She wakes up with her fingers soaked in her tight little cunt. Her story isn’t unique, but it makes her clit twitch every time she thinks about it.
The wind hit the lighthouse like a fist. Anthony felt it through the floorboards, through the stone itself, a deep vibration that traveled up his boots and into his teeth. The door had slammed behind them ten minutes ago, and the sound of it still lived in his ears—that final, wet thud of wood against the frame, the latch catching, the storm sealing them in like a verdict.
He watched Gia move through the keeper’s room, her wild curls darker than usual with sea spray, her fisherman’s sweater soaked at the shoulders. She was talking—something about barometric pressure, about the storm surge eating the causeway—but he wasn’t hearing the words. He was watching the way her hands moved when she was nervous, the way she touched things without meaning to: the lamp’s glass chimney, the edge of the cot’s wool blanket, the rusted latch on the window.
“—so we’re here until it passes.” She turned, and her sea-glass eyes caught him looking. A beat too long. She bit her lip. “Anthony. Did you hear me?”
“Heard you.” He shrugged out of his flannel, the fabric heavy and cold against his skin. “We’re stuck.”
“Stuck,” she repeated, like she was testing the word. “That’s one way to put it.”
He hung the shirt on a hook by the door, letting his gaze drift over the room—the narrow cot with its scratchy blanket, the single window rattling against the storm, the oil lamp throwing long shadows across the sweat-slicked floorboards. No radio that worked. No phone. No way out until morning at the earliest. He’d been in worse spots. He’d been in worse spots with people he didn’t want to fuck.
The thought came unbidden, and he shoved it down hard, the way he’d been shoving it down for a decade.
“You’re doing that thing,” Gia said.
“What thing.”
“That thing where you go somewhere else. Your jaw does that—” she mimicked a clench, her fingers pressing against her own jawline, “—and you’re gone. Ten years in the same room and you still do it.”
He didn’t answer. He crossed to the lamp instead, turning the wick down until the flame steadied, buying himself a moment. The light caught the scar on his jaw, the faint white line he’d had since he was nineteen, since the night their father had come home drunk and swinging. Gia didn’t know that story. He’d made sure of it.
“We should get dry,” he said. “There’s—” He stopped. The room had one cot. One blanket. One lamp. The keeper’s quarters weren’t built for company.
Gia followed his gaze to the cot and back. “I’ll take the floor.”
“Like hell you will.”
“Anthony—”
“You take the cot. I’ll sit.” He dropped onto the floorboards, back against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him. The wood was cold through his thermal shirt. He could feel the storm vibrating through it, the whole tower trembling like a struck bell.
She stood there a moment, dripping onto the floor, and he watched her decide whether to argue. She decided not to. She peeled off the sweater, and underneath she had on a thin tank top, damp at the collar, clinging to the lean muscle of her shoulders. His throat went dry. He looked at the window.
“There’s a tarp in my bag,” he said. “You can rig it over the window. Keep some of the cold out.”
She found the tarp and worked it over the frame, her arms stretching, her back arching with the effort. He watched her anyway, because looking away felt more like admitting something. The tarp cut the worst of the draft. The lamp flickered. The storm hammered on.
“Remember when we used to hide in the cellar during storms?” she said, settling onto the edge of the cot, pulling the blanket around her shoulders. “You’d bring the flashlight and those old comics. The ones with the sea monsters.”
“You cried when the kraken ate the ship.”
“I was eight.”
“You cried every time. You knew it was coming. You’d say ‘don’t let it get them, Anthony,’ and then you’d cry anyway.” He heard himself say it, heard the softness in his own voice, and clamped down on it. “You were a dramatic kid.”
“And you were a good brother.” She said it too lightly, like she was testing how it landed. It landed like a stone in his chest.
He didn’t answer. He pulled his knees up, resting his forearms on them, staring at the floorboards. The sweat-slicked grain. The way the lamp light pooled in the low spots. He could feel her looking at him, that sea-glass gaze that saw too much, and he kept his own eyes fixed on the wood like it held the answers to questions he didn’t want to ask.
“Anthony.”
“What.”
“Why did you stop coming home?”
The question sat between them, heavy as the storm. He could feel the shape of it, the weight of it, the ten years of it. He’d had answers ready for a decade—work, distance, the sea, the job. But she’d never asked him straight before. She’d never cornered him in a lighthouse with nowhere to go.
“I didn’t stop coming home,” he said. “I stopped coming home to him.”
“Dad’s been gone three years.”
“I know how long it’s been.”
“Then why—” She stopped. Started again. “You missed everything. My thesis defense. The award ceremony. You didn’t even come to the funeral.”
The funeral. He’d stood at the back of the church, soaked through, watching her in black at the front, and he hadn’t been able to make his feet move down the aisle. He’d watched the coffin and thought about the man inside it and felt nothing but a vast, terrible relief. He’d left before she turned around.
“I was there,” he said.
Her head snapped up. “What?”
“At the funeral. Back row. I left before it ended.” He looked at her then, finally, let her see the truth of it on his face. “I couldn’t—I couldn’t stand there and pretend to mourn him.”
The silence stretched. The lamp flickered. The storm pressed against the tarp like something alive.
“What did he do to you?” Her voice was quiet, careful, like she was approaching a wounded animal.
“Nothing.”
“Anthony.”
“It’s nothing. It’s done. He’s dead.” He pushed to his feet, needing to move, needing the space. He crossed to the window, hands flat on the sill, feeling the cold seep through the stone. “Drop it, Gia.”
She was behind him before he heard her move. He felt her presence like a pressure change, the way the air shifts before lightning. She was close. Too close. He could smell her—sea salt and rain and something underneath that was just her, that particular scent he’d known since they were kids and that had turned into something else entirely somewhere along the way.
“You’ve been carrying something for a long time,” she said, soft. “I can see it. I’ve always been able to see it.”
He turned. She was closer than he’d thought, close enough that the lamp light caught the water still beading on her collarbone, the damp hollow of her throat. Her curls had escaped every attempt at a braid and hung wild around her face, and her sea-glass eyes were looking up at him with an expression he couldn’t name.
“You see too much,” he said, and his voice came out rough, scraped raw.
“Maybe you’re just too easy to read.” She didn’t step back. “You’ve been looking at me like that all night.”
“Like what.”
“Like you’re trying to memorize me. Like you’re afraid I’ll disappear.” A pause. “Like you want—” She stopped herself, bit her lip, and the gesture caught him somewhere low and hot. “Never mind.”
“Like I want what.” His voice was barely a sound. He should step back. He should put the cot between them, the room, the whole goddamn Atlantic. He didn’t move.
She looked at his mouth. He watched her do it, watched her gaze drop and linger, and something in his chest cracked open, a door he’d kept locked for a decade swinging on its hinges.
“Gia.” Her name in his mouth felt like a confession.
“Anthony, I—” She started to say something, and then the lamp flickered and died, and the room went black.
The dark was absolute, the storm outside suddenly louder without the light to anchor them. He heard her breath catch. Heard his own, ragged and too fast. The floorboards creaked as she shifted.
“Anthony.” Her voice came out of the dark, small and raw. “I’m scared.”
He found her by sound, by instinct, his hands coming up to find her shoulders. The contact was electric, a jolt that ran through his palms and up his arms. She was trembling. Or he was. It was hard to tell in the dark, hard to tell where his body ended and hers began.
“I’ve got you,” he said, and the words came out like a promise he didn’t know how to keep.
She stepped into him. Her forehead came to rest against his chest, her hands finding his waist, and he felt the shudder that ran through her. He stood frozen, his hands on her shoulders, his heart slamming against his ribs like it wanted out of his chest.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered against his shirt. “I’ve missed you so much, Anthony. I don’t—I don’t know how to be in the world without you in it.”
Something broke in him. He didn’t know what it was called, the thing that snapped, but he felt it go, felt the wall he’d been building for ten years come down in a single breath. His hands moved from her shoulders to her face, cradling her jaw in the dark, his thumbs finding the wet tracks on her cheeks.
“Don’t cry,” he said, and his voice cracked on the words. “Please don’t cry, Gia.”
“I’m not crying.” She was. He could feel it. “I’m just—I’m so tired of pretending.”
“Pretending what?”
She didn’t answer. She rose up on her toes instead, and he felt her breath on his mouth, warm and unsteady, and he knew what she was doing, knew it with a clarity that cut through the black like a blade. He should stop her. He should say her name, should push her back, should put a hand between them and the edge they were both standing on.
He didn’t.
Her mouth found his, and the world went silent.
The kiss was soft at first, tentative, a question asked in the dark. Her lips were cold and tasted of salt, and he stood frozen beneath them, his hands still on her face, his whole body screaming at him to push her away. Then her tongue traced the seam of his lips, and the question changed, and he answered it with his mouth opening against hers, his hands sliding into her hair, pulling her closer.
The sound she made—a small, broken noise against his lips—undid him. He kissed her like he’d been drowning for a decade and she was air. He kissed her like she was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth. He kissed her like the storm outside was nothing compared to the one inside him.
She pulled back first, breathing hard. In the dark he could just make out the shape of her, the gleam of her eyes. “Anthony.” His name was a wrecked sound. “Tell me to stop.”
“I don’t want you to stop.”
“This is—”
“I know what this is.” His hands were still in her hair. He could feel her trembling, or himself trembling, or both. “I’ve known for ten years what this is.”
The silence that followed was louder than the storm. He felt her shift, felt her hand find his chest, her palm flat over his heart.
“Say it,” she whispered. “I need to hear you say it.”
He said it. The words came out rough, scraped from somewhere deep. “I want you, Gia. I’ve wanted you for so long I don’t remember what it felt like before.” The confession hung in the dark between them, and he felt the weight of it settle, felt the shape of the thing they were both about to become.
She kissed him again, and this time there was nothing tentative about it. Her mouth opened against his, hungry and desperate, and he groaned into her, his hands sliding down her back, pulling her hips against his. He was hard—had been hard since she’d stepped into him in the dark—and she felt it, made a sound against his mouth that was half gasp, half something darker.
“I feel you,” she breathed. “I feel how much you want me.”
“Gia—”
“Don’t. Don’t think. Just—” She took his hand and pressed it to her chest, over her heart, and he felt it hammering against his palm. “Feel that. That’s what you do to me. That’s what you’ve always done to me.”
He kissed her again, walking her backward until her legs hit the cot and she fell onto it, pulling him down with her. The blanket was rough beneath them, the cot creaking under their combined weight, and he was on top of her, between her legs, the shape of her fitting against him like she’d been made for it.
Her hands came up to his face in the dark, found his jaw, traced the scar there with a gentleness that made his chest ache. “I’ve wanted to ask you about this for years,” she whispered. “Every time I saw it in a photo, I’d think—I’d think about calling you. Asking if you were okay.”
“I’m okay now.” He lowered his mouth to her throat, felt her pulse jump against his lips. “I’m more than okay.”
She arched into him, a soft sound escaping her, and he took it into his mouth, kissed it back into her. His hands found the hem of her tank top, and he paused there, the fabric bunched in his fists, the question hanging between them. She answered by pulling the shirt over her head herself, tossing it into the dark, and then her skin was against his, warm and salt-damp, and he lost the thread of every thought he’d ever had.
Her breasts pressed against his chest, her nipples hard through the thin fabric of her bra. He reached behind her, fumbled with the clasp, and she laughed—a breathless, broken sound—and helped him, and then there was nothing between them but skin. He lowered his mouth to her breast, took her nipple between his lips, and she gasped, her fingers digging into his shoulders.
“Anthony.” His name on her lips, wrecked and wanting. “God, Anthony.”
He worshipped her there in the dark, his mouth on her skin, his hands learning the shape of her—the dip of her waist, the flare of her hip, the soft skin of her belly. She was trembling beneath him, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps, and he wanted to memorize every inch of her, wanted to know her body the way he’d known her mind for twenty-six years.
She pulled at his thermal shirt, her fingers clumsy with need, and he sat up just long enough to strip it off, the fabric catching on his shoulders. Then she was pulling him back down, her legs wrapping around his waist, her hips rising to meet his, and he could feel the heat of her through their remaining clothes, could feel how wet she was, how ready.
“I need you,” she said, and the words came out raw, unguarded. “I need you inside me. Please.”
He almost came apart at the please. He fumbled with his belt, with his jeans, and she helped him, her hands finding his cock through the fabric, stroking him through his boxers until he groaned and pushed her hand away.
“If you keep doing that,” he said, his voice rough, “this is going to be very embarrassing for me.”
She laughed, and the sound was bright and real in the dark, and he loved her so much in that moment that it hurt, a physical ache in his chest that had nothing to do with lust. He kissed her again, deep and slow, and she melted into him, her hands in his hair, her body arching against his.
He pulled her jeans down her legs, her underwear with them, and then he was between her thighs, the heat of her against his mouth. He could smell her, the musk of her arousal, and he lowered his head and tasted her, and she cried out, her hips bucking against his mouth.
“Oh—Anthony—” Her voice broke. “Please, I—”
He didn’t let up. He licked her slowly, deliberately, learning the taste of her, the way she responded to each stroke of his tongue. She was gripping the blanket beneath her, her knuckles white, her breath coming in desperate gasps, and he felt her thighs begin to tremble around his head.
“I’m close,” she gasped. “I’m so close, Anthony, please don’t stop—”
He didn’t stop. He pressed his mouth harder against her, his tongue finding the bundle of nerves at her core, and she came apart against his lips with a cry that was swallowed by the storm. He felt her clench against his tongue, felt the pulse of her release, and he drank her down, groaning at the taste of her.
When she finally went still, trembling and breathless, he crawled up her body, kissing his way up her stomach, between her breasts, up her throat. She caught his face in her hands and kissed him, tasting herself on his lips, and made a small, desperate sound.
“I need you inside me,” she said again, and this time it was a demand. “Now, Anthony. Please.”
He positioned himself between her legs, the head of his cock pressing against her entrance, and he paused there, the enormity of what they were about to do crashing over him. She was his sister. She was everything. She was the person he’d loved longest and hardest and most secretly in his entire life.
“Gia,” he said, his voice cracking. “If we do this—”
“I know.” Her hands found his face in the dark. “I know what we’re doing. I’ve known for years what I wanted to do with you. I’ve imagined this so many times.” A pause. “Haven’t you?”
The confession broke something in him. “Every night,” he said. “Every goddamn night for the last ten years.”
She pulled him down and kissed him, and he pushed into her, slow, inch by inch, the heat of her wrapping around him, pulling him deeper. She gasped against his mouth, her nails digging into his back, and he felt her stretch around him, felt the tight, wet grip of her, and he had to stop, had to breathe, had to keep himself from coming right then.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “Gia. You feel—”
“Don’t stop,” she said. “Please don’t stop.”
He began to move, slow at first, each thrust a revelation. She was so tight, so hot, and she made sounds with every stroke—small, broken noises that drove him insane. He buried his face in her neck, breathing her in, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and he groaned at the feeling of being fully inside her.
“Is this—” He couldn’t finish the question.
“Yes.” She kissed his jaw, his cheek, his mouth. “This is everything. You’re everything.”
He picked up the pace, his hips finding a rhythm, and she met him thrust for thrust, her body arching against his. The cot creaked beneath them, the storm howled outside, and he was lost in her, drowning in her, the way he’d always known he would.
“I love you,” he said, and the words came out before he could stop them. “I’ve loved you my whole life, Gia. I’ve loved you since before I knew what love was.”
She made a sound that was half sob, half cry, and her arms tightened around him. “I love you too. I’ve always loved you. I thought I was broken for feeling this way. I thought—”
“You’re not broken.” He kissed her hard. “You’re the only thing that’s ever made sense to me.”
He felt her begin to tighten around him again, felt the flutter of her approaching release, and he drove into her harder, faster, chasing the edge with her. Her breath came in desperate gasps, her nails raking down his back, and she cried out his name as she came, her body clenching around him, pulling him over the edge with her.
He came with a groan, his face buried in her neck, his hips grinding against hers as he emptied himself into her. The feeling of it—the heat, the tightness, the overwhelming rightness of it—undid him completely, and he collapsed against her, trembling, breathless, spent.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. The storm raged outside, the wind screaming against the stone, but inside the room there was only the sound of their breathing, ragged and slowing, and the creak of the cot settling beneath them.
She was the first to speak. “Anthony.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t regret this.”
He lifted his head, tried to read her face in the dark. “Gia—”
“I mean it. I don’t regret this. I’ve spent ten years regretting everything I didn’t say, everything I didn’t do. I’m not spending another minute regretting this.” She reached up, her fingers tracing his jaw, finding the scar. “Whatever happens after this, whatever we have to face—I want this. I want you.”
He kissed her forehead, her temple, the corner of her mouth. “I want you too. I’ve never wanted anything else.”
She shifted beneath him, and he rolled off her, pulling her against his side, her head finding the hollow of his shoulder. The blanket was tangled around them, the lamp still dead, the storm still raging. He could feel her heartbeat against his ribs, or his against hers—he couldn’t tell anymore, didn’t care.
“We’re going to have to figure this out,” she said quietly. “What this means. What we tell—”
“Not tonight.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Tonight, we’re just here. Just us. We can figure out the rest when the storm passes.”
She was quiet for a long moment. Then, softly: “What if the storm never passes?”
He tightened his arm around her. “Then we stay here. Together. In the dark.”
She laughed, a wet, broken sound. “That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Don’t get used to it. I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”
She kissed his chest, a soft, lingering press of her lips against his skin. “I’ve missed your jokes. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed us.”
“We’re here now,” he said. “That’s what matters.”
The wind howled against the window, the tarp flapping, and somewhere in the dark, the lamp’s glass chimney rattled in its socket. He held her, his sister, his lover, the person he’d been running from and running toward his whole adult life, and he felt the shape of the future shift beneath them, uncertain and terrifying and bright.
She stirred against him. “Anthony?”
“Mm.”
“Don’t leave again. After this. When we get out of here.” Her voice was small, fragile. “Don’t disappear. I couldn’t—I couldn’t survive losing you twice.”
He turned his head, found her mouth in the dark, kissed her slow and deep, a promise sealed with his tongue against hers. When he finally pulled back, he pressed his forehead to hers.
“I’m not going anywhere.” The words came out rough, scraped from the same place the confession had come from. He felt her exhale against his mouth, felt the tension leave her body in a long, slow release, and he pressed his forehead harder against hers, like he could seal the promise into her skin.
The storm had quieted some—or maybe he’d just stopped hearing it. The wind still shoved at the tarp, but the sound had faded into the background of his awareness, replaced by the more immediate geography of her body against his. Her breath. The warmth of her thigh hooked over his. The way her fingers traced slow patterns on his chest, idle and possessive.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“That the lamp’s out.”
“That’s not what you’re thinking.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I’m thinking about the last time I was in a lighthouse. I was nineteen. I was with a girl from the harbor town. We were hiding from her father.”
She went still against him. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you asked what I was thinking.” He turned his head, found the shape of her in the dark. “And because I want you to know something.” He paused, the words lining up in his throat. “That night, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I was inside another woman and I was thinking about my sister.”
The silence that followed was heavy, loaded. He felt her hand stop moving on his chest.
“Why are you telling me that now?” she asked, and her voice was careful, the way it got when she was trying not to break something.
“Because I want you to know it was never casual for me. It was never—” He stopped, searched for the word. “It was never just a thing I did. It was always you. Even when I tried to make it someone else.”
She was quiet for a long moment. Then she shifted, her body moving against his, and he felt her hand slide up his chest, find his jaw, turn his face toward hers in the dark.
“I used to dream about you,” she said. “When I was in college. I’d wake up and I’d be so ashamed I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I thought something was wrong with me.” Her thumb traced the scar on his jaw, the one she’d asked about earlier. “I thought I was broken.”
“You’re not broken.” The words came out fierce, and he felt her flinch slightly at the heat in them. He softened his voice. “You were never broken. You were just—” He searched for the word. “You were just the only thing that ever made sense to me.”
She made a sound, small and broken, and pressed her face into his neck. He felt her tears against his skin, hot and sudden, and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close, feeling the tremors that ran through her body.
“I’ve been so alone,” she whispered into his throat. “I’ve been alone for so long, Anthony. I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t know how to say that the only person I’ve ever really wanted was the one person I wasn’t supposed to want.”
He held her tighter, his hand cradling the back of her head, his fingers threading through her wild curls. “You’re not alone anymore.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
She pulled back, found his mouth in the dark, and kissed him—soft at first, then deeper, her tongue sliding against his like she was trying to memorize the shape of him. He answered her, his hands sliding down her back, pulling her closer, feeling the heat of her skin against his. She was still wearing her jeans—they’d never gotten them all the way off, just pushed down around her thighs before he’d entered her—and he could feel the rough denim against his legs, the contrast of it against her soft skin.
She broke the kiss, breathing hard. “I want to feel you again.”
“Gia—”
“I want to feel you inside me.” Her hand slid down his stomach, found his cock, already half-hard again. She stroked him slowly, deliberately, and he groaned, his hips bucking into her grip. “I want to watch you. I want to see your face when you’re inside me.”
“It’s dark.”
“I don’t care.” She kissed him again, quick and fierce. “I want to feel it. I want to feel every inch of you.”
He didn’t argue. He couldn’t. He rolled her onto her back, the cot creaking beneath them, and she pulled her jeans the rest of the way off, kicking them into the dark. He settled between her legs, the heat of her cunt against his cock, slick and ready, and he paused, letting himself feel her—the way her thighs trembled against his hips, the way her breath caught when he pressed against her entrance.
“Look at me,” she said.
He looked. In the dark, he could just make out the gleam of her eyes, the pale shape of her face. He could see the curve of her throat, the rise and fall of her chest, and he wanted to memorize every inch of her.
“I love you,” she said. “I know it’s wrong. I know what we’re doing is—” She stopped. “I don’t care. I love you, Anthony. I’ve loved you my whole life.”
He pushed into her, slow, the heat of her wrapping around him, pulling him deeper, and he watched her face, watched her lips part, watched her eyes flutter closed and open again, fixed on his. He felt her stretch around him, felt the tight, wet grip of her, and he had to stop, had to breathe, had to keep himself from coming right there.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “Gia.”
“Don’t stop.” Her hands came up to his face, her fingers tracing his jaw, the scar. “Please don’t stop. I need—I need you to keep looking at me.”
He began to move, slow and deep, each thrust a revelation. He watched her face, watched the way her expression shifted with each stroke, the way her lips parted, the way her eyes stayed locked on his. She was so tight, so hot, and she made sounds with every movement—small, broken noises that drove him insane.
“You feel—” He couldn’t finish the sentence. He buried his face in her neck, breathing her in, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and he groaned at the feeling of being fully inside her.
“Don’t hide,” she said, her voice breathless. “I want to see you. I want to see your face.”
He lifted his head, met her eyes in the dark. Her hands found his face, held him there, and he felt the weight of her gaze on him, the way she was looking at him like he was the only thing in the world that mattered. He began to move again, faster now, his hips finding a rhythm, and she met him thrust for thrust, her body arching against his.
“I love you,” she said again, and the words came out broken, desperate. “I love you so much, Anthony. I’ve been so scared of this. I’ve been so scared of wanting you.”
“I know.” He kissed her, hard, swallowing her words. “I know. I’ve been scared too.”
“But I’m not scared anymore.” Her hands slid down his back, her nails raking lightly over his skin. “I’m not scared of this. I’m not scared of us.”
He drove into her harder, faster, chasing the edge with her. He could feel her beginning to tighten around him again, feel the flutter of her approaching release, and he wanted to hold on, wanted to make it last, but she was pulling him over with her, her body clenching around his, her cry swallowed by the storm.
He came with a groan, his face buried in her neck, his hips grinding against hers as he emptied himself into her. The feeling of it—the heat, the tightness, the overwhelming rightness of it—undid him completely, and he collapsed against her, trembling, breathless, spent.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. The storm had faded to a low moan outside, the wind no longer screaming but muttering, like the sky itself was settling into sleep. Inside the room, there was only the sound of their breathing, ragged and slowing, and the creak of the cot as it settled beneath them.
She was the first to move. Her hand came up, found his hair, and she combed her fingers through it slowly, gently. “We’re going to have to figure this out,” she said quietly. “When the storm passes. What we’re going to do. What we’re going to tell—”
“I know.” He lifted his head, met her eyes in the dark. “I’ve been thinking about that too.”
“What are we going to do?”
He was quiet for a long moment. Behind her, the tarp flapped against the window, a wet, insistent sound. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I don’t know how to be in the world with this. I don’t know how to be your brother and—” He stopped. “I don’t know how to be anything else.”
“You don’t have to be anything else.” Her hand found his face, held him there. “You just have to be here. With me.”
“And what about everyone else? What about the family? What about—”
“I don’t care about everyone else.” Her voice was fierce, cutting through the dark. “I’ve spent my whole life caring about what everyone else thought. I’ve spent my whole life being the good one, the responsible one, the one who held everything together. I’m done.” She pulled him down, kissed him hard, her tongue sliding against his. “I’m done pretending. I’m done hiding. I want you. I want this. And I don’t care what it costs.”
He kissed her back, feeling the truth of her words settle into him. He wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe that they could walk out of this lighthouse and into a life that didn’t require them to be ashamed of what they were. But he knew the world better than she did. He knew what it would do to them.
“Gia,” he said, and his voice came out rough. “I need you to understand something.”
“What?”
“I’ve spent ten years protecting you from something. From him, from the family, from all the things I thought you couldn’t handle.” He paused, feeling the weight of what he was about to say. “I’ve spent ten years keeping a secret from you. And I don’t know if I can keep doing that.”
She went still beneath him. “What secret?”
The words were there, lined up in his throat, ready to come out. He could feel them, the shape of them, the weight of them. He’d carried them for so long, and now, in the dark, with her body still warm against his, he felt them pressing against his teeth.
“Anthony.” Her voice was quiet, careful. “What secret?”
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. The storm outside had faded to a whisper, the wind no longer howling, just breathing against the stone. The tarp flapped once, twice, then went still.
“Not tonight,” he said, and the words came out like a door closing. “Tonight, I just want to hold you. I just want to be here. We can figure out the rest when the storm passes.”
She was quiet for a long moment. Then she nodded, her chin brushing against his chest. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close, and felt her settle against him, her head finding the hollow of his shoulder. The lamp was still dead. The tarp was still flapping faintly. Somewhere outside, the Atlantic was still churning, waiting for the dawn.
He held her, his sister, his lover, the person he’d been running from and running toward his whole adult life, and he felt the shape of the future shift beneath them, uncertain and terrifying and bright. He didn’t know what would happen when the storm passed. He didn’t know how to be in the world with this. But he knew one thing, with a certainty that cut through the dark like the beam of a lighthouse: he wasn’t going to let her go.
Stay Naughty! Gia