Chapter 33 #2
The boat rocked gently as the sun climbed higher, turning the water to gold. I couldn’t look away from his face—his eyes steady on mine, dark and simmering underneath, which made my pulse trip.
His thumb kept tracing slow circles on my thigh.
His fingers slid higher, traced the inside of my thigh, the soft skin there. Warm. Intentional.
“Callan…”
Fainter than I meant. Almost a whisper.
He didn’t answer. His hand moved again—patient, unhurried—under the edge of the blanket, finding the curve of my waist. His palm flattened there and held.
I didn’t pull away; I didn’t want to.
And that alone—the wanting—sent a jolt through me so sharp it stole my breath.
His fingers slid lower, skimming the waistband of my leggings. Dipped just beneath. My stomach clenched as the boat swayed, and I used the motion to press my thigh against his.
He accepted the invitation, his fingers brushing over sensitive skin, teasing the edge of my panties before slipping beneath the fabric. When he finally touched me—where I already ached for him—a gasp escaped my lips.
His gaze dropped to my lips.
“Shh,” he murmured, barely audible over the water lapping against the hull. “Just let it happen, love.”
His finger circled my clit. I tried to keep still, to stay quiet.
But my thighs trembled and parted wider beneath the blanket, and I couldn’t stop them, couldn’t control any of it—and that terrified me and thrilled me in equal measure.
Another finger joined the first, sliding down, pressing inside me slow and deep while his thumb held that perfect, maddening rhythm.
Heat coiled low in my belly. My free hand fisted the blanket; the other found his forearm beneath the cover and gripped hard, nails biting into his skin.
He didn’t flinch.
His fingers curled inside me, stroking the spot that blurred the edges of my vision; this wasn’t just physical.
I’d spent years numb and convinced of my own deficiency, and now every nerve ending had come screaming alive under this man’s hands, and I didn’t know whether to cry or beg him to never stop.
The boat rocked harder. I arched into his hand without meaning to. A low, broken moan slipped out. Callan leaned in, his lips brushed my ear.
“Let go, Sloane,” he whispered. “I’ve got you, love.”
That voice.
Those words.
I’ve got you, love.
The pleasure rolled through me in waves that left me shaking against him.
My thighs clamped around his hand. My forehead dropped to his shoulder.
I bit down on the fabric of his shirt to muffle the sounds pouring out of me, and he kept touching me through every pulse, drawing it out, steady and sure, until I had nothing left, until I went limp against his chest, trembling, oversensitive, and completely undone.
When the aftershocks eased, he didn’t pull away.
His fingers stayed inside me. His thumb brushed feather-light over my swollen clit.
He finally eased his hand free, smoothed the fabric back into place with the same careful tenderness he’d used to move it aside, tucked the blanket higher around us, and lifted my chin with two fingers until I had nowhere to look but straight into his eyes.
His voice came roughly, quiet, almost reverent.
“Did you feel that?”
My eyes burned.
“God, yes,” I breathed, my voice shaking. “I felt it everywhere.”
His eyes darkened, steady and unflinching—as if he could see straight through every wall I’d spent years building.
I pressed my forehead against his chest, breathed him in—salt and warm skin—and the tears came before I could stop them, hot against my cheeks.
Relief.
Because all those years—the emptiness, the silence inside my own body—I hadn’t been broken.
I had been waiting for hands that wanted to know me, a voice that said, “Let go, and meant I’ll catch you,” for someone who touched me like I mattered more than what my body could give them.
Callan’s arms enveloped me, his chin resting on top of my head. He didn’t ask why I cried, didn’t try to fix it or fill the silence with reassurance.
He simply held me.
My mouth found his, my hands dove into his salt-rough hair, fingers twisting in the dark strands still stiff from the sea wind. I pulled him closer.
He kissed me back as if he’d been waiting for me his whole life.
His tongue slid against mine. I moaned into his mouth, low and helpless, and he answered with a rough sound in his throat that vibrated straight through me. The kiss turned molten.
The blanket slipped lower, forgotten.
His hand found the small of my back, sliding up under my shirt, hot and wide against bare skin. He dragged his fingers down my back in one long, deliberate stroke, and I arched into it without thinking, hips rocking forward until I caught the hard length of him straining against my thigh.
I broke the kiss enough to gasp against his mouth.
“Callan—”
He didn’t let me finish. His lips brushed mine again—once, soft, barely there—trailed along my jaw, down the side of my throat.
When his teeth closed gently over my pulse point, I whimpered, hips jerking.
He sucked lightly, tongue flicking over the spot, and the sensation shot straight through my center, reigniting that sharp, needy ache he’d satisfied minutes ago.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured against my skin. “Tell me what you need.”
Everything. Nothing. Him.
I couldn’t say it. Instead, I rocked into his hand, slow and shameless, chasing the release. His fingers flexed, rubbing me through the fabric in lazy circles that hitched my breath.
The boat swayed beneath us, gentle and relentless, matching the rhythm I set against his palm. My hands roamed—over his shoulders, down his chest, lower—until I palmed him through his shorts. Thick. Hot. Straining. When I squeezed, his hips bucked into my grip, and he cursed softly against my neck.
“Sloane…”
I kissed him again—deeper. I didn’t have a name for what this had become.
Not simply lust, though God, there lived plenty of that between us.
This ran deeper—the need to be near him, to touch him, to let him hold me until the world stopped threatening to swallow me again.
His thumb found my clit through the damp cotton and pressed; I gasped into his mouth.
My thighs trembled, and butterflies—actual, stupid, cheesy-novel butterflies—erupted in my stomach so violently I almost laughed.
Thirty years on this planet. Every relationship a flatline. It took the literal end of the world, my grumpy, impossible boss, and the open ocean to give me this.
His mouth moved back to my ear, breath hot.
“You’re shaking,” he whispered. “Still sensitive?”
I nodded, bit my lip hard.
“Good.” His voice dropped lower, darker. “Because I’m not done with you yet.”
His fingers slipped under the waistband again. I cried out softly and muffled it against his shoulder.
It hit me that no one had ever touched me as if I mattered, as if my body held answers worth learning, as if the sounds I made meant something to him beyond his own satisfaction.
Callan touched me as if I existed, as if every gasp and shudder and involuntary rock of my hips told him something he wanted to memorize.
He gave me everything I asked for without my having to say a word.
And somewhere in the middle of it all—his fingers inside me, his mouth on mine, the boat rocking us together in the pale morning sun—I realized the fear had gone quiet.
Not gone. Not yet.
But quiet.
Because this man had his hand between my legs and his eyes locked on mine, and he looked at me as if I’d hung every star in the sky. And I believed him, not because he said it, but because his hands said it, his mouth said it.
You’re not broken. You never were.
He let me come on his fingers—hard.
When the waves finally ebbed, he withdrew his hand slowly, deliberately, letting me register every inch of the drag.
My slickness glistened on his fingers in the bright morning light.
Without a word—without breaking my gaze—he brought them to his mouth.
His lips closed around them. He sucked, slow and thorough, tongue working over his own skin, tasting every trace of me as if I existed as something rare and necessary.
And something shifted in his eyes—a hunger far beyond the physical, beyond want—something that looked terrifyingly close to the same thing unraveling inside my own chest.
He knew.
He already knew what this meant; he’d known before I did. He leaned in and kissed me.
Deep. Open-mouthed.
He pulled back enough to speak, voice shaky, low against my swollen mouth.
“Baby… can you taste yourself?”
I whimpered, nodded, too overwhelmed to form words. My hands were still tangled in his hair, gripping as if I might lose him if I loosened my fingers even slightly.
He kissed me again—slower this time, softer—tongue tracing my lower lip before drawing back completely. His forehead came to rest against mine. His breathing was ragged, chest rising and falling hard.
“I wish we could take this further,” he whispered. His thumb brushed my cheek—gentle, steadying.
“You’re hard,” I said, barely above a whisper.
He let out a strained laugh. “I’ll survive.”
His fingers tipped my chin up until our eyes met again.
“Gives me something to look forward to.”
His voice dropped—darker, rougher—and his eyes held mine with an intensity that pinned me in place.
“I keep picturing it, Sloane.”
My breath stopped.
“You on your knees in front of me. My cock sliding into that perfect mouth of yours. Slow at first—letting you taste every inch—then faster, deeper.”
His thumb traced my lower lip as he spoke, and I parted for him instinctively, the pad of his finger dragging across wet skin.
“Looking right into your eyes the whole time,” he murmured, “while I fuck your throat until we’re both shaking, until I come so hard I see stars.”
He paused. His gaze dropped to my mouth.
“And you swallow every drop as if it belongs to you.”
The image hit me vividly: I could almost feel the stretch of my lips around him, the weight on my tongue. His hands fisting in my hair, guiding me exactly where he wanted, and the sound he’d make—that low, wrecked groan I’d already heard once today—right before he lost control.
My core clenched, empty, aching. Heat flooded through me all over again.
“Callan—” His name left my mouth like a plea.
And what destroyed me wasn’t the wanting. I’d heard dirty talk before. I’d had men whisper things against my skin that should have set me on fire, and instead left me cataloging grocery lists in my head.
This was different.
Because I wanted to do that for him. Not a performance. Not as an obligation. I wanted his hands in my hair and his voice breaking on my name, and I wanted to watch his face when he came apart because of me. I wanted to give him something no one else had. I wanted to be the reason he lost control.
I had never wanted to be that for anyone.
He must have seen it—because his expression changed.
“Soon, my love,” he said against my temple. Voice low. Certain. A promise, not a question. “When we’re alone. When I can take my time with you. When I can make you come again… and again… until you forget there ever existed a version of your life where you thought you were not enough.”
I pressed my face into his chest. His heartbeat steady against my cheek—strong, unhurried, sure. Nothing was wrong with me or my heart.
It had just been waiting for him.