Fighting With Light (The Coldwell Brothers #2)

32. Liam

32

Liam

We hike down the mountain to the waterfall we passed on the way up. The sound is deafening and peaceful as it rushes against the rocks. I drop our bag against a tree and go check it out. Cliff diving is fun as long as you know the water below you is a good depth.

There are good places to jump at, but I need to check the water first. I make my way down to the large pool and glance at Aelia over my shoulder.

When I’m about halfway down, I hear a shriek, and my head whips up to find Aelia running and then jumping off the highest point of the waterfall.

“Aelia, no!” I yell, but it all happens so fast that there’s no time to stop her because she’s already jumped.

“Wahoo!” she screams as she falls. I watch in utter terror as she lands in the water and I scramble to get down there faster. A second goes by, then another, and my heart is pounding so hard I’m going to pass out from fear alone.

I can’t lose her. I tell myself as I hurry down what feels like one hundred feet to the water, but it’s probably only forty.

Then she pops her head up and cheers. My feet halt, and I collapse back onto my butt, trying to regain some sense of a steady heartbeat.

“That was awesome! Hey, Liam! Your turn!” she yells.

A cross between anger, relief, and the word I swore I would never use runs through my body with the adrenaline at an all-time high. She looks at me funny and starts swimming to the end where I stand. Anger wins out, and I get to the bottom of the pool, rip off my shirt, and dive in. I come up on her, halting her swim and I want to choke her, scream at her, and kiss her at the same time. Too many emotions are filling me and I’m struggling to filter them all .

The water is deep. I noticed that as I swam over to her, thank God. Otherwise, I would have been walking out of here with her body crumpled from impact, and that thought alone makes me want to puke again.

I reach for her, checking for breaks, sprains, cuts, anything. “Do you understand how stupid that was?” I ask her, skimming my hands over her body.

She shrugs. “But it was so much fun,” she says, smiling at me.

I shake my head, treading water.

“I’m fine, Liam,” she says quietly, realizing how angry I am.

“But you might not have been, Aelia, do you get that? You…I ….” I choke on my words because it’s hard for me to organize them. I turn around and swim closer to the edge, where some rocks come out of the water. I hear Aelia swim behind me and find a rock to stand on, but the water is still up to my chest.

She grabs my arm and pulls herself closer. My throat is still too tight to form sentences. She floats herself over to me, locks her legs around my waist, and takes my face between her hands.

“Hey,” she breathes.

I avoid her gaze and look at the water rushing down the falls smoothing out the rocks.

“Tarzan,” she coos.

I glance at her and then away again. I can’t even hold her. She’s wrapped around me all on her own.

“I’m okay,” she whispers.

Anger wins out yet again and I look her in the eye. “But what if you weren’t, Aelia? What if that water was only a foot deep? Huh? I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life for good reasons, so I regret very few of them. Carrying your body out of this jungle would have been the biggest regret of my life. I can carry a lot, but I couldn’t carry that,” I say as anger burns in my chest.

She stares into my eyes for a moment and nods. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I just…I didn’t think I just did. I—”

“Do you care if you live or die?” I ask her seriously.

She looks away and at the rocks behind me. “For a long time, no. I lived for the sake of my mother,” she whispers. “But now? Well…” She brings her hazel eyes to mine. “Now I think I do,” she whispers.

Tears brim in her eyes and I swallow the groan. I don’t want to make her cry, but I thought…I might have lost the one single love of my life and then I truly would have been done for. I would have become a fragment of the man I am, and most days, that barely feels like a man at all. With her, I am better, more focused, and perform at higher levels. She makes me want to try harder.

Aelia brings her arms around my neck and hugs herself to me, and I hesitate for a moment before squeezing her back. Her shoulders shudder with her silent cries and I hold her as she lets them out. I rub her back until her cries stop and she leans back to look at me.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” I tell her, wiping her tears.

“You didn’t make me cry,” she whispers and leans forward, brushing her lips on mine

She’s solidifying the forbidden connection between us and doesn’t know it. I lift my chin, kissing her lightly over and over again. Her teeth grab my lower lip before kissing me deeper and I take control, claiming Aelia Costa, the enemy of my enemy, and allow myself to love her.

I let that feeling burst through my chest and I hug her as tightly as I can, wanting, no , needing to feel all of her. She breaks away, panting against my cheek and I continue my exploration of her skin down her neck, over her collar, and to her shoulders. Aelia sighs as I suck on her skin and her fingers run through my hair. She’s so easy to get lost in, and yet I think I would be okay, never being found by anyone else but her.

“Liam,” she sighs. I pull my mouth away and she looks at me with bright eyes and puffy lips.

She opens her mouth as if to say something and my heart thunders.

No, she can’t say. If she says it, I will say screw the rest of this, we will disappear, we will make new lives for ourselves. I’ve got money, I’ll buy us an island if I have to. That’s how much control she has over me.

“Let’s go jump off a cliff,” I blurt .

Her face contorts from confused to happy and she presses a sloppy kiss on my mouth before swimming over to the edge. The moment she climbs out I realize she’s not wearing pants or a bra.

“Why the hell are you naked?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “I’m not completely naked. I didn’t want to wear wet clothes and shoes all the way back down so I split the difference because you need boots for cliff jumping.”

“You split the difference by keeping your underwear and boots on?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “It looks that way, doesn’t it?”

“You are a wild one, Aelia,” I grumble. She grins and starts climbing out, entirely unbothered that she is essentially naked, sans her boots. I can’t help but smile because that’s something I love about her, she does things then asks questions later, which I realize is quite reckless…but I do it all the time.

“Come on, slow poke!” she yells. And I hurry to follow her.

Once we get to the top, she looks over the edge and then at me. “Together?” she asks.

I smile and hold out my hand. “Together.”

We hold hands, take a few steps back, then run to the edge, launching ourselves off the side. Our hands separate as we fall into the pencil position. The smaller and thinner you make yourself when you fall from certain heights into the water, the better. It won’t knock the air out of your lungs and you won’t hit the water like concrete.

My head bursts to the surface about the same time as Aelia’s and we each take turns, jumping from different heights. I manage to do a backflip off one of the rocks and I can’t stop smiling at her because it feels good to be alive. We’re hidden away at the bottom of a volcano in El Salvador and it’s better than any wave I’ve surfed or any rock formation I’ve ever climbed. And it’s because of her.

“Liam!” Aelia calls. I look around for her and can’t find her swimming or up on one of the rocks.

“Where are you?” I call .

“Back here!” she yells, and it sounds like it’s coming from the waterfall. I swim over to the edge, wondering how she got back there. You can’t swim under the falls, it’s too heavy, so she must have figured a way around. There’s a section of the falls where the water doesn’t fall as hard, making it easier to go under.

“Come here, Tarzan,” she calls, and like a siren song I follow.

I swim under the softer water and find Aelia sitting on the edge of a rock with her boots and socks next to her while her feet dangle in the water. She found an alcove beneath the falls and there is enough space to sit beneath the rock where the water carved it out. “This is cool,” I tell her and haul myself up next to her.

“I wonder if at night there’s that glowing plankton here,” she says, looking up.

“I think those are just an ocean thing,” I say, wondering if they are here. I know they are at home.

“Oh,” she sighs.

“Maybe I can take you when we get to California?” I ask her.

She smiles and nods. “I would like that.”

My thumb traces her bottom lip, and our eyes meet in the muted light. I don’t know why I do it, I just feel like I have to.

“Liam,” she whispers.

I lean forward and touch my lips to hers. “Later,” I murmur and she seems to take the hint, pressing her mouth to mine. She scrambles to get on my lap. We seem to keep coming back to the water. It feels like a place that calms us both. It’s centering, it washes me clean, it helps me forget the blood on my hands for a moment.

Thrusting my tongue into her mouth, she moans and nips at it as she rubs up against me. I grin, pulling back. “You’re like a feral cat.” I chuckle.

Her face drops into a pout, and she slaps my shoulder playfully. “That’s okay, I like kitties.” I grin. She rolls her eyes and leans to kiss me again. I lift my chin then she bypasses my lips and leans into my neck.

“You’re ridiculous.” She laughs a little and drags her tongue up my neck.

I grip her thighs within my large palms and we’re pressed so tightly together if she just moved an inch…

Aelia comes back to my mouth, gripping my hair in her fist and pulling my head back. “I need you,” she whispers.

All she has to do is ask and I will give it to her. I plunder her mouth and drown. Her hand tightens in my hair, and I drag my hands up and down her body, mapping it in my mind.

She whimpers and reaches for my shorts, popping the button.

I groan into the rock and it’s swallowed by the sound of water. She nips my chin and I search for her lips again and she pulses her hips against mine.

“Baby,” I groan.

She whimpers and moves faster. I lay back against the smooth rock and roll us over. Her dark hair sticks to our skin and I lift her knee, and she winces.

“What?”

“Rock,” she gasps. “Don’t stop,” she breathes.

I listen and don’t stop as I bring us to the edge of everything. I kiss her like the world is about to end. I tell her I love her with my tongue because I can’t say the words with my lips. Her body freezes for a breath and then she drags me into the pool of ecstasy with her. I moan and she sobs into the rock, and I don’t ever want to let her go.

I want to keep her, forever.