“Relax, Grandpa, it’s like you think I don’t know you.” I grinned, hefting my tote bag over my shoulder. The objects inside clanked and rustled. “Trust me. This date is Heathcliff-friendly.”
I led him across the green and down to the edge of the village, where the chocolate-box houses gave way to half-built new dwellings, and then rolling hills and a small, familiar wood. “This is King’s Copse. Of course, when the King actually used to hunt here, the wood covered all the surrounding hills. But most of it was cleared during the 19th and 20th centuries, and only this small section remains.”
“Doesn’t this belong to the gent whose wife you reckon killed the old bint?” Heathcliff held my hand as I stepped over the style. “We’re trespassing.”
“Grey Lachlan? Yeah, he’s the developer. But I’m not sure he did it. Mrs. Ellis believes the Lachlans are innocent, and I’m starting to agree. I mean, poisoning someone is a pretty extreme way to deal with a local planning committee, and killing Mrs. Scarlett isn’t exactly going to change the rest of the committee’s mind. I’m wondering about Dorothy Ingram – she’s head of the church committee and believed the Banned Book Club was sinful. As for trespassing, it’s a wood. It’s not like it’s got security guards. Kids from the village and the housing estate have been coming here for years. I used to spend a lot of warm summer evenings down by the stream.”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Heathcliff pulled the collar of his jacket tight around his face. “It’s not a warm summer’s evening.”
“Hush. Man up.” My teeth chattered, and puffs of steam formed in front of my lips. Heathcliff wasn’t wrong about the temperature. “I want to show you something.”
My excitement turned sour as soon as we started down the overgrown path. Away from the road, the darkness enclosed me. I couldn’t make out anything – no outlines of branches arching over the path, no reflections in muddy puddles between the roots, no edges where one plant gave way to another. I flung my arms out and stumbled blindly down the path. Wet branches scraped my wool coat as I felt my way along the overgrown path. Tears of frustration prickled my eyes as my boots scuffed and tripped over roots and fallen debris.
“Mina,” Heathcliff’s voice growled in my ear. He grabbed my shoulders, bringing me to a halt. “Stop. You’ll fall and hurt yourself.”
“I know the way,” I snapped. It’s not fair. This was supposed to be romantic. My stupid eyes ruin everything.
“Of course you do.” A hand looped in mine, huge, rough fingers between my tiny ones, warm and reassuring. “But we can’t have that fine dress of yours getting torn up. Let me follow the path; you tell me where to go.”
I wiped the tears with the back of my hand, glad that in the gloom he couldn’t see my mascara running. This is stupid. Why did I think this would be a good date idea?
But I didn’t have a backup plan, or a torch, or even my mobile phone, so I let Heathcliff lead me down the path. I apologized every time I stepped on his heels or kicked his shins trying to avoid the roots. Ahead of me, behind me, below and above me – all the world was a deep, endless, terrifying void. Is this what I’ll see when I go blind?
After a time, I stopped bothering to apologize or to avoid the obstacles in my path. I switched my grip to Heathcliff’s elbow and glided along in his wake. Heathcliff was a force of nature, and I had no choice but to be swept up with him, letting go of control and trusting the darkness.
Trusting the darkness. Would I ever feel at home in this gloom?
“We’ve reached a fork,” Heathcliff said after a little while. “Which way?”
“Left. We keep going until we reach a tiny stream.”
We turned. Sounds reached my ears, close, but growing distant as we descended. Voices. Kids laughing. A rap song playing out of tinny USB speakers. And above it all – the bubbling water of the stream, rushing faster than I remembered as it swelled from the winter rains. The water grew louder, and the path widened out and became steeper, the trees loosening their oppressive weight on us. My feet slid over rocks and pebbles.
Heathcliff turned and gripped my sides, holding my weight easily as he helped me down the steep, rocky slope. At the bottom I stood upright, tugging Heathcliff’s arm until he drew up against me. I pressed myself into the bulk of his body, and listened. I couldn’t see the water, but I heard it, the sound bringing me back to my childhood – reading books on a flat rock in this very spot, tucked away out of sight from the kids who hung out further up the stream.
My temples pounded from the effort of straining my eyes in the darkness, but I didn’t care. Euphoria washed over me. We got here in the end, and it’s still the same. It smelled and sounded exactly the way I remembered. So what if the date wasn’t working out quite the way I hoped? I didn’t need to see Heathcliff to know how fucking hot he looked, or how good his body felt pressed up against mine.
“You can’t see this place from the road, and most people go the other way because there’s a flat area that’s nicer for sitting,” I said. “Ashley and I used to skip school and walk out here. We’d listen to punk songs on an old Discman and draw fashion sketches. Once, we even went skinny-dipping in the stream.”
Heathcliff grunted. Beside me, his body stiffened.
“Don’t get excited – it was a disaster. Turns out, the stream’s only knee deep, so we just waddled around in the buff. Then something bit Ashley’s foot, and I got an ugly red rash from the weeds that didn’t disappear for a week. I’ve never gone skinny-dipping since. Can you see a long, flat rock anywhere?”
“Over here.” Heathcliff led me over to it. I felt around the edges with my hands, satisfied it was as I remembered and big enough for two. I unrolled a blanket from the top of my bag, spread it out on the rock, and sat down. A bitter chill rose off the water, blasting me in the face and drying my tears. The rock hugged me in familiar places – cool, reassuring, as much a part of me as the man who now sat down beside me, his thigh pressed against mine.
I opened my bag and laid out the food I’d brought earlier – a fresh loaf of bread from Greta’s bakery, slices of chorizo and prosciutto, some fancy cheese, a bag of grapes, and two of Greta’s amazing cream doughnuts. I handed Heathcliff a knife and ordered him to slice the bread and cheese while I poured us both a glass of wine.
“You thought of everything,” he said as I unscrewed the lid of a jar of Mrs. Ellis’ homemade strawberry preserve.
“I’m quite clever, you know.” I handed him a plastic cup filled with champagne, and he slid a slice of bread loaded with cheese and chorizo into my open hand. I bit into it, savoring the spicy meat and sharp cheddar.
“Don’t say that. You sound like Morrie. I don’t want to think about Morrie tonight.”
“Did I choose the perfect spot for our date?” I sipped my Champagne, the bubbles tickling my tongue.
“You did.” Heathcliff’s warm breath caressed my cheek as he leaned close to me. “I didn’t even know about this wood. If I had, I’d probably come more often. I don’t get out into nature as much as I should.”
“Is it because it reminds you of Wuthering Heights?”
Heathcliff paused. “Probably. It’s more that the England of my world doesn’t exist here, not for me – the moors were the last true wild place, ethereal and menacing in equal measure. Their wild beauty hid danger and memory and a dream that withered into dust.”
“The moors still exist, you know. You could go back there and be close to her memory.” Or her legend. To him, they were the same thing.
“I cannot.”
“Why not? Sell the shop. Buy a cottage in the middle of nowhere. You’d never have to see a customer again—”
“Don’t say such things, Mina,” Heathcliff growled. His plastic cup crinkled as he took a long sip of Champagne. “Don’t think I haven’t considered it.”
“Then why do you stay? Surely one of the other fictional characters could run the shop, someone who’s better with people. There’s nothing to keep you her
e—”
“You’re here.”
Heat crept into my cheeks. “But I’ve only been here a few weeks. You could have gone before that.”
“I have a duty,” he said, stiffening.
“To Mr. Simson? But why?”
“Because of you!” he yelled, standing up and scattering food across the rocks. “Why must you ask so many bloody questions?”
“I don’t know, why do you never give me a straight bloody answer? You can’t just drop a bombshell like that and expect me not to ask more. Why because of me?”
Heathcliff breathed heavily. Tension rippled between us as the river roared in my ears. “Mr. Simson told me to wait for a girl to return to the shop. He said this girl was extremely important to all of us, and that she was in great danger, and we were to keep her safe. He described you. Or at least, we’re pretty sure it was you. That blind codger’s description wasn’t exactly resplendent with visual detail. But when you walked into the shop and told that story about how you used to spend all your time there as a child, and Quoth realized you could hear his thoughts, we guessed he meant you.”
I remembered something I’d overheard Quoth saying in his raven form, on the very first day I walked into the shop. She’s the one… I’d assumed he meant, “she’s the only one who’ll put up with your bollocks,” but this… I couldn’t believe it.
“And that’s why you gave me the job. Because Mr. Simson told you to. This is insane. Why would Mr. Simson ask you to wait for me?”
“I know as much as you do, which is nothing. Morrie’s current assumption is that Mr. Simson used the master bedroom to travel into the bookshop’s future and see that you were in danger. He’s desperate to try it himself.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Is this why Quoth is following me home every night and sitting on the end of my bed? Because you all think I’m in danger? What kind of peril am I in that I can’t handle myself?”
“He didn’t elaborate.”
“Well, you can stop bloody protecting me. I don’t need it.”
“Not going to happen,” Heathcliff growled. “Danger follows you around like a curse. Not a single person died in Nevermore Bookshop until you showed up. We’re not taking chances. One of us has been near you every moment from the time you walked into the shop. We take turns, making sure you’re always safe.”
They’ve been shadowing me, spying on me? I balled my hands into fists and shot to my feet. “You can’t just spy on me without telling me!”
“I’m telling you now.”
“You should have told me the first day. This is my life. I had a right to know.”
“Not just your life,” he snapped. “This danger will come down on all our heads.”
“If I’m such a bloody danger to you all,” I screamed into Heathcliff’s face, “then why bother keeping me around?”
“Mina.” My name rumbled from Heathcliff’s lips.
“Just fire me, Heathcliff. Rip off the Band-Aid. You don’t even like me, anyway. You’re just doing this out of some misguided sense of duty to Mr. Simson. Well, I’m not anyone’s pity project. You’d be better off if I never came into your life. You’d be—”
“Oh, fuck it,” Heathcliff growled. Something warm pressed against my lips.
Heathcliff.
All my protests flew from my head as Heathcliff devoured me, his tongue hot and demanding. He took no prisoners, wasted no time, not now that he’d declared what he wanted.
He wants me. Heathcliff wants me.
The rage inside me burned into hot passion, and I returned the kiss with everything I had. Heathcliff moaned as I sucked on his lower lip and met his ferocity with my own. Weeks of pent-up frustration flowed between us, as with hands and mouth and tongues we said all those things we’d tiptoed around for too long.
In the darkness, every sensation heightened. His kisses lit a line of fire straight through my body. Heathcliff’s arms went around me, clutching me against him as he poured his passion and his rage into me, and I drank it up and threw it back.
Heathcliff’s weight drove me back against the rock. His hands cupped my breasts, my ass, my cheeks, my hips. He explored with wild abandon, his hands everywhere at once, leaving me panting, breathless. My plastic cup of Champagne toppled over as I lay back on the blanket, splashing liquid over the blanket. I don’t care. Heathcliff’s hands are on my body.
“Mina,” he growled, his hands sliding underneath me, tugging the jersey dress up over my hips. “Do you want me to stop?”
“Fuck no.”
“Good.” Heathcliff pulled the dress up, yanked down my leggings, and dived between my legs.
Chapter Sixteen
Heathcliff didn’t waste time teasing me like Morrie did. His tongue found the perfect spot and he attacked it with all his wrath and fervor, wading in like some ancient warrior to render my body a helpless, quivering mess.
My back arched against the hard rock and tiny pinpricks of light penetrated the darkness – the stars twinkling in the night sky. A universe opening itself up to me as Heathcliff opened up my body, my heart.
He sucked my clit into his mouth and I was gone gone gone, tumbling wildly through the darkness, losing myself to the void of pleasure. My body shuddered as fire tore through my veins.
No sooner had a final shudder rolled through me then Heathcliff was back, cupping my cheek, pulling my face to his for another breathtaking kiss. He fumbled with his own clothing. Buttons pinged over the stones and plopped into the stream. I dug my fingers beneath Heathcliff’s shirt, pressing my palms against his chest. His heart beat beneath my touch, alive and unburdened.
He yanked my legs around his waist, pulled a condom from somewhere and rolled it on, and fell against me like a man possessed, his fingers clawing at my skin as he leaned me back against the rock and entered me in a single deep thrust.
Yes, yes!
When Heathcliff drove himself inside me, a sliver of blue light arced across my eyes. I should have been terrified, but instead, I realized it was beautiful. My own personal fireworks display to match the fire in my veins.
If not for his arms pinning me in place, his powerful thrusts would’ve sent me sailing off the back of the rock. To him, my body was the battlefield where he waged a war against his own conscience.
In the moment, I didn’t care, because his arms were around me and his cock was inside me and he felt so, so good.
The heat of our bodies clung to our skin, cocooning us in warmth against the frigid night. Heathcliff’s kisses trailed across my face. His hand held my body, while he thrust and thrust and thrust, abandoning what little decorum he possessed and giving in to the wild, possessive man I’d fallen in love with between the pages of a book.
Heathcliff moaned as he thrust into me, his voice deep and tight with lust and pain. I rose up to meet him, grinding my thighs to push him deeper, to take his pain and make it mine. His fingers dug into my thigh, an exquisite sting that sent me closer to the edge.
I came again with the night cool against my face and a crackle of neon blue light streaking across my vision. Fireworks exploded in my body and behind my eyes. With a bellow, Heathcliff came too, his muscles tensing and releasing as his cock quivered inside me, a lion roaring his defiance into the night.
For a moment, for a single glorious moment while the frigid air brushed my body and Heathcliff clasped me to him, I thought it would be okay that I went blind. Because even when I couldn’t see and crazy neon fireworks danced in my eyes, I could still feel. In Heathcliff’s hands, and Morrie’s hands, there were so many good things to feel.
And then the moment faded, and the chill bit my bones, and the blue light kept dancing and I couldn’t see the stars. I scrambled to pull on my dress and hide my face from Heathcliff, because even though I couldn’t see, he might notice my tears and think they were because of him.
“Would you like to walk a while?” he asked, brushing dirt off my coat and winding my scarf around my neck. He picked up the rubbish fr
om our picnic and slung the tote bag over his shoulder. “We could head through the wood to the fields, where it’s brighter.”
I wiped my face on the edge of my scarf. “I’d love that.”
We linked arms again, and I gave over my trust to Heathcliff, allowing him to lift me up the steep bank and lead me back along the path. With every step his body straightened, his muscles remembering how to duck and run and ramble.
I itched to say something about what just happened. I desperately needed to know what Heathcliff was thinking about him and me, and me and Morrie. But Heathcliff wasn’t Morrie. He didn’t talk things to death and consider all the angles. He didn’t have some grand scheme in mind. If I wanted to untangle Heathcliff, I’d have to parse his mind from the intelligible grunts he occasionally deemed to throw my way.
Further up the path, he diverged down another route, one that would carry us to the edge of the forest, where ramblers’ paths were built-up by the Council and villagers walked their dogs or rode bikes in the weekends. Soon, we weren’t walking on bare dirt and tree roots but a wooden boardwalk.
“Interesting,” Heathcliff said.
“What?” I asked, my breath coming out in a rush. Are we actually going to talk about what just happened?
But no.
“Some of these trees have been cut down,” Heathcliff said. “There’s an earthmover and some other equipment over there. It looks as if Gray Lachlan might have jumped the gun on starting work on clearing trees for his development.”
I was disappointed, but also interested. If the Lachlans had started to push ahead with groundworks on the second stage of the development, before the committee tossed back their application again… I wondered if the police knew about this.
The oppressive weight of the trees lifted once more, and I knew we’d come to the edge of the forest, where a great wildflower meadow gave way to farmland further down the valley. Solar lights on sticks dotted the edges, giving me a faint glimpse at the tall wildflowers that surrounded me.
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