As we walked along the pier, the scent of salt and frangipani heavy in the evening air, she gently bumped her shoulder against mine. “So was everything really okay back there? You seemed, uh, tense.”
I looked down at her, at the line between her brows that hadn’t been there before. “Just stupid brother shit.” I caught the word as it left my mouth. “Uh, stuff. Stupid brother stuff.”
The unconscious correction, the automatic softening of my language for her, was both ridiculous and scarily significant.
She smiled. “I get it. Stupid sibling stuff is a universal language, even to an only child.”
The wooden planks were solid beneath our feet and soon the warm air with its gentle breeze worked its magicon me. The sky was beginning its nightly spectacle, streaks of orange and pink painting the western horizon.
She pointed toward the two boats bobbing gently in their slips. “Which is which?”
I nodded toward the larger, more functional-looking vessel. “That’sSunset Diver. Eli’s domain. It’s set up for a dozen divers, gear racks, a big platform to jump off.” I gestured to my boat. “And that’sLine Dancer. Smaller, faster. More agile. Built for finding and fighting fish, not for sightseeing. But,” I added, turning to smile at her, “she cleans up nice for a sunset.”
We stopped next to the stern of my boat. The water lapped against the hull in its gentle, rhythmic song.
Iris shifted her gaze from the boat to me, her eyes sparkling in the golden light. “Permission to come aboard, Captain?”
I stared at her, this beautiful, resilient woman who had turned my entire world upside down. I thought of my brothers back at the bar, watching through the windows and still dissecting my every move. I thought of their words, of Caitlin, of the past.
A surge of pure, defiant possessiveness washed through me.
Let them watch.
I leaned in, cupped her face in my hands, and lowered my mouth to hers.
It was a statement. A public, deliberate claiming. I kissed her deeply, possessively, right there on the dock in the golden light of the setting sun. A clear, unmistakable message to anyone who might be looking.
She was with me.
This was real.
This was happening.
She gasped into my mouth, then melted against me,her hands coming up to grip my arms, returning the kiss with an answering fire of her own.
When I pulled back, her lips were swollen, her breath faster. I darted a glance past her toward Tidal Hops, then dropped my gaze back to hers. “Permission very much granted. Let’s go.”
I took her hand and led her aboard.
Chapter Twenty-Two
IRIS
My lips were still tingling,my entire body humming with the aftershock of Austin’s kiss. It hadn’t been a tentative kiss. It had been a message. A clear signal sent right across the water to his entire nosy, well-meaning family at the brewpub.
A sharp, tremulous thrill shot through me.
I reeled from the emotional whiplash of it all. The easy camaraderie at the bar, Austin’s stony face when he returned from the back room, and now… this. His possessive and possibly world-altering kiss. A certainty settled deep in my bones that something significant had gone down in that back room, something that had pushed him to make this public statement. And I understood this man well enough to know that pushing him to talk about it would be fruitless.
Austin moved on his own timeline.
Stepping ontoLine Dancerwas like stepping into another world. Austin’s world. It wasn’t a luxury yacht,designed for champagne and indulgent selfies. It was a serious, hardworking fishing machine that exuded competence. The deck was spotless, every rope coiled with a precision so quintessentially Austin it made me smile. Rods stood at attention in their holders like well-disciplined soldiers. The air smelled of salt, diesel, and the faint, clean scent of the sea itself. I had a strange sense of privilege, a feeling that he was sharing a part of himself he didn’t share with many people.
He moved with an easy, practiced grace, his body perfectly in tune with the rhythm of the boat. He untied the thick mooring lines with a few efficient movements, his muscles flexing under his shirt. Jumping behind the helm, he flicked a series of switches, and the twin diesel engines rumbled to life, a low, powerful thrum that vibrated up from the deck and through the soles of my shoes.
“You can sit there.” He nodded toward the cushioned bench seat beside the helm. “Or hold on. Whatever you do, don’t fall overboard. The paperwork is a nightmare.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, his way of cutting through the lingering intensity of the kiss. And the mysterious meeting.
