As much as I hated it, he had a point. I looked around and my stomach dropped. “Whereisthe shore?” I twisted my head, and the wind slapped me full in the face. It stole my breath,whipping the rain sideways. I squinted into the chaos. My hair was everywhere, plastered to my cheeks, caught in my lashes. The salty sting of the spray tortured my eyes.
I couldn’t see a thing—not Maxime, not the boat. It was like standing inside a car wash with the pressure dialled to Armageddon.
Mercifully, he joined me on the bench, sheltering me with his body. He strained, looking into the rain—water cascading down his chest. “Plan B,” he shouted.
“What’s Plan B?”
He closed his arms around me, guiding me to the deck. “Get down low.”
I shook my head, hardly caring I was on my hands and knees against the hardwood. “What? Why?”
Maxime wiped the water away from his face. “Please, Chloe, do as I say.”
I stared up at him, blinking into the onslaught, and suddenly he was next to me, on the floor of the boat.
“Please,” he ground out, before kissing my forehead and pushing me to the bow. I didn’t have time to register my surprise before he nudged open the tarp he’d strapped to the front. “Stay inside,” he shouted, and at his grim face, I did as I was told.
I settled against the groaning boat, gripping the sides. My heart pounded against my ribs not because of the storm. Maxime kissed me—again. As I watched him through the gap in the tarp, his muscles shifting as he pulled on the oars, all I could think about was the feel of his lips on my skin.
The boat pitched beneath me. The world beyond, a blur of water and spray. I could make out the waves behind us—jagged, crashing against the sides of the hull with noisy thuds.
Facing me on the bench, Maxime’s face was a mask of concentration, his jaw hard and his brows pulled tighter than ever before. But he didn’t panic. Instead, he secured the oars inplace and rowed with steady force, muscles flexing and arms straining with each stroke.
He didn’t look at me—didn’t even acknowledge the storm. He just drove the boat through the water like he knew exactly where he was going.
“What are you doing?” I yelled, my voice battling with the wind. “Are we going to make it back?”
Maxime didn’t answer. He just rowed harder, his focus on the water.
For a moment, I thought the sea would swallow us whole. But then the boat shifted.
The hull still rocked, the wind lashing at Maxime, but the fury of the squall eased.
I shuffled to the gap in the tarp that acted as the door.Maxime’s head snapped up. “Stay where you are. We’re almost there.”
It remained to be seen where “there” was. But at the steely look on his face, I wouldn’t question his judgement.
The wind still howled around us, but the waves were softer now, as if the boat had slid into a calmer pocket of water.
“We’re in the mouth of a cave,” he shouted. “These cliffs are riddled with them.”
My heart pounded, and I had to marvel at his calm demeanour. According to my fight-or-flight response, we were plummeting in free fall. Maxime sounded like he was giving a geography lesson.
After some more wrestling with the oars, he leaned out of the boat, tying a rope around a rock. Once he’d secured us, he turned back, sinking onto his knees on the deck like some windswept sea god.
I pulled in a ragged breath. The wind and rain had plastered his hair against his face. His chest pulled in heavy breaths, his tattoos pulsed under the effort of our escape, and his eyes glowed as dark as onyx. At the sight, my head spun,and something pulsed deep within me. He looked incredible, wild, untamed.
Everything.
But before I could implore Saint Agnes, patron saint of chastity, for an ounce of her famed restraint, a blast of wind tugged at the edges of the tarp and a shiver ran through me.
Within moments, my teeth chattered like a windup toy. Before I could clamp my jaw shut, Maxime pushed through the tarp’s opening. He sat down beside me, pulling me onto his lap and holding me against his wet chest.
My whole body thrummed. There was no way I was going to move, argue, or decline his help. Instead, I nestled into him as he ran his hands up and down my arms.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice at my ear.
I murmured a reply, not trusting myself to use actual words. Surely, he could see I wasn’t okay? I was in the battle of my life to control my thundering heart.
