“Hey.” His hand cups my jaw, stopping me mid-criticism. I’m stunned as he pulls my face up to his until we’re a half-inch apart, breaths mingling, eyes catching. “I was wrong. Not you.Me. I let fear get in my head. And then, against my will, I found myself learning a hell of a lot about courage from a girl—” He corrects himself. “—awomanwho refused to falter, even in the face of a pretty terrifyingsituation.”
“ButI—”
“Violet. Do you truly think you’d feel any better if we’d never tried? If we’d let him die weeks ago, when he was nothing but a stranger on a raft?” His fingers flex against my cheeks. “Because I don’t. Losing Ian would be horrible no matter when it happened — two weeks ago, tomorrow, seventy years from now.” His exhale is sharp. “You gave it a shot. That’s all you could do. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. The important lesson is, no matter the outcome, youlive. Youcarry on. And you keepfighting.”
Suddenly, my Dad’s voice is in my head, blending withBeck’s.
Never stop fighting, Violet. Nothing in this world worth having comes without some sort ofstruggle.
Beck is still holding my face, his strong fingertips tracing the fragile skin beneath my eyes, skimming my temples, stroking my jawline. Taking a tactile inventory of my every feature, as if he’s not sure he’ll ever have the chance again. It takes all my self-control not to nuzzle my cheek against his palm and surrender to thesensation.
“You have to know,” he rasps intently. “I wouldn’t have survived this — any of this — withoutyou.”
“You would have. You’d have found shelter, and figured out the food thing,and—”
“No.”
My eyebrows lift at the finality in histone.
“I’m not just talking about the island, Violet. I wouldn’t have survived without you. Period. You make me stronger, better, tougher, kinder. You’ve kept me going through all of this. Every day, every moment, every fucking beat of my heart.” He’s panting as his eyes drop to my lips. “You have given me purpose, blinded me with light in a world that once held only darkness. You have altered my life in a way I never expected. And I don’t know how to go back. I don’t know howto—”
He never finishes his sentence, because I can’t take it anymore. I can’t go another moment without knowing what his mouth will feel like crushed against mine. So, I close the last shred of distance between us, slamming my body up against his chest as my lips claim his in akiss.
A kiss that changes everythingirrevocably.
Chapter Fifteen
F I RE
Iamon fire beneath two callusedhands.
They roam my skin relentlessly — running down my sides, splaying across my back, shoving impatiently at the straps of my dress until they slip over my shoulders. The fabric falls to the earth, but I pay it no mind. There’s no room in my head for thoughts of anything but the man setting off explosions in my every nerveending.
Beck’s mouth — that lush, luxurious mouth that’s captivated me from the very first moment I saw it — is finally on mine, and it’s better than I ever imagined. His stubble scrapes my face, my neck, my collarbones as he flurries kisses across every inch of skin within reach. I cry out when he buries his face between my bared breasts, hands tangling in his wet hair as his mouth closes over one of mynipples.
Sand coats our limbs like a layer of grainy white paint as we kneel on the shore of the pool, wrapped so tight together it’s hard to tell where his body ends and mine begins. My spine bows as desire sings through my veins. I am burning up beneath the sensation of his hard muscles and devouring lips, combusting like a solar flare off the surface of the sun as his towering frame wraps itself aroundmine.
My fingers turn to fists in his hair when I feel a scrape of teeth against a spot of hyper-sensitive skin. I tug his face back up to eye-level. His gaze is hazy with heat, his mouth parted as pants of desire slip out. Shaking, my hands slide to his jaw as I bring our lips back together. I can hardly breathe, but I’d rather die from oxygen deprivation than stop kissing him. Not now that we’ve finally succumbed to the tension that’s saturated our every glance since that first instant in theairport.
His tongue demands entrance. I open for him willingly, more than happy to let him wreck me. I drown in the sensation of his mouth moving over mine. My world dwindles, every life experience I’ve ever had fading out of focus, my very identity stripping away until I can’t recall my name or this place or how we wound up here, together. None of that matters. Here, in his arms, I am precisely where I need to be, my tattered soul made new again, bolstered by hisown.
His hardness juts against my hip through the fabric of his shorts, and I lose my ability to breathe. To move. To think. Pressed against me is irrefutable evidence that my days of stolen glances and nights of dark-cast fantasies did not go unshared or unrequited. He has burned for me just as I’ve burned for him. Struggling in silent desperation as the pressure slowly built to this moment, here and now, with our mouths laying claim to each other and our bodies perfectlyaligned.
He pushes me back against the bank and stretches out over me, delicious weight pressing me into the earth. Our mouths never break contact. Our hands never pause. There is not a shred of hesitation in the way we trace and memorize each other. Not a single beat ofawkwardness.
There is only joy. Heart-pounding, euphoria-inducingjoy.
In these stolen, sun-streaked moments on the shore, being kissed as I’ve never been kissed before, I taste true happiness for the first time in my life. My heart fills to bursting as I’m hit with the sensation of something very right finally falling into place, after an eternity of breathlessexpectation.
We belongtogether.
It’s as simple as that. We are a perfect match, his hard edges absorbing my soft ones as my hands splay out across his skin. He buries his face in my neck as I trace the muscled planes of his back with hurried fingertips, exploring all the bits I’ve dreamed about from afar. It’s been sweet torture, wondering about the taste of his lips, the feel of his hips digging into mine, the sound of his groans when I stroke my hands low across his abdomen, tracing the thin strip of hair that leads down into his shorts. My imagination is not half as satisfying as the realthing.
My fingertips are skimming the elastic strap of his black boxers when his mouth rips itself frommine.
“Stop.” He’s on his feet before I can blink, backing away from me like I’m a bomb with ten seconds left on the timer until detonation. “We have to stopthis.”
I scramble up, eyes locked on his, confusion clawing at myinsides.