“I don’t want to just fuck you. I want to unravel you, learn every sound you make, until you’re mine in ways you can’t undo.”
I’m on fire despite the cold. Every nerve ending is singing. I’m acutely, painfully aware of the ache between my thighs, the way my nipples have tightened against my bra, the way my breath is coming in short gasps.
I shift on the bench, trying to focus on literally anything else.
The water. The sky. The distant shoreline growing closer.
But all I can think about ishim. The way he stared at me. Time passes the way it does when your thoughts won’t settle—slowly and all at once.
I’m still on the bench when the ferry’s engine roars back to life, smooth and steady. A cheer goes up from somewhere inside the cabin. The boat picks up speed again, cutting through the water with renewed purpose.
I pull one earbud out and watch as the men emerge from inside. They’re all grinning, clapping each other on the back, clearly pleased with themselves. Someone hands Joe a rag, and he wipes his hands, then tosses it into a bucket without looking.
He did that. Whatever went wrong, he fixed it.
Good with his hands indeed.
My gaze drifts shamelessly, and I don’t even try to stop it. He’s talking to the older man, gesturing toward something on the deck, and I watch the way he moves, confident, sexy as hell, like someone who knows his own strength and doesn’t need to prove it.
It doesn’t make sense.
Why would a romance narrator be out here? In the middle of nowhere. On a freezing ferry. Fixing engines like it’s second nature.
Stranger still, why does my gut keep insisting it’s him?
I replay his voice in my head, comparing it to the audiobook still playing softly in one ear. The cadence. The tone. That low, deliberate way of speaking that sinks straight into bone.
Voices don’t lie. Bodies can change. Names can be fake.
But voices… they are the truth. Plus, with my job in radio, I pay close attention to the tone of callers and anything little in their voices to read them right.
The ferry hums steadily beneath me as the landscape begins to shift ahead of us from within the gathering fog.
Buildings emerge from the mist like something half remembered from a dream.
Mistberry Cove. It’s beautiful in a quiet, haunting way. The town hugs a natural harbor, buildings layered up the hillside like they grew there organically instead of being built. Windows glow gold and amber. A white church steeple pierces the fog, just barely visible as the mist rolls in thicker from the water. Boats rock gently at the docks, their masts swaying, ropes creaking in the wind.
The main street runs along the waterfront, narrow and intimate and charming in that small-town way that feels almost fictional. Beyond that, the main road climbs sharply up the hill, where more buildings dot the rise.
The sun is dipping behind the mountains now, the light shifting fast. Relief washes through me. Thank God I made the last ferry.
A shadow falls over me, blocking the fading sunlight.
I look up.
Joe is standing close to my bench, hands braced on the railing, attention fixed on the town ahead. He looks different like this. Quieter. More thoughtful. Less like a man in motion and more like someone taking something in, appreciating it.
The mist is rolling in heavier now, curling around the pilings of the dock, wrapping the town in gauzy layers.
“This mist,” I say. “Does it always get so thick in this town?”
He glances over at me, and something shifts in his expression. “Most afternoons and nights. Especially in winter. That’s where the town gets its name. Mistberry.”
“I figured.” I pull my other earbud out completely, giving him my full attention.
His mouth curves into a captivating smile. He turns and leans against the railing, crossing his arms over his chest, andthere’s a change in his energy. Like he’s settling in, deciding I’m worth his time. “You want to hear a story?”
“Always.”
