Thea
Ifrown at the newcomer. I hadn’t even realized the elevator had moved while Pierce had been pressed against me. “Cooper?” I lost track of him hours ago, and the deck is absolutely deserted. Maybe Pierce’s warnings are finally sinking in. It feels a little too coincidental to see Cooper now.
Is this how I’m going to be for the rest of my life? Suspicious of everyone?
Pierce steps in front of me, blocking Cooper from my view with his wet dress shirt glued around his corded muscles. The distraction works immediately… for me. Cooper who?
“What are you doing here?” Pierce asks gruffly.
The tension in the elevator is palpable. “Going to my room. Same as you, I presume.” He hits the button for the fourth floor.
Our floor.
Pierce says nothing, punching the button for the sixth floor. He steps back in front of me, arms crossed.
Cooper moves deeper into the elevator, bringing him into my line of sight. “You know I can’t figure you two out. It seems like you just met.”
Ice spreads down my spine. Does he know? He can’t, can he?
“We haven’t known each other long, but when you know, you know, right?
” I slip my arms around Pierce’s waist from behind and rest my head against his shoulder.
“He saved me after my ex destroyed me.” I peek at Cooper.
I don’t know if he buys our ruse, but those last words were the truest I’ve spoken in days.
I thought I'd hit rock bottom, but I just kept falling.
Pierce has caught me and has been guiding me up to where hope and light exist.
Pierce’s hand rests over mine on his abs. “Can’t blame me for being protective of a woman like this.”
Be still my beating heart.
The elevator comes to a stop, and Cooper frowns. The doors open and he looks once more between Pierce and me. “Well, enjoy your night.” Then he walks out.
I don’t breathe again until the doors close.
“I don’t like him,” Pierce says immediately. “And I don’t trust him.”
“It was kind of weird,” I admit, as the elevator moves again.
“As weird as you stroking my abs?”
Had I been doing that? Naughty hand. “Shh. Don’t ruin it.” I attempt to continue my perusal, but he slips out of my grasp with a chuckle. He keeps one of my hands locked in his, entangling his fingers with mine.
The elevator stops, and Pierce leads me into an identical hallway.
“Where are we going?”
“We are going to walk the halls for a minute like a couple in love who got lost, then we’ll head back.”
“Can we make it a quick lost-in-love minute? I’m kind of cold.”
He gives me a quick once-over and swears. “Your lips are purple.”
“So are my toes, and, well, pretty much all of my skin.”
“Did you eat a snozberry or something?”
I stop dead in my tracks. “Excuse me, did you just reference a children’s movie?”
“I was a kid once,” he says.
“I’m going to need photographic evidence. Do you happen to have any? Oh, I bet you were a little heartbreaker.”
“No, I don’t have any pictures.” He frowns. “And… how would I even know?”
“Was there a trail of crying girls always left behind you?”
He turns completely around. “Nope.”
“I’ve officially made it my life’s mission to find evidence you were ever a tiny child.”
“Good luck finding me without knowing my last name.” He continues down the hall, then opens a door to the stairs.
“Yeah, about that… What is your real last name? I feel like this is something even a fake wife should know.”
“It’s better that you don’t.”
I don’t know if it’s the ominous stairwell, but his words seem to hit sharper. “And why is that?”
“Just… trust me.”
He’s a man of few words. None of them have been about his past. He probably had a terrible upbringing and doesn’t want to discuss it.
“How was your upbringing?” Or I could always callously ask about it.
He hits the door to exit the stairwell with a little too much gusto. It flies open and into the wall behind it.
“I’m going to take that as ‘not ideal’.” I have to sprint on my freezing legs to catch up to him.
“Does anyone have a perfect upbringing?” he grunts.
“Perfect? No. Parents are imperfect people, raising imperfect children; with no instruction manual. Even the best of parents will make many mistakes. But a good childhood? Absolutely.”
He grunts again, the only sound he seems capable of at the moment, and starts unbuttoning his shirt as we drip down the hall toward our room. Cooper is nowhere in sight. Thank goodness.
Though Sasquatch could be running down the hall at us, and Pierce would still captivate me.
“If you’re trying to distract me, it won’t work.” I raise my hand to the side of my face as a flimsy barrier.
Oh no, the barrier slipped…
He looks at me as if he genuinely forgot I was there. He stops at our door, giving me a glimpse of the muscly torso I had been exploring earlier. He has abs. Eight of them. Some people only have six, but he’s one of the lucky ones. And now so am I.
“You sure?” he teases.
Did he just flex his pecs?
I drag my gaze away—the equivalent of ripping off a Band-Aid from my eyeballs.
“Y-yep.” I swallow.
“Too bad.” He tears off the shirt and turns, opening the door to our room and stomping inside.
I can’t move. In the middle of his back, the size of a volleyball, is a patch of weathered and scarred skin. A burn.
My stomach clenches, imagining the excruciating agony that must have caused him. Was he a child when it happened? Or older? How did it happen?
The door shuts between us, and I blink. Who is this man?
Said man leaves me little time to mull this over as he yanks the door open and grabs my arm, dragging me inside. Once the door is shut behind us, he nudges me into the bathroom, trapping me in the tiny space.
“Don’t say it.” His words come out clipped and harsh.
“Don’t ask me what happened. And don’t look at me with that pity in your eyes.
I’m fine. I always have been, and I always will be.
Now shower and get warm.” He closes the door, and my brain seems to restart.
I want to ask every question filling my heart, but I won’t. When he’s ready, he’ll tell me.
That is… if he doesn’t ditch me the second we dock in San Diego.
Why does that scare me more than what is going on here?