my—after she died, we were brought here to live with my old man’s parents.”
“I thought they owned the house in Derry?”
“True, but this is where they took us.”
I didn’t say anything, but if I needed a place to hide, or a place to hide people, this was prime real estate. I doubted anyone who didn’t know about this place would be able to find it. I would’ve turned back over forty-five minutes ago.
Kelly sat for a minute, staring at the place, his eyes hard.
“Have you been back since you left?” I whispered.
“Once. Right before my old man died.”
“Do you feel lost or discovered here?” I felt discovered, completely found, because he sat next to me.
“Lost.” He cleared this throat. “I was. So fucking lost. Until I found you.” Then his eyes collided with mine.
The breath I’d just taken lodged in my throat. My heart started to beat quicker and my stomach plummeted.
His eyes refused to leave mine as his hand came across and grabbed me by the neck, pulling my face to his. The stream of breath from his mouth caressed my lips, and I breathed in deep, wanting to take him into my lungs.
“I’m in love with you, Cashel Fallon Kelly,” I said, my eyes as unwavering as his. “So in love. With you.”
The grip he had on my neck became tighter, and I could feel the tremor in his bones. “Say what you mean and mean what you fucking say,” he said, his voice hard.
“I’ll never take those words back,” I said, moving my nose against his, my lips against his skin. “I can’t. Those words were inside of my heart when you stole it.”
“I’ll bleed to set those words in stone,” he said, speaking in riddles, right before his lips came over mine in a kiss that stole my breath.
Each of my hands were fisted in his shirt, refusing to let him go, but did when he pulled away to step out of the car. As he did, another strike of lightning lit up the sky. A second later, a droplet of rain hit the windshield, and then another, until I couldn’t see the farmhouse from the car.
Kelly tore open my door, rain dripping down from his cap. He turned me around to face him, his touch rough, the look in his eyes as heated as a flame.
Every breath I took was for him.
Every beat of my heart was his.
Every day of my life. For the rest of my life.
I was his and he was mine.
My hands were back to his chest, my fists full of his shirt, and I was yanking him to me as he was pulling me out of the car. Our lips met in the rain, the taste of it sweet between our tongues, and I was barely aware that we were moving, until my back slammed against the stone.
His mouth moved lower, to my neck, his kiss warm against my skin, the complete opposite of the storm raging around us. “You’ve become the most dangerous thing on this earth to me,” he whispered in my ear.
His hand slipped underneath my shirt, his fingers trailing a straight line between my breasts, until he stopped over my heart. “It’s about to come straight out of your chest,” he said. “Right into my hand, my darlin’.”
“Easy steal, Marauder,” I said, breathless. Rain collected on my lashes and his. His were raven black, making his green eyes seem even greener. They almost glowed in the darkness, highlighted by the lights from the car. And I demanded to lose myself in the chaos they caused, because he made me feel alive. Perfectly alive in a life that was mine. “Because I let it go—freely now.”
“So fucking dangerous,” he murmured before he lifted my shirt over my arms, licking the rain from my bare skin. The heat from his body and the cool winds from the storm made a hard shiver pass over me, and my hair stood on end.
Especially after his eyes took in the bodysuit I’d worn under my clothes. It was sheer, with black velvet trimming.
He picked me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, kissing him as he carried me to the door. He must’ve opened it after he’d gotten out of the car, because he turned the handle and walked right in. He set me down on a long wooden table in the kitchen.
He lit a match and a few different sized candles on the counter from it. An old fireplace,