“We’re in a marsh. It’s six feet deep.”
“Then I guess we’ll be six feet under.”
If either of us gave one inch, everything would change. But I can’t, because I’m so enraged with him, and with myself. We got here together. Both of us built this uneven boat that drifts in painful circles.
And I think… I think I might be angry with himbecauseI love him and I want better from him. If I didn’t, I’d have walked away a long time ago.
He’s at my side, radiating frustration. Good. Mr. Happy Guy should get upset once in a while. It gives the little people hope.
“I’ll save you.” He grabs me around the waist with delicious roughness, delivering a shock of awareness that burns all the way up and all the way down my right side.
“No, you willnotsave me. I’ll saveyou.” I put my arm around his waist right back, yanking hard to show him my impressive saving powers.
His pupils spin wide, a rim of unreadable ice around a black pirate soul. “The water’s up to my knees,” he says, getting down in the mud. “The gators will breach us any second.”
He doesn’t pull me down with him. There’s no reason for me to end up on my knees, too, unable to look away from his face, my arms around his waist. I seem to be breathing hard. So does he, which I guess is what happens when your ship’s going down.
“I’m afraid,” he says, so softly. “For this ship. And the crew.”
Oh.Oh.
How did I lose control? Ihadthis scene, and it slipped away.
“We may die today. But you’ve…” I pause to clear my throat, unaccountably hoarse. “You’ve performed your duties with honor, sailor.”
I should salute him. I should not slide my hands up his back and notice this tugging heat inside my pantaloons.
“I’ve never,” Tobin says, with the same sea-roughened voice I’ve got, “never served under a better captain.” His butt touches earth, and I understand how fast the water’s rising.
His hand comes to my sinking hips. “I’m taller. I can hold you above water.” He tugs me toward him. Protecting me is what he’s always done, but even if he’s doing it for the best reasons, his magic isn’t enough anymore.
I need my own.
“I know you want to save me. But I have to save myself,” I whisper.
I can’t let him rescue me here, because he can’t rescue me anywhere else—work, family, any of the million ways I’m on my own.
But how I want to slide into his lap. How it would feel to settle onto those thighs, fit my chest to his, andtakeeverything I want.
“Okay,” he says, his lips closer every second. “If that’s what you need to do.” He looks in my eyes like he’s drowning in them. Like hewantsto drown.
I’ve heard it’s normal to be turned on by a near-death experience. Which is definitely the only reason I pull off the mask to put my cheek against his, closing my eyes. I don’t intend to go any further, even if my heart is pounding and my skin is tightening and I’m squeezing my thighs together to fight the urge to let them fall open.
Tobin’s tiny sigh is what does it. It’s a brokenhearted littlething, clinging to a passing chunk of hope to stay afloat. His fingers flex against my jeans, like they, too, are so close to what they want, yet hold back for reasons of their own.
I’m not smart, so I snort black cottonwood straight off his skin, watching him watch me do it.
Fuck it.
The second I move, he moves with me, a fast yet slow turning of heads, a softest meeting of lips.
There are a lot of kinds of kisses in this world. This one is the kind that tricks me with its easy give, with an unspooling that starts slack, then tightens with a snap.
A stunning shot of pure longing fire lights me up everywhere. And I want.
Iwant.
Sweetness dives out of the way of the oncoming blaze, leaving only ungentle greed. Harsh breaths and fistfuls of hair and Tobin hauling me into his lap by my knees and hips, tight, tighter. His piratical outfit hides nothing. Not the way his chest swells, not the way anything else is swelling, either. He can surely feel me gasp, see the flush that makes my skin so hot.
