“What’s happening on Sol’s boat?”
I blink. Not because I’m surprised the first question was a figure of speech. More that I assumed he already knew about Sol’s trouble with a thousand angry fishermen. To be fucking sure, I check. “You don’t already know?”
“He hasn’t told anyone.”
“What makes you think he’s told me?”
“Why else would you be on his boat for days at a time? Jack already told me the sea makes you sick.”
“When I was eleven.”
Skylar raises that brow again. “You didn’t go for the fish.”
There’s no place for denial in the way he’s looking at me. On his bed. In the dark. Our faces inches apart. But I still can’t be sure how much he knows. How much I can tell him without betraying Sol, or compromising what I’m going to do to keep him safe. “Sol needs fresh eyes on something. I have time, so I offered mine.”
Skylar scoffs, and it’s not a nice sound. It’s bitter. Cold. Like his gaze is fast becoming. “Don’t talk around the question. It’s worse than lying.”
Is it? I get the feeling he’s going to hate me regardless, or at least hate whatever shit comes out of my mouth, so I take a chance and go with the truth. “All right then. I’m not going to tell you what I was doing on Sol’s boat. I’m going to ask you to trust it was a good fucking reason and leave it at that. How’s that?”
Silence stretches out, infiltrating every scrap of space between us. For an endless moment, Skylar’s flinty expression doesn’t change. Then something in him seems to relax, and he shrugs again. “Better than bullshit. But for the record, I don’t fucking trust you.”
“And you let me in your bed?”
“Onmy bed. And it was that or peel you off the floor when you fell on your face.”
“Wasn’t going to happen.” Hasn’t since the night Vin died. I haven’tlet it, and I won’t. This shit might be permanent, but it’s not going to win. It’s not going to take anything else from me.
“Are you taking your meds?”
My vision clears, releasing me from a daze of blurry introspection I don’t need, honesty still throttling me in its grip. “Not often.”
Skylar’s pewter stare narrows with his unspoken retort.
I elaborate, “They make it worse. I’d rather spin out from time to time than be freezing cold my whole fucking life.”
Slowly, Skylar reaches out and skates a palm down my arm. “You never feel cold to me.”
Because he’s made of fucking ice himself?
No. I see the warmth in him, even if he doesn’t want me to. But the coolness still lingering in his touch, even as the contact sends fire to my blood, has all kinds of instincts starting a war in my chest.
I want to lay my mouth on him.
That’s a given.
Has been since the moment I met him. But that night, I also fought the urge to sweep that enigmatic stranger into my arms and hold him close. To shield him from whatever the fuck was causing him so much pain. And I feel that compulsion again now.
I feel itmore.
Skylar’s hand slips from my arm.
I catch it and lace our fingers together.
He almost resists.
Almost.
But he lets it happen, and I shift onto my side too, our clasped hands between us, eyes locked, breaths in sync.