Eden Summer by Liz Flanagan

Author:Liz Flanagan [Liz Flanagan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781910989098
Publisher: David Fickling Books Ltd
Published: 2016-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

‘There you go. The full story, Liam Caffrey.’ I wiped my face. ‘The Unfortunate History of Jessica Mayfield.’ Salt tears in my scar, again.

He’d held my wrist the whole time. Even when his eyes filled too. Even when a tear ran down his cheek and dripped off his chin.

Now he let go, just for a minute. He grabbed the loose front of his old red T-shirt and used it to wipe his face. ‘Blood, sweat and tears, today, eh?’ he joked softly. ‘Oh, Jess.’

I looked at him fiercely. I did not want his pity.

‘It’s the past,’ he said. ‘It’s done.’

‘It’s not. The scars won’t go. Not completely. Not ever.’

‘So? Nowt wrong wi’ scars.’ Liam held my wrist and bent to it, closer, lower. His cropped hair was white gold in the moonlight. He paused. ‘We’ve all got ’em.’

I lifted my wrist to meet his mouth. He kissed me, soft and warm, on the exposed skin. On my racing pulse. Afterwards, again, he waited. He held my wrist and watched me.

There was no one to see, just the bright swelling moon and the laden plum tree and the hidden owl in the wood. We could hear the distant bass and voices spilling from Eden’s party.

It was me who moved. My hand touched his cheek, saying yes. His face. His cat’s eyes.

I screwed my eyes tight shut. The look in his eyes was too much. I reached for him blindly. My fingers crossed his chest, its warm drum beating faster. I stroked his bare arms: the warm skin, the solidness of him. My fingers danced up his neck. My knuckles grazed his cheekbones. One fingertip crossed his lips, and he kissed it.

His breath, warm on my ear, sending shivers down my spine. That breath, catching, jagging, speeding – just for me.

His fingers moved up my arm, tracking the lines of my tattoos, taking time over each one. I had a million nerve endings I’d never known about, more than stars in the sky. My skin was alive and breathing again. My skin wanted to be touched.

He sought out my scars. I felt his fingers, coarse at the tips but so gentle, lightly sliding across my face to where the skin was ridged. He caressed the wave of scar tissue by my ear.

I opened my eyes then, to check this was real. My eyes on his. His eyes on mine. And the air between us, so close and thick. Like the tension before a storm, it crackled. I felt it, between us.

There was still time. I could break the spell. I could move away, not much harm done. Just the line between us crossed and we knew it. He waited for me.

I held his gaze as I crossed it again. I lifted his hand and kissed his knuckles, shredded and torn.

I kissed him because I wanted to. I kissed him because I needed it. And when he kissed me back, that was it. I didn’t know anything else, except his mouth on

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