He looked at her as she spoke. No one would ever call his drinking habits a project. “I wasn’t sleeping,” he shook his head, although she hadn’t asked. He might have been tired from the trip to the new island, but it didn’t mean he was able to close his eyes and easily drift to a slumber either. “But I can’t say I was up to anything else either,” he shook his head.
It was a surprising change of pace when she rose from the couch and tugged on his hand, especially cause when he saw what she was doing, he half-expected Emerson to walk to the door and out into the stormy night instead. She always felt like a flight risk.
Maybe it was sad how easily he complied with what Emerson wanted out of him, but this was his life, and if he could make his peace with it, why did others feel entitled to pipe in? Flynn wondered as he made the way across the hallway, following the youngest Tulach’s sylphid form. If this was some type of dream or drunken mirage, he would hold onto it for as long as he could.
He laid in his bed with her, staring into Emerson’s liquid gold eyes while his fingertips brushed up and down her side in a gentle caress. Flynn moved his head a little to deposit a kiss on the inside of her wrist. The navigator watched her profile in the pale light that filtered through the draperies of his bedroom. “I’m glad you’re here, too,” he whispered back at her. “Don’t get me wrong, you fuck with my head in several different ways, but I’ll still take that over the alternative,” he explained. The only other choice was to live without her, and Flynn wasn’t sure it was something he would still be able to do.
Emerson’s expression softened as Flynn’s lips grazed the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist. Maybe it wasn’t often that they lie together like this yet she had never felt so relaxed when they did. Every time she stayed, it was a war within herself. Flynn quieted any demons that plagued her, but she found herself constantly conflicted.
Ordinarily, this was something she would overthink. And ramble. And try to justify, rather than just lay quietly. Or try to figure out why he calmed her. Why everything seemed to just stand still. Why hours felt like minutes. Emerson could spend days with Flynn, whether those days were spent tangled in the sheets or doing just about anything else, it felt like no time passed at all. Like now, she was simply...relaxed. And more so than she had felt in months.
“You fuck with mine, too,” she admitted.
He fucked with her head so badly. Enough that she attempted to escape from him by leaving to another island to try and clear it, yet the confusion stayed and the longing intensified. Emerson broke her rules for him. Flynn had been in her villa more times than she count count and he stayed. She went back to him continuously. He had seen her break. He had helped her pick herself back up. She showed him genuine affection and what was even worse, she allowed him to do the same.
As she wallowed, her fingers caressed along his jaw, threaded into his hair. There was no motive behind the soft brush of her lips over his, at least this time.
“I’m sorry I left without telling you. I was offered this position here, to ready this new island, and I had to take it.”
