Page 45 of Endless Depths

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m calling.”

The line goes dead. He pockets his phone and jogs across the street, takes my face in his hands, and kisses me gently. But I don’t want gentle. I force my hands down the back of his pants, and use my nails for teeth. I yank him against me, and bite his bottom lip.

“I deserve that.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You deserve a lot more.” I squeeze his ass cheeks until he whimpers. “I can’t wait to punish you for making me go so long without you, for reeling me back in when I was finally ready to quit you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You will be.”

I’m making a mistake. I know. The high won’t be worth thecomedown tomorrow. This man will be my downfall. But one kiss broke my sobriety and my resolve. I’m starved for his touch, and I’m going to consume him until I hit rock bottom or oblivion. Fuck the consequences.

With anger and terror and ravenous, reckless abandon, I kiss him again, relishing the metallic glint of blood blooming on my tongue. I kiss him until I erase everything that happened, rolling the calendar back and back and back until the memory of our first kiss.

It was raining then too. We were so young. He was being a careless asshole, a danger to himself, and almost got crushed by a crab trap. I stifled my anger, seething through each pot we stacked until Dan called us in for a break. The deck cleared until it was only me and Cole. I closed the bulkhead door and shoved him against it.

“You could have killed yourself out there! How am I supposed to keep you safe—keep everyone safe, when you go out of your way to be as dangerous as possible?”

Cole’s blue eyes, so beautiful they rival the ocean, dip to my mouth and back up. “Why do you care so much?”

“Because you’re Seb’s brother.”

“Right,” he says with a smirk so maddening that I can’t help but smash my lips against it.

I’m furious. With him. With myself. I can’t be anywhere alone with him without wanting to fuck him, and I can’t love him. If it goes wrong, it will ruin my friendship with Seb, and exile me from the only family I’ve ever had. Even worse than that, if Cole’s recklessness writes a check the Bering Sea won’t cash, I will lose him like I lost my parents.

But I can’t fight this forever. Resisting him is like falling overboard in a storm. I can try to stay afloat, but in a few minutes, fifteen at the most, the cold will slow my defenses, and I’ll drown in him. So I bury all my fear and yearning into kissing him, intent on devouring him heart and soul so I can keep him safe inside me, so I can protect him always.

When we part, he’s dazed, and maybe I am too. Maybe I’m hard, if I’m being honest. But I’m still pissed, so I stab my finger in the center of his chest, and shout, “Fuck you for putting me in this position.”

Cole smirks again. “Ask me on a date when we get to port, and I’ll make it up to you.”

We didn’t even make it that long before we found every excuse to be alone, because when you work on the Bering Sea, your days are numbered. You have to make the most of them.

THIRTEEN

Cole

We don’t talkas we climb the stairs to our loft. We don’t need to. We read each other’s thoughts. Everything that went wrong fades away. It’ll come back. That kind of loss will never fade. But for now, it’s just us.

Three steps up, Morgan pins me against the wall with my hands over my head, and rubs his cock in slow, aching circles while he inhales my scent from my pits, shameless, insatiable, totally fucking feral. Goosebumps light up across my skin, then his lips are on me again.

“Need you now.” His voice rumbles in his chest as he drags me up the stairs.

When we reach our door, he crowds me from behind, and pulls my keys from my pocket, then thrusts the key into the lock. The door pops open, and I fall forward, arms windmilling, but Morgan is there to catch me. Just like he’s always been there to save me, even from myself, to save me when I drown in grief and regret, when I want to drown in him.

“I’ve got you.” He twirls me to face him, then grabs my ass and hoists me up against him.

I loop my arms around his neck and tighten my legs aroundhis waist, kissing him as he carries me over the threshold like it’s our wedding night. No. No wedding memories. This is just sex. Goodbye sex.

I can’t let this happen again. I should have let him go, but I couldn’t. I’ll be stronger next time. The minute he claimed me with that ‘You’re my husband. You don’t fuck anyone else’line, I was powerless. But it wasn’t the promise of sex that compelled me to claim him too; it was the threat of losing him for good.

Morgan kicks the door shut behind us, and I take over, sliding his jacket off his shoulders, peeling his shirt and hoodie up and over his head. “I missed touching you.”

His eyes glimmer with unshed tears. “I missed you so fucking much.”