Page 29 of Second Chance with the Half-Elf

EVIE

T he crowd hums with lantern-light laughter, but I don’t blink. Just keep my boots moving toward him—steady, deliberate—until I’m close enough to smell cedar oil and salt lingering on his coat. His eyes track me, wary as a harbor seal spotting a hunter’s net. Good. Let him wonder.

I hook two fingers into his belt loop and tug him backward behind a vendor’s stall stacked with oyster buckets. He doesn’t resist, but his exhale hitches—sharp, like I’ve yanked a rusted nail from wood.

“You stare any harder, Harbor Master, people’ll think you’re hired security.” My voice stays lazy, but my thumb brushes the worn leather of my camera strap. Anchoring.

He leans against the railing, arms crossed. Moonlight slips through the gaps in his silver hair. “Whole town’s staring. You just notice me because I’m the only one not hiding.”

“Bullshit. You’ve got ‘brooding sentinel’ down to an art form.” I flick a shrimp shell off his shoulder. “How many kids asked if you’re a vampire tonight?”

The corner of his mouth twitches. “Three. One offered garlic bread.”

“Generous. Should’ve taken it—you’re cranky when hungry.”

A lantern bursts into a shower of sparks overhead, the crowd gasping in unison. His gaze flicks up, then back to me. Always back. “You didn’t drag me here to critique my diet.”

“No.” The key in my pocket digs into my thigh—cold iron teeth. I palm it, press the jagged metal into my skin until I feel the imprint. “I rebuilt the Hale place. Fixed the porch, ripped out the rotted floorboards. Even unclogged the chimney.”

His brow creases. “I heard.”

“Yeah? Hear what else?”

“That you used salvaged wood from the old schooner dock.”

“And?”

“That you turned the attic into a darkroom.”

“And?”

He shifts, boots scraping gravel. “That you… painted the shutters yellow.”

“Sunflower Blitz, per the can.” I step closer. His breath hitches again. “But you haven’t been inside.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“I’m asking now.” The key lands in his palm before I can second-guess. His fingers close around it, slow, like he’s handling live bait.

“What’s this unlock?”

“The front door.”

“Evie.”

“Back door too—same key. Good security’s a myth here anyway. Mrs. Pevensie still ‘forgets’ to latch her goat pen.”

He turns the metal over, traces the indentation. “You hate permanence.”

“I hate regretting permanence.” The confession slips out, sharper than intended. I jab the key deeper into his hand. “Try it before you assume it’ll choke you.”

His laugh rumbles low. “You’re giving me a house key, not a snake.”

“Same difference. Both bite if you’re stupid.”

Silence. The bodhrán’s rhythm quickens, drums echoing the sudden thunder in my ribs.

Aeron lifts the key, squints at it. “Back door, huh? You know I’ll fix that sagging step.”

“It’s charming .”

“It’s a liability.”

“Your face is a?—”

His mouth cuts me off. No tentative brush, no question—just heat and hunger and fifteen years of sidelong glances. His hand cages my jaw, callouses scraping my neck as he tilts my head back. The key digs into my palm where our hands press between us.

I bite his lower lip. He growls, pulls me flush against him, and for once, I don’t fight the current.

Someone whistles. The lanterns sway.

We break apart, breaths ragged.

He thumbs the key. “Still have that compass we found?”

“In my desk. Why?”

“Good.” He tucks the metal into his pocket, grips my waist. “We’ll need it.”

“For…?”

His smirk ghosts my temple. “Adjusting the porch azimuth.”

I choke on a laugh. “You’re insufferable.”

“You’re smiling.”

“Tetanus shot side effects.”

Another kiss, slower this time. Salt. Smoke. No turning back.

His voice rasps against my mouth. “Home’s got a leaky sink.”

“Fix it tomorrow.”

“Tonight.”

“ Tomorrow .”

The beach house creaks a welcome as Aeron turns the key— my key —in the lock. His thumb pauses on the compass etched into the brass, ocean-worn boots hovering on the salvaged schooner wood of the porch.

“Sunflower Blitz,” he murmurs, tracing the shutter with his knuckle.

“It’s yellow, not a manifesto.” I nudge him inside, but he catches my wrist, spins me gently against the doorframe. His touch lingers on the paint-chip scars along my collarbone, the ones I got hauling lumber for the attic darkroom.

“Steady work.” He kisses each nick, lips chapped from sea wind. “But you didn’t sand the edges.”

“Hazard of the trade.”

He unknots my camera strap, sets it on the hallway table next to his Harbor Master badge. Our reflections blur in its polished surface—silver and chestnut, sea-roughened hands bracketing ink-stained ones.

The bedroom smells of turpentine and the lavender sachets I stole from Rowan’s shop. Aeron’s shirt hits the floor first, that faint moonlight shimmer on his skin making my throat clench. I reach for his belt, but he stills me with a palm to my sternum.

“Let me.”

He peels my jeans down slowly, callouses catching on the goosebumps rising along my thighs. His mouth follows—ankle, knee, the crease of my hip where a bruise blooms from yesterday’s darkroom ladder mishap.

“Still can’t climb straight,” he mutters against the purple stain.

“Still can’t resist critiquing.”

He bites the inside of my thigh, not hard, but enough to coil heat low in my belly. The bedframe groans as he lays me back on sheets still smelling of salt from last week’s open window storm.

His cock lies heavy against my stomach, warm and thicker than I’d imagined in those stolen glances at the docks. He watches me stare, sea-green eyes darkening.

“Still time to run,” he says, but his voice cracks on the last syllable.

My nails dig into the scar on his shoulder. “Don’t dare sound noble now.”

The first thrust in my pussy steals my breath. He moves like the tide—relentless but patient, letting the ache build until I’m arching for more. My heel slips on sweat-slicked sheets as he pins my wrists, fingers interlacing.

“Look at me.” His command isn’t harsh, just unwavering. When I do, he smiles—that rare, unguarded grin I’ve only seen when he fixes something broken. “There she is.”

The praise unravels me. I fist the sheets, but he tugs my hand back to his mouth, sucking two fingers while his hips snap harder. Our rhythm fractures into gasps and fractured phrases— more here and god your mouth and fifteen years I’ve …

His hips roll in a rhythm that mirrors the tide beyond the salt-stained windows—relentless but reverent.

Every drag of his cock inside me sparks heat low in my belly, the stretch and burn of him pulling away only to surge back deeper.

My calves lock around his waist as he braces on his forearms, silver hair falling loose from its tie to curtain our faces.

“Evie, God, yes…” His voice scrapes raw as barnacle rock, thumb brushing a sweaty strand from my temple.

I dig nails into the scar tissue on his shoulder, my back arching when he angles up.

His teeth graze my earlobe. “Look how perfectly we fit.”

The words unravel me. My heel slides against the small of his back, urging him closer. He obeys, grinding his pelvis against my clit in slow circles that steal my breath. Our mouths collide—salt and urgency and a hint of lavender from the sachets crushed beneath us.

When he shifts to prop my knee over his shoulder, the new angle punches a gasp from my throat. His palm splays across my stomach as if mapping uncharted shores. “Here?”

“Faster—”

“No.” His thumb finds my nipple, pinching just shy of pain. “You don’t run from this.”

My laugh fractures into a moan.

He stills, buried to the hilt, sea-glass eyes blazing. “I’ve waited eighty-six years for a moment that mattered. You’ll take it slow.”

The raw confession lingers as he begins moving again—deep, languid thrusts that make my toes curl. His hand skims down to where we join, fingers sliding through slickness to circle my clit. Lightning arcs up my spine.

“Aeron—”

His breath hitches as I clench around him.

The creak of salvaged schooner wood harmonizes with the slap of skin on skin.

He murmurs nonsense against my neck—Elvish maybe, or old dockyard cant—as his pace quickens.

I claw at the sheets, but he captures my wrist, presses my palm to his chest. His heartbeat drums against my fingers, frantic as a storm surge.

“Together,” he growls.

The command tips me over. Pleasure rips through me, violent and sweet, heels digging into his ribs as I choke on his name. He follows, forehead dropping to mine with a groan that vibrates through bone and flesh alike.

We lay tangled in the wreckage of sheets, his lips tracing the hinge of my jaw.

“Still think permanence chokes?” he murmurs.

I flick a silver strand from his eyebrow. “Ask me after your snoring kicks in.”

His chuckle rumbles against my sternum. “Says the woman who mutters darkroom chemicals in her sleep.”

Outside, waves crash—ceaseless, inevitable. Aeron’s fingers thread through mine, our joined hands resting atop his heartbeat. Slower now. Steadier.