Georgia leans in, pressing her shoulder against mine, the weight of her reassuring. The yacht rocks under us, and I inhale the scent of her perfume. Her head rests lightly on my arm, and the pressure in my chest fades.
“Talk to me about your past,” Georgia’s voice comes out almost sleepy. “Tell me why you are the way you are.” She peers up at me with those pretty eyes.
Oh, fuck. Here we go.I sigh hesitantly. “You want to know why I keep screwing this up?”
She turns her head, chin resting on my arm. “Yeah,” she says, eyes soft in the dim light. “I do.”
I brush some of her hair from her face. “My marriage was a train wreck. Catherine was…” I search for the words, struggling to come up with the right way to say it. “Intoxicating, but also impossible. She made me feel like I was a superhero, but she was always just out of reach. Nothing was ever enough, and I spent years trying to make it work.”
Georgia listens, nodding as if some part of her gets it.
“The day she left, she told me I wasincapable of real intimacy. That I was always going to be alone, because I didn’t know how to let anyone actually in.” I pause for a moment, trying to decide where to go next. “For a long time, I thoughtshe was right. Still do, sometimes. Something in me just doesn’t open up easily.”
My eyes drift to the photographs on the wall, most of them of my military days or shots from the boat. “I think maybe that’s why I’m so scared of what this is.With you.” I turn to her. “Because it feels like the first real thing since then, and I keep waiting for it to get ripped away. It only makes sense that it would.”
Georgia’s fingers tighten around mine, then let go. I’m expecting her to pull away, but instead, she swings her legs over, kneeling on the bed to face me. Her palm lands on my jaw, forcing me to look at her.
“Maybe it’s not about being capable,” she murmurs. “Maybe it’s about finding someone worth the risk.”
I want to argue, but all I can do is swallow hard.
Georgia’s thumb brushes my cheek, and she leans in. “You’re not alone, Brody. You never were. You just had to stop pretending you don’t care.”
The urge to kiss her is so strong, I have to fight myself not to lunge at her. I hold her gaze, searching for any sign that she’s just bullshitting me, but there’s nothing but conviction in her eyes. She wants this.
She wants me.All of me, fucked-up and failing.
I close the gap, kissing her gently. Her lips part for me, her hands coming up to frame my face.
Her body moves over mine, insistent but cautious. I let her set the pace, hands on her hips, feeling the tension drain out of my shoulders as she presses closer. She kisses me harder, fingers threading through my damp hair, tugging until I gasp against her lips.
She pulls back, eyes filled with lust. “Promise you won’t disappear on me this time… or ever.”
“I won’t,” I breathe, barely recognizing my own voice. “Not unless you want me to.”
She straddles me, pushing my back into the headboard. Her hands explore, tracing the lines of my chest, lingering on the tattoo I got when I was in the service, and then up to my shoulder, where she leans in and plants her lips.
I slide my palms up under her tank, finding bare skin and goosebumps. She lets me pull it off, leaving her naked from the waist up, her nipples tight and perfect. I want to look at her naked breasts forever, but she’s already working the button on her shorts, shucking them off with a quick, almost angry motion.
She’s on me again, this time pinning my wrists to the bed as she kisses her way down my neck. Her mouth is hot, her tongue relentless, and when she grinds against my cock through the towel, I almost lose it right there.
“Fuck, Georgie, I need you.”
“Ineedyou,” she whines. She lets me go, and I flip her, pinning her to the mattress, holding her wrists in one hand. I bury my face in her neck, inhaling the scent of her skin, then kissing down her collarbone, her chest, her stomach and back up to her lips.
She wraps her legs around me, drawing me in, and when I push inside her, she gasps, clinging to me as her eyes hold mine. We stay like that for a moment, just breathing, holding each other, until I start to move.
Every thrust is slow, purposeful. Our eyes stay locked the entire time. She meets every thrust, nails raking my back, lips finding mine over and over. “You’re not broken,” she whispers, fingers fisting in my hair. “You’re just scared.”
I lose it with that. My pace picks up, and she arches into me, gasping my name. I bite her shoulder, not hard enough to hurt, just to claim her. She digs her heels into my ass, pulling me deeper, and I feel the edge coming, sharp and hot.
“Let go,” she cries. “Come for me.”
Oh fuck.
It’s a wave, a fucking tsunami, and I collapse into her, burying my face in her neck as I shudder out every last ounce of doubt about staying and fighting my way through this. She holds me through it, arms tight around my shoulders, hands now gentle in my hair.
We stay tangled together, sweat cooling on our skin, the world outside reduced to the faint lap of water against the boat. For once, I don’t feel like I’m drowning. I feel like I’m finally home.
