Wilder tightens his arms around me and kicks his legs. The top comes all at once, and we break the surface gasping for air, reborn. A clean slate for new sins. He shakes the water from his face and treads for us both, bracing my face between his hands as I hold on to his shoulders. I can see the questions in his eyes, but he doesn’t need to say anything. I already know he felt it, too.
We reboard the boat with blue lips and chattering teeth. Wilder curses under his breath and hurries me toward the cabin to the bedroom. “You’re going to get sick and die before I can kill you,” he mumbles.
With a rattling smile, I say, “That’s two bad jokes in one day.”
But this cold is bone-deep, so I kick off my shoes and unbutton my jeans. He pulls my sweater over my head, and I unfasten my bra as Wilder pulls down my pants. Soaking wet and dripping, he yanks the blankets back and orders me under the covers. He steps out of his shoes as he turns the heater on high. And once he’s undressed, he holds himself in his hands and shrugs, because according to him, this is the coldest he’s ever been and that’s fucking embarrassing.
We’re not cold under the sheets.
We’re sweltering.
Burning alive.
He moves his hands, and I open my legs. Our skin tastes like salt, and our lovemaking moves like the sea. I arch my back, and he buries himself deep into me, slow, slow, slow. He’s hard muscle, I’m soft sighs, and we’re almost there.
The Bible says sex is reserved for the marriage bed, but there’s nothing sinful about this.
This is worship.
Devout.
Sacred.
And when the flame inside of me sets the room on fire, I pray aloud, “Don’t you dare stop.”
But we have to a couple of hours later when I can’t feel my legs, and Wilder has to turn down the heat before we melt. When we catch our breath, the discussion is about our future. The parts we know, and those we don’t.
“You can be anything you want,” he says, brushing his fingers from my shoulders up the slope between my lower back and bottom.
“I don’t know what I want to be.” I’m stretched out across his chest and look up to meet his eyes. “But I know what I am.”
“What is it, baby?” he asks, staring right back.
“Happy.”
His smile makes me glad my life isn’t like a movie. Who needs a tin boat and a lake when I can have a yacht and the ocean?
The next time we come up for air, we’re more exposed.
Wilder says, “If I could kill him again, I would.”
And I tell him about my nieces who aren’t named after me. “Honestly, I don’t even want to share a last name with them.”
A breath.
A pause.
And he says, “Do you want to share a last name with me?”
“Eventually?” I ask.
“We can go right now. I got a guy.”
“You got a guy?” I laugh out loud and say, “Oh, my God. You were made to be a gangster.”
Wilder tucks his hands behind his head and winks. “What do you say? Are you ready to marry the mob?”
That’s how it happens.
