Page 8 of Weathering The Storm

“I know I don’t say it enough, but I’m glad you’re here, Rittenburg. Makes my job easier, knowing I can rely on you.”

It’s not at the top of the list of compliments I wish he’d pay me, but it’s all I can get from him, and so my greedy heart swallows it like the last drop of fresh water to a sailor stranded at sea.

“Ah, that’s not true. You’ve told me before, Cap’.”

“Nowhere near as often as I’ve thought it, though.”

What else have you thought about me?

Even if I could ask, his answer wouldn’t be what I want to hear.

Sometimes I think I keep coming back to theSuoja, season after season, for the same reason I keep coming back to the ocean. It feels good to exist on the water, even if I was never meant to call it my home. It feels good to be appreciated by Nick, even if I’ll never be wanted by him.

Uuussshhh, tssss, the next wave builds.

“Well, I—”

Bang.

The sound of metal on metal is still echoing through the cabinets when I’m thrown into Nick. My chest crashes into his and sends us both tumbling down.

He collapses onto the steps leading from the deck down to the galley, his arms reflexively wrapping around me. One hand cups the back of my head, protecting my skull, and the other grabs a fistful of my hoodie as I fall on top of him. Sprawled over his chest.

I try to open my mouth to laugh it off, but a shocked, wanton breath slips out instead. And I don’t laugh. I don’t say anything at all. I don’t even have the decency to look away when he finally loosens his grip.

I just stare down at him, my body blurring out every ache and pain, and honing in on the way his knees feel bracketing my hips. The way his chest feels pushing against mine when he breathes in. The way he blinks up at me, lips parted, fingers still brushing my hair and splayed over my lower back.

“Are you okay?” he asks breathlessly.

Of course he’s breathless. All 190 pounds of me crashed into him like a longliner into a piling.

But I hear his voice, and all I can think about is what it would sound like if he was saying my name. Grinding his hips against mine. Whispering,I want you. I need you.

“Yeah. I’m okay.”

No. I’m fucking not.

I’m hot all over. There are so many goddamned layers of clothing between me and him, and it’s a blessing, because my cock is responding to this position. Keenly. But if this is the only time I ever get to have him beneath me,fucking helldo I wish I could feel him more—feel him everywhere he’s hard, everywhere he’s soft, everywhere he’s sensitive.

“You?” I remember to ask, pushing myself up to create some space.

That’s when, I swear to god, he groans.

At first, I think maybe I justwantto hear him groan. Because it’s taking every ounce of my restraint not to grab his ankles and prop his feet on the next step higher. Feel that round, tight ass against my aching dick, and tell him,“I fucking love your ass, Nicky. No one should look that hot in bibs and cargos.”

But then his hands fall away from me, and I hear that same soft sound again.

“I’m fine,” he says so quietly, I have to read his lips over the bellow of the engine.

My eyes search his for any trace of pain, but come up empty. What I do find, I can’t discern.

Fear?

Disgust?

Confusion?

Concern?