Chapter 20
JESS
The last crab leg cracks clean in my hands, butter running warm over my knuckles. Eli’s at the cabin sink, scrubbing the pot like it mouthed off; steam kisses his face as he works. I’m the last to finish, but it was so good, I wanted to take my time.
After I clean the debris off into the trash, load my plate in the dishwasher, I hip bump Eli and he laughs, giving me room so I can wash my hands.
“Thanks for dinner, it was amazing.”
“No problem.” He winks, and I dry my hands.
Then, I hold up my paperback, spine wrecked from lunch.
“Finished the murder book, and it was really good if you wanted to read it.”
He nods. “Love thrillers and detective novels. Hey, anything you want to do today? We have to head back tomorrow afternoon.”
“I was thinking beach, but it’s almost three.”
“Actually, now is the perfect time. Less UV, better breeze, fewer tourists.” He places the clean, dry pot in the cabinet, then points: “You—swimsuit. I’ll pack everything. Hey, Rowan, can you tell Cassian that if he hasn’t caught anything but jellyfish, he won’t. Wheels in twenty.”
Rowan’s mouth curves. “Don’t think I can persuade him unless I mention Jess will be in a swimsuit.”
“Whatever works.” I shrug, but inside I’m a bit giddy that they think of me as attractive enough to pull Cassian away from his fishing.
Later, the door swings open. Cassian saunters in sun-drunk and empty-handed. “The sea and I have differences.”
“The sea’s correct,” Eli says, passing Rowan a beach towel; their fingers brush—brief, familiar, lingering. Rowan doesn’t pull back. It looks casual, but I know it isn’t.
I change fast—suit under sundress, quick braid, towel jammed into a tote. By the time I step out, Eli’s loaded a cooler with neat little boxes and tucked a roll of paper towels under his arm like a baton. Rowan jingles the keys, and we pile into the car.
Rowan puts on a local rock station, and we sing along while the road to the bay slides past in slices of cattails and bleached fence posts.
Stepping out of the car, the wind punches a laugh right out of me—cold, salty, alive. It whips my braid across my face. For a second, I forget the city, the noise, everything but the sting of salt and the crash of waves.
We find a spot on the sand, but the second Eli spreads the blanket, the wind snatches it like it has opinions. He lunges after it, half swearing, half laughing, the fabric slapping against his legs while I double over in a laugh I can’t stop.
“Hold still, you little bastard,” he mutters, and the way he’s wrestling fabric like it’s a living thing makes me snort.
“Need a hand?”
“Nope,” he says, but gives me a smug look when he finally pins a corner under his hip. “I’ve got it contained.”
Rowan drops the cooler with a thud that rattles the ice inside.
“I’ll look for something to help hold down the other corners.” He sets his phone and keys on another corner and heads down the tideline, scanning for rocks. Typical Rowan—find the problem, fix it, look annoyingly good while doing it.
Eli straightens, shaking the sunscreen like a cocktail shaker. “Backs,” he orders, the faintest grin tugging at his mouth. The smell hits like fresh coconuts.
“Thought you said late-day sun meant less chance of getting sunburned?”
“It is, but this is just a precaution.”
I hook my fingers into the hem of my sundress and tug it over my head. The wind kisses every inch of suddenly bare skin; goosebumps race down my arms. I fold the dress and drop it on the corner of the blanket, then sit and pull my hair to one side, baring my back.
“If this ends with you writing your name on me, I’m walking home.”
He chuckles low. “Scout’s honor.”
His first touch sends a shiver right through me. His palms move in slow, confident circles, spreading desire that the wind keeps trying—and failing—to take back. My breath catches halfway between a sigh and a moan, and Cassian’s grin tells me he heard it.
“Look at her,” Cassian says, dropping beside us. “She’s five seconds from drooling.”
“I am not—”
Eli’s thumbs drag higher, then suddenly go still. The air shifts. “Jess.”
The way he says my name—tight, controlled—puts ice straight through the warm.
“What?”
His fingers hover just under my shoulder blade, not quite touching. “What happened here?”
My stomach drops. Oh. Right. Those.
I already saw them in the mirror after getting my swimsuit on. The fading bruises are a faded yellow-green now, ghost-circles around two tiny scabbed dots.
“From when I was tasered,” I say lightly, like we’re talking about a stubbed toe. “After the bus wreck.”
Silence, sharp as broken glass.
Eli’s voice drops. “The Nexus guard tasered you? Why?”
“For existing in the wrong place at the wrong time?” I try for a joke, but it lands flat. I swallow. “I panicked and started to run. He decided that was ‘noncompliant.’ It’s done.”
“It’s not ‘done.’” Eli’s hands fall away from my skin like he’s afraid he’ll hurt me by accident. Fury hums under his words, quiet and lethal. “None of that was in your file. Restraints, sure. Heat suppressant shot at arrival protocols. But tasers? On an Omega?”
“Eli.” I reach back, covering his wrist with my palm. “We’re at the beach. Please don’t…don’t make this about Nexus. Not today.”
His jaw works; I can feel the tension in the way his arm vibrates. For a second, I think he’s going to argue.
“I’m not letting it go,” he says finally, voice rough. “They don’t get to mark you and pretend it didn’t happen.”
“I’m not asking you to let it go.” The words scrape on the way out. “I’m asking you not to ruin our trip and my first time at the beach in years.”
That lands. His shoulders sag a fraction. “Okay,” he says, and I hear the compromise in it. “Not today.” A beat. “But I am filing something when we get back.”
“Fine.” I squeeze his wrist, then let go. “Future problem. Present solution is SPF.”
Something like a laugh huffs out of him, broken but real. His hands return to my back, gentler than before, skirting the bruises like they’re made of spun glass.
“Does it still hurt?” he asks quietly.
“No, I don’t think about it that much.” I tip my head, forcing a smile into my voice. “Besides, you were doing a great job distracting me, actually.”
He exhales, then finishes with a soft, careful pat. “There. SPF perfection.”
That small, casual care lands harder than it should. My throat tightens. “Thanks,” I say, too quietly, and grab the bottle just to have something to do.
While I’m thinking about my parents and Sabrina and freckle-counting, his hand disappears toward the blanket. I catch the faint buzz of a notification a second later. When I glance down, his phone lies half under the corner of the fabric, screen dark again like nothing happened.
It’s quick enough I could’ve imagined him sliding it open, firing off a message to someone back at Nexus. Logging the bruise-shaped lie in my file.
He meets my gaze over his shoulder, something stubborn and guilty flickering in his eyes.
“What?” he asks, voice light on purpose.
“Nothing,” I say, and decide to let him have this one. “Turn, I missed a spot.”
His mouth curves, but the anger hasn’t left his eyes. It’s just banked now, tucked under the surface.
That small, casual care lands harder than it should. My throat tightens. “Thanks,” I say, too quietly, and grab the bottle just to have something to do.
“My family used to come to the beach,” I blurt, rubbing sunscreen between my palms. “Before the sun even woke up.” I motion to them with sunscreen on my hands, and Eli peels off his shirt.
Slowly, I start rubbing lotion into his muscles.
“Mom would be yelling in Spanish about sunscreen. Dad swore he’d packed the cooler when it was still on the porch.
Sabrina and I loaded up on snacks at the first gas station we stopped at.
” The laugh that escapes feels rusty, like I’m using a part of me I haven’t in years.
“We had this dumb game—counting freckles. First one to a hundred got a Popsicle.” The memory blooms bright, then wilts, and I swallow hard before the ache can show.
“Who won?” Eli asks softly.
“Her. Always her.” I smile, because if I don’t, it’ll break me. “She cheated. Or I sucked at counting.”
“Both,” Cassian says, grin softening.
“Probably.” Then: “We stopped coming after she disappeared. The towels just…stayed in the closet.”
No one says anything. The silence isn’t heavy, though—just steady with the constant sound of the waves.
After a few minutes, Rowan returns with a fistful of shells and smooth stones, weighing down the last two corners.
Cassian flops on his stomach and wiggles his shoulders like he’s ready for a massage. “Be delicate. I bruise easy.”
“Uh-huh. You’re built like a tank.”
He laughs.
The sun hits the ink winding up his arm—thorns, skulls, sharp edges that shouldn’t fit him but somehow do. My hand glides over the black sweep of ink across his upper back, thorns curling from shoulder to shoulder
His skin radiates heat. When my palm slides lower down his back, he shivers.
“Cold?”
“Nope.” His voice drops an octave. “Definitely not cold.”
I draw a tiny smiley face in lotion just to break the tension, rubbing it away before he can catch me.
“Did you—” He twists to look, laughing. “You menace.”
“I’m efficient,” I say, echoing Rowan, and Eli snorts behind me.
“Want to get my back now?” Rowan asks.
It’s not a question so much as permission to step closer.
“Yeah.”
His skin is sun-warm, the muscles under my palms shifting as he breathes. Soap and salt and a faint trace of sandalwood cling to him. He doesn’t speak, but he relaxes like I’ve found a switch he didn’t know existed.
“Thanks,” he says, tone rougher than usual.
Eli hands him a water bottle, and Rowan catches his hand; his thumb traces Eli’s knuckles before they pull apart. It’s small, practiced, and my chest does something complicated—soft, a little jealous, mostly awe.