Page 42 of A Star is Scorned

He shrugged. “S’all right. I hardly saw him.

But it was hardest on my mum. By all accounts, she was a bright light.

The life of every party. But when her parents arranged for her to marry my father, they condemned her to an unhappy life.

She was rich, a viscountess, yes. But she was not loved.

She withered under his casual cruelty. She was always loving to me.

But as I grew older, I could tell when they’d been fighting.

I’d hear her crying behind closed doors.

Or find her in the library with a book, looking utterly exhausted, her eyes bloodshot.

My brother never noticed and never even seemed to care.

Just came to heel when my father called. The perfect heir.”

Flynn turned and stared out at the horizon.

But there was still something that bothered Livvy from her conversation with Flynn in the library.

His mother had abandoned him. Surely, that had left its mark.

She’d been angry when her parents died. With herself, for her role in it.

But with them too. For leaving her and Judy all alone.

For making her the head of the family and all that entailed.

“Did you resent your mother when she left?”

Flynn threw his head back and huffed out a breath.

“At first, yes. I was only a boy. But it didn’t take me long to realize that she didn’t have a choice.

” Something dark passed through his eyes at that, and Livvy knew there was something more he wasn’t saying.

But she let him continue. “A choice between death and a life without one’s children is no choice at all.

But she did the only thing she could. She saved her life. ”

Livvy was realizing that was what Flynn did too. Made choices that made him feel alive. It was intoxicating. She hadn’t done that since she was a girl. And her parents had taken every opportunity to remind her how selfish it was. She’d never believed them. Until it had cost them their lives.

But it was this vigor that meant Flynn wasn’t built for anything but brief, torrid love affairs.

She simply had to decide if she could survive that.

Playing with fire meant she’d risk getting burned.

Could she walk through the flames with only a few singes to show for it?

Or would she have nothing left of her heart but a pile of ash?

“What about you?” He interrupted her anxious spiral of thoughts.

“Me?”

“Yes, your parents, where you grew up, what was it like?”

“Oh, well. Strict. Very strict. My mother was deeply religious. Roman Catholic. She stressed piety above all, and she was always going on about how my love of books and fairy stories and piratical adventures would get me into trouble. My father was a military man, a naval captain. That’s how I learned to fence.

He always said even girls should know how to defend themselves.

My mother disapproved, of course. Didn’t think it was ladylike.

But my father ruled the roost and claimed it was more feminine than learning to shoot or fistfight.

She wouldn’t have dared contradict him. He ran the house like one of his battleships. ”

Flynn turned and looked at her, and she admired the way the warm orange light of the afternoon bathed his face so that it looked like burnished gold. The gold strands in his blond hair glinted in the sun, and he looked rather like a Greek god. With a bruised nose.

“Did he have a whistle?” Flynn asked, the edges of his lips curling up in amusement.

“You think that’s funny, but he did, in fact.” The memory of it made her smile.

Flynn barked out a surprised laugh. “My God, two little girls being treated like naval cadets. What a way to grow up. Frankly, I think I prefer my father calling my mother a whore any chance he got.”

She winced. “How terrible.”

“Now it’s my reminder of why I refuse to live life on anything but my own terms. In some ways, I suppose I was lucky.

As the younger son, I had fewer expectations.

Though my father still expected me to become a soldier or a man of the cloth, like the generations of second sons before me.

” When Livvy giggled, he added, “What’s so funny? ”

“I’m sorry, just imagining you as a vicar. It’s ridiculous.”

His eyes flashed with something wicked. “I’d wager I’ve made more women call on God than I would have behind the pulpit.”

Livvy bit her lip and blushed deeply. She had never done more than kissed a man.

Last night with Flynn had been…intimate.

His hands under her shirt had been exhilarating.

His touch had ignited the most intense desire she had ever experienced.

And when he said things like that, it made her flush with want.

“I think I’d like to know what that’s like,” she whispered.

He studied her, seeming to assess whether she really meant it. But then he grinned. “Lucky for us, we have the whole night.”

She blushed and looked down at her toes, painted a delicate pink in the peep-toe wedges that she’d borrowed from Judy.

Her sister had insisted she wear them, wanting Livvy to feel pretty for her date.

She’d had second thoughts about dinner with Flynn once she’d come home to the bungalow, remembering what had happened the last time she had insisted on doing what she wanted rather than what she was supposed to do.

But Judy wouldn’t hear it and had practically shoved her out the door.

Her neck flushed as Flynn wrapped his hand around her waist. “Still okay?” he whispered, his breath hot against her collar.

She nodded and tilted her head back so she could look into his blue eyes.

They were as blue and fathomless as the ocean that crashed against the shore below them.

She could get lost in them. She wanted to.

But she was afraid. She extended her fingers and gently cupped his face, marveling as he nuzzled her hand.

He closed his eyes and hummed in approval.

He then turned his head ever so slightly and grazed her palm with his lips.

“Mmmm, I like that,” she murmured.

He opened his eyes and met her gaze, searching for some kind of approval. “What do you want, Livvy?”

Desire flared between her legs. “For you to kiss me.” She’d barely gotten the words out when he brought his mouth down to hers.

It was gentle at first, his tongue exploring her, the brush of his lips against her own.

She sipped from him as if he were a sacred cup and his kiss was the manna of the gods.

He slowly increased the pressure, wrapping her more tightly in his arms, and her knees began to buckle as she leaned into his embrace.

Kissing him was overwhelming in the best way.

It made her heart race as she clawed at his back, pressing herself so tightly against him that there was not even a sliver of sunlight between them.

He chuckled and lifted her up, letting her wrap her legs around his waist. He deposited her onto the railing of his deck, kissing her all the while, his hands roaming her back as if it were a treasure map.

Sitting on the balustrade, she was the perfect height to fling her arms around his neck and dot his face with kisses.

He broke out into an infectious laugh, and she’d never seen such pure joy on his face before. Not even when they’d won the Catalina Regatta. She unclasped her hands from behind his head and gently ran them along the edge of his sweater.

He raised an eyebrow. “You never need to be shy with me, love.”

Encouraged by his bravado, she dipped her hands beneath the hem of his shirt, feeling the ripples and contours of his abs and reaching higher until she had her hands on the hard angles of his chest. He planted a series of soft kisses along her jawline that made her shiver, before nipping at her earlobe.

Taking it ever so gently between his teeth, he tugged, and she hummed in delight.

She could feel him grin against her as he kissed her neck, trailing his kisses up and down.

She gasped as he moved past a particularly sensitive spot, and he responded instantly, sucking and swirling his tongue over it.

His hands wandered to the dainty fabric-covered buttons of her dress, and he nuzzled at her as his hands stilled, seeming to ask her permission. In answer, she took her hand out from under his shirt and undid her top button, pressing her forehead to his while they both caught their breath.

He locked eyes with her, and the deep blue of his irises pitched almost black as she led his fingers to the next button.

He didn’t need any more explicit instruction than that, and he expertly undid the top five buttons, opening enough room in her bodice to slip his hands beneath the flimsy fabric.

He ran the rough pad of his thumb over her nipple through her bra, and she arched her back to press into his touch.

His signature devilish smirk emerged, and she briefly had the thought that she was finally living the daydream she’d had since she was seventeen years old.

But thoughts quickly became impossible as he dipped his fingers beneath the taut band of her bra and his skin made contact with hers.

His hands were rough and callused, not those of an aristocrat, but rather hands marked by years spent sailing and fencing.

Livvy’s eyes fluttered with pleasure and she pushed further in to him. Each callus bore the shadow of the grip of a sword or the coil of a rope, and the notion drove her mad. He was as wild and rugged as the characters he played, the evidence there in the touch of his hands.

“Flynn, please,” she murmured as he pinched her nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

“Please, what?” he growled.

“Please…” She searched her fevered mind. She didn’t even know what to ask for. Anything to bring her a release. To push her over the crest he was driving her toward.