Elle."

August's voice.

He's outside, and it's coming from around the side of the house. He sounds off.

Thicker, heavier somehow.

Frowning, I hug my arms around myself and make my way carefully along the deck ringing the house, my footsteps treading carefully on planks wet from sea spray.

It's not until I'm all the way around the back of the house that I find him. He's sitting on the deck outside his bedroom, with the sliding glass doors open.

August perches on the edge of the deck, with one leg drawn up and the other hanging over the side, dangling over the water. He's shirtless in a pair of dark-grey sleep pants, the thin fabric clinging to his narrow hips and riding down low enough to bare the dimples above his ass, his thighs tightly outlined against the fabric.

His back is taut, his spine a deep canyon framed by steep muscle. The wind ruffles his hair, making it fan out in dark arcs.

One arm is draped over the railing, with a half-full tumbler of golden liquid dangling from it.

I stop where I am, watching him and biting my lip.

I'm all knots inside, confused and scared and wanting.

He looks back, one pale eye over his shoulder. Unreadable.

The moonlight gives the light-blue color impossible depths, like trying to see the bottom of a glacier.

"Nice outfit," he says dryly.

The heat in my cheeks tries to beat back the wind blowing off the water.

"I didn't think I'd need formal wear tonight." I sink my teeth deeper into my lip. "Um, you're drinking."

He gives back a soft, cynical snort.

He unloops his arm from the railing and tilts his head back to take a deep drink, his throat working before he exhales roughly and drops the half-drained tumbler to the deck at his hip. He looks away again to where the moonlight flirts over the water.

"You drive me to it," he says.

I flinch. That spears deep, hurting and colder than any late-winter night.

"I'm sorry." It comes out thick, hard.

Well, here we go.

Start with I'm sorry.

Then what?

I press my knuckles to my lips. There are words building, but I don't know what they'll be until they tumble out.

"I shouldn't ... I shouldn't be so pushy with you. Always flirting and wanting more." I shake my head. "I know nothing can ever ease the pain Charisma left behind. I know you're still in love with her. Or maybe the idea of her. That can happen after a death, and you said you weren't right for each other, but once someone turns into a memory, it's easy to—mmf!"

Faster and faster.

I'd been talking like a chipmunk because the moment I said I'm sorry, August stood, kicking the tumbler over the edge of the deck, followed by a faint sound of glass shattering against the wooden piles. He's stalking toward me now, head lowered like a panther, this predator prowling closer with dark intent.

My pulse quickens.

God, if I don't talk fast, he's going to pick me up and haul me up and put me out on my ass in the sand and—

He cuts me off with a kiss.

Savage.

Deep.

Rough.

He tastes like whiskey and frustration and darkness.

His mouth is so hard on mine, almost accusatory.

Confusion swamps me, dizzying heat as he nearly tears at my mouth with a probing tongue, seeking harshly like he's searching for something I haven't said yet to steal it from my lips.

His fingers grip my chin, tilting my head up, forcing me open to take more of that bruising kiss, until I'm overwhelmed and my knees are shaking.

He leaves me whirling, my heart racing ten thousand miles a minute.

With an irritated sound, he rips back, still holding my chin with his thumb and stroking the line of my jaw.

"For someone so perceptive," August says bluntly, "you're incredibly stupid."

"Hey! What's wrong with you tonight?" I scowl at him. If only he wasn't so flipping hot, the moonlight turning his tanned skin silver at the edges. "I'm going to let that go because you're drunk, but I am not stupid."

"No. You're definitely not. You're too smart for your own good, and I'm sorry." He almost snarls it, this odd mix of cynical humor and anger tangled in every word. "You can be oblivious, though. But smart. So smart. So bright. So beautiful. So batshit insane. You're out of your fucking mind, Miss Eleanor Lark, and you're driving me out of mine."

. . . I'm so lost.

And I can't catch my breath when his eyes are blue fire and he's so close and he smells like that stark stony scent of his aftershave.

The roughness of his thumb glides over my lip until it feels sensitized again.

"A-August?" I manage. "I don't get what you're trying to say."

"I'm saying I'm not in love with Charisma, or her memory, or whatever the fuck my guilt has made her," he snarls. "I'm—"

He cuts off sharply, looking away.

His hand falls.

"I'm not fucking drunk enough for this conversation," he mutters. "Or maybe too drunk. I don't know. I just know that drunk or sober, you're turning me upside down, and I don't know what to do about it. I can't stop thinking about you, woman. Can't stop wanting you. It's confusing as hell."

"I don't mean to be." And August isn't the only one who's confused, but more than anything, what I'm feeling is ... hope?

Yes, that's it.

Selfish, guilty hope.

I came here to apologize, to stop pushing at him, but all he's done is make me want even more.

Tentatively, I step closer. I touch my fingers to his stomach, tracing the sleek, hard ripple of his abs.

"Does it have to be confusing?" I whisper. My voice trembles, matching my fingertips. He feels so good under my touch. "Can't we just make this simple?"

His haggard breaths echo over the night.

He steps closer, his heat invading me, his looming presence nearly enveloping me, this menacing beast, and yet to me he's never been dangerous.

He's the wounded beast with a thorn in his paw.

Just begging for a gentle touch to pry it out and soothe the pain.

With my eyes lowered, I can see how stark his knuckles are as his hands hang at his side, clenching and unclenching restlessly.

Touch me,I beg silently. Touch me with those brutal hands.

"Do you know what you're asking me, Elle?" August growls.

I look up at him.

Anyone who didn't know him would think he was furious right now—his eyes livid and hot, his lips slightly peeled back from clenched teeth, his jaw steel.

But I do know him.

Right now, he's not angry.

He's desperate.

"I know," I whisper, sliding my hands up his chest, curling my fingers against his neck. His pulse beats so hard against my palm, furious and powerful. "I'm asking you for everything."

I don't have the power to force him, to demand anything.

But I can still ask.

And I do, asking in the sway of my body toward his. In the stroke of my fingers against his throat and the subtle pull against his bulk.

He answers.

The night may be silent, but together we're the rumble of an approaching storm.

His hands are hard against my arms.

His mouth is violent against mine.

And I wouldn't have him any other way—passionate, needy, telling me that no matter what he says or how he fights it, there's something inside him that's honest and raw and wants me as much as I want him.

His mouth slants hard against mine, stealing my breath, stealing my will, until I'm a molten wreck.

I rise up on my toes to meet him.

We're two storm fronts colliding to make lightning with every touch.

"Please," I whisper against his mouth. "August, please."

I still remember the first time.

The silent, devouring intensity when August locks onto me and shuts out the world.

So locked on there are no words, only desire, and desire is what pours into me as his tongue lashes my lips until they burn.

His teeth nip and play until I quiver with every sharp taste of him, his body leaning into mine and backing me across the deck until suddenly we're inside.

The shadow of his bedroom falls over me, and my calves hit the edge of his bed.

Gravity and his strength tilt me down, spilling me irresistibly onto his bed.

He's a titan hovering over me, a silent shadow in the darkness, the shape of his body sculpted for perfect sin.

For a moment, I can only look up, totally breathless. So overcome by his blue eyes, completely helpless to resist as he rips my robe away.

I kick my slippers off next, and there's nothing left to shield me from his roving touch as hot fingers slide over my silky camisole, my shorts, shaping me like his burning touch could melt my flesh into any shape he wants.

I feel naked already.

Not just my skin, but my soul.

The all-consuming way he's watching me: it's the same way he looked at my sketches earlier.

Seeing nothing else.

He takes in every detail, like he's trying to brand me on himself.

I don't know when I started shaking. But when he coaxes my legs apart, when he brings himself down against me to rest our bodies together, I'm a trembling wreck as I touch my fingers to his lips.

They're so hot, so full, and I want their taste so bad.

"Kiss me," I whisper. "Kiss me and don't stop."

Still no words.

Still only obsessed eyes and those possessive hands raking my thighs until my skin burns with his touch.

God, I'm so wet for him I could die.

Not a sound.

I'm expecting another onslaught. But when he bends over me, when he presses his mouth to mine, it's lighter.

It's sweet.

Somehow, that strips me more naked as his mouth strokes mine tenderly.

He kisses me like I matter—and that's going to rip me apart even more if morning comes and it turns out I mean nothing.

Right now, it feels like I mean everything.

Like this is everything as our mouths and bodies twine and with every second our hands explore each other.

There's more skin—more than touch—more than clothes falling, until there's nothing but our bodies and the hiss of sheets and this perfect rhythm that feels like us.

Every inch of me shivers as I feel his roughness, his masculinity, his strength moving over me.

Holy hell.

"Elle, fuck," he whispers.

It's like he's caressing me with his entire body, lighting me on fire with friction.

Everywhere he's hard, I'm soft.

Everywhere he's rough, I'm smooth.

Everywhere he's hot—

Oh my God, I'm hotter.

As his angry cock rubs my stomach and thighs, as the dusting of dark hair on his chest teases my nipples, I become a writhing mess from the gentle torture of it.

I stroke over his back, dipping my tongue against the heat of his mouth, tracing the stark muscles surrounding his spine with fascination, drawing on him like I could pull him into me, merge us together, match the racing beat of my heart to his.

I feel too vulnerable right now.

Yet his strength over me holds me safe, holds me close.

Holds me deep as we fit together oh so right, and then his mouth soothes mine slowly and deeply.

On the next thrust of his tongue, he's inside me.

A long, punishing stroke that takes forever to fill me, forcing me to feel every inch until I arch my back and dig my nails into him.

But he won't let me break this silence.

Not when he drinks every sound from my lips, locking us in this thing like a sacrament, binding us together.

I can't think.

I can't breathe.

I don't know anything but him as his cock plunges deep, and I feel him in my darkest place where everything trembles and the lightest touch makes light explode behind my eyes.

Again and again.

Taking his sweet time, driving me mad.

I want it to stop and never end, everything swirling around me. I'm lost.

Nothing has ever felt as good as August Marshall filling me now, stretching me open, making my thighs clench and every inch of me quake.

Even going slow, he's no less powerful.

He sweeps me away like a fifty-foot wave, taking me over until I can only hold on for dear life and let myself be pulled under.

I'm drowning in this man.

Sinking.

Into his darkness, his need, and every time he fills me, every time he reaches that place, my entire body convulses with pleasure and this trembling, heart-singing emotion I don't dare name.

I don't dare name it, but it feels like it's not just mine.

It can't only be mine.

As the shivering ecstasy pitches me higher and higher, racing through me in waves with every thrust that leaves me dripping and clenching, gasping and writhing, raking my nails down his back, I feel him.

He's in the storm with me.

Kissing me, taking me, shaping my body and emotions in the dark sweet calm between our chaos, letting us taste it like melting chocolate shared between our tongues.

More. More.

I can't take it.

I'm a raw nerve, my thighs around his hips, my nails deep in his back, silent but screaming with my touch and the rake of my nails, with the grip of my knees and the arch of my body.

Too sensitive.

Too good.

Too much, too hot, too hard, too large.

I can't contain this man to save my life, and he can't contain me.

And when I burst with my pussy tightening around him, greedily drawing his pleasure out, quaking until I can't, I'm more than combusting fireworks.

I'm an entire supernova, washing brightly over the sky.

And he's my entire night that makes my light shine that much brighter, clutching me against him as I burn without mercy.

His heat locks my entire body up in throes of pleasure like nothing else I've ever had.

He's tense against me, breathing hard, his darkness chasing me, and then he throws his head back with a roar.

I feel his cock swell, right before he turns into that shudder, that animal growl, that eruption that tells me he's breaking and marking me from the inside out.

We burn together all night long, only stopping to catch our breath, an entire galaxy of hearts and flesh on fire.

In the wee hours of the morning, I can barely move.

The first time was rougher, but this wore me out so much more when it was so emotional, so sweetly draining.

I'm a limp dishrag draped against him, idly drawing patterns on his chest with my fingertip, making his chest hair swirl.

Until his arm tightens around my waist—he's holding me, instead of pushing me away, at ease and lazy and so wonderfully relaxed—and his other hand comes up to catch mine, stopping me.

"Don't make me bite you again," he rumbles, and I love to hear it. No tension or doubt because yeah, I'm still scared he'll realize his mistake any moment now and turn on the deep freeze. "Stop that. It tickles."

"I'm not sorry." I snicker and curl my fingers in his, nuzzling his shoulder.

"No, you wouldn't be. Wretch." August yawns, cracking one eye open, watching me before he kisses the top of my head. "Go to sleep. We still have work. And I know you'll try to drag me out of bed with the sunrise."

I giggle because it's true, almost giddy with happiness.

I'd never expected to find this happy place with August.

A place where he can relax, tease me, accept me.

Where he tells me I drive him crazy and because I do—and where maybe we can have a chance.

Maybe these giddy feelings don't have to die with the sunrise.

I turn my face into his shoulder to hide my smile. "Fine, fine. Good night, Gruffykins."

"Good night, brat."

I snicker, fumbling for the covers and dragging them up.

Now that the sweat is cooling, it's cold with the doors still open. But after a moment I crack one eye open, peeking at him.

"August?"

"Hm?"

"You've still got glitter on your nipple," I point out.

I shiver with pleasure as he blinks in confusion.

Then his deep, rolling laughter fills the night as he wraps both arms around me and pulls me in for a final good night kiss.