Page 67 of Everything You Hate
The second time I come, it’s different.
The first was sharp, sudden, a relief so acute it was almost grief. This one builds slow, deep, pulled out of me in long waves by a man who has figured out my body faster than I’ve managed it myself in two years. I arch off the bunk and he pins me back down with one hand flat on my sternum, and even that—even that—doesn’t trigger the old fear. He’s not looking. He’s notexamining. He’s just holding me in place so he can drive into me harder, and the distinction matters more than I can say.
I come apart the second time with his name in my mouth and my heels dug into the backs of his thighs.
He follows me over the edge on the next thrust, head dropping, a sound tearing out of him that’s half my name and half a wordless groan. He shudders and collapses on top of me. Not his full weight—he catches himself on his forearms—but enough that I’m pinned, warm, surrounded. His heart hammers against my chest. Mine answers.
The storm rages on. The boat pitches. Neither of us moves.
I wait for the panic. The regret. The scramble for clothes and space and excuses.
But none of it comes.
Oh my God.
I did it.
I had sex for the first time in nearly two years.
With Dean Kinsella.
My body is molten. Blood is still roaring in my ears. Every inch of me that was numb or strange or borrowed two hours ago is now so furiously alive I could scream.
I didn’t know I could still feel like this.
Chapter Eighteen
Scarlett
I wake alone to stillness.
No rain or wind howling like an evil creature from the pits of hell. I don’t even feel the boat rocking in the waves.
The cabin smells like coffee. I crawl out of the bunk and find Dean’s sweatshirt, dragging it on. My body aches—hips, thighs, arms, all of it. For the first time in a long time, I feel human and raw and too alive.
Dean is barefoot on the deck, wearing plaid pajama pants and a long-sleeve T-shirt with the Haven Tours logo on the back. He’s drinking a mug of coffee, eyes on the horizon where blue sky cracks open along the seam of night.
It’s not fair. No man should look that good at five in the morning with a coffee mug and several days’ worth of stubble. Those shoulders in that shirt could make a woman forget every argument she’s ever had with him.
I lean against the companionway and watch him. He doesn’t turn around. He knows I’m here. I can tell by the way his shoulders settle, the small adjustment of weight from one footto the other, the almost imperceptible tilt of his head toward the sound of my breathing.
I should say something.
Good morning.
Thank you.
You rocked my world last night harder than the boat.
But nothing feels right. None of them cover what really happened.
“You’re up.” He says it to the horizon.
“I’m up.”
“Coffee’s in the galley. Mug on the counter.”
I go back down. The galley is a disaster—broken mug swept into a corner, water pooled on the counter from where something leaked during the storm, a damp towel draped over the stove. The coffee is in a French press, still warm. I pour it into the only surviving mug—chipped, no handle, the wordsProperty of the Port Haven Coast Guardfaded to near illegibility.
