Chapter 37
The breeze shifted, cooler now that the sun dipped lower, brushing over my arms and raising goosebumps. It wasn’t cold, not really, but it was the kind of chill that made my skin tighten, my breath catch.
Before I could rub my arms or pretend I wasn’t reacting, Dane moved.
Not hurried.
Not dramatic.
Just… decisive.
He pulled his grey sweatshirt from where Peter had set our things, the fabric soft, worn at the cuffs, smelling faintly of cedar and something warm and male.
He stepped behind me.
Close.
Close enough that the heat of him grazed my back before the sweatshirt did. Close enough that I felt his breath skim the top of my shoulder. Close enough that my heartbeat tripped over itself twice.
“Lift your arms,” he murmured.
Low.
Hushed.
A voice meant only for my skin.
I did.
His hands slid the sweatshirt over my arms, slow, like he was dressing something breakable.
The fabric brushed my bare collarbone, my stomach, my hips.
He pulled my hair free from the collar with careful fingers, his knuckles grazing the nape of my neck so light it felt like a promise instead of a touch.
My breath stuttered.
His hands lingered.
Just a second.
Just long enough.
“That’s better,” he whispered behind me, breath warm against my ear.
I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to lean back into him, to feel his chest press against my spine, to let the day tilt into something neither of us were saying out loud yet.
But when I turned, he was already stepping away.
Not far.
Never far.
Just enough to keep himself from reaching.
Just enough to stop himself from touching me the way he clearly wanted to.
The skipper untied the last rope. The yacht eased away from the pier, cutting through the water so smoothly it felt unreal.
The world shifted into motion.
Waves lapped softly against the hull, each sound like a heartbeat against wood. Lantern light shimmered on the surface of the sea, breaking into tiny gold shards that danced away with the yacht’s wake.
I walked toward the bow, drawn by the view, drawn by the way the wind curled around me like an invitation. The sweatshirt Dane gave me held his warmth, and each inhale filled my lungs with him.
The ocean widened ahead endless blue deepening into indigo as dusk folded over the horizon.
I leaned on the rail. The breeze kissed my cheeks, lifted the ends of my hair, brushed my knees through the thin fabric of my pants. Salt hung in the air, crisp and grounding, pulling a deep peace through my body.
Behind me, I could feel Dane before I heard him.
His presence was a temperature shift. A gravity. A slow pull at the base of my spine.
He stepped beside me, not touching, but close enough for the warmth radiating off him to meet the wind and wrap around me like a tide.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked.
I didn’t know if he meant the sea or…something else.
So, I kept my eyes on the horizon and whispered, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
He exhaled softly, and something about the sound made my stomach flutter like maybe he’d been waiting years to hear my voice carried on ocean air.
The yacht glided further from shore, and the city behind us softened into a silhouette a smudge of lights and memory.
Out here…
Everything felt possible.
Everything felt fragile.
Everything felt like the truth was racing toward us in the dark.
As the yacht sailed deeper into open water, the sky shifted into a bruised violet. The lantern light flickered against my skin, warm and soft, like fingertips tracing over my arms.
Dane stayed beside me.
Silent.
Still.
Coiled tight in a way he didn’t want me to see but couldn’t hide.
He kept his hands in his pockets, jaw tight, eyes fixed on the horizon but every few seconds, his gaze flicked to me:
My mouth.
My collarbone.
My hands gripping the railing.
My hair tangling in the wind.
He watched like a man trying to memorize restraint.
Like a man trying very, very hard not to take what he wanted.
His arm brushed mine once.
A spark.
Twice.
A flame.
The third time, he didn’t pull away.
Neither did I.
We stood like that barely touching, barely breathing for long, aching minutes that felt like being held in the hands of something bigger than us.
The ocean rocked the yacht gently, the rhythm slow and hypnotic, making my body sway closer to his without meaning to.
He inhaled sharply when my hip brushed his thigh.
The smallest contact.
Barely anything. But the tension snapped through us like lightning on open water.
He turned to face me fully, eyes dark, unreadable, hungry in a way he was trying to hide but failing at.
“Penn…” he said my name like a sin and a prayer tangled together.
Just my name.
Nothing more.
But the way he said it—
Low, rough, reverent.
It made something inside me unravel thread by thread.
The air thickened.
The waves slowed.
The world tightened into a single point between us.
We hovered there on the edge of something too big, too deep, too inevitable both of us pretending we weren’t about to fall into it headfirst.
And neither of us knowing that the fall was coming faster than either of us could stop.