Chapter 5
FORD
The waiting is killing me.
Two days since I kissed her. Two days since I tasted her mouth and felt her body pressed against mine and made promises I have every intention of keeping. Two days of sleeping on deck while she's below, knowing exactly how close she is, knowing I could go to her if I let myself.
I don't let myself.
Instead I run checks. Monitor radio channels.
Watch the horizon for threats that haven't materialized.
The unfamiliar boat finally moved on yesterday, and Cal confirmed they headed north toward Charleston without making contact with anyone in Tidehaven.
Could have been innocent after all. Could have been reconnaissance that didn't pan out.
Either way, the immediate pressure has eased.
Which means the pressure between Sera and me has nowhere to hide.
She's standing at the bow right now, face turned into the wind, her dark hair streaming behind her like a banner.
We're anchored in a new spot tonight, a hidden cove on the back side of an island with no name on any official chart.
The sun is setting behind the marsh grass, painting everything gold and rose and amber.
She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
And she knows I'm watching her. I can tell by the slight tension in her shoulders, the way she's holding herself just a little more carefully than she would if she thought she was alone.
Seven days left on our arrangement. Seven days until someone from her father's network comes to collect her and I go back to my quiet life of charter fishing and solitude.
Seven days feels like both too long and not nearly enough.
"You're staring." Her voice carries back to me, amused.
"I'm admiring the view."
She turns, and the fading light catches her face, illuminating the curve of her smile. "The marsh is behind you."
"I know what I said."
Her smile widens. She moves along the deck toward me, barefoot as she's been most days, comfortable on the boat in a way she wasn't that first afternoon. The thin cotton dress she changed into for the evening clings to her curves in the breeze.
I grip the helm tighter to keep myself from reaching for her.
"Cal called while you were below," I say, forcing my mind back to business. "The boat that was watching us is confirmed gone. His contact at the Coast Guard station tracked them all the way to the Charleston marina. They've been there for eighteen hours with no sign of movement."
"So we're safe?"
"Safer than we were."
Sera stops a few feet away, leaning against the cabin housing. Close enough that I can smell her now, that lemon scent mixed with something warmer. Close enough that if I reached out, I could touch her.
"Does that change anything?"
The question isn't really about the tactical situation, and we both know it.
"It changes some things." I let go of the helm, turning to face her fully. "We're not under immediate surveillance. No one knows where we are. For tonight at least, we can stop looking over our shoulders."
"And the other thing?"
"What other thing?"
She tilts her head, studying me with those sharp green eyes. "The promise you made two days ago."
My blood heats. "I remember what I promised."
"So do I." She pushes off from the cabin housing and closes the distance between us.
Not touching, but close. So close. "I've been thinking about it for forty-eight hours, Ford.
I've had all the time you wanted me to have.
I've considered every reason this is complicated and inconvenient and probably a terrible idea. "
"And?"
"And I still want you." She says it simply, without drama or pretense.
"Not because we're trapped together. Not because of adrenaline or proximity or any of the excuses you were worried about.
I want you because of who you are. Because of how you treat me.
Because when you look at me, I feel like a person instead of a chess piece. "
I should say something. Should articulate all the reasons this still might be a mistake.
Instead I reach for her.
My hand cups the back of her neck, fingers sliding into her hair, and I pull her into a kiss that picks up exactly where we left off two days ago.
She opens for me immediately, her hands coming up to grip my shirt, her body pressing against mine like she's been waiting for this just as desperately as I have.
No more reasons to hold back. No more excuses about timing or circumstances or the complications waiting for us beyond these two weeks.
Right now, in this moment, there's only her. Only us. Only the hunger that's been building since the moment she stepped off that plane and looked at me like I was part of the problem.
I want to prove I'm part of the solution.
"Below," I manage against her mouth. "Now."
She doesn't argue. Doesn't hesitate. She takes my hand and leads me toward the cabin hatch, and I follow like a man walking toward his own destruction with open eyes.
The cabin is dim, the last light of sunset filtering through the small portholes. Sera stands beside the narrow bed, watching me descend the stairs with an expression I can't quite read. Anticipation. Uncertainty. Desire.
I stop in front of her.
"Last chance." The words scrape out of my throat. "Once we do this, there's no going back. No pretending it didn't happen."
"I don't want to pretend." She reaches up and starts unbuttoning my shirt. Her fingers are steady. Certain. "I want to remember every second of this. I want to remember the way you're looking at me right now like I'm the only thing in the world that matters."
"You are." I catch her hands, stilling them. "Right now, in this moment, you're the only thing that matters."
Then I stop talking and start showing her.
I finish the job she started, shrugging out of my shirt and tossing it aside.
Her eyes travel down my chest, cataloging the scars, the muscle, the evidence of a life lived hard and survived anyway.
She doesn't flinch from any of it. Just reaches out and traces a pale line across my ribs with one fingertip.
"Shrapnel," I say before she can ask. "Yemen. Ten years ago."
"Does it still hurt?"
"Not anymore."
Her hand flattens against my skin, palm warm over my heartbeat. "What about this? Does this hurt?"
"In the best possible way."
I find the zipper at the back of her dress and draw it down slowly.
The fabric falls away from her shoulders, pools at her feet.
She's wearing simple cotton underwear beneath it, pale blue against olive skin, and the sight of her standing there half-naked in my cabin does something violent to my self-control.
"You're beautiful." I trace the curve of her shoulder, the line of her collarbone, the swell of her breasts above the plain bra. "I've been imagining this for days. What you'd look like. How you'd feel."
"And how does reality compare?"
"Better." I lean down and press my mouth to the hollow of her throat, feeling her pulse jump against my lips. "So much better."
Her head falls back as I kiss my way down her chest. I unhook her bra without lifting my mouth from her skin, letting it fall away to reveal perfect breasts tipped with dark nipples already hardening in the cabin's cool air.
I take one into my mouth and she gasps, her hands flying to my shoulders for balance.
Her nipple tightens further against my tongue as I suck, swirl, graze with my teeth. She makes a sound that's half moan, half whimper, her fingers digging into my muscles. I give her other breast the same attention while my hands find her hips, grip the waistband of her underwear.
"Ford..." My name breaks on her lips.
"I know." I slide her underwear down, letting it join the dress on the floor. "I've got you."
She's bare now, exposed, trembling slightly under my gaze. I take a moment just to look at her. The curves she tried to downplay with practical clothes. The softness of her belly, the flare of her hips, the dark hair between her thighs.
I want to taste every inch of her.
"On the bed." My voice comes out rougher than I intend. "Lie back."
She complies without question, settling onto the narrow mattress with her hair spread across the pillow and her legs pressed together in sudden shyness.
I deal with my remaining clothes in seconds, and her eyes widen when she sees me fully hard and straining toward her. I don't give her time to be nervous about it. I kneel on the bed and part her thighs with both hands, settling between them like I belong there.
"I promised you my full attention." I meet her eyes, holding her gaze as my hands slide up her inner thighs. "I always keep my promises."
Then I lower my head and put my mouth on her pussy.
She cries out, hips bucking up against me.
I pin her down with one arm across her hips and lick her again, tasting the salt-sweet evidence of how much she wants this.
Her clit is swollen, begging for attention, and I give it exactly what it needs.
Long slow strokes with my tongue. Quick circles that make her thighs shake.
Gentle suction that tears another cry from her throat.
"Oh god." Her hand finds my hair, gripping hard. "Ford, I can't..."
"You can." I slide one finger inside her, then two, crooking them to find the spot that makes her back arch off the bed. "You're going to come on my tongue, Sera. Then you're going to come on my cock. Then, if you're very good, I might let you rest before we start all over again."
She whimpers something incoherent. I take it as agreement.
I work her with my fingers and my mouth, building her higher with every stroke.
She's so wet I can feel her dripping down my hand, so tight around my fingers that I can already imagine how she'll feel wrapped around my dick.
The sounds she's making fill the small cabin, broken moans and desperate gasps and my name like a prayer on her lips.
When she comes, she screams.
Her whole body locks up, inner walls clenching around my fingers, her thighs clamping against my ears. I don't stop. I keep licking, keep stroking, drawing out her orgasm until she's sobbing and pushing at my shoulders because it's too much.
I pull back just enough to let her breathe. But not for long.
"I need to be inside you." I crawl up her body, bracing myself on my forearms on either side of her head. "Need to feel you come like that around my cock."
"Yes." She's still trembling from the aftershocks, but her hands find my hips and pull me closer. "Please. Now."
I reach for the drawer beside the bed where I keep a box of condoms I haven't touched in longer than I want to admit. She watches me roll one on with hungry eyes, her chest heaving, her skin flushed from her orgasm.
Then I notch myself at her entrance and push inside.
We both groan at the sensation. She's so tight, still pulsing from her orgasm, and I have to hold perfectly still for a moment just to keep from losing control. Her legs wrap around my waist, heels digging into my ass, urging me deeper.
"Fuck." The word punches out of me. "You feel incredible."
"Don't stop." Her nails rake down my back. "Don't you dare stop."
I don't.
I pull back and thrust again, setting a rhythm that's hard and deep and exactly what both of us need.
The bed creaks beneath us, too narrow for this, too small, but I don't care.
Nothing exists outside this cabin. Nothing matters except the woman beneath me and the way she's taking everything I give her and demanding more.
Her pussy grips me like a fist with every stroke. I angle my hips to hit that spot inside her, the one that made her scream before, and I know I've found it when her eyes roll back and her moans go high and desperate.
"That's it." I pound into her harder, watching her face, watching her fall apart. "Come for me again, Sera. Let me feel it."
She shatters with a cry that echoes off the cabin walls. The sensation of her clenching around me is enough to drag me over the edge with her. I bury myself deep and let go, pleasure whiting out my vision as I spill inside her.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. I'm collapsed on top of her, still buried in her warmth, my face pressed against her neck. Her hands stroke lazy patterns across my back. Her heartbeat drums against my chest.
"Ford." Her voice is soft, sated.
"Yeah."
"That was..."
"I know." I lift my head enough to look at her, brushing sweat-damp hair from her forehead. "It was for me too."
She smiles, something soft and open that transforms her whole face. "I think I might be in trouble."
"Good trouble or bad trouble?"
"The best kind." She pulls me down for a kiss that tastes like promises neither of us have said out loud yet. "The kind I don't want to come back from."
I kiss her again because I don't have words for what's happening in my chest. This fullness. This rightness. This terrifying certainty that nothing will ever be the same.
Seven days left.
Seven days before her father's people come to collect her. Seven days before this dream ends and reality reasserts itself.
I pull out slowly, dealing with the condom before settling beside her on the narrow bed. She curls into me immediately, her head on my chest, her leg thrown over mine. Like she belongs there. Like she's always belonged there.
"Stay with me tonight." Her voice is already drowsy, satisfaction pulling her toward sleep. "No more sleeping on deck. Stay here."
"Where else would I go?"
She hums contentedly and closes her eyes.
I lie awake long after her breathing evens out, one hand stroking her hair, watching the last light fade from the portholes. The sounds of the marsh filter in through the hull. Frogs and insects and the occasional splash of something hunting in the shallows.
Peaceful sounds. Normal sounds. The soundtrack of the life I've built for myself over four years of solitude.
A life that suddenly feels too small to go back to.
I press a kiss to the top of Sera's head and close my eyes.
Seven days to figure out how to keep her.
Seven days to convince her that what started as debt has become something else entirely.
Seven days before I have to watch her walk away or find a reason to make her stay.
In my arms, Sera sighs in her sleep and burrows closer.
I hold her tighter and let myself imagine a future I didn't know I wanted until she crashed into my life and made me remember what it felt like to be alive.