SHROUDS
Harper
MY EYES PEEL OPEN, ADJUSTING to the light in my bedroom. Scattered thoughts and fractured nightmares arrange into my first conscious thoughts.
Something is wrong.
There’s motion in the bed. A tremor. A foreign sound.
I roll onto my side and see Nolan facing away from me, his body shaking. His back is exposed, his skin covered in a thin film of sweat.
Though I’ve caught glimpses of it before, I can now see the full length of the straight scar that runs down his neck, dotted on either side with the healed marks of sutures or staples. A sound resonates from him, like a word he can’t quite form in sleep. It’s desperate. Like a plea.
I lay a hand on his shoulder. “Nolan …” He lets out another low, rumbling note of distress that forms a crevice in my heart. “Nolan … wake up …”
In a sudden flurry of movement, he flips over, his hand landing on my neck. His fingers notch beneath my jaw as he looms over me. His hair is damp with sweat, his eyes wild. Fear is painted across his features. When a few beats of my hammering pulse thrum into his fingertips, he finally blinks away the nightmare, processing the world in front of him. A shudder racks his body, and then he hangs his head, his forehead resting on my collarbone as he expels a long breath. “I’m sorry,” he whispers against my skin.
“It was just a nightmare,” I say, laying a tentative hand on the nape of his neck. His skin is hot and slick beneath my palm.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I gently squeeze the back of his neck, but he doesn’t seem reassured, as though whatever he saw in his dreams is still too vivid to let go. And I know what that’s like. At first, I was too exhausted to dream. But the last two nights, he’s the one who’s woken me from visions of hitting the water. Every time I thrashed or called out, he was there with a quiet word to wake me. But this is the first time I’ve seen him sleep. I wonder if he’s been suffering nightmares all this time, and I just never knew. “Are you?”
Nolan lifts his head. His haunted eyes travel over my face, his fingers still collecting every beat of my heart as though it could stop without his touch. Though Arthur and Lukas and even Irene and Maya came to visit, it was Nolan who stayed. He spent three days at my side in the hospital. I don’t know how he convinced the staff to let him stay, but he did, and he remained at my side the whole time. Whether it was waiting in the hall while I had X-rays to check for broken bones and fluid in my lungs, or watching from my bedside as I was given oxygen and IVs to combat edema and infection, or simply providing a steadying hand to help me out of bed to go to the bathroom, Nolan was there. And it seems like he’s still not convinced that it’s enough.
He wasn’t enthusiastic about my insistence on leaving the hospital so quickly. And he was absolutely not receptive to my suggestion that we resume our exhumations last night either. We finally arrived at a compromise: I would tell him the location of the next three burial sites, and he would handle the dig on his own, returning to my cottage when he was done. I tried to stay up and wait for him to get back, but the fatigue is still so consuming that I collapsed into bed shortly after dark and I never woke when he returned. I didn’t expect him to lie in bed next to me, but now that he’s here, there’s a rightness to it. It feels like he’s meant to be here. And I never expected it, but now I’m afraid of how much it will hurt when he’s not.
“It’s all I can see,” he finally says. His touch travels from my neck to lie on my chest. My sternum and ribs are sore and bruised beneath my thin tank top. But my heart beats through the pain because of him. “Why can’t you swim?”
I let out a breath of a laugh. “I fell into a pool when I was a toddler and nearly drowned. I refused to learn after that. I guess my parents didn’t want to deal with the theatrical tantrum I threw whenever they tried to take me for swimming lessons, so they just … gave up.”
“I hate that very much.”
“I’m not sure it would have made much of a difference given the circumstances, but yeah. I think I hate it too,” I say. A crease deepens between his brows as Nolan shifts to the side, lifting the hem of my shirt to inspect the bandage that covers the slice made by his knife. “How’d it go at the river?”
“Fine,” he says, his attention still caught on the wound. “I found two bodies. I’ll get the other one tomorrow. I brought them back here and hid them in the garden shed for now. What have you been doing with them?”
“Woodchipper.”
Nolan’s eyes flick to mine. “You know the bones don’t just dissolve, right?”
“It’s not like I’m making them into wall hangings and selling them on Etsy. I am burying them.”
My joke doesn’t seem to soften his hard expression. “And what if someone decides they want to come along and dig them up?”
“They’d have to suspect me first.”
Nolan lets out a long sigh as he sits up, running a hand through his hair. I let my eyes travel over every inch of his skin. I’ve never had the chance to look at his body up close in the light before. And now he’s casually sitting in my bed like he’s always been here, all his bruises and scars on display.
Those scars don’t just stop at his skin. They run deep. I can almost see it, the way they tug and pull and warp his thoughts. He’s afraid.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, propping myself up on an elbow.
“Sam is watching you,” Nolan says, turning enough to give me a single eye, his expression one of torment. “He has pictures. Notes and dates and times. Observations of your behavior.”
I swallow, my pulse quickening. “I figured.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I did, about the drone. And considering he had no qualms about trespassing on the Ballantyne River property, it was probably a given that he’d take no issue with following me around on occasion.”
“He could have followed us to the river. He could have seen something suspicious. We’re digging up dead bodies on Arthur’s land that he buried in rye sacks from the distillery, for fucksakes.”
“I have no choice,” I say as Nolan drags a hand down his face and levels me with a hard stare. “There are only days left before the sale closes. We have to get all of them out before that happens. Viceroy could start work right away, and what happens then? Arthur’s last years on this planet will not be spent in prison. I can’t let that happen.” I lay a hand on his arm, squeezing the snake beneath my palm. “It’s only four bodies left. We can do that in a couple of nights, if we work together. But I have to get it done.
Even if I dig alone and you keep an eye on Sam, we can figure something out.”
“I’m not letting you do it by yourself.” The sharp edge in his eyes softens just a little, and though it’s obvious he’s not pleased, it’s more worry than anger that I see. “I only saw a few photos of Arthur. Most of them were of you. Why?”
“Proximity probably has something to do with it,” I hedge. “But maybe he’s trying to work me out. I’m sure he already has a lot banked up on
Arthur.”
“Is there something I need to know?”
I hesitate for a beat, sitting up with a wince that I hope he’ll attribute to my bruised ribs. “You know the most important parts already,” I say. “You know I’m not … good. I’ve done horrible things. You know I’ll do whatever it takes to protect Arthur and Lukas and Cape Carnage.” Nolan gives me a subtle, thoughtful nod, his eyes dropping from mine, resting on my lips for just a moment before his gaze lands on the bed. He doesn’t say it, but I think he knows there’s so much more that I just can’t reveal. But he also seems to know that asking again won’t yield a different result. “You
know how to bring me back to life.”
His focus snaps right back to me.
“I don’t just mean pulling me from the water, Nolan. I mean … I forgot what it was like. What I was missing. It’s been a long time since I let myself
feel this way.”
“Feel what way?”
My lip slides between my teeth. His gaze drops to the motion and I’m sure he thinks I’ll just clamp down on my words. Maybe I should, but when I reflect on our interactions, every time I’ve defied the rational voice that told me to stay away from him, the risk has paid off. If I hadn’t walked with him the first time we met, maybe he would have found me and killed me right away. If I hadn’t risked forcing an alliance, we wouldn’t be sitting in my bed, trying to figure out what we really mean to each other.
So I place my hand on his. I wait until he meets my eyes. “It feels like I can take a risk and trust you with all the worst versions of myself without scaring you away. Like even when I want to fight against you, I’m still fighting with you, because I know you’re still on my side. Like I can let you in at my own pace, even though I’m afraid.” I let my hand travel up his arm, my touch slowing over the ouroboros tattoo, a gentle caress over its infinite battle to consume itself. I trace the tense muscles, rising to his shoulder, not stopping until I fold my hand around the back of his neck. My eyes never leave Nolan’s as I draw him closer, until I can see every variegated shade in the wedge of brown. “It feels like I can finally take a deep breath.”
Maybe I can’t say everything I truly feel. That he’s chipping away at my heart, and I don’t know how it’s happening, but I don’t want it to stop. I show him my worst and he’s still here. And every day that passes, I think it has less to do with what I have over him, and more to do with me. But even though I might not be ready to put every thought out into the open, I can still show him how I feel. So I rise to my knees. I lay my hands on his warm face. I close the distance between us, pressing my lips to his as my eyes drift closed. And I kiss him with every emotion that I’m still struggling to understand. I pour what I can’t say right into my touch.
Nolan’s hand threads into my hair. But when I try to pull him down onto the bed with me, he resists. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he says when I draw away.
A wicked smile stalks across my face. I grab the hem of my shirt and drag it up my body, tossing it on the floor like a dare. My shorts go next.
“Liar.”
Nolan’s eyes darken and he levels me with a serious stare. It looks like it takes effort to keep his eyes on mine as he lays a hand to my sternum. “You know what I mean. You’re still recovering.”
“But I like when you make it hurt,” I whisper against his skin before I bite his bottom lip, raking my teeth over the tender flesh as I let it go. His pupils consume all but a thin band of color in his eyes. “You like a little pain too.”
Nolan hesitates for only a heartbeat before he dives back into the kiss, biting me back as he pinches one of my nipples between his fingers, delivering a hit of pain with the pleasure, sparking the need for more. When I break the kiss on a gasp, he seals his mouth over the peak of my breast, taking my nipple between his teeth. My nails rake across his scalp as my desperate moan fills the room.
“I can take more,” I whisper when he breaks away to press a line of kisses and gentle bites up my chest and onto my neck.
“I know you can. And you will. I have plans for you.” One swift bite clamps down on my neck, and though I whimper with need, he lets go. I know it’s a promise, one meant for another time. “But not today.”
His arms fold around me, his eyes not leaving mine as he lays me down.
Every motion is gentle. Careful. As though I’m not someone to harm, but someone to cherish.
“Do you remember what I told you?” he asks as one of his calloused palms lands on my thigh, traveling up my skin with agonizing slowness. He traces a line to my clit, swirling slowly over the sensitive bundle of nerves.
“That I was a brat?” I snicker as a low growl rumbles in his chest. He gives my clit a pinch before resuming a gentle caress. Antagonizing Nolan in any form possible has become my favorite game. “Yeah, I remember that pretty clearly.”
“No,” he says, drawing the word out like a warning. Again, his expression becomes serious as he tugs his gray sweatpants over his hips and
kicks them off. “I said the next time I fucked you, I was going to claim you.”
He lines his erection up to my pussy, notching the head at my entrance but not pushing deeper. “Claim me?” I whisper as he keeps his touch on my clit and his cock at my center. “What does that mean?”
Nolan’s brow furrows as his gaze travels over my skin, leaving a trail of heat behind. “It means I promised I would hunt you until the end of time.
And what I get at the end of that hunt might change, but one thing remains the same. You’re mine, Harper. I’ll never let anyone take you from me. Not some asshole like McMillan. Not Sam Porter. Not even the sea.”
I swallow, feeling like I’m running to the edge of another cliff. “What if I don’t want to belong to anyone but myself?”
“You don’t understand.” He pushes just a little deeper, but not enough.
He knows I need more. “You can do what you want. Run and hide. Stay and fight. Love me or hate me—it doesn’t matter. It’s not going to change a fucking thing for me.”
I should be terrified. He stares right into me as he makes his vow. And it could be deadly. All I have to go on is trust. Trust in my instincts. Trust in him. But maybe that’s part of the thrill. This man who would have scoured every corner of the world to kill me will tear it apart to save me.
I lay both hands on his face and draw him closer. “Prove you mean every word.”
With just a breath of time, the world reduces to my room. My bed. This man and me. He slides into me, filling me slowly, my body stretching around his girth until I don’t know where he ends and I begin. And his eyes are on me the whole time. It isn’t until he’s as deep as he can go that he finally slants his lips to mine.
This isn’t the vicious torrent of anger. Or the bite of desire. This is longing. Every kiss is slow. Every touch is purposeful. Every part of me aches as he glides in slow strokes within me. Even the parts he can’t see or taste or feel. When he threads his fingers with mine and holds my hand tight, there’s a twinge of pain, but it blooms deep in my chest. It takes root in a place that’s been dark for so long that it burns as it’s touched by light.
I map every muscle of his back. I trace every scar. The softness of his skin, the hardness of bone. I consume every inch of his flesh with my touch.
Sandalwood and cedar flood every breath I take. I’m drowning. Drowning in his scent and his touch and his kiss. In his promises.
The rhythm of his slow thrusts grows stronger. I hook one leg over his back and he grabs my thigh, his fingers pressing into my flesh but his touch is still gentle, reverential. He breaks from my lips to layer kisses across my jaw, down my throat. A soft bite lands on my pulse. When I moan with the need for more, I can feel his smile in the kiss that lingers on my neck.
“I’ll make it hurt next time, if that’s what you want,” he whispers into my ear in a decadent vow. I shudder at the thought, my core clenching with immediate need. “But this time, you’re going to be my good girl and take it sweet.”
Something seems hidden beneath his words. I tilt my head and force him to meet my eyes. “Why?”
Nolan sweeps the hair away from my face. His thrusts slow to a halt. A crease flickers between his brows as his eyes linger on the sweat gathering at my hairline. When they return to mine, that fissure of darkness seems to glow against the green. “I need to know I can have you without destroying you.”
My lungs trap a breath beneath my bones. It takes a long moment before I can let it go. “I trust you,” I finally say. I run my fingers through his damp hair. Press my palms harder to his back. “I mean it.”
I draw him down into my kiss. I show him that I mean every word. It could be reckless. Dangerous. Deadly. But that’s the price I’m willing to pay to feel alive.
Our kiss doesn’t break as Nolan’s cadence of thrusts resumes, gliding with rocking strokes. Every touch feels reverential, from the caress of his tongue across mine to the way his thumb traces a pattern across my thigh. I map his scars, committing each one to memory. When I trace the one down the back of his neck, he shudders. For a moment, I think I’ve made a mistake, bringing him back to a memory he thinks he has of me when a quiet growl rumbles in his chest. But the longing in his kiss only deepens.
His fingers caress my cheek. His strokes grow more powerful. I do it again
and he breaks the kiss just long enough to whisper my name. My heart feels like it’s shedding a layer of ice, thawing beneath his warmth.
He keeps hold of my leg and raises my ass from the bed, angling my hips to take him even deeper. His pace grows stronger. More urgent. I whimper as he pistons into me, every muscle coiling tighter as I edge closer and closer to unraveling. And then he pulls my hand away from his neck long enough to prompt it down to my center, a wordless request for me to touch myself. I slide my fingers between us and I press my touch to my clit and moan into his mouth.
Nolan pulls just far enough away to stare down into my face. “You consume every waking thought. Every fucking dream. I tried to hate you for it. But I can’t. I don’t.” His touch trails over my pulse. I wonder whether he thinks about how desperately he once hoped to snuff it out, or that my heart beats because of him. “Come apart for me.”
It’s as though he commands my body. Like he can conjure whatever he wants. The moment the demand leaves his lips, an orgasm builds until it washes through me. My lips part. My eyes close. Pleasure shatters through me, igniting every cell. My back bows from the bed and I feel the desperate unraveling of Nolan above me. He grits out my name as his final thrusts strike deep and hard, a tremor racking his body as he fills me with his cum.
Though it feels as though it could last forever, the orgasm gradually passes. His strokes slow to a stop, but he stays buried in my pussy. “So fucking beautiful,” Nolan whispers, and with a kiss to the lashes of each of my closed eyes, he lets his weight sink onto me. It’s a delicious pressure that I savor. Heat and heartbeats. Scents and caresses.
I trace long, slow lines down his spine. The sun is starting to color the world outside the window with shades of overcast gray. I’d like to imagine the outside world will never creep into this sanctuary, but there are too many fears and adversaries lying beyond that door for us to stay here much longer. And even though we remain entangled for a long while, it still feels too soon when Nolan checks his watch with a defeated groan and pulls away.
“I’d like to stay, but I should really go,” he says, dragging his bag closer to the bed to pull a pair of briefs from its depths. I realize I must be showing
more disappointment than I intended, because his expression softens. “I want to keep tabs on Sam. You should get some rest anyway, and I’m not sure that’ll happen if I’m here.”
I scoff, though I know he’s probably right. “I can control myself.”
“I can’t.”
When I smile, he does too, the dimples appearing in his cheeks. I think this is the lightest I’ve seen him since that day we met at A Shipwrecked Bean. But even now, I can see the mounting worries that haunt his eyes.
“I’ll see you later?” I ask.
Nolan runs his hand over my hair. Presses a kiss to my forehead. “Yeah.
You will. Try to get some rest.”
I stay in bed to leave him some space to gather himself up and depart.
But my thoughts follow him like a storm that hugs the horizon. I know I’m putting him in danger, especially if it’s true that Sam is following me around and taking photos and notes. Sam has already broken more than one law in pursuit of his story. Who’s to say he won’t find a way into Lancaster Manor to look for something concrete that will finally connect Arthur to La Plume? I don’t want anything damning in my possession, or Arthur’s, that could be linked to Nolan if he does.
I slide my phone off my nightstand, chewing my bottom lip as I send a text to Lukas.
Hey, Lukas.
A short moment later, I receive a text with a meme of an octopus chasing a scuba diver onto a boat and a joke I’m sure Lukas has been dying to make:
I’ve seen enough hentai to know where this is going.
Har har har. You’re so hilarious, Lukas.
I’ve been waiting to use that! How are you feeling?
A little sore, but getting there. I need to ask a favor.
Sure, what’s up?
The thing I gave you for safekeeping. Can you please get it for me and drop it by the cottage?
Sure, but it’ll have to wait until next week if that’s okay? I’m in Chicago for a whiskey conference.
I expel a long breath, pressing my eyes closed. I don’t like what I see when I do. It’s not just memories that surface on the black canvas, it’s threats to an uncertain future too.
On the shelves by the boiler, right?
Yeah … you can’t wait until I get back?
I wish I could, but I’m not willing to put Nolan at risk. I already left him once to the hands of fate. I’m not going to do it again.
I’ll be okay.
With a final note of thanks to Lukas, I head to the shower. In half an hour I’m entering Lancaster Manor, where “Leonore Overture No. 3” from Beethoven’s opera Fidelio rolls down the hallway from Arthur’s sitting room, one of his favorites. But I don’t go to see him. Instead, I’m standing at the entrance of the basement door by the kitchen.
Every beat of my heart scrapes at my bones. Sweat slips down my spine.
My breaths come in short pants. My palms are slick before I’ve even gripped the brass handle. It takes everything in me to turn it. Only one
thought keeps me going.
I need to give it back.
I flip on the light switch, the old incandescent bulb doing little to illuminate the cavernous dark. The smell of dampness and mildew rises to greet me like a noxious fog. I avoid this place for a reason. It smells exactly the same as my worst nightmares. I’m desperate to shut the door and run.
But I grip the cold iron railing and take my first step on the wooden plank.
One more step. One more step. One more.
By the time both my feet are on the packed dirt floor of the cellar, my whole body is shaking. The stone walls emanate the musky smell of earth that never dries. The exposed rafters overhead are covered with white
curtains of spiderwebs that waft in the breeze as I walk beneath them.
Decaying boxes rest on rusted shelves. The skeleton of a mouse lies curled next to a set of long-forgotten gardening tools.
“It’s not the same place,” I tell myself between shuddering breaths. I repeat that mantra with every step I take toward the furnace and boiler. I can see Nolan’s bag, the one item on the shelf not covered with a layer of dust.
I’m nearly there when I catch sight of the cellar doors that lead to the exterior of the house.
They’re exactly the same as the ones in Harvey Mead’s house.
I turn and vomit on the floor.
I’m shaking. Blinking at the floor. But I still see them. Those two cellar doors and the light that slid between the slats during the day, a heavy chain locking them closed from the outside. There weren’t any stairs. I could just barely touch the doors when I jumped. The first two days we were trapped there, I would get up on Adam’s shoulders and try to test the hinges or smash the wooden planks with my fist. Then Harvey Mead broke both Adam’s legs so we couldn’t reach them anymore.
I hear my own voice. Begging from memory. “He has an infection,” I’d pleaded on Adam’s behalf, pounding on the second door that led to the bowels of the house. This one we had no hope of breaching. It was made of iron with a slat in the middle where Mead would toss us bottles of cloudy water and half-eaten hamburgers, the patties covered in fly eggs. By that point, we’d become so desperately hungry that we stopped bothering to pick them off and consumed whatever he gave us, eggs and all. “Please help him.”
Eventually, he came to the door. Unlocked it. Dragged Adam away. And I should have fought him with my bare hands. I should have done something. But I was too afraid. Just like I was too afraid to sit with Nolan on the road and put myself square in the public eye that I was so desperate to escape from. I was the social media influencer who’d escaped a serial killer there at the scene of a hit-and-run. A target for the press and the public. I thought I couldn’t take the pressure of the publicity that would descend on me a second time. I feared the scrutiny I’d been trying so hard to avoid.
Tears streak down my face. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over the guilt of being the one who lived, or the woman who walked away. Or the grief of everything I lost. Or even my fear of waking alone in the dark.
But I can do something now.
I stumble to the shelves, grab the bag, and run, nearly toppling Arthur over when I bolt through the door and into the kitchen.
“Harper,” he breathes, catching my arms. I’m gasping for air, as though I’ve run a marathon. The stern stare that’s always etched into his skin from a lifetime of frowning softens when he takes in the state of me. “What are you doing? You were in the cellar …?” I nod. “Why …?”
“I had Lukas put something down there for safekeeping,” I say between ragged inhalations. “It belongs to Nolan. The guy at the theater …?” He looks at me blankly, and I can tell he’s unable to recall the specifics. “It doesn’t matter. I just had to give it back.”
“So you went downstairs …?” I nod, wiping my eyes with my sleeve. He knows I can hardly even look at the door. There are too many horrifying memories that lie in wait behind it. “My dear Harper,” Arthur says, folding me into an embrace. “You could have asked. I would have come. You don’t need to brave those demons alone.”
I weep, for the first time in a long, long time. And as the weight of the backpack and the secrets it carries shift over my spine, I think maybe he’s right.
Maybe I don’t have to brave them alone anymore.
