Her unsure stare holds mine a moment longer before she looks down and slips her sleeve up, exposing the starry points across her inner wrist. “I don’t have anyone close.”
When she looks up, something frail and unguarded flashes behind those lustrous eyes, and it clenches the muscle beneath my ribs, dripping a kind of sadness that can’t be captured, stolen.
Kept.
She covers her wrist. “But I guess I just clash with water. I can’t swim.” Her soft voice is snatched by the deafening wind. “The tide came in so fast, pushing me up toward the rocks. I thought I could hike through them back to the pier…”
I frown, not needing the rest of her explanation. It’s a slow crawl through the shoreline rocks, much too slow to escape a high surge. Especially if you’re fearful of water.
Despite my impaired eyesight, the raw vulnerability of the situation makes it impossible for her to mask the tremulous shame etched across her beautiful face. The desire to pull her into me is so intense, I fear my impulsive thoughts more than the dangers of any tidal swell.
This close to her—alone in the dark—the fiendish cravings should be clawing at my skull. Yet her proximity quiets the noise banging inside my head just enough to maintain a level of control.
It’s fucking maddening.
I don’t press her. Some things are best left obscured by the dark. Instead, I lean back against the rock and shift my body closer, offering what little heat I can to replace the warmth leached from her trembling body.
“A tidal surge can catch anyone off-guard,” I eventually say, attempting to ease her.
“Right.” She nods shakily. “So I should be wary of the new moon, then.” Her gaze tracks over my profile.
I scrub the back of my head. “All phases of the moon influence the tide, but I think it’d sound odd to say you should be wary of celestial alignment.” At her prolonged silence, I clear the ache from my throat. “There’s enhanced gravitational pull on the oceans when the Earth, moon, and sun align.”
She subtly arches an eyebrow. “Yes, that would sound odd, Dr. Night. But you still said it.”
I chuckle, surprising myself. “It might be easier to download a tide app.” I look her over, noting she doesn’t have her phone.
“I like to disconnect after work,” she answers my unspoken question. “Wait. Where’s yours?—”
“I don’t have one. At all.” Hope falls from her features, replaced by a questioning look. I release a heavy breath. “Distractions. Germs.” I wiggle my gloved fingers for emphasis.
“You could get one of those old flip phones. No touchscreens.”
I drag the ridge of my teeth over my bottom lip, thoroughly amused by her. “Distractions,” I reiterate.
As the crash of waves fills the stretch of silence, my hope of boring her past a panicked state is ruined as she holds my gaze, her wide eyes sheened with starlight. A captivating phenomenon that lures me closer, caught in her blink pattern—one, one-two, one, two?—
“What else should I know?” she asks, disturbing my obsessive thoughts. “I should probably learn how to traverse this deathtrap around here.”
I lick my lips, tasting the salt and a warm current of vanilla and amber mixed with her relief. “Tides change every six hours.” I pull my leg up and rest my arm over my knee. “There are two high and low tides every twenty-four.”
Her smile is more breathtaking than the gusting wind. “Maybe it’s just smarter for me not to roam the beach.”
“Can’t live in fear.”
“And that’s how one winds up stranded on a rock.”
“With a devastatingly attractive astrophysicist,” I say, bringing a slight flush to her skin, and I can’t help the smile twitching at my lips.
The breathy sound of her laugh unfurls heat in the center of my chest. “God, you have no filter,” she says.
I grin, shrugging. “We’re not trapped. Yet.”
Worry pinches her eyes, and she turns her attention to the churning water, the ocean covered by a veil of endless dark. “Yet,” she whispers. “But the tide will keep rising before it recedes.”
The intense wind guides my face back to hers. “Yes.”
A breath slips past her trembling lips, the softest brush across mine. “I’m not sure the truth is what I need right now.”
