Chapter 68

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

LAKE

1 single boba left until we both die … (because it’s after midnight now)

Tam guides me into the kitchen by my hand, and then opens this weird freezer drawer thing that’s on the kitchen island. Inside, there are six brightly colored pints of ice cream. Each one has an adorable design on it, smiling strawberries and chocolate bars with big eyes and long lashes. Very cute.

“Boba ice cream,” Tam tells me, sounding way too pleased with himself. He always sort of sounds that way, and having sex with me in his swimming pool did nothing to diminish his cheeky confidence.

I pick one of the pints up and study it.

“Technically, you can’t put boba in ice cream because the tapioca balls get hard as rocks. This is made with glutinous rice flour balls which are basically mochi—” Tam cuts me off with a kiss, and I smile against his mouth. “But I fucking love it. I just wanted to get technical with you for a minute.”

“Get technical with me over ice cream and a walk,” he says, and he fetches us both clothes so that we can hike around his property with spoons and ice cream and companionable silence. “That’s where Tyler, the Eagle Guy lives.” Tam points to the small cottage, and the outbuilding beside it. “The caretaker lives over that way.” He swings his arm in another direction, just past a copse of palm trees.

I sense eyes on us, and I try not to think that maybe Daniel is following us and also that he saw us together in the pool. Please tell me he didn’t. But the reality is that when I’m with Tam, there might always be someone or multiple someones on the edges of our privacy, peering in past the intimate bubble we surround ourselves with.

I take another bite of ice cream, and it’s amazingly chewy and chocolatey, and I’m in love with it.

“This might not be real boba, but it’s basically boba, and I’m obsessed.” My cheeks heat as I take another bite, and then I give Tam a narrow-eyed look that he returns with a gleeful little smirk.

“Don’t worry: we won’t count this as our boba of the day. We’ll have Maggie bring enough for the entire staff, and your whole family, and we’ll all drink boba backstage.” Tam takes a bite of his own ice cream, diet tossed aside in favor of carpe diem.

He leans his head back and closes his eyes, the breeze tousling his already mussed hair. He’s got on a Tambourines hoodie and sweatpants. I’m in much the same, with I Heart Tam stamped onto my ass. I stand there, eating ice cream while I study him. He’s holding his own ice cream, taking in the warm night with a smile on his face.

When he drops his chin and turns to look at me, I swoon. I swoon a lot around Tam, and he really doesn’t have to do much to get me there anymore. He knows. The edge of his lip lifts, and he presses his tongue against the inside of his cheek.

“Let’s get a dog,” he says randomly, and I tilt my head to one side in confusion, sucking chocolate off the end of my spoon. “I’ve always wanted a dog, but I travel too much. Only … if you were with me, maybe we could handle it?”

“A small dog?” I ask, testing him. We haven’t had this discussion before, about dog breeds. This could make or break our burgeoning relationship. “No Pomeranians.”

Tam looks offended, looking me up and down and then running his own tongue around the edge of his spoon. He licks strawberry off the metal like he’s servicing the cutlery. Oh my God. I stay strong, scraping my teeth over the next bite of ice cream. Tam retaliates by scooping an extra large helping of strawberry so that he can make out with it. At least, that’s what it looks like. I’ve never been jealous of ice cream before. This is a new thing for me.

“What’s wrong with Pomeranians?” he asks suspiciously, and I shrug.

“I like working dogs. Border collies, Aussies, heelers. Give me a dog with a job.”

“Poms have jobs—to look cute.” Tam meets my eyes as he drags his tongue over his ice cream. “But we can get whatever dog you want, as long as you think you can handle it while I’m working.”

“Oh!” I gesture with my spoon, like it’s an exclamation point, and accidentally fling a spoonful of chocolate ice cream onto Tam’s white hoodie. He just looks down at it, watching as it slips off and plops onto the ground at his feet. Oops. He goes back to eating his ice cream, the little smile on his face telling me that maybe he finds me cute. I blush, but I keep talking. “We could get a border collie, and he could run with us in the mornings.”

Tam gives me a look.

“We can only run outside when we’re here. Mostly, it’s treadmills in hotel gyms.” He must notice the crestfallen expression on my face because he makes a quick course correction. “We could take him to sheepherding classes together.”

“Sheepherding classes?” I make a show of looking around. We’re in … Los Angeles. “Is that even a thing? And if it is, they certainly don’t have any here.”

“Which is the beauty of traveling around the country.” Tam taps at my forehead with his mouth-warmed and licked-clean spoon. “In Oregon. Or Arkansas. Or wherever.”

“What about when we travel overseas?” I retort, and I swear on Joe’s spirit that my curse mark is on fire. The stars overhead seem suddenly brighter, and I get a little too excited. This is it, isn’t it? The curse is breaking! I step forward, and I grab Tam’s hoodie in a single fist. My other hand is a little preoccupied with my ice cream container. “Can’t take the dog with us, can we?”

“Depends on the country. If we have the right paperwork, and maybe a quarantine, then yes. If not … we’ll hire a dog nanny. I can afford that sort of thing, you know.”

I shove up onto my toes, and I kiss Tam hard enough to bruise both our mouths.

We’re kissing and stumbling back toward the house, getting ice cream all over each other. We throw the pints in the sink and retreat upstairs together, shedding our clothes and climbing into bed with nothing but our own skin between a pair of wildly beating hearts.

The mark continues to burn against my skin, so hot that Tam hisses in pain when my wrist touches his skin.

“What the hell?” he whispers, taking my hand and then rubbing his thumb over the design. “It’s on fire.”

“It’s on fire,” I tell him with a smile, and I wonder if this is the beginning of the process that my stupid relatives refuse to write about. I’m already penning the words in my mind. When the curse is about to break, you might be talking about dogs, but what you’re really doing is planning a life together. The mark will burn so hot that you’ll fantasize about cutting it off. Don’t worry! That’s normal. Also, you might see stars. So many stars.

I can see them right now, scattered over the room, silver dots that wink and sparkle.

Tam drops his mouth to mine, and I grab onto him, both of us cursing between kisses at the mark’s heat. I can feel his heartbeat, as frantic and excited as my own, as we slip into each other like puzzle pieces. Sharp-edged. Weird-edged. Strange shapes. How we fit together, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. The universe is so vast that it seems impossible for us to have found our way to this moment, this night, this space in the dark, cool shadows of an air-conditioned room.

His hands are all over my feverish skin, palms skipping up my waist, fingers gentle and then possessive and then hungry over my breasts. His right hand heads back down again, skimming over my hip. There’s a nightlight on the wall beside us, providing just the faintest hint of a glow. I can’t see the green in Tam’s eyes like this, just shadows of an expression and a sense of right.

However he’s looking at me, it feels good. I move for that stare, hips rising up to encourage his to push forward. He believes me. He’s believed in me for a long time. I grind against him until Tam chuckles and drops his head, burying his face against the side of my neck. Since he believed in me, I don’t mind doing all the work tonight.

“You’re so eager, Kayak,” Tam whispers, and I chuckle. He grunts. That makes me laugh harder, and then he’s lifting up and putting his hand on the headboard. Gripping it. Staring down at me through the gloaming. “Do you like being with me that much?”

“I do.” I’m not ashamed. Not embarrassed. I’m enjoying this moment. I’m happy here with Tam. I’m always happier around Tam. He’s someone I didn’t know I needed, but now can’t imagine living without. “I do.”

I can’t see his face through the stars filling my vision, but I don’t worry about it.

What was it that my second cousin wrote in her journal?

Breaking the curse is like listening to your favorite song for the first time. It’s like reading your favorite book for the first time. Here’s what I’ll add to my journal: it’s like wrapping yourself in the soul of somebody you want to grow with, that you want to experience life with, that makes you less afraid of change or wrinkles or dying.

Tam rolls us over, and I let out a wild laugh that makes him moan underneath me.

“Stop that,” he teases, his big hands hot on my naked hips. As I blink my way through a curse-induced-constellation-hallucination, I can see him sprawled beneath me in the dark. His strawberry blond hair is edged with a bit of the nightlight’s glow, his expression curious and hopeful but intense.

I run my palms up his naked chest, and the focus in his shadowed features tightens, twists, finds the center of my soul as well as my body.

“Show me, Lake. Show me that you like that.” Tam’s words are blurred with desire, with a thirst for connection that we all feel. Even an idol. Even a superstar. Even someone with hundreds of millions of followers and no real friends.

I lean down and whisper to him in the dark.

“I’ll show you with my body that I like you as a man, and I’ll show you with my heart that I love you as a friend.” I sit back up, gathering my hair and pushing it over my shoulder. Something about that move—or maybe the naked words that just slipped out of my mouth—causes Tam to groan. He thrusts upward, and I let out a surprised mini-scream, digging my fingers into his fervid skin.

Tam is buried as deep inside of me as he can get, and he’s strong enough that if he wants to take over and control our shared friction, he certainly can.

“Shh.” I put my palm on his chest, closing my eyes so that I can feel his heartbeat against my skin. “I’ve got this.”

I roll my hips on him, and he makes a sound that tells me he’s pleased with the motion.

“Yes, like that,” he grates out, his hands tightening over my hips, pressing me down against him. I rock myself forward, rubbing the swollen bead of my clit against his body. Pleasure shoots through me, and I shiver. This is our first time doing it like this because Tam is a little wild, a little dirty. He grabs me whenever he can, takes me wherever he wants, and he knows that I love it because I tell him that I do.

I open my eyes to see that his are slits, lids droopy with pleasure. A naughty smile taints my lips, and then I roll my hips in a little circle, rubbing his body against the inside of mine.

Tam curses beautifully, a string of colorful epithets that have me laughing even as I lift up on my knees, and then slide back down. It’s slow enough that even I’m sweating a little. I do it again. Again. Tam grabs my pelvis this time and pulls me back to him, and we both grunt.

The stars are still there, twinkling all around me, and the curse mark is so bright that it casts a red glow over our naked bodies. Pale skin turns crimson, my wrist edged in poisonous gold. Oh. It’s pretty. I still hate it, but it’s ethereal.

Magic.

We’re experiencing magic.

And it’s more than just the curse. It’s me and Tam. It’s finding someone who makes you laugh, who makes you moan, who makes you smile, who gives you a handkerchief when you cry, who believes you when the rest of the world is against you.

I lean down to kiss him, and we’re so wet together that he slides out of me. His hands smooth down my spine, and he kisses me back like we have a million bobas left. Like our life is a boba shop, and not down to a single tapioca pearl.

I chuckle a little as Tam sweeps a hand over my cheek, fingers reverently twisting my hair.

I reach between us, and I position him on the outside of me. The head of his cock rubbing my clit, my folds massaging his shaft. This time, it’s my turn. I take Tam by the wrists, and I pin him into the bed.

He laughs at first, but those sounds quickly shift into moans as I rub and rub and rub. We’re hot and slick together, and the friction is good. It’s so good. It’s good. It’s … it’s … it’s …

I’m moving wildly, on instinct, almost against my own will. I bite my lip, squeeze my eyes shut, and push my own fingers roughly inside of myself.

“Holy shit,” Tam breathes, and then he’s slipping one of his big fingers in alongside two of mine.

I climax so hard that I’m choking on my own breaths, on the stars, on the heat of the curse mark searing my wrist. My head falls to Tam’s shoulder, and we both remove our hands. He pets my back, whispering soothing things into my ear that I can hardly hear over my own gasping pants.

“That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he tells me, and his words ring with the raw truth of it. I lift my face up to stare at him, and then I tighten my jaw in determination. I put Tam right back where he was on the outside of me, and I grind into him until he’s gripping the sheets in an effort not to roll me over and fuck me.

“Stay right there, and I’ll get to see the hottest thing that I have ever seen.” I undulate on Tam, and when I think he’s close, I sit up so that I can watch him spill his release across his own stomach and chest. The sounds he makes are unintelligible but beautiful, a song he sings just for me.

I shift back onto his thighs, so I can study him, his penis twitching a little, one arm thrown over his face, proof of his enjoyment on his taut abs. I grin again, climbing off of him and offering out my hand.

“Come on. My turn to clean you up.”

“No fucking way. I’m the bossy grump, and you’re the sunshine that I cup in my hands.” He moves his arm off his face, and then sits up. I have never seen a more beautiful sight than Tam Eyre, freshly sexed and damp with exertion, smiling at me in the dark of the bedroom that we’re going to share.

I ignore the heat of the curse mark as I keep my hand extended, and he sighs in playful resignation as he takes it. We walk hand-in-hand into the bathroom, and I lean against the wall while he turns on the shower and climbs in when the water is still cold.

When it warms up, I join him, and he takes me into his arms.

“More wine and more ice cream,” I insist, and he nods against my hair.

Still, I see stars. All around us. A frame of them.

Fuck you, you stupid curse. You can’t take any of this away from us.

When we get out of the shower, I let Tam dry me off, his hand ruffling up my wet hair as he towels me down. We each don T-shirts and boxers (all the items belong to him) and we head downstairs for more expensive wine and boba ice cream that’s really mochi ice cream.

Together, we sit on the edge of the swimming pool until the heat and energy between us take control. Back to the bedroom. Nudity and friction. And then, accidentally, sleep.

We’re supposed to watch the sunrise, but we fall asleep.

We miss it.

We miss that final sunrise, but it doesn’t matter because I’m convinced that when I wake up, the curse will be broken.

How could it not, after a night like that?