6. Dane Gallagher
Dane Gallagher
The fire has burned down to embers, the glow still visible through the gaps in the shelter wall. It brightens and fades with the wind.
Beyond that, the jungle moves in its usual night rhythm—leaves rustling, insects humming, something moving through the undergrowth before going still again.
I lie back, staring at the palm roof overhead.
Sleep should have come hours ago. I’m exhausted, every muscle worn down from the last few days. But every time I start to drift, something in me snaps awake again.
So I stay where I am, one arm tucked beneath my head, listening to the island instead.
Charlotte is on the other side of the divider. It’s nothing more than woven palm leaves stretched over a rough frame—privacy in theory more than reality. I hear her breathing, slow and even, and a faint rustle when she moves.
Those sounds shouldn’t catch my attention anymore. We’ve slept like this for years, only a few feet apart, separated by a wall too thin to hide much of anything.
Tonight, it’s different.
Everything is.
I close my eyes, and I’m right back there—finding her half-conscious, her skin too hot and too pale at the same time, her pulse barely fluttering under my fingers like it might disappear entirely.
My chest tightens, and I open my eyes again, focusing on the roof.
Charlotte breathes in, then out. The sound carries through the wall and settles somewhere deeper than it should, pressing against something I don’t want to think about too closely.
What I’m feeling should be relief. But it’s not. It’s more than that.
A few days ago, I could still pretend I didn’t understand what this is—call it guilt, responsibility, or habit. Maybe even some warped instinct to protect what I resented.
Then I thought I was losing her, and every excuse I’d been hiding behind fell apart.
On the other side of the wall, she shifts. Then the sound fades back into quiet.
I picture her the way she looked earlier, sitting by the fire as I poured warm water through her hair. Her curls clung damp to her shoulders, the towel hanging loosely around her body.
I press my eyes closed and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Fuck.”
The memory is right there, too close.
I can still feel her weight against me when I caught her, the warmth of her body against mine. The way she tilted her head back when I rinsed her hair, trusting me with it.
This didn’t start with the snake.
Almost losing her makes these feelings impossible to ignore, but they’ve been there all along. I just never let myself see them.
I don’t know when it changed. That’s what gets me.
There’s no moment I can point to. It happened quietly, in ways I could brush off if I didn’t look too closely—keeping track of where she was without thinking about it, noticing when she was hurt or tired or off in some way I couldn’t explain, the way her silence got under my skin when she was angry with me, the way the thought of anything happening to her sat wrong in my chest.
It built slowly. Now it’s obvious.
I lie there in the dark, her breathing only a few feet away, and I stop pretending.
I love her.
I. Fucking. Love. Her.
But worse than that—I want her.
My throat tightens. I wish it would close altogether and put me out of my misery.
A brother doesn’t think like this. He doesn’t lie awake remembering the feel of his sister in his arms or the scent of her hair.
It’s so fucking wrong. Sickening. The disgust is sharp enough to turn my stomach. And the worst part is, I can’t shut it off. Knowing it’s wrong doesn’t change anything.
I wish Ryan had never told me.
The memory comes back sharp, like he’s right there instead of gone.
I overheard Tara and Dad talking.
Charlotte is Dad’s daughter.
They were going to tell her after the trip.
I can still hear Ryan’s voice saying the words.
Back then, I hated it for a different reason. It meant Dad had one more thing tying him to her, making her matter more.
Now I hate it for what it actually means.
Because if Ryan hadn’t said anything, I could’ve gone on believing what everyone else did—that she was just the daughter of the woman Dad married. Someone I wasn’t related to.
Maybe I could have lived with this.
Maybe I could have loved her without knowing exactly how wrong it was.
The shelter feels too close. Too warm. Too full of her.
Her breathing stays steady on the other side of the divider. Good. The last thing I want is to face her with all of this still tearing through me.
I get to my feet and slip outside. The air is cooler here. The moon hangs high over the water beyond the trees, casting a pale glow across the sand, turning the lagoon almost silver.
I move a few steps away from the shelter, stopping at the edge of the clearing. My hand drags through my hair as I try to steady my thoughts.
It doesn’t help. The quiet makes it worse. And my head goes straight back to her in that towel.
Desire hits hard and fast, twisting low in my groin.
Then my hand slips beneath the waistband of my shorts, my fingers wrapping around my cock.
I move slowly at first, long strokes from base to tip.
My grip tightens as the rhythm builds. My thumb brushes over the head, and a quiet sound slips out before I can stop it, swallowed quickly by the night.
It doesn’t take long. This has been building up in me for days.
My breathing turns uneven, my body tightening with it, every movement pulling me closer.
Her.
The way she looked. The way she felt. The way she leaned into me without even realizing it.
It all feeds into it, building fast, until there’s nowhere else for it to go.
I brace my free hand against the nearest tree and finish with a tight fist, the release hitting hard, shuddering through me. I drop my face to my forearm and come on the jungle floor, hips jerking forward with each pulse, breath tearing out of me in rough bursts.
My elbow nearly gives. I lock it and ride out the last of it until there’s nothing left, my body sagging against the trunk, bark biting into my palm.
I stay there for a moment, forehead pressed to my arm, just breathing as I tuck my cock back into my shorts.
The thought that follows is worse. What would it feel like to be inside her?
“Fuck.”
I hate this.
Hate that I want her.
A low groan slips out as my head tips back, my gaze lifting to the sky.
I stand there for a while, breathing slowly, trying to push the thoughts back where they’ve lived for a while now.
It doesn’t work. The longer I stand here, the worse it gets—everything tightening, sharpening into something harder to ignore.
Anger. Grief. Something close to despair.
“Why?”
Why does she have to be my sister? Why did Ryan have to tell me?
I could’ve lived with loving my stepsister. I could’ve been happy. But I know now, and there’s no undoing it.
The truth sits on my chest. And the worst part isn’t that I’m in love with her.
It’s that I didn’t stop even after I knew.
I’m still staring at the sky when I hear footsteps behind me. I tense before turning.
Charlotte steps out of the shelter and pauses just outside, letting her eyes adjust to the moonlight. The shirt she’s wearing hangs loose to her thighs, her hair still slightly damp where it falls down her back.
She studies me.
“Dane?”
I drag a hand across my face before she can read too much. The night air has cooled me down, but not enough to hide it completely.
She walks a little closer. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
She doesn’t look convinced as her eyes search my face.
“I woke up and thought something was wrong. You were breathing hard.”
Yeah, I bet I was.
“Just needed some air. It’s hot in there tonight.”
She watches me another second. “You’re right. It is.”
Moonlight catches in the loose strands of her hair as she steps up beside me.
She’s so fucking beautiful.
For a moment, neither of us speaks as the night hums softly around us.
“I just wanted to thank you again for coming after me. If you hadn’t… I don’t think I’d still be here.”
I don’t let myself think about that. Not even for a second.
“You would’ve figured something out. You always do.”
She shakes her head. “No, Dane. I wouldn’t have.”
Before I can answer, she steps in and wraps her arms around me. I go rigid. Then I pull her in, pressing my nose into her hair, breathing her in before I can stop myself.
This is dangerous.
She lifts her face and plants a quick kiss against my cheek. “Thank you.”
My arms tighten around her. “Don’t try to die on me again.”
She lets out a soft breath of laughter against my shoulder. “I’ll try not to.”
I pull back enough to look at her. “And don’t leave again.”
Her expression softens. “I won’t.”
We stay like that a second too long, then she steps back. “G’night, Dane.”
“G’night, Charlotte.”
She turns and disappears into the shelter. I stay where I am, staring out over the dark water.
Holding her like that only made my feelings clearer.
And she can never know.