It’s fierce, desperate, and consuming, like he’s trying to burn the doubt out of me.
My electricity sparks, crackling across my skin, dancing between us in silver arcs. He shudders and drags me closer, his hands sliding into my hair, his tongue sweeping into my mouth with a possessiveness that makes my knees go weak.
This is insane. We’re on a boat. Everyone’s below deck. Anyone could come up at any moment.
But I don’t care.
My fingers curl into the front of his shirt, pulling him closer, needing more. He groans against my mouth, buries his face in my neck, and then?—
He stops.
“We need to eat,” he says, as if he didn’t just pull away in the middle of a make out session that wasdefinitelyon its way to becoming more than just a make out session.
I stare at him, my lips swollen, my body screaming in protest. Every nerve ending I have is firing at full voltage, my skin’s buzzing where his hands were ten seconds ago, and my brain is trying to reroute fromhis tongue was just in my mouthtowe’re discussing dinner.
“Are you serious right now?”
“We need to keep our strength up.”
“I can think of other ways to keep our strength up.” The words come out before I can stop them, and his jaw clenches, the muscle jumping in his cheek.
“Food first.” He moves to the pile of fish Callie cleaned, grabbing two of the smaller ones and a couple of shellfish. When he returns, he hands me a fish, holds up a free hand, and orange flames burst to life in his palm.
I take a step back. “What are you doing?”
“Cooking the fish. Unless you prefer it raw.”
He’s so serious that I can’t help but laugh.
“Hard pass on the sashimi.” I summon my own fire, the flames weaker than his but hot enough to do the job. “I’m adventurous, but notthatadventurous.”
We sit a few feet away from each other, which feels ridiculous given that a few minutes ago we were all over each other, but apparently we’re pretending that didn’t happen. The fish sizzles as I hold it over my flames, the smell of cooking meat replacing the salty ocean air, and we eat in the type of silence that makes my skin feel too tight and my blood run too hot.
Every time I glance at him, he’s already looking at me. His gaze drops to my mouth, then away, like he’s annoyed at himself for looking. The firelight catches the hollows of his cheekbones, the column of his throat, and the place where his pulse beats hard and visible beneath his jaw. I watch him tear into the fish with his teeth, and my stomach drops in a way that has nothing to do with hunger.
When I’m done, I stretch my legs out in front of me, doing my absolute best to look casual.
“You said food first,” I remind him. “Thenwe’d see.”
His fire flickers. “I did say that.”
“We’ve eaten.”
“We have.”
“So...” I let the word hang between us. “What, exactly, are we seeing?”
He moves so he’s right in front of me, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to look at him.
“Someone could come up,” he says, low and strained, like he’s reminding himself as much as me.
“They won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Maybe I don’t.” I lean in, our faces only inches away from each other’s, my gaze locked on his. “But I don’t care.”
10