I don't.
I pull back and thrust again, setting a rhythm that's hard and deep and exactly what both of us need. The bed creaks beneath us, too narrow for this, too small, but I don't care. Nothing exists outside this cabin. Nothing matters except the woman beneath me and the way she's taking everything I give her and demanding more.
Her pussy grips me like a fist with every stroke. I angle my hips to hit that spot inside her, the one that made her scream before, and I know I've found it when her eyes roll back and her moans go high and desperate.
"That's it." I pound into her harder, watching her face, watching her fall apart. "Come for me again, Sera. Let me feel it."
She shatters with a cry that echoes off the cabin walls. The sensation of her clenching around me is enough to drag me over the edge with her. I bury myself deep and let go, pleasure whiting out my vision as I spill inside her.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. I'm collapsed on top of her, still buried in her warmth, my face pressed against her neck. Her hands stroke lazy patterns across my back. Her heartbeat drums against my chest.
"Ford." Her voice is soft, sated.
"Yeah."
"That was..."
"I know." I lift my head enough to look at her, brushing sweat-damp hair from her forehead. "It was for me too."
She smiles, something soft and open that transforms her whole face. "I think I might be in trouble."
"Good trouble or bad trouble?"
"The best kind." She pulls me down for a kiss that tastes like promises neither of us have said out loud yet. "The kind I don't want to come back from."
I kiss her again because I don't have words for what's happening in my chest. This fullness. This rightness. This terrifying certainty that nothing will ever be the same.
Seven days left.
Seven days before her father's people come to collect her. Seven days before this dream ends and reality reasserts itself.
I pull out slowly, dealing with the condom before settling beside her on the narrow bed. She curls into me immediately, her head on my chest, her leg thrown over mine. Like she belongs there. Like she's always belonged there.
"Stay with me tonight." Her voice is already drowsy, satisfaction pulling her toward sleep. "No more sleeping on deck. Stay here."
"Where else would I go?"
She hums contentedly and closes her eyes.
I lie awake long after her breathing evens out, one hand stroking her hair, watching the last light fade from the portholes. The sounds of the marsh filter in through the hull. Frogs and insects and the occasional splash of something hunting in the shallows.
Peaceful sounds. Normal sounds. The soundtrack of the life I've built for myself over four years of solitude.
A life that suddenly feels too small to go back to.
I press a kiss to the top of Sera's head and close my eyes.
Seven days to figure out how to keep her.
Seven days to convince her that what started as debt has become something else entirely.
Seven days before I have to watch her walk away or find a reason to make her stay.
In my arms, Sera sighs in her sleep and burrows closer.
I hold her tighter and let myself imagine a future I didn't know I wanted until she crashed into my life and made me remember what it felt like to be alive.
6
