Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Bower
Ihadn’t said it just to inflate her ego.
I’d never come that hard in my entire life.
I’d seen stars, not unlike the ones in the sky above us.
Mia had been amazing. This had been her first time, and as much as I’d tried to make it special, once I’d gotten inside of her, I’d barely been able to hold it together.
Any move she’d made, her breasts bouncing along, had sent fireworks through my cock.
She’d been tight. She’d told me she was a virgin, but shit, she’d fit me like a glove.
I’d stretched her to my exact size, and I didn’t want her to be resized by another man, ever.
She lay there beneath me now, trying to catch her breath.
I knew she had come with me inside of her.
I could feel her walls squeezing me as I’d come right along with her.
Shit. I’d finished so hard there had to be a crazy amount of come inside of her right now.
As soon as I pulled out of her, it would all leak out onto her skin.
I rose above her, admiring her breasts on the way up.
Mia whimpered as my warm body left hers. I pulled my shirt up and over my head, tucking it between our bodies, underneath my cock.
“I’m going to pull out,” I said, giving her a warning. Sometimes that was as jarring as the first time it went in.
She nodded, and I pulled out slowly, allowing her body to adjust to the emptiness. As soon as I was all the way out, I pushed the shirt against her, hopefully catching anything that would slip out of her.
Mia reached down and grabbed the T-shirt, holding it against herself as she sat up on her elbows, watching me.
“What?” I asked. I looked around the boat, trying to find our clothes.
“Sex is amazing,” she said, her head cocked to the side. “What was I waiting for?”
I stopped looking for our clothes and stalked over to Mia. She sat up straight, her breasts bouncing at the sudden movement. I hadn’t expected that confession from her. She’d been engaged. I’d assumed she test drove the goods before committing, but for whatever reason, she hadn’t. Thank God.
I took her jaw in my hand and lifted her head so she could see me in the moonlight. “Me. You were waiting for me,” I said. It meant something that I’d been Mia’s first. And hopefully her last.
“I was,” she whispered.
That was all I needed to hear. My lips crashed onto hers, our tongues playing in a way that made my cock start to rise again. No, I told myself. We couldn’t again. It had been Mia’s first time. She was probably sore and still working through the after-effects.
I ended the kiss, pulling her forehead to my lips. Soon. Very soon I would be deep inside her again, listening to her call out my name.
I tossed Mia her clothes, and we both got dressed. I picked up my soaked and crumpled T-shirt we’d used to clean up and wiped down the bed I’d made in the bow of the boat. Chances were high Mia had bled a bit during sex, and I didn’t want her to feel embarrassed if she spotted it.
After a quick wipe, I threw the shirt into the foot space beneath the driver’s side and put the boards back beneath the seats. Mia watched me, trying to help, but I put her back in the passenger seat where she belonged.
I pulled up the anchor quickly, slapping mosquitos that landed on my bare back. The anchor had a bunch of weeds wrapped around it as I threw it onto the floor of the boat. I decided to leave it be. I didn’t have time to pick it off before I became a buffet for the local mosquito population.
The key was still in the ignition. I turned it, expecting the engine to come alive. Nothing happened. I turned the key again, still nothing.
“Ah, fuck,” I said aloud. The resort boats were old, and while we kept them in good condition, they could be finicky. Not what I needed right now.
I gave it another turn, and the motor sputtered to life, growling underneath us. I let out a sigh of relief. That would have been a tough phone call to make. Talk about a walk of shame.
Just then there was a loud pop, and the boat tremored beneath my feet. My ears rang with the loud noise, the sound echoing again and again inside my head. My knees fell to the floor right before I felt the bottom of the boat hit my face.
Then sand.
There was sand against my cheek. Hot sand. I had to keep my face pressed against it, keep my body low to the ground. The chin strap on my helmet dug into my skin, but I didn’t dare move. Helicopter blades whirled in the sky above, more pops of gunshots in the distance.
“We’re taking fire!” Gus yelled through my headset.
More gunshots over the radio. I clenched my teeth, my body tensing at each one. We had to do something, help our squad. I made a move to get up.
I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. “We’ve got to follow orders. Stay down,” Caleb said, lying in the hot sand next to me.
“It’s fucking Gus!”
“I know, but we’re no help if we’re dead.”
Caleb was right. I slumped back down into the sand, the errant pop of a gun getting less and less frequent.
We lay there waiting for the all-clear call on our radio. That had been close. Luckily the militants had moved in the opposite direction of Caleb and me. We’d been out scouting with no backup.
A staticky voice came in, stating the all-clear and asking for everyone to check in. We all did.
Gus’s radio was silent.
We all knew what that meant.
I saw yellow rain boots when I opened my eyes, a warm hand rubbing my back.
My back that was covered in cold sweat. I’d been back in the desert, in the sand, reliving the worst memories of my life.
They hadn’t felt traumatic when I’d experienced them.
The constant adrenaline flowing through my veins had made it easy to brush it off and continue to the next stressful experience.
It wasn’t until I’d come home that they’d started to hit me.
I was home, I remembered then. On the boat. With Mia.
I pushed myself up into a seated position. Mia’s concerned face came into focus. I wiped the sweat off my forehead, my body still shaking from the episode. They always took a toll on my body. The amount of adrenaline flowing through my veins for even a few minutes wrecked my nervous system.
“Are you okay?” Mia asked, putting a hand on my shoulder.
I’d probably scared the shit out of her. It gutted me that she’d seen me like that. Not after what she’d just given me. I was supposed to be the one taking care of her, not a puddle on the bottom of the boat, shaking like a blithering idiot.
“I’m fine,” I said, pushing her hand off my shoulder and standing up. I leaned against the steering wheel for a minute. The boat was still running. It must’ve misfired, creating the popping noise.
Mia held her hand to her chest like I’d bitten her.
“Let’s go home,” I said.
She stood and looked at me for a minute before sitting down in her seat, looking forward through the windshield.
I was ruining everything. We’d just had this magical moment under the stars. She’d given herself to me, and now I was fucking everything up. Well, I’d already fucked everything up the moment my body had hit the floor.
She was probably regretting giving me this chance—regretting any thought she’d had that we could be something together.
I was someone who people saw for a week and then didn’t think about for a year.
Everyone who came to Agate Harbors was transient, coming and going.
They came for a break of fun and then left to return to their real lives.
This wasn’t Mia’s real life. She had a life, a job in the Cities.
What had I been thinking? That she’d leave her job, her friends, the only life she’d known to come up here and be with me?
She didn’t need to deal with my issues. I’d had them mostly under control this week. My focus had been on her, and she’d placated my mind until tonight.
I’d come back broken from my time in the Marines. I knew that. I should’ve never allowed us to get that close. I’d taken her fucking virginity. But our chemistry was too strong. I’d let that get in the way of reality.
And now she was seeing my reality—what happened to me at any given time when there was a loud, unexpected noise. She’d never experienced this side of me, and I didn’t want her to.
I’d probably just ruined everything we’d built together this week.