Page 60 of True Abandon

“That was sheer luck and a gust of wind. I stopped navigating as soon as I lost wind. We’re stuck here for a while.” There’s a calm about his body as he lays there, eyes closed, chest moving in soothing breaths.

My stomach drops. My heart races.

The water below us feels to be moving like a rapid current. The gentle lapping has morphed into a violent current, and I can’t hear anything other than the wind gusting past my ears.

I rise to my knees and start touching everything from the sail, to the rope that’s attached to it, and even the paddle in a feverish attempt to get this thing to move…but it doesn’t budge. The absolute loss of control makes my chest feel heavy like the mountains have settled in over my diaphragm.

The break toward the ocean closes in. Clouds in the air swirl around us. A hurricane brews.

We need to move.

We need to move right now.

If we don’t get out of here, we’ll be lost at sea.

“Trish, what’s happening?” Jax asks in a panic.

I drop my hands to the ground and fumble like a woman without sight as I dramatically look for my life preserver.

“My jacket.” I gasp for breaths. “I need my life jacket.”

Jax leans forward and places two hands on my arms. “Breathe, Trish. Look at me. I got you.”

“I can’t. I need to protect myself. My jacket. Where the hell is my jacket?” I scream. My hands have risen to the side of my head.

Jax releases a hand and reaches over and grabs my life preserver. He holds it in the air with his finger. “It’s right here.”

A mild relief rushes through me. I stretch to grab it from him. My fingers are almost at the nylon fabric when he raises his arm and tosses it far into the water.

I crash into the side of the boat as I watch it float away. “What the hell did you do that for?”

He grabs his life jacket and tosses it over as well.

“Are you out of your mind?” I panic.

He holds my arms again and rubs them soothingly. His head lowers to mine, and then Jax looks me straight in the eye. “I got you.”

I turn my head to the side. “You’re gonna get us killed.”

“Look around. We’ve got a crystal-blue sky. The water is smooth as glass, and we’re only a couple meters from the beach—in a cove. We’re safe—trust me.”

I take a couple of quick breaths and look around. He’s right. The water is still, not the volcanic tides I had just imagined. Nor is the sky darkening with a storm.

What is my mind doing to me? Just the slightest loss of control and I fall into a manic state.

“I can’t trust you.” My words are low but heard as if I screamed them into the silent afternoon.

Jax’s lips close tightly just before it falls into a frown. “I know. I wish with all my heart that wasn’t the case.” The weary look he portrays hits me straight in the gut.

The tears that threatened to release are building again. He wants me to trust him when he’s the one person I fear most.

“I made a mistake.” His voice is sincere as his thumbs run gentle circles on my skin and gently places his forehead against mine. The close proximity is so intimate, so perfect—I want to melt further into him.

But I can’t. With a shake of my head, I pull away.

“It was more than a mistake. A mistake is forgetting to turn off the coffee pot or making a left when you should have gone right.” A simmering rage builds deep within my belly. “You put our sex tape online—no, not our sex tape. That would imply you were impacted. No, it was a video of me—a sixteen-year-old girl, stark naked in her bedroom. My entire body featured for millions of people to see.” A decade’s worth of aggression rises up. My heart is on fire with a bubbling heat and searing pain. “I was pleasuring you. Loving you. And the way you had the camera angled up, it was like I was some kind of cheap whore.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like that.” He looks at me like a puppy behind a cage, begging for someone to love it.