Page 24 of Dance Practice, Marooned: Part 2

I try again, but my legs tremble and my head spins.

Dammit.

“Ah,” I call out. “I... shit.”

Ace appears, his back turned to me as if he hasn’t devoured my entire body before. “You good?”

“You can look, but I think... I think I need help.”

He turns slowly, and I have no doubt I am a pitiful sight on the end of the bed, looking weak, hungry and tired. My hair—gosh, I don’t even want to think about how ratty it must be. I wobble, and nearly fall back, but he is there, seconds later, cradling my elbow and holding me steady. The effort attempting to wash myself leaves me dizzy, sweat prickling my hairline.

He carefully positions me, so I am stable and cross-legged at the end of the bed, then he takes the bucket and kneels down in front of me. He wrings out the steaming cloth and tests it on the inside of his wrist. “You sure?”

I nod, and his eyes flick up, the barest hint of a smile hiding in the corner of his mouth. He starts at my arms, the cloth barely more than a whisper, smoothing over my skin. The water is hot and fucking perfect, and I close my eyes as sensation blooms beneath it. The warmth seeps in, deeper than skin, almost inside my bones.

“Can I take your shirt off?”

I meet his gaze, and nod again.

He peels my shirt over my head, gentle, and I am struck by the way his hands move—slow and careful not to jar my sore body. I end up in just a ratty sports bra, the kind that never fully dries in this humidity, and I shiver a little. My underwear is just as ratty, but thankfully, Tati is good enough to have ensured it was always clean.

Bless everything about her.

He pauses, running his fingers over some old bruises on my shoulder.

He grunts at that, then leans in, and I hold my breath at the closeness—but he just gently presses the warm cloth to the back of my neck. “Thank you,” he rumbles, voice so low and broken that my chest contracts. “For not dying.”

I let my head drop forward, chin to chest. He washes my back, every vertebra a separate kindness. I feel the knot there, where my own anxiety has lived for years, and I swear it comes loose under his hand. He lifts my arm so he can clean beneath it. The angle makes my breath catch in my throat, but I let him. I let him do all of it.

When he finishes my arms, he works down, washing my legs piece by piece. His hands are big and rough, but he never loses patience, never scrubs too hard. He spends an eternity on my feet, which feels like it should be embarrassing, but it’s not. It’s so tender I want to cry. He washes between every toe, then cups my heel and thumb-sponges the arch in slow, relaxing circles. Then, without a word, he sets the bucket aside and dries my feet with a strip of clean cloth.

He glances up at me, and I’m already staring at him. My face is probably a battlefield of tears, sweat, and salt water, but he is looking at me like I’m the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. He brings his hands up to cradle my face, as if it’s the most fragile thing on this godless island. His thumb slides over my jaw, up to the hinge, and then back down. I feel the rasp of it, and I want to fall forward into him.

He doesn’t rush. He takes another rag, wrings it out, and with infinite care, cleans my face. Cheekbones, temples, across my nose, along the arch of my brow. His hands are so close I can barely stand it. Having him do this is sucking the very breath from my lungs. I can’t focus when he touches me like this. How will I ever go back to a world without him in it?

“I’m sorry, Gracie,” he whispers. The way he says my name—like it hurts—splinters something inside me. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry I ever put you in this situation. But I promise you, I fuckin’ promise, that no matter what it takes, I will get you home. I will get you home and then you’ll never see me again.”

His words cause me to jolt, and a pain rips through my chest. Because the thought of never seeing him again is something I can’t comprehend. Hot, silent tears start rolling, almost a relief. He doesn’t shy away from them. He wipes them away even as they fall, and then, cupping the base of my skull, pulls my forehead to his. The tip of his nose drags along mine, slow and stupidly soft.

“What if that isn’t what I want?” I whisper.

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. His mouth finally claims mine, and it steals every coherent thought from my head. His kiss is feverish, at first, a tangle of regret and need. My hands knot in his hair. I’m not strong enough to do much more, but he does all the work, holding me against him, bruising my lips with his own, breathing my little whimpers into himself as if he can take the pain from me by force.

He kisses my jaw, my throat, over and over. His hands roam my body, never wandering without permission, always asking in the way he hesitates, the way his breath stutters against my skin. “Tell me if it’s too much,” he growls into my ear. “Tell me to fuck off, and I will.”

But I don’t want that.

What I want is to be alive, real, right here, with him. I whisper his name, once, then again, and he breaks—just a little—and sinks his mouth to the hollow under my jaw. I drag him closer until there’s no air between us, just heat, need, and desperation. Every part of me that was dying is now screaming to be touched, to be known.

I need him.

He works the band of my sports bra up, slow enough to make me ache for it.

When I’m exposed before him, he leans down, dragging kisses down my chest.

He hoists me into his lap, cradling me. He holds me as if I’m precious, as if I’m not made of broken pieces and panic. Arms wrapped around him, I kiss him until my body aches. He lowers me back onto the bedding, and I pull him down with me, his body heavy, solid, the only thing I want.

He doesn’t take more than I can give, but what he does take is everything. Each sound, every desperate little gasp, all the splinters and fragments of myself I never thought I’d share with him again. There is nothing gentle about the way our need collides—he fills me slow and I feel every inch of it, the stretch and the ache and the unbearable rightness of him. It hurts. I want more of it. My nails find his back, and I hear him hiss against my throat.