by J. Haymore
What would I do without Kyle? If I lost him too… I couldn't go on. I know I couldn't.
Ethan wraps the towel around me and holds me. He strokes my wet, salty, matted hair and murmurs "shh" as he rocks me.
After several minutes, my tears slow and then stop altogether. Finally, all the emotion drains from my body, leaving me exhausted. I draw back, chagrined and embarrassed to have lost it like that in front of Ethan.
"I'm sorry." The apology emerges in a shaky whisper.
His lips brush the top of my forehead, and his arms tighten around me. "Nothing to be sorry about. You were damn brave out there."
I glance up through my matted eyelashes at him. The heat in his gaze sends sudden, surprising lust spiraling through me.
His lips part, and my gaze latches on to them. God, how I've wanted to taste his lips. Ever since the moment we met, I've wanted to feel them moving over mine.
"Fuck, Tara," he whispers. His eyes blaze with azure heat.
And then he's kissing me.
His lips are soft. Dry. Warm. When they press against me, nudging my own lips open, I come to life, need and desire exploding within me. My arms slide over his damp T-shirt, around the taut muscles of his sides. The heat of his skin burns through the fabric of his shirt. My lips part, moving against his. His taste bursts through me, so warm and smooth—like nothing I've ever experienced.
His hand slips behind my head, pulling me tighter against him. The kiss deepens, his tongue sliding over my upper lip and then exploring the inside of my mouth.
It's been over a year and a half since I last kissed a man. This is different. Deeper, more intense. Sexier. It lights a flame that rages through my body like wildfire.
My senses reel, nearing overload. I'm soaking wet, but my body is so hot and frantic and needy. The urge to drink him in, keep him here, explore every bit of him with my lips and my hands overwhelms me. My fingers claw into his shirt, tugging him closer, closer still. The desire to sink into his warmth and his heat and the sheer power of him is all consuming. This isn't enough.
My mouth opens; my lips and tongue glide over his. He kisses me harder, his breath hot and erotic over my skin, his fingers digging into my nape, his other hand splayed just above my butt. My hands plunge under his shirt and my palms push over the heated skin of his back.
He feels so good against my body, under my lips, and beneath my palms. I could crawl within him and stay there. A gnawing hunger has come alive within me, and I don't want to stop—I never want to stop.
And then, with an almost inaudible groan, he pulls away. My body lurches forward, my lips blindly seeking his, but he grips my upper arms and says, "No."
My mind doesn't comprehend the word at first, then his meaning rushes in, breaking through the haze of lust. No means no. He wants me to stop. As much as I want to keep kissing him, keep touching him, I have to stop.
I jerk back, blinking up at him. A flush slashes over his cheekbones, but his eyes...his eyes are dark and narrow. Hard.
Oh God. He doesn't want this.
"I'm sorry, Tara."
I start to shake my head, but his next words stop me.
Standing, he lifts me away from him and lowers my feet onto the cabin floor, holding me at arm's length, his grip tight on my biceps.
"I shouldn't have done that. It shouldn't have happened, okay?" He shakes me just a tiny bit, as if to drill in his point.
Nope, not okay. Not okay at all.
"It was a mistake," he says firmly. "It won't happen again. It can't."
I've finally grasped on to something wonderful, something so good I never want to let it go, and it's slipping through my fingers. I don't understand it, though. He initiated the kiss, and he's pulling away. Why?
That muscle works in his jaw again. His expression hardens even further and he closes himself off as palpably as a gate slammed in my face. Icy coldness washes through me, but I gaze at him steadily, finally finding the strength to stare him down. We stand still, eyes locked, neither of us moving for a long minute.
Then he says, his voice taut as the tightrope I feel I'm walking on, "You should go check on Kyle."
I fall, my body spinning, and the slam back to earth knocks the wind out of me. I've totally forgotten Kyle. I'm in here mauling a guy I hardly know while Kyle could be seriously injured. I'm a terrible friend. I turn away to fumble with my clothes with shaking hands, trying to catch my breath.
All my insecurities and awkwardness seem to flood back into me along with the guilt. Ethan kissed me, but he stopped it.
He regrets kissing me.
I am so confused. Did I do it wrong? Did I do something to turn him off? Maybe his fingers brushed over the scar on my leg…
I freeze, my back to him, and squeeze my eyes tightly shut. "I need to get dressed." I sound like I've rubbed sandpaper all over my vocal cords. "Do you mind?" I gesture at the door.
"No, of course not." His expression is unreadable as he turns and walks out of my cabin, closing the door behind him.
I'm a crappy friend and a terrible kisser. Ethan is out of my league—I knew that from the first moment I saw him. I forgot that my fantasies are just a figment of my imagination.
I quickly get dressed and drag a brush through my matted hair a few times. Then I hurry back up to check on Kyle.
Ethan stands in the main cabin, his eyes tracking my movement. I wish he wouldn't look at me like that. The heat in his gaze...God it's confusing the hell out of me.
He regrets touching you. He regrets kissing you. His words come back to me: "It won't happen again." I force myself to look away from him. Pretending he doesn't exist is the only way for me to function right now.
Mick and Nalani are outside dealing with getting the Temptation back on course. Kyle is sprawled out on the leather sofa, one arm thrown across his eyes and a bag of frozen peas pressed to the top of his head.
I kneel beside him. "Headache still bad?"
"Yup," he mutters.
Ethan touches my shoulder. It takes everything I have not to stiffen, and I keep my eyes firmly on Kyle. "I'm going out on the deck. My watch starts soon."
I'm supposed to still be on watch right now, but who cares? Kyle is more important. I give a jerk of a nod.
Ethan lets me go, and I hear his retreating footsteps and the companionway door closing after him. I release a breath and wrap my hand around Kyle's wrist. His face has a yellowish cast to it and his skin is still clammy.
"Are you having any other symptoms besides the headache?"
"Nah. The nausea is getting better. Mick thinks it's just a mild concussion."
"That's good," I say, thinking how much worse it could have been. I could've lost him today. I could've... I push the thought away. "Are you sure you're going to be okay? You were out for a while."
"Yeah, I'm sure. I promise, I already feel normal. Almost." He pauses, and his lips curl into a grin. "Hey, T?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for jumping in after me."
I wrap my arms around him. He's changed into dry clothes, and he smells like the same comfortable Kyle as always, if a little salty. "You'd do the same for me, right?" I ask, the words muffled in his chest.
"Every time."
"Well," an irritated voice says from behind me, "then both of you are stupid."
I jerk up in surprise, then glance over my shoulder and blink at Nalani. She gazes down at me and Kyle, her mouth twisted into a frown.
My lips part, and for a moment, I have no idea what to say.
"'Lani," Kyle groans.
"Well, it's true," she snaps. "The way to save someone who's fallen overboard is never to go jumping after him. You just risk your own life, and now the crew has to rescue two people instead of one."
Kyle's arm doesn't move from over his eyes. I rise to my feet, straightening until I'm face-to-face with Nalani.
"He was unconscious," I bite out. "I needed to get his head out of the water. You would have done the same thing."
/> She scoffs, which brings my anger straight to the boiling point. "Of course I wouldn't have gone jumping in after him! Whether he was unconscious or not is irrelevant. If you'd done what you were supposed to do and turned the boat around immediately, we could have gotten to him faster. It's basic man-overboard procedure, Tara"—she snarls when she says my name—"and I know you know it, because I taught it to you!"
My jaw drops. She's lost her frigging mind. "I don't give a shit what basic man-overboard procedure is. I was going after him, and I was getting his face out of that water."
"There are procedures we all need to follow. You know this. As part of my crew, it's important you follow certain basic rules. This one turned out okay, but if you'd followed the procedure I taught you, the situation would have been under control much faster."
She has got to be kidding me. It took them a few minutes to get the Temptation turned around and back to Kyle and me. If he'd been facedown in the water that whole time—I can't even think about it.
My eyes narrow at Nalani. "I think you need to revisit your ëprocedures,' then. There was no way—no way—I wasn't going after him." My heart pounds fast again, and my face is hot. My fingers itch to slap that expression of superior disdain off her face.
Part of me knows this response is irrational. This anger is a direct result of what happened. To Kyle and with Ethan. Nalani's bitchiness is only the straw that broke the camel's back.
I need to get away from her and cool down. Clenching my fists at my sides, I force myself to turn to Kyle. "Are you going to be okay?"
He's removed his hand from over his eyes and has risen to a sitting position. His gaze flicks from me to Nalani and back to me again. My reaction to her surprises him. It's been a long time since he's seen me this furious.
Nalani grinds her teeth audibly, but really, I can't bring myself to care if she's pissed. She can be pissed all she wants—I would still jump in after Kyle if the same situation happened all over again.
"Yeah. I'm okay." He gives me a nod as if to say, You go ahead. I'll deal with her, and I'm more than happy to comply.
I stalk out through the companionway, fuming, grabbing my wet PFD from the cockpit floor where I left it. As I rise, thrusting my arms into the armholes, my gaze lands on Ethan crouched over the area where Kyle slipped, gathering pieces of the coffee cup and throwing them overboard.
He doesn't notice me watching him. He's studying the deck with a deep crease between his brows. The dark expression on his face concerns me enough to push aside what just happened between us.
I finish clipping my PFD and head toward him. "What is it?"
He rubs his fingers on the deck and turns up his hand. His fingertips are shiny.
I crouch down across from him and slide my fingers over the bumpy surface of the deck. It's slicked with coffee, but there's also something else—something oily and slippery. "What's this?"
"It's silicone. Maybe from a spray can—I'm not sure." Ethan sniffs his fingers. "But why here? Who'd spray silicone lubricant onto the deck?"
"Maybe someone was carrying something and some of it spilled here?"
He shakes his head, frowning. "There's a lot of it."
"Well, no one would have done it on purpose."
His eyes flicker to me and then back to the deck. "Yeah," he says gruffly. As if he's not convinced.
Someone might've done this on purpose? Nah. That's ridiculous.
Ethan looks up again and captures my gaze, dead serious, and uses that commanding tone he has when he's talking on the phone. "Be careful. Hold on to the lifelines whenever you're on deck. Wear your PFD every time you leave the cabin. Clip yourself in whenever you can. Watch where you step. Understand?"
I laugh, but it sounds strange and unnatural. "I really doubt someone did this on purpose."
"I'm sure no one did. It was probably just an accident. But I'm going to get to the bottom of this, and I need you to be careful." He reaches out and tilts my chin up with his fingers until I meet his eyes with my own. His expression is dead serious, his eyes hard chips of blue ice, flat and cold. "Promise me."
The way he looks at me…as if he thinks this was intended for me… I'm the one with the limp and supposed bad balance, and if someone knew my habit of going back down to get my second cup of coffee at that time of day, then…
No. No, no, no. Why the hell would someone want me to fall overboard?
Impossible.
And if it was deliberate, who would it have been? Not me or Kyle. Nalani? She clearly doesn't like me…but she usually treats me with minor disdain, not with some kind of crazy, murderous intent. As much as she dislikes me, I can't imagine that she'd deliberately hurt anyone on her crew. It's impossible for me to wrap my head around the idea that she could be that vicious.
Ethan? I give him a searching look as he continues to study the deck. There is something weird about him being on the Temptation. It just doesn't fit. But…no. He was so protective of me when Kyle fell overboard, and why would he have pointed the silicone out if he were the one who put it there?
That leaves Mick. But why would Mick want me—or Kyle—to slip overboard? He's so mild-mannered and just nice.
It doesn't make any sense. None of it makes sense.
I shake off the idea, dismissing it as way too paranoid, but then Ethan repeats, "Promise me" in a raspy whisper that arrows straight into me. My heart seems to skip a beat. It all rushes back—him pulling me out of the water, carrying me into the cockpit. The expression on his face when he asked me if I was okay. Holding me as I sobbed into his shoulder.
The kiss.
Maybe he didn't pull away because I did something wrong. "I shouldn't have done that," he'd said. Maybe he meant he didn't want to take advantage of my emotional state after I'd cried in his arms over Kyle. That would make sense.
I like Ethan a lot. Longing surges through me, leaving my skin warm and tight. But there's one thing I can't shake. We've only been on the Temptation for a few days. Why has he been so protective of me since Kyle fell overboard? Why is he demanding I be careful? He doesn't even know me.
Is it my limp? He's never given it a second glance or seemed to care about it, but maybe subconsciously he thinks I need special attention because of it? Or is it the fact that I'm young? But Kyle is my age, and Nalani is only a couple of years older, and Ethan's focus has seemed to home in entirely on me.
Maybe there's nothing else behind it but attraction, plain and simple. Maybe he's the kind of man who gets super protective of those he cares about.
But attraction is different from caring about someone. When he pulled me up from the water, he looked terrified. Like he cared about me…deeply. And how can you care about someone to that extent that you've only known for a short length of time?
And…he rejected me. He pulled away from my kiss, even when he must have known I would have been willing to take it much further…and I still don't understand why.
He makes no sense, and my brain hurts going around in circles like this.
My gaze drops to his lips. The lower one is plump, with a slight curve at its bottom. I remember how it felt against my lips, soft, but firm. Purposeful. Ethan's kiss was erotic, consuming, gentle, and commanding all at the same time. I could have drowned in it. It was like nothing I've ever experienced. Ever.
But I need to forget it. He doesn't want me. He thinks touching me was a mistake.
I swallow hard and raise my eyes to his once more as his fingers caress my chin.
"Promise you'll be careful, Tara," he says yet again. "I need you to be careful. I need you to be safe."
"I promise," I whisper.
Justine
February 8, 2003
Today, I was hit by a car. Can you believe it? I am so angry. A stupid, idiotic teenage driver hit me! How dare he? I was just riding along, following all the rules of the road, and the asshole just took a right turn…right into me. I swerved, skidded, slammed into the curb. I just lay there for a minute, pinned
under my bike, trying to catch my breath.
When I caught it, I extricated myself from my bike, rose on shaky legs, and turned to the car, wishing I were one of the X-Men and had the ability to shoot laser beams from my eyes.
The guy who hit me got out of his shitty little Honda and headed toward me, a concerned furrow on his stupid, pockmarked brow.
"Are you okay?" he asked me.
No, I wasn't okay. I mean, physically, maybe. Fine—a long scrape down my arm, and my shirt was ruined. My hand was a bloody mess. My jeans saved my legs, but something felt off in my right knee—like I might have mildly sprained it.
But mentally? Emotionally? No, I was absolutely not okay. I was furious. And when I glanced down at my twisted front wheel and the nasty scratches on the frame of my bike, I was even less okay.
I turned on that idiot, and I was about to give him hell. My bloody fingers were itching to wrap around his neck and strangle him. He hurt me. He hurt my bike. He deserved to suffer like he made us suffer.
But then…I remembered myself. I'm getting good at that, Dear Diary. Very good indeed. I gulped in a mouthful of air and said, in a tiny, frightened little voice, "I'm okay…I think." I experimentally flexed my arms and wounded leg as the idiot stared at me dumbly. Then I gave him a sheepish smile, as if I were the one responsible, not him.
"Yes. I'm just fine. Thank you."
I thanked him. I couldn't believe the words coming out of my mouth even as I said them. But I am so proud of myself. If I keep this up, I really am going to be all right.
He asked me if he could do anything, give me a ride or something, and I shrugged and gestured toward a sorority building halfway down the street and said, "Nah, I live just over there."
A lie, of course. I was still half a mile away from the dorm. But I wanted him to go away. People were watching us. I don't like being watched.
The moron went away—quickly too—as soon as I gave him permission. Weak, slimy little bastard.
