Litany Of Sins

13 Vivid

CHAPTER 13

Vivid

The silence of the beach was suddenly shattered by the electricity arcing between them. Lila turned, and she found him exactly where he had been for the last twenty minutes—anchored, steady, his gaze devouring her. He was not just looking at her; he was studying her, cataloging the rise and fall of her chest, the way her hair clung to her damp skin, the way she could not quite look away.

The beer and the lingering effects of the dinner wine had turned the world into a blur of sensory overload. The roar of the surf faded, replaced by the thrum of her own pulse—a frantic, uneven rhythm that had nothing to do with the night air and everything to do with the man sitting inches away.

She felt a physical ache, a deep, hollow yearning in her marrow. It was a terrifying, vivid memory of the weight of him—his broad shoulders, the way he would pin her against the mattress, the way his hips would grind into hers until she couldn't tell where she ended and he began. She did not just want a kiss; she wanted to be consumed.

The danger of it hit her like a physical blow. She realized, with a jolt of panic, that if he touched her, she would break.

“Do not do this right now,” she breathed, the words barely escaping her throat. It was not a rejection; it was a plea. A desperate attempt to keep the walls standing before they inevitably collapsed.

Everett did not retreat. He did not even blink. Instead, he shifted, the blazer beneath them rustling as he closed the remaining gap. He moved with a slow, calculated grace, his eyes dropping to her lips—the exact spot she was trying so hard to keep him from looking at.

“Do what, Lila?” he murmured. His voice was a low, jagged rasp that vibrated through the sand. He leaned in, his face so close she could feel the heat radiating from his skin. He smelled of sea salt and something uniquely, maddeningly Everett. “I have not done anything yet.”

“You are looking at me,” she whispered, her hands balling into fists on the fabric of his blazer. “You are doing that thing. Where you make me feel like I am the only thing that matters right now.”

“And aren’t you?” He moved closer, his breath ghosting over her lips. He stopped a hair’s breadth away, teasing her, testing the boundary of her resolve. He reached out, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw, his touch light, agonizingly slow. “I have spent a couple more years looking for you in the faces of strangers, Lyle.”

“Do not pretend you did,” she shot back, her voice brittle with instant denial.

“I did.” he insisted, his voice low and unrelenting. “You did not say goodbye. You just… completely disappeared.”

She had no retort for that, and the silence descended again, thick and suffocating. The only thing left to fill the void between them was the endless, rhythmic crash of the waves against the shore.

“Do you really think I am going to stop looking now that I have actually found you?” He asked, ending the intense silence between them.

“Everett, please,” she gasped, her head spinning.

She should move. She should stand up and run toward the dark safety of the car. But she did not . She was paralyzed, hooked on the promise of the kiss he was so clearly about to take.

“Stop fighting it,” he whispered, his eyes dark, drowning in the same hunger that had her pinned to the spot.

“We can’t…” Her voice was soft.

“Why not?” He spoke in the same manner as she did while he leaned in further, his mouth grazing the corner of her lips, a feather-light touch that sent a jolt of pure, unadulterated desire straight to her core. “You are trembling because you want me to. Just admit it. Let go.”

He pressed a lingering, soft kiss to the side of her mouth, his hand sliding up to cup the back of her neck, his fingers tangling in her hair. It was a demand, not a question.

“Kiss me, Lila,” he breathed, his voice dropping into a dangerous, dark promise. “Stop lying to yourself, and just kiss me.”

The silence between them stretched, thick and suffocating, until Lila finally forced her gaze up to his. The moment their eyes locked, the air seemed to ignite. A rush of heat, sharp and liquid, flooded her veins, pooling in the center of her chest.

Who was she kidding?

Since the moment he had walked back into her life, that clinical, orderly world she had built had been nothing but a house of cards. She had spent three years telling herself she was over him and was done wanting him, that she had moved on, that the past was a closed file. But looking at him now—at the dark, predatory hunger in his eyes—she knew that was the biggest lie of all.

They were not children anymore. They were not the messy, reckless kids who had s*x in his old sedan whenever they wanted to. They were adults.

If they wanted to burn, who was there to stop them?

She did not want to save him, and she certainly did not want to be saved. She wanted the friction. She wanted to feel the weight of his body crushing her into the sand, the possessive force of him, the way he used to dictate her rhythm until she was nothing but a mess of gasps and surrender.

She wanted him. And looking at the way he was watching her, she knew he was starving for her, too.

Everett did not move, but his voice, when he spoke, sounded like a command. “You are doing it again, Lila. Analyzing the pros and cons. Counting the reasons why you should walk away.”

He leaned in, his shadow looming over her, blotting out the moonlight. His voice dropped to a rough, intimate register that made her skin prickle. “You can lie to yourself about moving on all you want, but your body is not as good at acting as you are. I can see the way your breath hitches. I can see the way your pulse is jumping right there, in your throat.”

He reached out, his fingers grazing the sensitive skin of her neck, just tracing the line of her collarbone. “You miss it. The way I used to hold you down. The way you sounded when you realized you had absolutely no control left.”

Lila’s breath hitched, the memory so vivid it felt like a physical touch. “We are older, Everett. We are not... we are not the same people.”

“No,” he murmured, his thumb brushing her bottom lip, dragging it down just enough to reveal her teeth. “We are better. We are sharper. We know exactly what we want.”

He shifted, his knee nudging hers, an invitation she was terrified to accept but incapable of refusing. “I do not want to talk about the last ten years. I want to know if you still taste the same. I want to know if you still move beneath me like you are trying to draw me inside your skin. I need to feel your hips against my palms, just once, just to see if you remember the rhythm as well as I do.”

He leaned in closer, his lips hovering a fraction of an inch from hers, his breath hot and ragged. “Tell me it is wrong, Lila. Look me in the eye and tell me you do not want to be ruined by me tonight. Because if you do not say it, I am not stopping this time.”