Page 86 of Endless Depths

“I haven’t?”

I shake my head. “You’ll never lose me.”

“Thank you.” Silent tears stream down his cheeks. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I know, Sunshine.” I cup his cheeks and kiss his forehead.

“I love you,” Cole says.

“I love you too.”

“What if love isn’t enough? What if it doesn’t fix what I broke?”

“Then we’ll rebuild.”

He hides his face against my chest. “Can you sleep with me tonight?”

I shrug, feigning nonchalance. “I guess so. I’m already here, anyway.”

He lifts his head and laughs. “I swear that wasn’t part of my plan.”

I steal a kiss before his smile fades. “When I thought you were going to die, I begged you to kiss me back, to let me kiss your smile again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault, Sunshine.”

I pull him closer, and kiss him again, this time teasing the seam of his lips, and when he opens his sweet mouth for me, I savor him. This kiss isn’t a passionate prelude to sex. It’s soft andgentle. That’s what he needs right now, especially after the weeks I treated him so coldly and weaponized sex. It’s what I need too.

The warmth of his body heat radiating toward me reassures me he’s still here, and the azure depths of his irises soothe my broken heart.

“Before I woke up, I had a nightmare that theBriar Anteroswas sinking,” Cole says when we part.

“Shit.” Many fishermen believe dreams like that are a bad omen.

“I couldn’t find you. Alejo told me to check the engine room, but you weren’t there.” He clears his throat. “Seb was.”

I squeeze his hand. “I’m sorry.”

He squeezes my hand back. “Seb told me to go, that you needed me on deck. I didn’t want to leave him, but he forced me out, said he was already dead, and I was wasting his sacrifice. Then I woke up, and heard you shout, ‘Man overboard.’

“I know you don’t believe in that stuff, and I don’t know if I do either, but I’m going to listen to Seb. I don’t want to waste his sacrifice. I want to stop wishing I died. I want to live again. I want to be there for Finn. I want to help my friends. I want…” His brow wrinkles, lashes shadowing his irises. “I want you. I want to come home toourhome, the one we make with Finn.”

I’m scared he’s going to break my heart again, but after ten years together, I know when he’s sincere, and I believe him. The chance to spend the rest of my life with him is worth risking pain again.

“I want that too, Cole. I want you.”

His blue eyes are as vulnerable as when he first told me he loved me. “You do?”

“Come on now, Sunshine. You’re my husband. I go where you go.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Cole

“You said that was a stupid rule,”I say.

Morgan pushes me onto my back and straddles my lap. “I was wrong.” He kisses the wedding band tattoo on my hand, then links our fingers. “When we get home, I want a second wedding band tattoo—yours stacked on top of mine so they’re always together, even when we’re apart.”