Chapter 15
LEXI
By the time Franklin finally called it, the sky had already slipped from gold to bruised violet, and the marsh looked like it was holding its breath for night.
I felt wrung out in the best and worst ways—performance high humming through me, nerves frayed from the morning’s scare, heart tight for reasons that had nothing to do with work.
Lucas opened the SUV door and tipped his head toward the passenger seat, all calm competence like the day hadn’t lit every fuse I had.
“Home?” he asked.
“Not yet.” The words were out before I could pretend to be sensible. “Please. Don’t take me straight back.”
He studied me through the last of the light, unreadable. “Where do you want to go?”
“Somewhere that isn’t mine.” I wet my lips. “Somewhere there’s no crew. No phones. No Franklin. Just … air.”
A beat. Then he nodded, like I’d passed a test I hadn’t known I was taking. “Buckle in.”
We drove south, away from the trailers and taped-off lanes and the polite chaos of a set trying to convince itself it was under control.
Windows down. Humid night pulling at my long, blonde hair.
He didn’t fill the space with words, and I didn’t need him to.
The road thinned to two lanes, then one.
Live oaks arched overhead, their moss a curtain parting just for us.
Every mile felt like shedding a layer of armor.
“Where are we going?” I asked finally.
“Folly,” he said. “South end. Quiet after dark.”
“Is that an order, Sergeant, or whatever you are?”
He almost smiled. “Suggestion.”
“You from Charleston?” I asked, more curious than casual.
He shook his head. “No. Flew in the day we met at the bar.”
That surprised me. “Then how do you know about Folly? The south end’s not exactly on the tourist maps.”
He flicked a glance my way, a ghost of amusement crossing his face. “I do my homework.”
“I’ll bet you do,” I said, watching the shadows move over his jaw. “You and your mysterious Dominion Hall. What even is that place, anyway? And who’s Noah? You two talk like you run some secret agency.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “You could say that,” he said smoothly, tone unreadable.
I raised a brow. “That’s comforting.”
“Should be,” he said, and that was all.
Salt crept in on the breeze. I rolled my window down farther and leaned my elbow against the frame, letting warm air lick across my skin.
There was a peace in the way he drove—hands steady at ten and two, eyes flicking constantly between mirrors and the road ahead.
Watching. Accounting. I’d spent a lifetime around men who loved to be seen.
Lucas carried invisibility like a second language and wore control like a tailored suit.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked.
He hesitated. “Safety protocols. Ingress and egress routes.”
I huffed a laugh. “Romantic.”
“Staying alive is very romantic,” he said, utterly serious. Then, softer: “And you.”
My pulse misfired. “Me?”
His knuckles flexed on the wheel. “What you looked like when you forgot you were being watched.”
Something low tugged behind my lungs. I turned back to the dark ribbon of road. “That doesn’t happen to me often.”
“I noticed.”
We didn’t need more than that.
Folly’s last strip of shops blinked by—boarded windows for the night, a neon pelican flickering over a closed bar like a tired guardian.
He took a side street I wouldn’t have clocked, cut the engine, and we coasted into the hush behind a dune line.
The ocean’s shush met us first—long exhale, long inhale—as though the Atlantic had secrets it would share only if we asked nicely.
Lucas killed the lights. The world went soft and silver.
“Stay put,” he said.
Of course, he said that.
I waited … for about six seconds. Then I slid out of my seat and met him at the back of the SUV. He’d already scanned the lot, checked the beach access, pocketed a small flashlight. He paused when he saw me.
“Disobedient.”
“Chronically,” I said. “Is it a problem?”
He scanned my face, then the horizon. “It might be,” he said quietly. “Not for me.”
We took the wooden walkway over the dunes, the boards warm beneath my bare feet even after dark.
The ocean unfurled in front of us, pewter and restless, the line between water and sky blurred to a single dark seam.
No crowds. No cameras. Only the steady drum of waves and the occasional cry of something wild that didn’t care we were there.
I stepped onto the packed sand and tipped my head back. “God, I missed this.”
“What?”
“Being a person.” I pointed at the water. “Back home, even the ocean asks for selfies.”
He made a sound that might have been a laugh. The good kind—rare, surprised, untouched by habit.
“Come on,” I said, slipping my fingers around his. “If I don’t at least put my toes in, the beach police revoke my privileges.”
He didn’t argue. He could have—about shoes, about visibility, about smarter choices. He just let me pull him forward, our hands locked, a promise wrapped in a risk.
Water rushed around our ankles, cool as a dare. A wave licked higher, soaking the hem of my dress, and I gasped. He watched me like a man cataloging the ways a storm reveals itself—every shiver, every tilt toward the wind.
“I used to sneak out at night where we grew up,” I said, lifting my wet skirt in one fist. “Climb the neighbor’s fence, run to the public pool when it closed.
Hannah would come with me. We’d jump in fully clothed so if our parents checked the cameras, they’d think we fell in by accident.
” I grinned at the memory. “We thought we were brilliant.”
“You were,” he said with a laugh. “Criminal masterminds.”
“You’re mocking me.”
“Not even a little.” He tipped his chin toward the ocean. “Still got the impulse.”
“I like the feeling of getting away with something.”
His gaze held mine. “Then stop picking men who are too easy to fool.”
How did he know?
The wave tugged again, stronger this time, curling around my calves. Thunder mumbled far out over the water, the sky pricking with heat lightning like someone testing a fuse.
“What about you?” I asked. “Did you break rules as a kid?”
“Constantly.” He said it like a confession and a badge. “And then I learned which ones to keep.”
“What are those?”
“The ones that keep the people I care about breathing.”
Something in my chest opened, messy and terrified. I stepped closer because distance felt rude.
“Lexi,” he warned softly, even as his hand found my waist.
“Don’t pretend you brought me here to teach me about rip currents.”
“I didn’t bring you here,” he said, voice dropping. “You asked.”
“Same difference,” I whispered.
He made a low sound and lowered his head, and I met him halfway because there was no universe where I wouldn’t. The kiss took me under in one pull—no warm-up, just heat. His hands slid up my back, anchoring me, pulling me flush, and the world steadied on that axis.
The ocean kept time for us. Rush. Break. Retreat. His mouth coaxed mine open with a patience that felt like power, tongue teasing, the kind of kiss that understood leverage and used it without apology. I curled my fingers into his T-shirt, dragging him closer, breathing him in.
“I shouldn’t,” he said against my mouth.
“Then don’t,” I murmured, and pulled him under again.
We staggered farther into the surf, clothes turning heavy, water wrapping our shins, our knees, the coolness a bright edge that made everything hotter.
When a wave hit, he braced both of us easily, one hand spanning the small of my back, the other cupping my jaw like he’d memorized the angle already.
He kissed me until I couldn’t find my edges, until the constant hum of vigilance I carried in my bones quieted into a single, certain note: yes.
Lightning spidered across the clouds, distant, just show. A breeze swept low across the water, lifting hair from my neck. His palm skimmed up my spine and the shiver that followed had nothing to do with temperature.
“Tell me no,” he said, forehead pressed to mine, breath rough. “Right now.”
“No,” I said obediently. Then: “To stopping.”
His laugh broke, wrecked and lovely. “Impossible woman.”
“Overrated word.” I slid my hands to his hips, feeling all that contained strength. “You keep pretending you’re made of restraint.”
He leaned in, voice gone dark. “That’s not pretense. It’s survival.”
“Then stop holding back,” I breathed. “Show me what happens when you don’t.”
He kissed me like a man abandoning caution.
Sand sucked over our feet. The next wave hit mid-thigh.
I gasped and he swallowed the sound, lifting me on instinct so water didn’t knock us off balance.
It should have been awkward. It wasn’t. My arms locked around his shoulders, my legs cinched his waist, and suddenly there wasn’t anywhere else to be.
His name was a plea, a dare, a prayer. “Lucas—”
“God, help me,” he muttered, and walked us backward toward the beach, never once breaking the kiss. Every step was a promise—careful, steady, like he was carrying something precious he had every intention of keeping.
We collapsed onto the slope above the swash line, panting, laughing breathlessly when a stray wave chased us and soaked us again, anyway.
“We’re very bad at staying dry,” I said, pushing wet hair from my face.
“Occupational hazard.” He was smiling—really smiling now—and it did things to me that should’ve come with a warning label. “Next time, I’ll issue you a poncho.”
“You think there’s going to be a next time?”
He looked at me like a verdict. “Yeah.”
A fat raindrop landed on my collarbone. We both glanced up at the same time.
“Don’t say it,” I warned. “If you say the word ‘omen’ or ‘sign’—”
“Was going to say ‘cover,’” he said, dead serious. Then another drop hit, then ten. In seconds the sky unzipped, warm rain coming down in sheets, soaking us faster than the ocean had.
We started laughing—ridiculous, delighted, a little wild. He tipped his head back and let it pelt his face, water slicking his hair to his skull, jaw carved dark in the storm light. He looked like the man you call when your world is burning—and the man who might light the first match if he has to.
I shoved him in the chest. He didn’t budge.
“This is a terrible idea,” I said over the roar.
“Most of the best ones are,” he said, hands skimming under the wet cling of my dress, palms hot.
“Predict the interruption,” I challenged, bringing my mouth back to his ear. “Go on. Last time, it was Hannah. Time before that, a bar brawl. So what stops us now?”
“Lightning,” he said, wicked. “Or me remembering I’m on your payroll.”
I caught his bottom lip lightly between my teeth. “I think Dominion Hall can spare you for a personal day.”
His breath hitched. “You shouldn’t even know that name.”
“I hear things,” I said, because I did now. “And I’m very motivated.”
He swore softly, a word that sounded like surrender and strategy colliding.
Rain drummed against the sand, against our skin, washing away sweat and salt and whatever last threads of pretending we’d been carrying. He framed my face and searched it, the way men who keep people alive search for telltales before they move.
“What are you going to regret in the morning?” he asked, and it wasn’t teasing.
“Not this.” My voice didn’t shake. “I’m tired of watching my life through a monitor, Lucas.”
His hand slid to my throat, not to hold, but to feel my pulse stutter hard against his palm. “Then tell me what you want.”
“You,” I said simply. “Right now. Just—” I swallowed. “Just you.”