I almost feel bad, but when she turns back to look at me there’s fire in her gaze too, that haunted expression from earlier completely gone. I wonder if that means her ghost is gone, too. I send out a silent apology for even thinking it, but it feels like whatever’s burning between us in this moment is meant only for us. It’s something private, something sacred.
Something that’s going to change everything.
We dry and dress ourselves in separate changing rooms, but somehow we walk out at exactly the same time, her hand slipping into mine as we push through the glass doors and out into the night.
There’s something special about Whitby at this hour. Now that it’s pretty much deserted, it’s like a completely different place. There’s magic in the sound of waves crashing onto a silent shore, in the way the streetlights’ warm glow picks out only the highlights of buildings, leaving the rest to the shadows.
And there’s magic in the way Florence’s hand feels in mine– her cool skin soft against my palm, our fingers knotted together. We don’t talk about where we’re going– we don’t talk at all, in fact– but we end up on Flowergate anyway, and I feel the subtle tightening of Florence’s grip on my hand as we duck through the alley. It feels like a question, or maybe it’s a promise.
We don’t discuss her coming in, but she follows me up the stone steps anyway, as if she can read my mind. There isn’t a single part of me that wants her anywhere but here. The door slams behind her with a surprising amount of force, and she stares at it for a moment or two before she looks back at me. She nods an answer to a question I don’t think I’ve asked and a wave of cold air sweeps past me and then dissipates, vanishing into the night.
Florence’s ghost.
‘He was here?’ I ask and Florence spins to look at me, shock lining the edges of her expression. It’s the first time either of us has spoken since we left the leisure centre.
After a few beats, she nods, worrying her lip with her front teeth. ‘I think he gave us his blessing.’
There’s a weight to her words, a crackle of tension that fires between us as I realise what she means. Her eyes are fixed on mine, a blaze of copper and caramel searing every spot they land on.
I fall into her orbit immediately. I don’t even put up a fight. In two short strides I’m in front of her, my hand reaching for her, settling under her jaw. I see the way she shivers as my fingertips graze her neck, the way she leans into my touch.
‘What did he ask you?’
Florence blinks back at me, pausing a moment before she answers. But something’s different now. The way she’s looking at me is different. There’s nothing guarded about her expression the way there used to be. Instead, she meets me head on.
‘He asked if I wanted him to go.’
I suck in a sharp breath. ‘Florence, you didn’t have to?—’
‘I didn’thaveto,’ she interrupts. ‘Iwantedto.’ One finger traces the edge of a button on my shirt, at once hesitant and bold. ‘This… it’s about us. Nobody else.’
My heart roars in my chest, warmth and pride bubbling up through me. I stroke my thumb over the delicate skin below her lower lip, watching as the contact makes her eyelids flutter, a tiny sigh blowing cool air over my forearm.
‘This?’ I ask, even though I don’t need to. Because I know exactly what she means. I just want to hear her say it.
‘This,’ she repeats, taking a step back and drawing me with her. ‘Whatever it is that happens when I’m with you.’ She steps back again and her back bumps the edge of the breakfast bar. She doesn’t even flinch. ‘The way I haven’t had a pulse in a century and a half, but when you look at me like that, I can still feel the ghost of it deep in my belly.’ Her eyes darken, teeth dimpling her lip. ‘It makes me feel like someone scooped out my insides and replaced them with molten lava. Is that a human thing?’
I laugh softly, barely more than a breath, and then my hands find her hips and hoist her up onto the breakfast bar in one fluid move.
‘No, Florence,’ I grit out, resting my body between her spread legs. ‘I think it’s a me-and-you thing.’
ChapterTwenty
FLORENCE
This time I don’t need to feel his heart beating through his chest. Not with my hands, anyway. This time his pulse is beating a rhythm that resonates through his entire body. I feel it like a symphony: the quickening of his breath, the rumble of a low groan deep in his throat, the scrape of his fingernails in the hair at the nape of my neck.
And that frantic beat of his heart, underscoring it all.
He’s playing it cool with his ‘you-and-me thing’ line, but his body lays every truth bare, right out in front of me.
He wants this.
He wantsme.
And I have to stop telling myself that I don’t feel it too. Even if it’s not the right time. Even if I’m scared to death by just how mortal he could be.
I thought I was drawn to him because he looked so much like Josiah, and maybe at the beginning that was true, but the more time we spend together, the more I see him for who he is. Not a second chance with Josiah, but something else entirely– something special in his own right.