Nevermore Bookstore (Townsend Harbor Book 1)

Elation

(ꞮˈLEꞮƩƏN) NOUN. JOYFULNESS OR EXALTATION OF SPIRIT, AS FROM SUCCESS, PLEASURE, OR RELIEF; HIGH SPIRITS

You’re the love of my fucking life…

Every time Fawkes’ words echoed through Cady’s head, her knees liquified all over again. How they’d gotten to Nevermore from the town hall, she couldn’t be sure. She hadn’t felt the earth beneath her feet for a single step.

Running on a curious mix of exhaustion, elation, and relief, she’d floated down Water Street with Roman Fawkes at her side, her heart swelling as the building that was hers came into view. This knowledge made the bell’s jingle sound brighter, made the lamps glow warmer, sparked from her fingertips as she ran them over the spines of books as she passed, greeting them like old friends.

Hell, even her critter menagerie seemed to be grinning right along with her.

Which, admittedly, should have been creepy but wasn’t. Not on a day like today.

Today, her hip’s bark of protest at the two-story climb had been dialed down to a mild yelp. Her back’s objections to the barely padded meeting room pews was quickly forgotten as they stepped out into the conservatory together.

Cady stood with her back against the bricks of her building, silently swooning as Fawkes walked the perimeter of the ongoing construction, his beret tucked beneath his arm against his pristine dress coat. How strange, and wonderful, and deeply weird it was to see this man in the space she had designed with him in mind—given the version of him she’d imagined here hadn’t been dressed like a panty-melting army badass straight out of a Tom Clancy military thriller—but she was more than willing to make the necessary mental adjustment.

Keen as ever, Fawkes’ eyes moved from the dark aluminum framework to the glass panels beaded with the morning’s rain. Any minute now, she’d figure out how to tear her eyes away from him and say what she’d brought him here to say.

He was humoring her. Honoring her request that they finish here the conversation they’d begun on the Uptown hill.

Here, where they had spent the first hours in each other’s physical presence. Here, where she first knew the feeling of his body on hers. Here, where the sea and sky could conspire with her to convince him to stay.

“So what do you think?” she asked at last.

Fawkes glanced at her over a gold-embroidered epaulet on his shoulder. “I think this is fucking incredible.”

“Wait until you see the freshwater fishing pond and the infrared sauna,” she said, pushing off the wall.

His eyebrows shot toward his newly shorn hairline.

“Kidding.” She laughed. “About the freshwater fishing pond, anyway. Infrared light therapy is actually supposed to be helpful for both our conditions. At least, I read that it’s supposed to improve the homeostasis of the autonomic nervous system. Which can’t be a bad thing, right?”

“You read?” The corners of his clean-shaven lips curled up in a smirk.

She nodded. “Every now and then. Which is why I’m also putting in an herb harden,” she said, gesturing toward the south-facing corner of the glass panes. “Moxibustion works better if you grow and dry your own.”

“Moxibustion?”

“Burning mugwort,” she explained. “My acupuncturist says it’s supposed to help the treatments be more effective, and it’s a personal life philosophy of mine to never disagree with a man who’s sticking needles in my face.”

“Solid logic,” he said. “Infrared light therapy, face needles. Sounds like you’ve been a busy girl.”

“I have. That’s kinda part of what I wanted to talk to you about,” she said, hating the sound of her awkwardly obvious transition. “I was doing that thing I do where I learn everything about a topic of potential interest, and in my CPTSD deep dive, I had this very unwelcome realization that…um…I’m an asshole.”

“An asshole who built out an entire human terrarium and has been researching treatments for a debilitating mental illness?” he said, sweeping a hand toward the view.

Cady took a deep breath and walked to the wall of glass facing the shoreline. “When we were up on the mountain, and you were trying to explain to me why you didn’t feel you could be in a relationship with me, I dismissed your concerns.”

She glanced at the flickering reflection of him over her shoulder in the glass panel.

“I talked about how I’m not afraid of pain, and I don’t let it keep me from living, but in the process, I ignored and invalidated how yours might be affecting you. I tried to convince you that your issues weren’t issues for me. But I didn’t acknowledge my own problems, or the fact that I had things I needed to work on before I could be a solid partner for anyone.”

That there had been a first-class mindfuck—riding home on her tidal wave of righteous indignation, basking in the glow of self-congratulatory romantic bravery as she recounted the details of their conversation to the girls over many mimosas, only to have Vivian ever so gently point out that she’d been doing to Fox the very thing she hated.

Stupid bullshit self-actualization and motherfucking emotional honesty.

“Cady, you don’t have to do this.” His boots shifted on the brand-new masonry, still coated with a fine layer of dust from the grout.

“Yes, I do.” She turned to face him. “I need to say this, and I need you to hear it, Fawkes. All I talked about is what you did for me. How much you helped me. And you did. More than you’ll ever know. Your calls were my life raft. My escape. But this,” she said, lifting her eyes to the gunmetal-gray sky overhead, “this isn’t about escaping. It’s about staying.”

Up until now, she’d been able to resist the mysterious, magnetic pull of his body. She’d spent the last four weeks both longing to find her rest against the solid wall of his chest, and preparing herself for the possibility that she might never again know the kind of peace she felt with the steady thrum of his heart in her ear. But now he was so close, she found herself drifting into his orbit, drawn by a gravity that was all their own.

“This place is yours to come to. Whenever you can. However you can. For as long as it helps. Whatever healing looks like, we can do it together. You and me.”

Fawkes gazed down at her from beneath the structure that blurred the lines between inside and outside. Up and down. Day and night. Him and her. “You also said I was full of shit.”

Cady looked into eyes she’d spent so long dreaming into life that they almost didn’t seem real. “I stand by that statement.”

“I’d expect nothing less.” By degrees too small to measure in anything but time, they found each other. Breath to breath. Mouth to mouth. Body to body, various scars and all.

Cady felt herself melting into him, strangely touched by the unfamiliar shapes of ribbon bars and medals pressing into her skin. This part of his life she hadn’t known now becoming part of hers as well. Their past, their present, and their future fused with the heat of their kiss.

The sweetness of their reunion quickly burned away, replaced by something hard and hungry.

Fawkes smiled against her lips as she wobbled in the steady circle of his arms.

“You okay?” he asked.

“So good. It’s just that these stupid pantyhose are cutting off the circulation to my brain.” She wriggled to move their stranglehold further down her liver. “Whoever decided underwear needed built-in mesh socks can kiss my whole ass.”

“Allen E. Grant, and it’s a good thing he’s long dead, because if he tried to kiss even a part of this ass,” he said, giving her cheeks a firm squeeze, “I’d have to shove his jaw down his neck.”

“Only what he deserves for inflicting his bullshit misogynist torture device on generations of women.”

Fawkes’ hands migrated up toward her waist, releasing a tide of goosebumps down her neck and arms. “It just so happens I’m an expert at disengaging misogynistic torture devices.”

“You’re a man of many talents, Roman Fawkes,” she said, stepping out of her sensible heels. “That reminds me. What should I call you? Now that I know you have a first name and you’re a Fawkes as in Guy rather than as in dumpster fire news media or cunning woodland creature, it feels weird to keep addressing you by a three-letter call sign.”

The Man Formerly Known as Fox found the zipper of her skirt and released it from behind. “Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized,” he whispered against the ticklish skin of her bare neck.

“At least you chose a thematically appropriate Shakespearean character to blatantly thieve lines from,” Cady said, catching his eye over her shoulder. “Romeo totally had a thing for watching as well.”

The hem of her skirt began to rise up her thighs under the power of two large, warm hands. “Please,” Fawkes said. “Juliet was the one on the balcony talking about names and man parts.”

Speaking of…

A familiar and very insistent shape nudged up against her ass he began rolling down the elastic band that had been slowly dissecting her internal organs. Cady’s body proved embarrassingly Pavlovian in its response.

She blamed the beret.

His fingers skimmed the hosiery over her hips, down her thighs, her knees, her calves.

“Put your hand on my shoulder.” Crouching down, he slipped the stocking from one ankle and foot, followed by the other.

“Just like Willoughby when he found Marianne on the moors,” Cady said dreamily, gazing out at the pewter-bellied storm clouds rolling in.

“As if. I’m an officer and you have daddy issues,” he pointed out. “We’re solidly in Colonel Brandon company.”

“That may the sexiest thing a man has ever said to me.”

“I could say more.” His fingers flexed against her pelvis.

“What would you say to baptizing that chaise over there, Colonel Brandon?” she asked.

Fawkes slipped his arms around her torso, pulling her against the warm, solid wall of his body. His chin rested on the crown of her head, anchoring them in this one moment of time and the question whose answer made sense in a story only they knew.

“I’d say hi.”