"Hi," she said.
"Hi."
"We're alone."
"We are."
"On a boat."
"Also true."
Clara's hand slid up his chest to his collar. Her fingers curled into the fabric. "I've been thinking about something all night."
"The cable railing design? Because I have sketches?—"
She kissed him. Not the soft, sweet kisses they'd been trading at the lobster bake when they thought nobody was looking—though everyone was looking, obviously, because Beacon's End. This was a different kind of kiss. Hungry. Purposeful. The kiss of a woman who'd been patient all evening and had run out of patience.
Jack's hands found her hips on instinct. "Here?"
"Here."
"On the boat?"
"On the boat." Her fingers were already working the buttons on his shirt. "Unless you have objections."
"I have zero objections. I have the opposite of objections. I have—" He lost his train of thought when her mouth found his neck. "Okay, yeah, here works."
The boat was not designed for this. It was a twenty-foot center console with a bench seat barely wide enough for one person to sit comfortably, let alone two people trying to—well.
They made it work.
Clara pushed him onto the bench and straddled his lap in one fluid motion that suggested she'd thought about this more than once. The boat rocked with their combined weight, water sloshing against the hull in a rhythm that matched the suddenly frantic pace of Jack's pulse.
"If this boat tips—" he started.
"It won't tip."
"You say that with a lot of confidence for someone who's currently—oh God—" Clara's hips rolled against him and coherent thought exited the conversation. "Okay. Not tipping. Great. Carry on."
They were laughing and kissing and fumbling with buttons and zippers in the dark, the boat swaying underneath them, the ridiculousness of it only making it better. Jack's shirt ended up somewhere near the stern. Clara's top got caught on her elbow and they had to stop kissing long enough to wrestle it free, both of them breathless and giggling.
"Romantic," Clara deadpanned, finally pulling it over her head.
"The most." Jack pulled her closer. Kissed the curve of her shoulder. The hollow of her throat. Lower, until she gasped and her fingers tightened in his hair.
"Condom," she said against his ear.
"Please tell me you have one."
"Jacket pocket."
"You planned this."
“Maybe,” she admitted, and Jack laughed against her skin because this was becoming their word, their insidejoke, another small brick in the thing they were building together.
He found her jacket, found the condom, managed it with only minor difficulty—he was improving, statistically—and then Clara was sinking down onto him with a slow exhale that made his vision blur.
The boat rocked. Stars wheeled overhead. Somewhere in the distance, a bell buoy chimed, keeping time with a rhythm neither of them was paying attention to.
