I was feeling too much. That was the thing.
HE WAS ON THE DOCKwhen I came back. Leaning against the railing, facing the creek, the marsh stretching dark and silver under a moon two days past full. The air was thick with heat that hadn’t broken, salt and honeysuckle and the green-mud smell of the tidal flats at low tide.
I walked up behind him and put my hand flat on his back. He went still under my palm, the muscles taut, and I felt him exhale.
“I shouldn’t have said you were benching me,” I said.
“I’m sorry I tried to.”
“You were scared.”
He turned. In the moonlight his face was planes and shadow, and he looked at me and held.
“Yeah,” he said. “I was.”
The honesty of it undid me. This man who’d stood between me and rifles without flinching, telling me he’d been afraid. Not of them. Of losing me.
I kissed him.
Gentle and fierce and grateful, all of it at once, everything the day had put in me. The triumph of the wreck, the terror of the guns, the fight, the shrimp on the grill, his face when he’d said yeah, I was. I pressed him back against the railing and kissed him until we were both breathing hard.
“Sit down,” I said.
He looked at me. The moonlight caught the question in his expression.
“On the dock. Sit.”
He sat. Back against the railing post, legs stretched out on the planking. I straddled his lap and his hands went to my hips, steadying, and I took his face in both hands and kissed him again.
“My turn,” I said against his mouth. “Tonight, I lead.”
His grip tightened on my hips. “Yes, ma’am.”
I pulled his shirt over his head and ran my hands down his chest. The scars under my fingers, the dense muscle, the heat of him in the night air. I kissed the scars at his collarbone because they were part of him and I wanted every part. His breath hitched. I kissed lower, his sternum, the flat plane of his stomach, and his head tipped back to the post.
“Marley.” Rough. A warning or an invitation, and I wanted both.
I freed his cock from his shorts and stroked him, my other hand braced on his shoulder. He was hard and thick in my grip, and the sound he made when I tightened my fist went straight through me. I shifted down, knees on the planking, and took him in my mouth.
The wood was rough under my knees and I didn’t care. I took him deep, tongue flat on the underside, and his hips flexed up. His fingers slid into my hair, gripping without guiding. I set the pace. Slow, then faster, then slow again, learning the rhythm that made his breathing ragged and his fists clench at his sides.
“Fuck.” His voice cracked. “Your mouth. I can’t—”
I pulled off. Looked up at him. He was wrecked above me, chest heaving, eyes dark, every line of his body taut with the effort of holding still.
“Don’t move,” I said.
I stood and pulled my tank top off, unclipped my bikini top, stepped out of my shorts. The night air hit bare skin, salt-heavy and close, and the moonlight turned the water behind me to beaten silver. I stood on that dock and let him look at me.
“You’re—” He swallowed. Couldn’t finish.
“I know.” I started to drop back over him, but his hands caught my hips.
“Not yet.” His voice was low, rough. “My turn first.”
He pulled me toward him and down, guiding me to sit on the dock’s edge, my back against the railing post he’d been leaning on. The planking was warm under me, sun-soaked wood still holding the day’s heat. He knelt between my legs and looked up at me with an expression that made my pulse stutter.
“You said you lead tonight.” His thumbs traced unhurried circles on my inner thighs, pushing them wider. “Lead. Tell me what you want.”
