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Unlike the castles and other places of stone it was modeled after, this tower is a lonely one. There were no parties and no feasts here. There was only a man making sure that the light stayed lit.
Until the storms rolled in. Crashing waves and wind that would rip a ship apart. Lightning that lit up the sky and shook the earth. Then it was like the very world had come to test the lantern keeper in his solitary tower.
Nights like tonight.
When we reach the top of the stairs and step into the lantern chamber, an old man wearing worn out trousers held up by suspenders and a button-up shirt is checking the light. It’s no longer the kerosene lantern that once lit the way. Instead, an LED lantern swings on a shiny new mechanism.
But it’s the same light.
I wave to the man I talked to earlier this evening. He nods his head, and I lead Madison to the railing even as the storm rages around us. The trees shake as the wind buffets them, and the icy rain pelts us.
But this talk needs to happen here. I don’t know why, but I feel like a lighthouse is the only place I can be completely honest, like the stone under my feet and the light shining into the ocean can protect me from the storms that rage around me everywhere else.
“Madison, I know you’re pulling away from me,” I say as I look out at the light.
She’s quiet as she shivers, and I take off my soaking wet coat to wrap around her. She turns to me, but I don’t look at her. I can’t see her when I say what’s in my heart.
“I am. Nothing good will come of us, Emery. You have to be you, and I can’t be the woman waiting in the shadows. I can’t watch you take famous women out to expensive parties. Even if you’re completely faithful, I’ll always be jealous of those women. I’ll always want to be the one on your arm.”
I never questioned why she wanted to pull away from me, but I can’t let her. I can’t know how I feel about her and watch her walk away.
Even if that’s the easier answer. The logical answer.
“You know there’s something special between us, don’t you?” I ask.
She’s quiet as the winds pull at us, screaming as they whip around the stone tower and do their best to knock it to the ground, just as they always have.
“Yes.” The reply is almost too quiet to hear, but my entire being is focused on her. Even without seeing her lips move, I’d hear every word she whispered.
When I finally turn to look at her, water is pouring down my face, dripping from my eyebrows. “Then let’s find a way to make this into something more than what we have. I don’t have an answer, and damn it, I’ve spent the last two weeks thinking of almost nothing else. But I can’t ignore the way I feel about you.”
God, she’s so fucking gorgeous. Her skirt whips around her thighs, and my coat billows around her like it desperately wants to fly away. Her long brown hair is soaked and matted. Her eyes never leave mine, though. That ferocity that drew me to her from that first bit of sass in the elevator is wild inside her.
She wants to scream at me. To tell me I’m an idiot. She wants to tell me she wants nothing to do with me.
But she knows as much as I do that this thing between us isn’t something that you can walk away from. This isn’t just lust. It’s not just fun. It’s not even just love.
She sets her jaw and glares at me, and my body moves on its own accord. One hand flashes to her jaw, clasping it at the same time that the other goes to her hip, and I can’t stop myself from bending down to kiss her.
As the water streams over us, running from me to her, I let every ounce of the feelings inside me out. Every late night. Every longing look. Every fantasy. And every bit of the pain that I know I’ll feel if she walks away.
The cold seems to evaporate from me as I give myself over to the kiss. There’s no hesitation or fear because I have nothing to lose. She’s already lost to me, and this kiss is the last chance for her to understand the way I feel.
To understand how badly I need her.
She doesn’t pull away, and I feel similar feelings in her as she pulls me closer, her hands wrapping around me to dig into my back. The lightning crashes around us, but it doesn’t matter. The booming thunder and screaming wind are nothing compared to this.
Her lips pull at me, begging me for everything that I am. For everything that I could be.
I inhale her, her vanilla and amber scent overpowering even the rain that covers us. Even more than the lighthouse we stand on, that lingering scent calms me, soothing the fear of losing her. As long as I can smell her, she’s still close, and things are still possible.
She breaks away from me, soft gasps slipping from her lips as she stares into my eyes, her blue eyes filled with fire. The same unadulterated fire that filled them earlier is there, and I know what it is now.
Passion.
That’s what we have, the thing that not even love adequately describes. “I need you, Madison. Like I could live forever on you. Without you, I’ll drown. The storms in my life will take me under, and I won’t have the will to swim any longer.”
She stares at me for a second as her chest heaves. She felt all the emotions that stir inside me. In a way that words could never do, I showed her the way I feel with that kiss. She didn’t understand before now.
