Chapter 43 Sloan
Sloan
“I don’t think it’s been this bright the entire week.” Tia pushes her sunglasses up her nose to cover her eyes.
I tilt my head back, craning my neck up towards the sky. “You’re right. There isn’t a single cloud.”
One of her manicured nails taps the porcelain of her coffee mug. “What do you want to do today? When my brother was drafting up his itinerary, I don’t think he realized that ‘Day at Sea’ wasn’t actually an activity.”
“We can see what everyone wants to do when they get back from the gym.” I move the rest of my fruit around my plate, watching all the other passengers spread out across the deck, enjoying their breakfasts out under the morning sun, trying not to imagine Bohdan laid out on the floor because maybe he pushed himself too hard and his brain started to bleed again.
Tia slides her sunglasses down her nose, eyes sharpening on me. “I don’t think we should leave it up to them. I heard rumours about a . . . belly flop contest in one of the pools. That has my brother written all over it.”
“It doesn’t have Bohdan written all over it.”
Tia lets out a bark of laughter. “No, it absolutely does not.”
“What doesn’t have Bohdan written all over it?” Talon bounds towards our table, pausing to ruffle my hair before he swings out the chair at the head of the table, turning it backward so he can drop into it, arms slung across it lazily.
“A retirement river cruise,” Jay deadpans, dropping into the seat across from Tia.
Hands settle on my shoulders, heavy and light and perfect and every wonderful feeling in this world. I tip my head back, smiling up at Bohdan. Hair askew, tumbling every which way, and grey eyes brighter than the sky.
“Hi. Was your workout okay?” I can’t help it, but I glance at his scar, hidden under a wave cresting across his forehead.
“All good.” He nods, but the corners of his eyes crease with something that looks a bit like worry when he pulls out the chair beside me.
Talon pulls a sheet of paper that looks like it’s seen better days out of the pockets of his shorts, along with a black marker.
“Seeing as tomorrow’s our last official day, and even though you’ve both changed the rules of your little contest more times than I can count, I thought we could start our day at sea by tallying up the strikes between you two and declare a winner. ”
“We weren’t actually keeping score.” Bohdan presses his fingers to his temple, exasperated.
“I was.” Talon shrugs, making a show of flattening out the crumpled piece of paper and uncapping the marker with a loud pop.
“You haven’t even been around us the whole week. Wait—why do I have the most strikes?” I open a palm, incredulous, before aggressively tapping my finger against the edge of the sheet.
“Sloan.” Talon gives me a look like he feels a bit sorry for me, mouth tugging to the side before he expertly slides the paper across the table and out of the line of fire for my finger.
“Sloany. Come on.” He blinks at me a bit too much before widening his eyes and gesturing at me.
“Look at you. Ten strikes just for looking like that. Bohdan’s dream girl walking around on the boat? ”
I cross my arms and straighten my shoulders. “Well, that doesn’t seem fair.”
“Yeah, Talon, it’s not her fault she looks like that.” Tia holds a hand open towards me.
“Be that as it may . . .” He gives his sister a pointed look before the marker hits another line. “Yellow revenge dress. Great choice, but come on.”
“Dress was brutal.” Jay nods.
“I liked the dress.” Bohdan presses his mouth to the side of my head, but I feel it bowing with a smile. “Yellow’s my favourite colour.”
It’s not. It’s cerulean because it reminds him of my eyes.
“Case in point.” Talon clicks his tongue, eyes crinkling in sympathy. “Poor fucker didn’t stand a chance.”
“Never did.” Bohdan’s mouth moves against the edge of my ear in a whisper.
Talon waves the marker in an exaggerated circle before he hits the paper again.
“As I was saying, ten points to Sloan for the dress. But before that, Bohdan, you had at least three points for that whole ‘most beautiful girl in the world’ speech you gave before boarding.” He glances at Bohdan with a slow shake of his head.
“And then that whole scene you caused at dinner, talking about what she looks when she—”
“Talon,” Bohdan cuts in, words weighed down with warning.
“Well, am I wrong? You said it.” He enunciates each word with a tap against the lines scratched on the paper, but Jay cuts him off with a groan.
“This can’t be what you planned for the day at sea, man.” Jay runs a hand through his hair before reaching forward and helping himself to the rest of Tia’s coffee.
A line sketches between Talon’s brow. “The plan was . . . day at sea.”
“Day at sea?” Tia echoes before throwing me a knowing look. “That’s not a plan, Talon. You—somehow—planned this entire cruise, but you couldn’t pick a single activity for us to do on this giant ship all full of them?”
“Water aerobics.” Talon doesn’t miss a beat.
“There’s no aerobics today. They’re hosting that . . .” The words catch on her disdain, evident in the downturn of her lips. Tia swallows, like the words cause her physical pain. “Belly flop contest.”
Talon slumps back in his chair, palming his forehead before his eyes go wide, a bit like a lost puppy.
Jay exhales, tossing a sympathetic cringe towards Talon. He drums his fingers along the table. “Remember when we used to play hide-and-seek in college?”
“We’re thirty,” Bohdan says flatly.
“Thirty years young.” Talon nods enthusiastically, before his gaze swings back and forth between the rest of us, expectant.
Tia gives Jay a look. “Yeah, we played hide-and-seek in your shitty house that—”
Jay scoffs, interrupting, “It wasn’t shitty.”
Tia purses her lips before continuing, “You just had the biggest room. As I was saying, those were very contained games. We only had your shitty house with its sticky floors to contend with. This is a giant ship.”
Talon looks around, lower lip extending thoughtfully before his eyes brighten from chocolate to amber, and he points the marker to the top deck of the ship. “What about if we just play on the top deck? It’s smaller and less crowded up there.”
Tia nods, tapping her finger against her nose. “That’s not a bad idea. Everyone’s probably going to be watching that highly sophisticated . . . contest.”
“I always liked hide-and-seek.” I offer Talon an encouraging smile.
“Yeah, because you and Bohdan would ‘hide’ in his room,” Jay mutters with a roll of his eyes.
“Do you want to play?” I blink up at Bohdan.
His fingers drum against my shoulder and he looks down at me, sharp lines of his face too serious for the fact that we’re discussing a children’s game, but he softens when he winks down at me. “If you do.”
I do, actually.
It’s a beautiful, bright day. My heart and my brain feel beautiful and bright, too, and tomorrow isn’t here yet.
Maybe if I hide well enough, it’ll never come.
“Not it,” I say, scrunching my nose before looking back at everyone else.
Talon says it last, too busy angling his head so he could study the top deck of the ship with a shrewd expression that tells me he was trying to scope out possible hiding spots.
“Fuck.” He groans, scrubbing his face before he swings his finger between all of us. “Ten minutes to hide, or you’re all disqualified and I win by default.”
My hiding spot leaves a lot to be desired.
I picked the place anyone would be most likely to find me—the library—found a book about the excavation of Pompeii, slid down against the shelf in the furthest corner of the room near a supply closet that might have made a better refuge, and tried to stay out of sight.
It’s also the place Talon would be least likely to look.
He’s never been a good seeker—he takes it too seriously and never thinks to look in the obvious places.
But someone else looks for me.
“Thought I might find you here. What are you reading?” Bohdan’s words skitter across my skin, my heart skips in my chest, too loud and too awake, and I glance up, away from my book.
He looks more beautiful than usual, features shadowed from the low lights, hair almost bronze against the reflection off the rows of mahogany shelves, imposing and taking up all this space with the stretch of his shoulders in this quiet corner of the library.
“Excuse me.” I push to stand, shoving at his chest with my book. He doesn’t move. “This is my hiding space.”
“So?” He grins, dropping his head against the bookcase. “I like the library as much as you do.”
I point my book at him before sliding it back into its rightful place on the shelf. “You’re supposed to be hiding, too.”
“I am,” he says, voice a bit rough.
“Hiding alone, Bohdan,” I emphasize, pressing back against the stacks of books when he moves to cage me in, ropes and cords of muscle in his arms popping when his palms lie flat on either side of my head.
His eyes strike matches over my cheeks, little fires starting to burn everywhere they touch. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“Bohdan,” I warn, pursing my lips to hide my smile, about to make a show of ducking under his arm, but he shifts with me, one thigh coming between my legs, trapping me between him and the shelf.
A sharp inhale catches in my throat, and I try to swallow down the pulse of pressure, the way he feels, angled right up against the centre of me.
But he sees it all over, tracking the way my eyelashes flutter, my teeth dig into my lip, how I shift against him without realizing it before my brain whirs to life—wide-awake and telling me it’s bad and wrong to feel like this, to want him, in public.
Told you, you’re rotten. My brain shakes its head, the slow cadence of disappointment.
“Sloan.” He cocks his head back, appraising with measured words. “Does that feel good?”
“No,” I try to say, breath caught on my ribs or maybe those old pieces of me we both broke, but the only thing I can really think about is what he feels like between my legs, and how horrible that makes me.
“Sloan,” he repeats.
“What?” I whisper, blinking a bit too much, staring over his shoulder at the wall sconce mounted next to a shelf dedicated to books about the French Riviera.
He angles his head, lips hovering above mine. “It’s okay if it does. It doesn’t make you bad.”
My eyes pinch closed with a jerky shake of my head, and I wish all the thoughts would fall out, but they sink their claws in and hold on for dear life. “But we’re in public. Anyone could find us . . . it’s not . . . appropriate.”
His thumb finds my chin, tipping my face up before he gently brushes it across each of my eyelids, inviting them back open.
Bohdan’s voice drops, this hoarse call against a raging sea, and he throws me these buoys I don’t think I deserve to catch.
“You’re compassionate. You’re funnier than you have any right to be when you’re being the most stubborn woman on the planet.
And you’re allowed to feel good things.”
“What?” I murmur.
“Three facts, Sloan. You’re not bad.” He shakes his head, slow, a bit sad and a bit soft for the way his cheekbones look like they could flay me open. “Far from it.”
“But—”
“No buts,” he says with a firm press of his thumb to my chin, before he looks over his shoulder and tips his head towards the closet door. “Come here.”
“Anyone could find us.” I still, but it feels a bit quieter in my mind because how could I be bad when someone like him thinks I’m wonderful? He’s right there, all hard edges, pressure builds in my core, and when my palms find his shoulders, fingers digging into the muscle, I roll my hips forward.
The left side of his mouth tugs into a sideways grin. He guides me, purposeful and insistent, all the way into the empty closet. He looks down at me, words full of promise when he turns the lock and says, “They won’t. I’ve got you, Zlatí?ko.”
He does have me, even after all these years.
Even in an empty supply closet. My back against the door while he props me up against the ridges of muscle in his thigh.
His mouth brushes mine, soft and careful, before he drags his tongue along the pout of my bottom lip, all the way across my jaw, where it swirls against my earlobe.
“Use me,” he whispers, gravelly, teeth scraping against my skin, hands finding my hips, fingers bruising when he catches a low moan with a swallow.
He has me the way he always did. Heart in his chest, best friend to the one that lives in mine, hands on me, rough and gentle and then rough again when he grinds me against the muscles of his thigh.
“Come,” he instructs; words like his teeth where they scrape against my jaw.
I roll forward, against the hardness of his leg, golden skin soaked with me through my own clothes, and I bury my face in his neck, nails digging down into his shoulders, trying to quiet all the noise caught in my throat when I combust from the inside out.
“Kurva. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Bohdan shifts against me, straining against the linen of his shorts, hands digging into my hips, just this side of pain, and the muscles in his jaw tense, carving a line down his neck when he groans.
“Did you—” I breathe, lifting my head from the crook of his shoulder.
“Come in my pants?” He lifts a brow wryly, swiping a thumb across his mouth. “Not yet, but we need to get back to the stupid suite before I ruin my fucking shorts.”
“I’m sorry?” I blink, before sniffing a laugh.
“I’m not.” He jerks his chin, grinning at me, before his fingers tap softly against my hips. “Trust me.”
I do trust him, even after all this time and after all this hurt. And there are these words I’m dying to say, they’re all over me, written on all this new skin he crafted with those rough hands, and I think they’re what my heart says when it beats, still erratic and too fast in my chest.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
But I don’t trust those words again, not yet.
“Found you.” Bohdan breathes, dropping his forehead to mine.
He did find me, I think. Then and now, and I wish he’d find me forever.