29. Reid
— ? —
Reid
She stood at the dock for a long time before she stepped onto the boat.
I didn’t rush her. Didn’t say anything at all.
Just waited at the gangway with my hand outstretched, letting her make the decision in her own time.
The afternoon sun was warm on my back, the harbor sounds familiar now, the creak of lines, the slap of water against hulls, the distant cry of gulls.
Normal sounds. Peaceful sounds. Nothing like the night back in June when I’d watched this same yacht sail away from a drowning woman.
The Anchorage II looked different in the afternoon light than it had that night.
Cleaner, somehow. Less menacing. The brass fittings gleamed.
The teak deck had been refinished. The name on the stern would be changed soon, the Timmy, we’d decided, but for now she was still the Anchorage II, and Blythe was standing on the dock staring at her like she was facing down a ghost.
I understood. This boat had almost killed her. This deck was where Stan had pushed her over the rail. This water had closed over her head while her husband watched and did nothing.
And now she was going to step aboard voluntarily. Because she refused to let the fear win.
That was who she was. That was who I’d fallen in love with.
“Okay.” Blythe took a breath. I could see her chest rise and fall, see her hands clench at her sides. “Okay. I can do this.”
“You can do this.”
“I’m stepping onto a boat where my husband tried to murder me.”
“Ex-husband. And yes.”
“This is insane.”
“Probably.” I kept my hand extended. “But you’re the sanest person I know, and if you say you can do it, you can do it.”
She took my hand and stepped aboard.
I felt the moment her weight settled on the deck, the slight shift of the boat, the way her fingers tightened on mine until I could feel her pulse against my palm. But she didn’t panic. Didn’t freeze. Just stood there for a moment, breathing, looking around at the vessel that had almost killed her.
The wind caught her hair, blowing it across her face. She pushed it back with her free hand, and I watched her take inventory, the helm, the rail, the place where she’d gone over. Her eyes lingered there for a long moment, and her face closed for a moment, there and gone.
“It’s smaller than I remembered,” she said finally.
“Trauma does that. Makes things bigger in memory.”
“Thank you, Dr. Navarro.”
“I’ve been reading.” I led her toward the helm, keeping her hand in mine. “About trauma. And recovery. And how to support someone who’s been through what you’ve been through.”
She stopped walking. Looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
“You’ve been reading about trauma?”
“I’ve been reading about a lot of things.” I shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “Pregnancy. Childbirth. Infant development. How to change a diaper. How to assemble a crib without losing my mind.” I paused. “I may have also ordered seventeen books on trauma-informed care.”
“Seventeen?”
“The reviews were inconsistent. I wanted multiple perspectives.”
She laughed. The sound echoed across the empty deck, bright and real and alive, and my chest unclenched at the sound.
“You’re ridiculous,” she said.
“I’m thorough.” I pulled her toward the helm. “Now. Let me teach you to drive this thing.”
The helm of the Anchorage II was state-of-the-art, GPS navigation, radar, autopilot, all the bells and whistles money could buy. Stan had spared no expense on his toys, even while his company was hemorrhaging cash. Even while his wife was drowning. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
I positioned Blythe in front of the wheel and stood behind her, my chest against her back, my arms on either side of her. I could feel her trembling slightly, nerves, not fear. There was a difference.
“Hands here.” I guided her fingers to the wheel. “Light grip. You’re not wrestling it, you’re guiding it.”
“Like this?”
“Perfect.” I reached past her to start the engine. The deck vibrated beneath us as it rumbled to life, and I felt her startle slightly at the sensation. “Now. We’re going to pull out of the slip nice and slow. Watch the depth finder, that number there tells you how much water is under the hull.”
“What if it gets too low?”
“Then we’ve run aground and this becomes a very expensive lesson.” I kissed her temple. “But that’s not going to happen. I’ve got you.”
We motored out of the harbor at a crawl. I talked her through every step, how to read the channel markers, how to watch for other boats, how to adjust for current and wind. My hands stayed over hers on the wheel, warm and steady, and gradually I felt the trembling stop.
“This is the water you almost died in,” I said quietly. “And now you’re driving a boat through it. How does that feel?”
“Terrifying.” She laughed, the sound only slightly shaky. “And amazing. And like I might throw up.”
“We can turn back.”
“No.” Her voice was firm, certain. “I want to keep going.”
Once we cleared the harbor, I let her open up the throttle a little.
The bow lifted as we picked up speed, the wind catching her hair, the spray misting across the deck.
The afternoon sun turned the water to gold and silver, and the Newport coastline stretched out behind us, getting smaller with every passing moment.
“Oh my god.” She was grinning now, really grinning. “Reid. This is incredible.”
“You’re doing great.”
“I’m driving a boat!”
“You’re driving our boat.” I tightened my arms around her. “The boat we’re going to rename and reclaim and make something new.”
“The Timmy.”
“The Timmy.” I pressed my face into her hair, breathing in the scent of her shampoo mixed with salt air. “My father would have loved you, you know. He would have thought you were the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Am I? The best thing?”
“You’re the only thing.” I turned her in my arms so she was facing me, the wheel at her back, the autopilot engaged. “Everything else, the revenge, the company, the money, none of it matters. Only you.”
Her eyes were bright. “Reid-”
“I spent fifteen years building a machine to destroy the people who killed my father. And then I met you, and I realized I didn’t want to destroy anything anymore.” I cupped her face in my hands. “I just wanted to build something. With you.”
She kissed me.
It started soft, a brush of lips, a shared breath.
Then her hands fisted in my shirt, and my hands dropped to her waist, and suddenly we were pressed together at the helm, the boat drifting on autopilot, the horizon empty in every direction.
Heat flared fast. Her tongue slid against mine and I groaned into her mouth, already hard against her stomach.
“Reid.” Her voice was breathless. “We can’t, on the boat-”
“Why not?” I lifted her easily and set her in the captain’s seat, spreading her thighs so I could step between them. “It’s our boat now.”
“But Stan-”
“Is in prison where he belongs.” I dropped to my knees right there on the deck, big hands sliding up her bare thighs under the hem of her sundress. “And this is ours. Every inch of this deck. Every rail. This chair. Especially this chair.”
“The cabin-”
“Is frankly disgusting and we’re having it gutted before anyone sleeps there.
” I smiled up at her, wicked, and hooked my fingers in her panties.
“But this chair is new. I checked. Now lift up so I can get these off. I want to eat my wife’s pretty cunt while she sits where that bastard used to play captain. ”
She laughed, and the laugh broke into a sharp gasp as I dragged the lace down her legs and tossed it aside. “You’re filthy.”
“You love it.” I shoved the dress up to her waist, spread her open with my thumbs, and groaned at the sight. Already glistening. “Look at that. Wet for me on the same boat that tried to kill you. Reclaiming every fucking thing, aren’t you, menace?”
“Reid-”
“Let me.” I looked up at her, putting everything I felt into my eyes, pure hunger and pride and love.
“Let me give you this. Let me make this place good instead of the thing it’s been.
Want to taste you while the ocean watches.
Want to make you come so hard you forget anyone else ever stood at this helm. ”
She didn’t answer with words. Just nodded, breath coming faster, fingers already tangling in my hair and tugging me forward.
I took my time.
First a long, slow lick right up her center, flat tongue collecting every drop. She moaned and her hips jerked. I did it again, slower, savoring, then circled her clit with the tip of my tongue until her thighs started to shake.
“Fuck, you taste like the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth,” I muttered against her. “Sweet and filthy. My favorite meal.” I worked one finger into her, then a second, slow and mean, curling until her heels drummed the chair, and sealed my lips around her clit to suck.
“Oh god - Reid-”
“That’s it. Ride my face.” I pumped my fingers deeper, wet sounds mixing with the slap of waves against the hull. “Fuck yourself on my tongue. Take what you need. This seat, this boat, this cock-hungry pussy, all mine now. Say it.”
“Yours-” She gasped, hips rolling against my mouth. “All yours. Don’t stop-”
“Never.” I added a third finger, stretched her, licked and sucked like a man starving. The boat rocked gently. Sun warmed my back. Salt air mixed with the scent of her. Every broken sound she made felt like victory, like rewriting the worst night of her life into something that belonged only to us.
I curled my fingers against that spot inside her and flattened my tongue, rubbing nasty relentless circles over her clit.
“Come on, Blythe. Come on my tongue. Soak the new captain’s chair. Let the whole damn ocean hear who you belong to.”
She shattered with a cry, thighs clamping around my head, fingers yanking my hair hard enough to sting as she pulsed around my fingers and against my mouth.
I carried her through it, easing off only when she started to push me away, then pressed one last open-mouthed kiss to her sensitive clit and looked up.
Her cheeks were flushed, lips parted, eyes dazed and shining. And all the way alive.
“Holy shit,” she panted.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, grinning like a savage. “Best navigational lesson I’ve ever given.”
She laughed, breathless, and hauled me up by my shirt into a filthy kiss, tasting herself on my tongue.
We ended up flat on the sun-warmed deck, knotted together, the boat rocking gently beneath us. She was quiet for a long time, her head on my chest, her fingers tracing patterns on my skin.
“I want to go in the water,” she said.
I went still. “What?”
“The ocean.” She sat up, looking at me with determined eyes. “I want to swim in it. With you.”
“Blythe-”
“I’ve been floating in pools for weeks. I’m ready.” She stood up, started stripping off her clothes. “Come on. Swim with me.”
The water was cold.
Not as cold as it had been the night I pulled her out, that had been early summer, before the ocean had time to warm.
But cold enough to steal my breath when I went in after her, cold enough to make my muscles tense, cold enough to remind me of that night, that darkness, that desperate race against time.
Blythe was already treading water when I surfaced, her face pale but determined. Her hair floated around her like a halo.
“I’m here.” I swam to her, stayed within arm’s reach. “I’ve got you.”
“I know.” She took a breath. Tipped her head back. And floated.
I watched her drift on the surface of the Atlantic, the same water that had almost swallowed her. Her arms were out, her eyes closed, her body completely relaxed. She floated with a smile on her face, and I treaded water beside her and tried not to cry.
“This is where I almost died,” she said, her voice calm.
“Yes.”
“And now I’m floating in it.”
“Yes.”
She opened her eyes and looked at me. The sky was reflected in them, blue and gold and infinite.
“I know now that if I ever fall again, I’ll survive it.”
Something cracked in my chest. I swam closer, wrapped my arms around her, held her against me in the cold salt water. She was alive. She was here. She was floating in the water that had almost killed her, and she was smiling.
“I’m so fucking proud of you,” I said. My voice cracked straight down the middle. “I’m so proud of everything you’ve done. Everything you’ve become.”
“Don’t say I could have done it alone.”
“You could have,” I said anyway. “Slower.” I pulled back to look at her. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known, Blythe. You would have found a way. You always find a way.”
She kissed me. Salt water on our lips, the sun warm on our faces, the boat rocking gently nearby.
“I love you,” I said when we broke apart. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything. More than revenge. More than justice. More than my own life.”
“I love you too.” Her voice was thick. “So much it scares me sometimes.”
I put my hand on her belly. Spread my fingers wide over the small swell that was just starting to show, our child, growing inside her. The child I’d claimed as mine. The child who would have my father’s name.
“And I love this kid,” I said. “Already. More than I thought possible.” I looked into her eyes. “They’re mine. Whatever biology says. Whatever paperwork says. This baby is mine, and I’m going to love them and protect them and be the father they deserve.”
Blythe put her hand over mine.
We floated there together in the water that had almost killed her, the man who’d pulled her out and the woman who’d learned to swim, with our hands on the child growing between us.
The child who would have my father’s name.
The child who would grow up knowing what it meant to be loved.