“Fuck. Collins—” I shout her name, my throat raw, voice drowned by the thunderous crash of waves. A savage desperation tears through me, obliterating any fear.
Slammed under by the next crash of a wave, I surface gasping, dragging in another painful breath to fill my lungs before I dive below. I swim deeper, arms slicing through salt and kelp. I fight the riptide, hands scraping through the murky depth in search.
And then I feel her.
First contact—a spark of warmth breaking through the icy water and saline, conducting an electric arc between us. Breaching every barrier, my fingers touch hers.
The yielding softness of her skin sends a visceral shockwave through me, surging with heat to ignite my frozen bones. Arms weightless above her head, Collins drifts suspended in the deep, swallowed by the crushing darkness of the ocean void. I link my fingers through hers, teeth gritted against the crosscurrent as I drag her higher.
My left hand finds the curve of her cheek, guiding her face toward mine as I strain to see through the stirred silt and murk. My forehead presses to hers, fingers threading into her silky hair, savoring this isolated moment of serene calm, before I wrap my arm around her and kick us to the surface.
“Collins.” My voice cracks as I cough up water. With a fierce groan, I haul her closer. Exertion scorching my muscles, I search her for signs of life.
Tossed by the waves, I tread water, clearing strands of her matted hair from her face. My thumb brushes over a tender bruise along her pale cheek, anger igniting hot. “Starling?—”
I smother the flame of panic as I press my fingers against her throat, relief stripping a ragged breath free at the shallow flutter of her pulse.
“Fuck,” I swear, casting a defiant glance up at the sky. The shadow has grown, taking a dark bite out of the sun.
Before the rip current drags us back under, I shift her back against my chest, anchoring my arm across her sternum. Her head rests on my shoulder, and I tilt her face upward, keeping her airway clear of the surf.
“Just stay with me, angel,” I rasp near her ear, my low plea lost beneath the tossing waves.
As my legs kick below the surface, my free arm slices through the choppy water with determined, rhythmic strokes. Ignoring the burn in my muscles, my existence narrows to this one impossible act.
Waves thrash and crash around us, the ruthless currents striving to tear her body away from mine. Breath scraping my lungs, I grip her tighter, bones aflame from the effort. But I propel us forward, each stroke driven by utter defiance. As a breaker barrels over us, I’m thrust beneath the surface, the dark covering my vision, assaulted by what lurks in my own violent waters.
Jaw clenched, I fight the intrusive images back into the abyss, tightening my hold on Collins. The weight of her against my chest sends fresh adrenaline surging. With a furious roar, I claw my way back to the surface of my shore.
I hold on to her, refusing to lose her to the dark waters.
An eternity passes before my boots scrape the sand. I stagger ashore, legs buckling beneath the weight of my exhaustion and her limp body. I collapse to my knees, laying Collins along the hard sand.
Lungs searing, vision blurred, I press my fingertips alongside her neck, waiting to count her beats, her blinks, her breaths. Waiting to hear her soft notes.
My throat constricts. Hand unsteady, I clear the sand from her pale blue lips, her skin like ice beneath my bare touch. Her blouse has come undone at the top, and I settle my palm at the hollow beneath her collarbone, between the swell of her breasts. Breath caged, I lean in, waiting to feel the faintest brush of her breath. My chest goes as still as hers?—
She gasps in air, and with my own shuddering breath, I turn her face. A cough rattles her chest as seawater spills from her lips. With my other hand, I grasp the nape of her neck, bracing her while she clears the water from her lungs. Her eyelashes flutter, eyes blinking open to reveal a slate sky, gold waking in the depths like early stars.
I swallow hard, my throat aflame with salt, as her gaze slowly focuses on me. A shiver clings to her body, lips trembling, before a slow smile graces her mouth.
“You’re touching me,” she whispers.
A rush of air escapes my raw lungs. My hand moves lower, fingers reverently covering the scar that splits the valley of her chest. “You’re letting me touch you.”
Emotion wells behind her eyes. She reaches up, fingertips gentle against my cheek, her touch an electric, humming current. She wanders lower, exploring my jaw, my neck. Descending even lower as she tenderly trails her fingers over the planes of my chest, tracing the designs inked into my skin.
And I’m just as reverent, mapping the last of the light along her cheekbone with my thumb, memorizing the soft feel of her skin. But the moment is broken too soon, the awe in her gaze stolen by a flicker of panic as memory begins to flood back—everything that happened before.
The dark lanes in her eyes deepen, dimming the gold. And yet, as I fall deeper into those shadowed corridors, a subtle brilliance emerges. Once your eyes adapt to the darkness, you find the hidden light there, like uncovering a distant cluster of stars within the void.
Her fingers curl urgently into my damp shirt. Her throat pulses with a hard swallow. “Orion?—”
“I’m going to kiss you, Collins,” I say, my voice scraping the air between us. I hold her gaze, letting the fiery ache consume. I graze my beaten knuckles over her bruised cheek, still so shaken at the soft feel of her.
Above us, the sky darkens, the eclipse nearing totality. Shadows stretch across rocks, color bleeding away and plunging the shore into a surreal, silver dusk.
Everything stills. The ocean falls to a hush, as if holding its breath in anticipation for second contact. An unnatural silence envelops the shore, the universe pausing for this one moment.
