Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Scarlett
I wake alone to stillness.
No rain or wind howling like an evil creature from the pits of hell. I don’t even feel the boat rocking in the waves.
The cabin smells like coffee. I crawl out of the bunk and find Dean’s sweatshirt, dragging it on. My body aches—hips, thighs, arms, all of it. For the first time in a long time, I feel human and raw and too alive.
Dean is barefoot on the deck, wearing plaid pajama pants and a long-sleeve T-shirt with the Haven Tours logo on the back. He’s drinking a mug of coffee, eyes on the horizon where blue sky cracks open along the seam of night.
It’s not fair. No man should look that good at five in the morning with a coffee mug and several days’ worth of stubble. Those shoulders in that shirt could make a woman forget every argument she’s ever had with him.
I lean against the companionway and watch him. He doesn’t turn around. He knows I’m here. I can tell by the way his shoulders settle, the small adjustment of weight from one foot to the other, the almost imperceptible tilt of his head toward the sound of my breathing.
I should say something.
Good morning.
Thank you.
You rocked my world last night harder than the boat.
But nothing feels right. None of them cover what really happened.
“You’re up.” He says it to the horizon.
“I’m up.”
“Coffee’s in the galley. Mug on the counter.”
I go back down. The galley is a disaster—broken mug swept into a corner, water pooled on the counter from where something leaked during the storm, a damp towel draped over the stove.
The coffee is in a French press, still warm.
I pour it into the only surviving mug—chipped, no handle, the words Property of the Port Haven Coast Guard faded to near illegibility.
I take a sip. It’s good. Better than good.
I climb back up. He hasn’t moved. The horizon has opened another inch of blue.
We stand in the silence, drinking coffee, watching the sky go gold above the mountains to the east and spread across the bruised water.
I don’t know what I expected after last night, but it isn’t this easy silence.
At some point he puts a hand on my lower back. The touch is casual, possessive, like he’s not even aware he’s doing it. I lean into it and wait for the voice in my head to start the postmortem, to run the tape and catalog every mistake.
The voice is gone.
Instead, there’s just the water and the sky and his hand on my back, and the coffee warming my palms through the chipped ceramic.
The sun clears the mountain ridge, and the water turns from bruised to gold in a single stroke, and I watch it happen with my shoulder against his arm and the taste of coffee on my tongue and the memory of his hands still printed on my skin.
“I should call Bodhi,” he says finally. “Let him know we didn’t drown.”
“Probably.”
He doesn’t move. His thumb traces a slow arc against the small of my back. I close my eyes and lean in until he abruptly lets go.
“But first…” He takes the mug from my hands.
My eyes pop open, and I reach for it. “Hey, I need that.”
“Later.”
Heat rushes through me at the roughness in his voice, and I’m instantly soaked again. I press my thighs together. “Dean…”
He sets the mug behind him on the deck rail and pulls me in, his mouth finding mine as he drags me down to the deck with him. He sits with his back to the railing and me straddling his lap, legs bracketing his hips.
The deck is wet, my knees are freezing, but I’m not stopping. Not when his breath goes harsh against my jaw, not when he bites my earlobe and says my name like it’s a secret only he gets to know.
He slips a hand inside my shorts, finds me already wet, and drags his fingers teasingly across my opening. I gasp, and he laughs against my neck, low and filthy.
“Still think you need that coffee?”
“Shut up and—” I break off with a choked sound as his fingers dive in deep and find a sensitive spot. He presses the heel of his palm up, grinding it in a rhythm that makes my toes curl. I clutch his shirt, bury my face in his neck, and moan.
I ride his fingers, shameless, greedy for it.
In my old life, I was careful about sound—always aware of the camera, the boom mic, the audience.
But here, with the sun coming up and the boat steady under us and nothing in the world but the two of us breathing hard in the morning, I give up the last of my pride and chase it all the way.
He’s hard under me, and I want him inside me, stretching me.
I grind against his hand, desperate for friction, any friction, and whimper when he slows the rhythm.
The bastard. He wants me to beg, wants me to give it up for him, and I’m close enough to do it.
I dig my nails into his shoulders, gasp into his neck, and say, “Please—Dean—don’t stop—”
He groans low, more animal than human, and slides his fingers out, leaving me empty long enough to make me say it again. I do, because apparently I’m that girl now, the one who can’t stop needing him, the one who never wants to.
He lifts me enough to dig another condom out of his pocket, then shoves the front of his pajama pants down. His cock springs free, and before I fully realize what I’m doing, I’m bending down, my mouth closing over the flared head.
I’ve done this before, obviously. There are exes, liaisons, all the usual modern ruins.
But I’ve never wanted to taste a man this badly, to take him in my mouth just to see what happens to his control.
Salt and skin, clean and hot from the sun, and his whole body locks down as I swirl my tongue around the tip.
I look up, not coy, just curious, and see him watching me through hooded eyes, jaw flexed so hard there’s a white nick in his cheekbone.
“Scarlett—” It’s barely a word.
I press my lips lower around his length, flatten my tongue and suck, and he hisses, hands tensing on my shoulders.
I expect him to take over—push, guide, fuck my mouth like a test of boundaries—but he just lets me, rigid and impossibly still, as if any movement might break the spell or snap his last thread of self-restraint.
I work him slow, exploring the shape of him, enjoying the throb and twitch and the little stutter in his hips when I take him to the root.
He tastes clean, faintly bitter, and I want more, all of it, so I flatten my hands to his thighs and lock eyes with him as I bob up and down, watching his expression shift from controlled to helpless.
Dean is a stoic man in every sense, but there’s nothing stoic about the way he looks at me.
He is wide open, stripped of all the armor, every muscle in his body strung tight and caught between agony and release.
I breathe him in, savor the power, the way he tastes, the faint catch in his breath with every swipe of my tongue.
When he can’t take it anymore, his hands find the back of my head, gentle, guiding, not forcing, and I let him. I want him to.
“Scarlett.” The sound is a growl and a prayer.
He comes fast, with a shudder and a long, low groan, his hands clenching in my hair.
I keep him in my mouth, hold him there until the pulses slow, then lick him clean, because why not.
I feel reckless and alive, and I want every single part of this man on my tongue, in my body, marking me for later.
I pull back slowly. He’s panting, eyes still locked on me, his expression full of awe and something I don’t want to examine too closely.
“I wanted to fuck you again,” he manages. “But now you gotta give me a few minutes.”
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and grin at him. “You have to call Bodhi, remember?”
He grumbles, but tucks himself back into his pants and stands. “Don’t move.” He grabs my mug and pushes it into my hands. “And drink up. You’ll need the energy because when I get back, I plan to fuck you until you’re screaming right here on my deck.”
And… he does just that.
Dean Kinsella is nothing but a man of his word.
Later, the boat makes for home on calm water. Dean lets me steer while he checks the forecast on his phone and says NOAA missed it by a mile. Then he takes over and steers us back to the harbor.
When the marina comes into view, my stomach drops.
I don’t want to get off the boat.
I want to stay here, in this narrow world where the only thing that matters is his hands on my skin and the insatiable ache between my legs.
I can’t, and I know it.
Dean cuts the engine. We drift the last hundred yards. He glances at me, then away. “There’s a bonfire tonight. Kicks off Harborfest.”
I had seen the banners for the festival going up around town. “Are you asking me to go with you?”
“Wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise.”
The boat nudges against the dock. Dean throws a line over the cleat without looking.
I should help. I should say something. Instead, I stand there with my hands on the rail and my body still humming from everything he did to me on this deck in the morning light, and I can’t form a single coherent sentence.
He ties off the stern line and turns to face me.
His eyes find mine, and whatever he sees there makes his jaw work. “Doesn’t have to be a thing.”
“A thing?”
“A date.”
I want to ask, then what is it? What was last night and this morning?
But he’s shut down, those shutters closing over his expression.
“Okay,” I say a bit too brightly instead. “I guess… I’ll see you there then.”
“Yeah. Okay. Good. See you.” He turns away.
Annnd dismissed.
How is it that this man who so thoroughly ruined me with that dirty mouth just an hour ago now can’t string together more than a handful of single-syllable words?
I gather my bag and follow him up the ladder.
He’s careful not to touch me, and doesn’t try to kiss me goodbye.
I walk away with my cheeks and thighs stubble-burned, the taste of him still on my lips, and I know two things: one, that I want him again, and two, that next time he’s going to want to see me—all of me—in the light.
And when he does, I’ll have to decide whether the truth of me is something I can bear to show.