Page 95 of Pull Me Under
‘Brynn.’ I cup her face in my hands. Her skin is warm, flushed. ‘I know there’s history. I know there are things we haven’t dealt with. But right now, I don’t care about any of that. Right now I just—’
‘Just what?’
‘Just want to kiss you. Properly. Not because we’re fighting, or angry, or trying to prove right from wrong, or up from down or black from white. Just because—’
‘Because?’
‘Because you’re the first person who’s ever made the boring bits sound like they matter.’
She kisses me.
Not like before. Not that desperate crash of mouths and teeth and anger. This is slow. Deliberate. Her hands fisting in my jumper, pulling me closer. My fingers sliding into her hair, still damp, still smelling of whatever grows on the cliff path.
She tastes like wine and tomatoes, warmth and sweetness.
I could drown in this. In her.
She pulls back just enough to breathe. ‘Jude—’
My pager goes off.
No. No, no, no—
I fumble for it, already knowing, already hating what I’m going to see.
Weather warning. All crew to station. Storm incoming. Possible vessel in distress off Pencarrow Point.
I stare at her. Frozen. The planes of her face, the curve of her cheek, the upturn of her nose, the scattering of faint freckles along her cheekbones.
I stare at her.
Brynn’s pager buzzes a second later. She checks it, and her expression shifts from soft to focused in a heartbeat.
‘We’re both being called out,’ she says.
‘You don’t have to—’
‘I’m crew.’ She’s already standing, already moving towards the door. ‘That’s how it works.’
‘Brynn—’
She stops. Turns. Looks at me with those fierce, complicated eyes.
‘We’ll finish this,’ she says. ‘After. When we get back.’
‘Promise?’
She crosses back in three quick strides. Kisses me once, hard and fast, her hand gripping the back of my neck.
‘Promise,’ she breathes against my mouth.
And then we’re both running out the door, into the night, towards the boathouse and the waiting boat and whatever the sea has for us.
Chapter Twenty
BRYNN
I’ve never run so fast in my life.
