He makes a sound of protest, looks at me, eyebrows raised.
“I refuse to kiss that face unless you shave.”
His expression changes, lightens, and I love when his eyes shiver slightly, like there is a light source inside him. A flicker of shyness, of thoughts he would never say aloud. But it’s enough to convince him, and he limps through the front door, leaning heavily on the cane, then slumps into the chair I’ve placed on the front porch.
I fold a towel gently around his neck, a pot of warm water waiting on the other chair.
I’ve missed the tenderness of these moments—a feeling that’s difficult to describe. I slide the razor down his jawline, following the known landscape of his face.
“Remember the first time ye shaved my beard?” he asks.
I smile, angling the razor over his chin. “I thought I might cut you.”
“I thought I might kiss ye.”
“I wish you had.”
I rinse the razor, shifting to the other side of his face. He tilts his chin up to me, and his blue eyes are so beautiful they’re painful. I would do anything for him. I would let the world burn around us. His handfinds my leg, as if he’s holding me steady, and my fingers slide from his temple to his throat, tiny hairs splintering off, dusting the porch. I only want this. An endless dusk, the sun waiting against the sea, but never quite touching it. Night never folding itself over us. For the rest of time.
“I love you, you know,” he says, the words not hidden by even a hint of Scottish lilt. “You remind me of the sea, you smell like the softest wind. Like this island. Like you were always meant for this place.”
I bend down, running my fingers across the smooth surface of his face, letting my thumb brush his lips. My husband. The only man I’ve ever truly loved. His hand scrapes around the back of my neck, easing me to him, where he kisses me so delicately I want to dissolve in his hands.
His other hand presses against my hip, easing under my sweater.
We haven’t touched like this since those men came ashore. Almost a month.
I pause against his lips. “You’re still healing,” I whisper.
“Aye, and I need ye to put me back together.”
My mouth hitches into a smile, and I kiss him again.
I leave the razor and the bowl of water on the front porch—where they will be forgotten, where the water will freeze solid overnight. And I follow Clay into the house, his pace slow with the cane, limping each step. He eases down onto the couch, letting the cane fall to the floor.
I peel away his clothes, careful and slow. Then I shrug out of mine. For a moment, we look at each other, our bodies bare, the wind whistling against the house, the light darkening from the sky. Two people lost at sea. But found again. He pulls me to him. I ease myself over him, careful of the wound at his lowest rib—mostly healed—but the scar is still pink and waxy. A bullet somewhere inside.
“Tell me if it hurts,” I say.
“It won’t.”
I lift an eyebrow, but he presses his mouth to my throat—the place where that man, Langston, ran his own lips up to my ear. But I push the memory away, because Clay is making new patterns of my flesh, erasingold scars with every exhale, with the feeling of him inside me. My palms against his chest, I let myself cry. He wipes the tears from my cheek, he kisses them away, and we find a rhythm that not even time can touch.
“Ellie—” he whispers at the end, the texture of his voice honeyed, rich and thick against my ear, as his body, his torso, tenses against mine.
And when I let out my last breath, sweat pricking my temple, I sink into his arms, our flesh pressed to each other, and we sleep like this, in the living room, with the cold always looking for a way in.
The sound cracks through the walls of the house, a long chattering moan like bending metal.
I lift my head from Clay’s chest, looking to the front door.
The sound comes again, grinding, crunching, then falls quiet.
“Wait here,” he says, reaching for the cane, and pushing himself up from the couch—still naked.
The memory of those men is still too recent, the fear we both share, and he grabs the rifle—waiting beside the front door—as he steps out into the morning light.
But I don’t do as he says. I walk to the doorway, the quilt folded over my shoulders, looking past him.
