16. Reid
Goddamn her. Goddamn this boat and goddamn the fucking whales for being out tonight.
It wasn’t my intention to bring Nova out here to fuck her. I’m not even sure what I wanted; I just knew she’d like the whales and I wanted to see her after this afternoon when I found her mid-panic attack.
Getting her onto the boat was the easiest part. Talking myself out of touching her since she stepped into my cabin? That’s a different story.
Today, while I was fixing the air conditioning at the inn, I resigned myself to the knowledge that taking Nova to bed is the worst possible idea. She’s too fucking sweet, too perfect for her own good. She’ll get attached and when I leave on September first, she’ll hate me. She’ll hate me and even though it won’t matter because I’ll be thousands of miles away on the Bering Sea, it’ll gut me to know it.
This obsession is starting to run too deep. Finding her like that this afternoon confirmed it. For the first time in my life, I wanted to wipe her tears away. I wanted to gut whoever did this to her because no one gets to break her but me. She’s mine in the most barbaric sense of the word . . . even if she’s not supposed to be.
I’m leaving September first. She knows it. I know it. It doesn’t stop the feeling of violence I get when I see her cry like she did.
I had planned to slow down. My self-control only goes so far and as much as I want to sink inside her, fuck away her demons until they’re replaced by me and me alone, I know Nova’s not that kind of girl. She loves too hard and I’m not the one that deserves it. I won’t be around for the long haul, no matter if she wants me or not.
Unfortunately, with her on my lap, begging me to touch her . . . I don’t think my plan to slow down is going to work.
Flicking the button of her shorts, I peel them back from her cool, silky skin and slip my hand inside.
The first touch of my fingers on her cunt has my skin burning like a fucking branding iron. “Fuck, Nova,” I bite, rolling my thumb over the wetness coating her panties. “Are you this wet for me, little bird?”
“Mmhmm . . .” She shivers, biting her lip and fuck if I don’t want to bite it for her.
Fuck me.
My other hand slips up her stomach, fisting in her hair to tug her face back to mine. I feast on her lips, drinking her in and tasting the sweetness on her. I love her mouth, more than I thought possible.
I’ve never cared much about kissing before, but now, she’s ruined me. I can’t get enough.
Her tongue slips between my teeth, tasting of cherries. My favorite fruit, of all things. She rolls it against mine, flicking and sucking the tip in a way that drives me fucking crazy.
Am I losing my mind? Has she gotten that far under my skin that even a team of trained professionals couldn’t remove her from me?
“Put your leg up on the dash,” I instruct, lifting her leg up to grant me better access to her. She does as she’s told, placing one foot near the window and the other on the dash, spreading herself open for me.
Fuck, I want to know how she tastes. If she’ll taste like cherries everywhere or if it’s just the universe fucking with my head.
Slipping her panties to the side, I run my thumb through her folds, soaking it in her juices before rolling her clit in slow, even circles.
“You’re burning up, little bird,” I murmur against the side of her neck, nipping the flesh there and she shudders, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
Licking and sucking my way across her jaw, I bite the lobe of her ear and she whimpers, effectively shutting up every warning bell in the back of my head telling me I shouldn’t be doing this.
“Does it feel good?” The little sounds she’s making will be my undoing. Mark my fucking words.
She nods, looking down to where my hand disappears in her shorts.
“Tell me how it feels.”
“It feels good,” she breathes, her skin growing a pretty shade of pink in the dim lighting of the dock.
“How good?”
Christ. My cock is rock hard, pressing into the swell of her ass. The need to bury myself inside her is so strong, my hands shake to touch her. Like I’m a teenager touching a girl for the first time, again.
“I want more,” she breathes, arching back into me.
This Nova is different. This isn’t the sweet, innocent Nova I met at the inn who runs around helping everyone she can and eating funnel cakes in the shape of crabs.
This Nova . . . I’m claiming. The one that whimpers from the feeling of my hands on her and who gives herself to me and trusts that I’ll give her what she needs.
This Nova is mine.
Sinking a finger inside her, letting her tight, wet heat suck me in, she cries out and I muffle the sound with the palm of my other hand.
“You’ve got to be quiet, sweetheart, or we’re going to get caught,” I rasp, sucking on the hollow of her jaw, though at this moment, short of not wanting them to see her, I don’t think I’d give a shit if someone caught us with my fingers buried inside her.
“Reid . . .” My name is a plea on her lips. One that threatens to drag my sanity to the bottom of the Atlantic, leaving it scattered amongst the battered remains of the Titanic.
“Feel how wet you are? Soaking my hand,” I bite in her ear, enunciating it with a nip of her flesh. “You’re so tight, we’re going to have to work you up to take me.”
Her eyes roll back at my promise and her hips writhe against my palm. She’s so close to coming, I can feel her tightening around me when I slip another finger inside her.
“Come, little bird. Show me how pretty you sing for me.”
Changing my angle, I build up my pace, my palm rubbing her clit and my fingers buried inside her until she’s clawing at my wrist and collapsing back against me with a cry muffled against my palm akin to heaven falling to earth. With her head on my shoulder, I bury my face in her neck, kissing and nipping every inch of skin I can reach while she comes on my fingers.
Fuck . . .
I’m going to hell.
She shudders in my lap as I milk out the last remnants of her orgasm. “So beautiful.”
I slip my fingers out of her and pull her back to kiss me. A groan tears up my throat when she shifts against my cock, just as my self-control is yo-yoing out of control.
There’s a bed right fucking there in the cabin beneath the front of the boat. My bed, where I can lay her out and fuck her until neither of us can walk right tomorrow, but for once in my life, morals are standing in the way.
There’s so much I don’t know—her fears, this Jack mother fucker, why she flinches when I reach for her.
What’s in her nightmares.
I intend to get to the bottom of all of it before I ever sink inside her.
Pulling back, I press a kiss to the tip of her nose and when she reaches for me, palming me through my jeans, I bite back on the growl that threatens to tear from my throat.
“Nova,” I growl, but a flash up the dock stops me.
Flashlights.
“Shit,” I curse under my breath, watching the lights as they come down the dock—
—And straight fucking for us.
“What?” Nova asks, jumping up like she’s seen a ghost. After what just happened, I certainly feel like I did.
“Someone’s coming.” I pull her off my lap and practically drag her toward the lower cabin and into total darkness.
It’s small, though for a lobster boat, it’s bigger than most. It’s got a wet bath to the left—not much, but enough to take a shower while you’re sitting on the toilet if you really wanted to. To the right is the full-sized mattress that takes up the rest of the room.
When I bought Hope’s Grace, it had bunks, but I sail alone, so I ripped them out and replaced them with a bed. It’s enough for me and I’ve never been the sentimental type, so I don’t need much space.
But right now, with Nova standing in the space, filling the air with the honey-coated scent of her perfume and my cock aching in my jeans, it’s incredibly fucking crowded in here.
I lead Nova to the bed and shut the door quietly behind us. She sits down, following the light drifting in through the small window I installed right over the bed, while I crack the door to watch the lights stop at the end of the dock.
“Fuck,” I murmur, shutting the door with a quiet click.
“What are they doing?” Nova whispers.
“Fishing.”
“Right now?”
I step back to the bed and sink down beside her. “Right fucking now.”
Laying back, I stare up at the night sky and try to think about how I went from deciding I would tell Nova she’s just too fucking good for me to laying in a bed with her. Sex is one thing. This . . . I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s too far. For both of us.
“Is this where you sleep?” Nova asks, looking around at the small room. I can barely see her in the dark and I would kill just to see her face. Her gaze is a peek inside her head. She can master a poker face to beat the best, but she’d still bare her soul in those eyes.
“This is where I live.”
Something about her silence doesn’t sit right with me.
“Nova, I choose this. Everyday.”
She nods, and I can feel the apprehension winding in her gut. She shivers, smoothing her hand over the mattress.
“I just . . . don’t you get cold?”
That would be her concern.
Reaching out, I let my finger trail up the center of her back, stopping to grip the nape of her neck.
“Come here.”
She lets me pull her down and into the swell of my arm, a small shiver rolling through her. I’m not sure if it’s how hard I just made her come or the chill on the night air, but I reach for the blanket at the end of the bed, tossing it over us in the most impromptu sleepover I’ve ever fucking had.
In fact, the only sleepover I’ve ever had.
Slowly, so as not to rock the boat, Nova rolls towards me, her eyes dark in the pale moonlight above us. In the darkness, she looks like an angel, studying me like I’m some mystery.
Everything’s a mystery, right now. What the fuck am I supposed to say? What do I do with my hands?
“Do you ever get lonely?”
Something new winds through me. Nerves, maybe? I haven’t felt this in a long time, but being here, alone with her when we’re not fucking or fighting . . . how do I not fuck this up?
Put me up against a storm of the century and I’ll face it bravely. Put me up against Nova Fischer when I can’t escape that sweet gaze? I’m fucking done.
“Sometimes. I don’t think about it, though.”
She leans forward, resting her chin on her hand on my chest. Absentmindedly, I run my fingers through the ends of her hair, memorizing each soft curl with my fingertips. This is too intimate and part of—most of—me wants to run the other fucking way.
But there’s that small slice of me that couldn’t tear myself away if I tried. And that’s what keeps me here.
Now’s the time to ask about Jack, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I don’t want him in here, in this space with us when things are so . . . calm. Where both of us are navigating something that’s so much fucking bigger than I think either of us can understand.
“Are we going to be stuck in here?”
“Do you have a date, little bird?”
She rolls her eyes, leaning up until her hair falls around us, creating a dark cocoon of blonde ringlets. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“I didn’t . . . you know.”
“Make me come?” I finish for her, and she sputters. Chuckling, I reach up and brush the hair back from her face. She’s tired. I’m tired. As much as I would love to sink inside her, feel her tightening around me—I also want her screaming my name. “Soon.”
God, I want her. I want her more than I’ve ever wanted anything. She deserves more than a quick fuck in the bottom of a smelly lobster boat.
She deserves more than me.
Leaning down, she brushes her lips against mine, letting me capture them and pull her into me. I slip my tongue into her mouth and everything around us just stops. I kiss her until her lips are bruised and I’m in danger of walking out of this with a permanent hard-on. Only when her moans get a little too loud and the grinding starts to rock the boat just enough that it may be noticeable, do I yank myself away with a quiet curse.
Fuck whoever’s on the dock. I hope they get caught.
I roll her over until she’s beside me, her legs tangled with mine and my arms around her. “Soon,” I murmur in between sucking and kissing every inch of skin I can reach. “I’m going to break this sweet cunt, little bird. I’ll be burying myself inside you until my name is the only one you’ll remember.”
She shudders, her breath hitching. I can see her smile, hear the sharp intake of breath when I bite down on the lobe of her ear. I kiss a path up to her mouth, harder and hotter as my need for her grows. When I feel like I’m going to suffocate, I force myself to pull back and lean my forehead against hers, my breathing ragged.
“Is that a threat, Mr. Morrison?”
“It’s a promise, Ms. Fischer. Now,” I tug the single pillow up the bed and shove it under her head. “We’ll be here awhile. Get some sleep.”
“You sure you don’t want to talk? We are friends, you know?”
“Nova,” I warn.
“I know,” she chuckles deviously. “It’s just . . . I feel like I need to say this, Reid. I know you’re leaving in September. I don’t want a relationship, either.”
I really don’t like where this is going.
“Okay?”
“Well, I was just hoping we could . . . I don’t know. Have fun until then?”
“Sex?”
“Yes,” she whispers quietly, as if the entire town is right outside the cabin door.
“I’m not romantic, Nova,” I interject before she can say anything else. “I can make you come more times than you can count. I can fulfill all your kinky fantasies, but I’m not boyfriend material.”
She smiles softly. “I’m not asking you to be.”
“So, what are you asking?”
“More like a friends with benefits situation. I don’t expect anything from you. I know Alaska is important to you.”
It’s a big opportunity that came when I was starting to feel like I’d fallen stagnant. Now . . . I don’t know if it’s the darkness surrounding us or the pretty way her eyes shine in the moonlight, but now, I’m questioning fucking everything.
“So, you want me to fuck you? Nothing more?”
She shrugs. “We can still hang out.”
My cock is rock hard in my jeans again. She meets my gaze, even in the darkness of the cabin. I can practically feel the thump of her heart racing in her chest and the electricity zapping between us that could power a city.
“I just want you to know, I’m not expecting anything from you.”
“Are you asking me to be your dirty little secret, Nova?”
She blushes, but she doesn’t back down.
“I guess I am.”
Her breath hitches when I press a kiss to the side of her jaw and inhale the scent of her. Vanilla and sugar and everything that makes my cock throb.
Still, it won’t happen tonight.
Pulling away, I place a kiss to her temple—also something I’ve never done before. I’ve got to get off this boat.
“Sleep well, little bird.”
Nestling her head on my shoulder, I listen to the sounds of her breathing eventually even out.
She deserves better, for what it’s worth. I’m just a filthy asshole. The prick that plans to leave as soon as September rolls around, never to be seen again. Shit, it would have been so easy to just lose myself in her for the night. I would if she were anyone else. Without hesitation, I’d have her coming so hard she blacks out on my cock, my tongue, or my fingers until well after the other fishermen went to work for the day and the sun started to rise.
It’s different for Nova, though. I can’t bring myself to just fuck her and move on. I want her to remember me for more than just one night. I want her smiles, to watch her laugh.
Just friends. Who the fuck is she kidding? This was never just friends.