Jade
Four doors branch off from the space below deck.
Logan leads me to one at the front end, opens it, and motions for me to go first.
A bed fills most of the wall, narrow enough that two people would have to sleep tangled together or not at all. The only window is a porthole showing nothing but gray, and when Logan flicks his fingers, a lantern flickers to life from the only shelf in the room.
The door clicks shut, and I move to the porthole, tracing my finger across the glass as if it will magically clear the fog.
Logan’s watching me like I’m about to break, the shadows under his eyes deeper than they were an hour ago.
He must have jumped back gods know how many times to save us from the siren attack.
Without him, we’d all be fish food at the bottom of the ocean, and I don’t have words big enough for that kind of debt.
The only ones I had were the hateful ones I slung his way on deck. Every accusation echoes in my head, and I wish I could take them back, swallow them down, and pretend they never existed.
Unfortunately, that’s not possible, which leaves us here, where the air between us is charged with the ghost of every kiss, every confession, and every time his hands found my skin and the world went quiet.
My magic buzzes low in my veins, reacting to his proximity the way it always does, drawn to him like a current seeking ground.
There’s so much swirling through my mind that I have no idea where to start, so I’m relieved when he speaks first.
“You buried what you said to me up there for over a week,” he says, his tone edged with more darkness than the black fire that burns at his fingertips. “You let it fester until the sirens ripped it out of you.”
“I know.” My throat tightens, but I don’t apologize.
“Did you mean it?”
“Not the way it came out.” I wrap my arms around myself, struggling to find the right words. “But I can’t just forget that there are times you’ve touched me that I don’t remember. You got to experience all the versions, and I only got to keep the ones you picked.”
The lantern flame bends toward him, like it’s being pulled by an invisible string.
“The first time, in the Drowned Tower,” I continue, because silence is worse. “You knew what I wanted because you’d already tested what worked and erased the failures.”
He flinches, as if my words physically hurt him. “You would have killed everyone in that tower if I hadn’t gone back.”
“I know.” The words come out hollow, because while I know what he’s saying is true, I haven’t been able to fully process it yet.
It’s too much—sometimes it’s all too much—and I want to bury myself under the covers and take a break from my responsibilities as a goddess’s chosen champion.
I want time to just be me, even if I’m not totally sure what that looks like anymore.
“Are you sure?” he asks, bringing me back into focus. “Because you made it sound like I was taking advantage of you. Like I was using my power to…” His jaw clenches so hard the muscle jumps. “I’ve never used it to manipulate you into wanting me.”
“You didn’t have time to manipulate me into wanting you,” I tell him, the truth burning out of me from deep in my soul. “I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you. I wouldn’t have kissed you during the Hydra trial if I didn’t.”
He stands there, studying me, watching me like he’s calculating outcomes. And maybe that’s exactly what he’s doing. Maybe he’s testing out different things to say to me so he can choose which reaction of mine he wants to keep.
Finally, he relaxes enough to speak.
“Do you want to know what really happened in the Drowned Tower during my experiment?” he asks, his gaze locked on mine so intensely that I swear time is frozen around us.
My heart stutters, my breath catching. “Yes.”
He takes a step closer, and the air in the cabin seems to thin. “The first time I touched you, your lightning arced off the walls in seconds. I jumped back before you brought the building down on everyone at the party.”
I keep my gaze locked on his, holding my ground, refusing to retreat.
“The second time, I got you against the wall.” His eyes turn darker and hungrier in a way that makes my heart race. “Your power started crackling through your skin, building so much it could have killed everyone in a hundred-foot radius.”
“So you went back again.”
“Yes. I went back again.” He’s close enough now that I have to tilt my head to meet his eyes. “The third time, I figured out exactly how much I could give you to keep you on the edge without tipping you over.”
I should be angry. I am angry.
But desire’s coiling low in my stomach, dark and liquid, responding to how he’s looking at me like I’m prey he’s already caught.
Probably because that’s exactly what I am. He caught me the moment his arms wrapped around me during the Hydra trial, when he fire traveled me to safety, and he hasn’t let go since.
His thumb traces circles on my shoulder, and electricity crackles where he touches, his pupils blowing wide.
“Yes, I practiced on you,” he says, his voice dropping to gravel.
“I memorized every inch of what makes you fall apart, and I’d do it again, because the alternative was letting you kill nearly everyone at that party.
If you did that, the Council would have come for you, and I’ll always choose to keep you safe and alive, no matter what. ”
I stare up at him, breathless. Because knowing he practiced on me and erased versions of us I’ll never remember doesn’t make me want him less.
It just makes the wanting feel dangerous and forbidden, like swallowing poison and savoring the taste, and it’s taking everything I have to hold onto my anger when he’s looking at me like I’m the only thing in the world worth seeing.
“What about our first time in the Fury Loop?” I ask, somehow managing to focus. “Were you going back then, too?”
“Yes.” His hand plants on the wall beside my head, caging me in, and my heart nearly stops before resuming its racing.
“Every time you got close to the edge, I’d reset time so I could keep feeling you clench around me like you’d die if I stopped.
” His mouth hovers near my ear, his breath soft against my skin.
“I told myself I was helping you learn control.”
“What were you really doing?” My mind buzzes, making it nearly impossible to breathe or think.
“Being greedy.” His lips brush the shell of my ear, and I shiver from the wrongness of how much I want this. “I wanted to live inside that moment forever so I could memorize every version of you falling apart until it was burned into my brain.”
“That’s...” I can’t finish the sentence. Not when he’s this close, his words painting pictures that make me ache.
“Selfish.” He pulls back, his eyes burning with raw, consuming hunger. “I’m not sorry for wanting you that badly. But I am sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. That I let you think our moments together were anything other than what they were.”
“And what were they?” I hold my breath, bracing myself for anything.
“Me, unable to get enough.” His thumb slowly traces my lower lip, like he’s memorizing it, too. “Me, willing to burn through time for thirty more seconds of feeling you lose control.”
The boat rocks beneath us, the lantern sways, and my brain has officially stopped working.
I should demand more answers and explanations, but my body isn’t listening to my mind anymore.
It’s responding to the dark promise in his voice, the possessive weight of his gaze, and the knowledge that he wanted me badly enough to break the laws of physics so he could stay inside me for as long as possible.
“You’re looking at me like you want to do it all over again,” I say instead.
Desire flares in his eyes—bright, sharp, and barely leashed. “And if I do?”
“Then I want you to take what you need. I want you to stop talking about it and just—”
His mouth crashes into mine, and my fingers find his hair, pulling him to me. Electricity crackles where our lips meet, and his whole body shudders, pressing closer and harder. And when his hand slips beneath my waistband, his fingers find the heat of me perfectly.
He knows exactly where to touch and how much pressure to apply.
It’s because he’s done this before. He practiced on me, learned me without my permission, and stole moments I’ll never get back.
I shouldn’t like that so much. Why do I like it so much? Most people would be ten kinds of angry. But here I am, melting into him, more heated by the second at the knowledge that he was so addicted to the feeling of being inside me that he needed to jump back in time to have more.
It’s the hottest thing anyone’s ever said to me. Which means there’s definitely something wrong with me. Very, very wrong with me.
My hand closes around his wrist, sparks igniting where our skin touches, and he sucks in a sharp breath, watching me like he’s waiting for whatever I’m going to do next.
The problem is that I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I don’t know what I’m doing, or thinking, or what I want to say. All I know is that my body wants what my mind says it shouldn’t, and I don’t know what to do with that.
“I can’t.” I’m breathing hard, my heart pounding for all the wrong reasons. “I’m sorry, but right now, I can’t.”
The lantern flame flickers, casting his face almost entirely in shadow.
Then he’s stepping back, pulling his hand from my waistband, putting distance between us that feels like an opening chasm.
“I understand.” His words are controlled, as if he buried his feelings somewhere deep. “I shouldn’t have pushed right now, after what the sirens put you through.”
He moves to the door, his movements clipped and precise, the rigid line of his shoulders making my chest ache.
“That’s not—” I start, but I don’t know how to finish. Because maybe it’s part of what it is, and now I can’t separate the grief from the guilt from the desire.
“I’m going above deck to check on the others,” he says, and he doesn’t turn around to look at me, as if doing so would break him.
“I just need—”
“Time.” He says the word like it’s the one thing that costs him the most. “I’ll be here when you’re ready, however long that takes.”
He opens the door and walks out, and the air that rushes into the space where he was standing is cold and wrong.
I stand there for a long moment, his touch branded on my skin, my body thrumming with unfulfilled need.
Because Logan Ashford broke the laws of time to stay inside moments with me.
And the part of my brain that should find that terrifying is drowned out by the part that finds it the most intoxicating thing anyone’s ever done, and every bone in my body wants to chase him up that ladder and let him practice on me until time itself runs out.