“Like I said, only the locals come here. And usually only during the day.”
I sit up so I can look around. Dark, calm water, illuminated by the moonlight surrounds us.
“I can’t believe you live here.”
He places his hands behind his head and stretches his arms. His biceps bulge and my recently pounded pussy throbs at the sight.
I didn’t know what to expect coming to Slade’s place for the first time. But it wasn’t this.
His house isn’t a house. It’s a boat. With a deck upstairs and a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom down some steps in the center. It isn’t fancy, but it’s tidy, devoid of any personal items except a couple of small driftwood carvings. There aren’t any photographs anywhere. Nothing to signify the man who lives here or where he came from.
He really is a shadow like he says.
I gaze over the eerily calm water of the small marina. Only a few small fishing boats share the space. None have lower decks like Slade’s boat, so it’s easy to see they’re all deserted. There’s no one else nearby at all.
My gaze tracks back to our devoured picnic and drinks he’d prepared for us on the deck. Champagne. That’s what he gave me to drink. Like we’re celebrating something. But the bubbles tasted sour when they burst on my tongue. Just like this vacation bubble I’m in is about to pop.
There’s nothing special about what’s about to happen.
I’m leaving.
“Don’t you find it creepy being here alone at night?” I ask.
“No. I find it calming.”
“So weird, Cowboy.”
He huffs out an amused breath. “Us unsocialized pigs are better off living solitary lives.”
I smile, but inside I feel like crying. He says it so easily, like he’s accepted being alone for the rest of his life.
“They don’t have to.”
His expression tightens, so I lie on his chest and press a kiss against his bare skin.
“You could come visit me in New York… or…” I pause and wait for him to turn to me.
Once his blue eyes meet mine, I search them, hoping to see the answer I want. Or, at the very least, a tiny shift in his otherwise impenetrable defenses.
“Or?” he rumbles, low and deep.
“Or you could come back with me. We could…” I shrug, unsure which words could accurately describe what I’m thinking of when I picture him in New York with me.
Me and him.
Him and me.
Us.
“We could be a regular couple? Live together? Go out with friends? Meet each other’s family?” He reaches up to brush my hair back from my cheek.
I hold my breath.
“It’ll never happen, Jude,” he says, achingly softly.
“Why?” I whisper. “Why do they think you’re dead? What did you do? I know it’s nothing bad.”
“You don’t know that. You just hope it, because you want to see the good in me.”
