Page 53 of The Final Cut

My body reacts before my mind catches up. Three seconds, maybe less, and I’m hard enough to hurt.

“Little Ghost.”

She steps out of one leg, then the other, awkward because the boat is small, and the world is wet, and nothing about this should be graceful. It is still the most devastating thing I have ever seen. She is not performing. She is not trying to seduce her way out of pain. She is choosing contact because words have become too thin to hold what she needs.

I set one hand at her hip when the boat rocks again.

Steadying. Warning. Welcoming.

She straddles me, and my breath leaves my lungs in a rush.

Her fingers go to my belt with fierce concentration. Buckle. Button. Zipper. Her hand slides inside and wraps around my cock, firm and sure enough that my eyes close for one brutal second.

“Look at me,” she says.

I do.

Rain gathers in her hair and rolls down her temple. Her mouth is inches from mine. Her fist moves once, slow, making the base of my spine tighten.

“This is a terrible place for impulse control,” I say.

“Then don’t have any.”

That sounds like permission and challenge wrapped up in one.

I have been surviving this woman’s challenges since she walked back into my life with revenge in her eyes and no idea she had already rearranged every loyalty I owned.

She leans in and kisses me.

Open-mouthed. Searching. Not soft. Not gentle. Her tongue touches mine, and at the same time she rises on her knees, angles herself over me, and sinks down in one stroke.

We both gasp into the kiss.

My hands clamp around her hips. The skiff rocks beneath us, water lapping hard against the hull. Rain falls heavier now, pattering on the benches, the motor, our shoulders. She is hot around me, impossibly tight, her body taking mine while the bayou goes silver and blurred at the edges.

I should slow this down.

I should think about the boat, the rain, the fact that anyone watching the channel would get an education in poor judgment and obsession.

I do not slow down.

Reva’s forehead touches mine. Her fingers grip the back of my neck, nails biting. Her body trembles around me, but her eyes stay open.

“I know what you’re doing for me,” she says.

The words slice deeper than they should, and I go still inside her.

She swallows, rain sliding over her cheeks, her mouth. “All of you. But you especially.” Her breath catches when I shift under her. “You keep standing between me and the ugly parts so I don’t have to look straight at them. You kill for me. You take the pieces no one else knows where to put.”

I try to look away, and she catches my jaw in one wet hand.

“No,” she says. “Look at me.”

I look at her.

“I don’t take it lightly,” she says.

My chest goes tight enough to hurt. I have no answer for that. None that belongs in a human mouth.