Page 45 of Pull Me Under
‘I’m cold.’
‘You’re scared.’
‘I’m cold.’
‘Jude.’
‘Don’t call me that like you know me.’
‘I don’t know you. But I know what scared looks like on a man who won’t admit it, because I’ve been looking at it in the mirror for twenty years.’
That’s the thing that does it. Not the anger. Not the argument. The recognition.
He crosses the space between us in two strides, and his mouth is on mine before I can think, before I can armour up, before I can do any of the sensible things I should be doing like pushing him away and telling him this is a catastrophically bad idea.
It’s not a kiss so much as a collision. All heat and hunger and the raw, desperate need of two people who’ve been holding on alone for too long. He tastes of beer and rain and underneath that, just him – salt and want and a loneliness that makes me fear it might not have a cure.
I should stop this. Should definitely not fist my hands in his soaking jacket and pull him closer. Should not be making that sound when his teeth graze my throat.
I grab the front of his jacket and haul him towards the boat. ‘Up. Come on.’
He follows me up the makeshift steps to the deck – two stacked crates and a plank that serves as a gangway. Up here, there’s more space: the wheelhouse stripped bare, the deck clear where I’ve been working. The engine housing is still warm from the work light I had clamped to it.
He crowds me against the wheelhouse wall and I let him, which tells you everything about my self-preservation instincts.
‘I still don’t like you,’ I gasp.
‘Good,’ he says, voice rough and wrecked. ‘Hate me harder.’
His palms slide under my shirt, up my ribs, and I jerk at his belt buckle, frustrated, fingers slipping on wet leather. He catches my hands – not to stop me. To steady them. His forehead drops against mine and for one breath, just one, we’re still. Both knowing what this is. Both choosing it anyway.
Then his mouth finds my throat and the stillness detonates.
My shirt goes first – his hands, not gentle, pulling it over my head. The air is cold on my skin but he’s burning, and when his mouth finds my collarbone, I stop thinking. His teeth graze the bone and I hear myself make a sound I’ll deny later.
‘Brynn—’ he starts, and I can hear it – the crack in his voice, the thing he’s trying not to say.
‘Don’t.’ I yank his belt free. ‘Don’t make this into something.’
‘It’s already something.’
‘Then shut up and let it be this.’
He shoves my jeans down. I kick one boot off to get free and it’s graceless and awkward but neither of us laughs – it’s too raw, too heavy. His jeans hit the deck, and then he’s pressing me back against the wheelhouse wall, his hands on my thighs, lifting, and I wrap around him because my body has already made decisions my brain hasn’t approved.
He drives into me and we both go still for a half-second – a caught breath, the shock of it, the reality of what we’re doing hitting at the same moment as the sensation.
Then he moves and I stop thinking entirely.
It isn’t gentle. We’re past gentle. We were never going to be gentle – that’s not what this is, not what either of us needs. This is two people who’ve been holding themselves together for too long, finally letting go. His fingers dig into my thighs, my nails score his back, and the boat rocks beneath us with every thrust, metal cold at my spine and his mouth hot against my jaw.
I want the bruises. Want to feel them tomorrow when I’m alone – proof that I wasn’t dreaming, that I let someone in, that my body still knows how to do more than work and survive.
He’s not talking. That’s the thing. Jude Harding, who always has a comeback, who deflects with words the way I deflect with lists – he’s got nothing. Just my name, once, broken in half against my neck. Just his breath, ragged and honest in a way he’d never allow himself to be upright and clothed.
He shifts, hits deep, and everything shatters. My teeth find his shoulder to muffle the sound. He follows seconds later, a strangled groan that might be my name or a prayer or a mistake.
After is worse than during.
