Page 19 of Fire Island (Fire Island #2)

Eighteen

CALLUM

E vie spreads wide for me. This is my favorite new fucking memory. Hell, I’d lose them all over again just to recreate each moment between me and her. I knew she wa?—

Brown eyes look down at me, the fire in them burning all the way to my soul. Her need for me, grounding. The way I can barely control myself around this woman, incredible.

I sweep my tongue through her center, and her hips buck from the bed. The smile wanting out, I hone into another slow, delicious stroke of my tongue.

Cruelly slow.

I’m rewarded with the prettiest little whimper. Her breaths snap in and out so quickly I doubt any air graces her lungs at all.

Watching her writhe under my hold... I could do this all damn night. All damn day. We’re never resurfacing from this bed, not if I can help it.

My rock-hard cock aches as it presses into the mattress. But I’m savoring the woman who lived through hell and still stayed.

For me.

I guess I will never know exactly what she went through, waiting for me to find my way back.

I nip her sweet little bud, and she cries out. Her teeth settle over her bottom lip, and I suck her clit into my mouth and sink two fingers inside her.

So wet. Her need covers my hand as I pump her higher and higher.

Shaking, she grips the blanket, chest arching.

As she tightens, claiming my fingers, her hands hunt and find their way into my hair.

Elegant digits pull with a harsh grip as she mutters something incomprehensible.

I tug at her clit with my teeth, flicking my tongue, soothing it after each vicious pull.

“Come for me, baby girl. It seems like I’ve been waiting a lifetime to see that beautiful face wrecked.”

With a lingering stroke of my tongue, I suckle her clit. Curling my fingers forward, I coax her to where I want her. And, like I knew she would, she arches off the bed, coming hard.

She is stunning.

All angles.

Sweet-as-fuck little noises.

Driving me absolutely feral.

My cock pulses as her release spills over my hand.

I suckle her through her release, drawing out every last incredible wave she rolls through.

My balls tighten as I taste her release.

And my own follows. I couldn’t stop it if I tried.

I groan, the raw sound vibrating against her clit.

She flies up, sinking her hands further into my hair.

“Cal,” she cries.

One syllable.

One fucking goddamn sound, and my heart all but snuffs out.

When her doe eyes find mine, I crawl up to kneel between her legs. Cradling her, I press a kiss to the top of her head. How did I forget a love that hurts this much? This good...

“You—” A fine finger slips behind the waistband of my boxers.

“You have that effect on me.”

“I know that.” She gives me a cheeky grin as she slides the boxers down. “My turn to taste.”

Christ above.

She frees my cock, her eyes darkening as she studies the mess I’ve made. “What a waste...”

Gripping the base, she licks the cum from my shaft, rolling her tongue around the tip.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Now my hands find her hair. My restraint is threadbare at this point. Still impossibly hard, I could flip this little woman over and claim every inch of her as my own. She cleans me before looking back up, her thumb brushing a stray drop of my cum into her mouth. Like she won’t waste a single drop.

I brush her hair from her face, slipping my palm along her jaw. “Fucking perfect, Evie baby.”

She rises, and my hand drops from her face. “Yes, we are.”

I fold her into my arms. There is no way in hell I’m ever letting this woman go. As long as it’s her choice to be with me, that’s where she’ll be.

Not willing to let each other go, we lie on the bed in a tangle of arms and legs. I drop my chin to the top of her head as she snuggles closer. “Goodnight, mo nighean.”

“Night, Cal.”

A kiss presses over my heart.

Mostly content, I could let the night take us where it wants. But the vague thought that one piece of the puzzle is still missing...

Where my Evie was for two weeks that made Iris such a mess.

That thought sees my eyes snap open.

Each version of what could have happened to her while I was out of action is worse than the last.

So much for sleep.

Yellow wings fly past my vision, flapping through the air as a butterfly circles back round, landing on the bush at the rear of the greenhouse to rejoin its flutter. Evie stills at my side, the watering can in one hand, a basket half full of harvested produce in the other.

The memory of her fear of the small insects sinks to the front of my mind.

“You never did tell me about the butterfly thing.”

She looks at me, hesitating before she sets down the watering can and basket to take my hand. “I need to show you something.”

Confusion takes hold as she leads me to the house, up the stairs. Higher still, to the lantern room where we come to a stop by the pile of glass I still haven’t had the heart to clear out.

She hugs her arms around her body, nodding to the glass shrapnel at our feet. “I did this.”

“No, you?—”

“I smashed the Fresnel. With a wrench. I had no choice.”

Maybe they were desperate. Em’s words fling back around at me, the meaning no longer obscure.

“How?” I manage.

I mean to say what happened, but my brain is reeling right now. What could have had Evie so desperate this was her only option?

“I left, like you made me promise. I did. I went home, but—” She looks out the glass wall circling around us.

“I received a text from Iris, which was odd. We don’t text often as a rule.

Something felt wrong, I just knew it. So I came back, but Iris had no idea what I was talking about when I showed up asking her why she’d text me saying you were in trouble. ”

“Hang on, Iris knew I was in trouble? When was this?”

“The day before Em found you in that upside-down boat.”

“That doesn’t line up. Why would Iris text you the day before it happened?”

“I know,” she whispers, like she understands something I don’t.

“Did Irry tell Em something was up?”

“No, Emmett was out on shift by the time I got here the next morning. I got Errol to bring me back to the island.”

I raise a brow at that.

“He said he wouldn’t stay, but I didn’t care. All I could think of was finding you.”

She didn’t. Find me, that is... by the feeling of dread that’s started to swell in my gut.

“The next part is hard to tell, because I’ve kept it a secret from every single person. For... six years.”

I need to sit down.

I pad to the wall and sink to my seat, leaning against the curved wall. I pat the floor by my side. “Come here.”

She tilts her head, her face twisting like she’s not sure I’ll want her there when I hear what’s about to come out of her mouth.

I don’t care what it is.

Nothing will stop me from loving this brave little woman.

Finally, she closes the space and sits beside me.

Her head falls back onto the wall and her eyes close.

She continues, “I have been receiving letters from a guy for six years. First off, they started out friendly, you know. And I was kind of excited to have such a great fan.” She huffs a sigh.

“Around six months later, the letters started being inappropriate. Possessive in nature, I guess you’d call it.

Joshua and I were married six months later, and that’s when. ..”

The accident.

“My husband died.” Her words from the first time she shared this with me are like glass under my skin. I knew what she went through. I’d lived it myself.

I scoff a sadistic laugh at the thought.

Fucking Ava.

“Well, the letters kept coming. And just before Livvy sent me here, I’d received another one. So, I was happy to leave the city, thinking it would put an end to it. But he found me.”

“The mail Iris gave you the night of the festival...”

She nods.

“Fuck, baby. You should have told me.”

“I couldn’t.” Her gaze intensifies as she shakes her head. “He killed Joshua. That’s what was in the letter. A confession that read like a warning. And he knew you and I wer?—”

Her chin wobbles as the first tear spills over from the silver lining those beautiful eyes.

“He set that boat up to—” She rocks forward.

“That was him ?”

She nods.

“Christ.”

I rub my hands down my face. “How does this fit with the Fresnel?”

Now, a sob chugs from her lips. I pull her onto my lap.

“You don’t have to tell me, not if it’s too hard. Let time pa?—”

“No. I want you to know. Because I don’t think it’s over.”

I can only search her face, hanging on tenterhooks as she composes herself.

“He stole Firefly, beached her on the eastern side, and I was stuck here. He had me chained to the generator for the first week. That part was okay...”

Okay? Heat rises in my core.

The fuck?

“Evie, no . . .” I grind out.

“I tried to sabotage the generator but failed. I thought maybe that could help somehow. He wanted me. Upstairs. I fought him on everything. He locked me up here. There were two locks on the door. The lantern room was boarded up so I couldn’t try to climb out or signal for help in any way. He was thorough, I guess.”

That explains the screw holes on the door.

“I thought maybe Em would have come out to check on things. Only, the one time he came out, I was still in the basement, and Timothy must have hidden. I don’t know.”

Timothy . A name to the pasty little fucker who tried to off me. Tried to hurt Evie...

My hands curl to fists.

Evie moves from my lap and sits in front of me. Now her gaze drops, her hands fidgeting with the hem of her shirt.

Fucking hell, I have a fair idea of what comes next.

“He wanted me to... I was instructed to scrub myself clean in the shower, and then he cuffed me to the—our—bed. Every time he touched me, I flinched. I couldn’t help it. I was so scared. So he sat at the end of the bed and made me spread wide for him while he?—”

She bunches up her face.

“Stop.”

“No. You need to have all the information before we go any further, Cal. I wanted control back. I wanted to escape. I thought that would be the way. So, I did what he asked. I bared myself, opened up, literally. He saw everything.”

“Did he...” My voice cracks, and I can’t rein back the fury welling up.

“No, that’s as far as he got before I decided to kill the queen.”

“The queen?”

“He brought me back up here, must have been satisfied with—” She glances up and worries her bottom lip through her teeth. “I was running out of time, I thought surely next time he drugged me and carted me downstairs, he would?—”

“He drugged you?” Horror pinches my face.

“So, I smashed her. I found the wrench, and I couldn’t stop.

” Her voice breaks. Her mouth flattens to a thin line as tears course down her cheeks.

“I had no choice. It was the only way to get someone, anyone, over to the island. And... it worked. Em came. But then he had a gun, and I couldn’t scream for help.

We went to the fishing hut, then his friend came.

They’d been in on the whole thing, together.

It was the middle of the night when I finally got a chance to grab the EPIRB.

I was screaming over the radio for Em. Eventually, he found me tossed over the side in the water where they left me. ”

The last words fade as she hauls in a much-needed breath.

My body vibrates with rage where I sit.

Christ. Fucking . Almighty.

I push to my feet, pacing a short length. If the Fresnel wasn’t a pile of glass already, I’d obliterate it to shards myself.

They would have abducted her.

Done god knows what, and then . . .

Six fucking years she’s been living with this. I rake my hands through my hair, letting choppy bits of air grace my lungs and burn.

If I ever find those motherfuckers, I will take immense pleasure in snuffing out their last goddamn breath. And their torment will be long, drawn out, and painful as sin.