“We should be everywhere together.” I land a tender kiss over her head as if proving my point. I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her hip to mine as we navigate the thicket of bodies. This is Gravity. It’s not Jinx. I doubt a single one of my employees would give a dime to our adversary.
I lean into her ear. “We’ll need code names now that we’re scoping out the enemy.” The house band plays so loud I can’t think straight. It’s dark inside, multi leveled with a bar to the left and groups of white leather sofas dispersed throughout. Well, fuck me. It’s the same floor plan—probably same damn decorator that we hired. Not one detail is amiss. I look over at the tacky pink neon sign that reads Gravity. Mine would have been blue.
“You can be Detective C,” she shouts with a laugh rolling in her throat. “I can call you my private dick for short.”
“Very funny.” We head down the wide staircase that spirals all the way to the basement. It’s less noisy down here even though the same shit music is pumping through the joint. A long row of rooms, outfitted with mirrors, lead to an open dance floor congested with a tangle of limbs. Bodies grind up against one another, and, for a second, I’m caught off guard at how young everyone looks. I remember when I was in high school thinking the junior high kids looked like babies—then, in college, I thought the high school chicks looked like they belonged in elementary school. And tonight, while I was waiting for Stevie, those frat boys looked all of twelve. I guess my ego would like to think I’m not getting older, everyone else is just getting younger—ironic since Stevie looks just right to me, ageless, priceless, hewn from the throne of God just for me.
“I have the perfect codename for you.” She shouts it loud with a laugh echoing through each word. Stevie leans in until her cheek is warming mine. “How about Superman?” She takes a gentle bite out of my ear, and I groan with pleasure. Shit. What the hell am I doing scouting out the enemy when I have Stevie wearing that dress, kissing me—biting my ear?
I wrap my arms around her and pull her into the wall. The music pulsates through us as if my heart were tapping out Morse Code. It’s saying, I’m so damn happy under your spell. I never want to leave.
“I love you, Stevie.” I blow it in her ear. “Don’t say it back. I want you to feel it. I want it to come from the marrow in your bones when you do.” I graze over her ear with my teeth.
“You can’t call me Stevie when we’re scouting out enemy territory.” A coy smile curves her lip.
“If I’m Superman, you’re my Kryptonite.”
“Sounds dangerous.” She shakes her head. Her crimson lips look soft as summer rain, and I desperately want to test the theory. “I want to be something Superman needs—something he desires.” She purrs into my ear, and a spear of heat runs from my aching balls all the way to my throat.
“Lois Lane.” I pull my lips across hers—feel her tense beneath me. There. I did it. I damn well had to with the way she looks tonight, the way she’s looking at me. But she’s right. We shouldn’t be doing this in public, not even in some dark cloistered club. If anyone catches us, her internship, her education will be in the balance.
“Lois Lane?” Stevie wrinkles her nose, and my dick perks to attention. “Sounds like an homage to the 1950’s. That makes me feel old. Try again.”
“She’s Superman’s girlfriend. Face it, you’re Lois Lane.”
She gives my side a hard pinch, and I thrust my head back and take in the feel of her fingers digging into my flesh. Stevie is working me up in ways she doesn’t realize. She’s starting a fire I’m hoping she’ll be willing to help put out.
“How about Lo?” I pull her in tight, shrouding her body with mine. If she touches me like that again, bites me like that again, I might just take her right here.
“Lo. I like that.” She pulls back, pressing her head to the wall, riding those hazel eyes over mine. “Well, Superman, you ready to show me your moves?” Her hips grind into mine, and I lose it.
I dive in for a kiss, and she turns her head, gasping and pushing me off her body a good foot like she’s fighting off an attacker.
Some blond dude dressed like a wannabe in a leather jacket and ripped jeans pulls her to the side.
“What the fuck is going on?” He shouts over the music. “I don’t want this guy touching you here.”
Her eyes widen, and she shakes her head at him as if she’s too afraid to say a word.
“Hey”—I pluck him off, nearly snapping his arm like a twig in the process—“keep your hands to yourself.”
“Don’t touch me.” He butts his chest into mine. “And don’t you ever touch her!”
“Stop!” Stevie tries to squeeze between us, but I pull him over and rattle his head to the wall.
“You don’t tell me or my girlfriend where to put our hands.”
He doesn’t say a word just gets down to business and knees me in the nuts. As soon as I bend over, he gives me an uppercut to the jaw.
“Shit.” The air expires from my lungs. A white-hot pain shoots from my balls, aching and dull, and, holy fuck, somebody shoot me. I glance up, and he’s cornered Stevie, whispering something into her ear.
An entire slur of groans emit from me as I pull him back and fire off a few quick shots to his jaw. He pushes me to the ground before simply walking away, patting his face as if nothing happened and fading into the crowd.
“Did we just meet up with an ex?” I try to catch my breath as I stagger to my feet. If I didn’t think I was too old for this shit before, I’m positive right about now.
“Something like that.” She winces, touching my cheek. “I think we’d better get out of here before he comes back with his friends.” Stevie bites down on her berry-stained lip as if she’s enjoying this on some level. “You made my panties melt the way you fought for me.”
Did I hear that right?
“Come here, Lo.” I pull her into the farthest room in the back, and our mouths fuse, our bodies cling to one another as if we’ve just fought a war only to make our way back to one another, and it feels like just that. I do a quick scope of the landscape and spot a corner, dim as pitch, and we migrate over, all hands and teeth, her hair falls over my neck soft as water. We settle against the wall, and I lift her onto my lap, unbuckling my belt like a threat. Her eyes bear into mine, and the smile fades from her face. She slips off and shakes her head.
“You know what he whispered to me back there?” She tilts into me with an apology written all over her face. “He said there are cameras that see every square inch of this place.” She twists her lips.
I pull her in by the back of the neck and slump into her with a dull smile.
“Then we’d better get out of here, Lo. When they see the things I’m going to do to you, they’ll want to take notes.” I pull a kiss off her lips. “We’d be viral by midnight on YouTube.”
“Did you see the sky tonight?” She flirts with those lashes, and I clench my jaw because I can’t take much more before I go viral all over her body. “Rumor has it, the beach is a great place to make wishes under a dragon’s blood sky.”
Yes. She wants to go to Shipwrecks—to the beach house—to where it all began—where we began.
I speed her back upstairs and out the exit, into the warm, balmy night.
I’m going to make sure all of her wishes come true tonight and every night after that.
Shipwrecks. There is something solid about the beach house, the way it feels when we pull up, the way it feels when I carry her inside. The slight hint of fresh aftershave lingers in the air, and an alarm pulses through me. Cash didn’t mention he was flying out. I land her softly on the bed and shoot a group text to each of my brothers, telling them I’m here, claiming the beach house for the rest of the weekend. I send a private text to Carter for insurance. I don’t want a damn soul crashing this party.
Track down Carson and Cash. Tell them I’m at the beach house. I have a guest.
I stare at it a moment. Stevie is so much more than a “guest.”
She feels more like an extension of me, the very best part.
“Trouble at the Daily Planet?” Stevie purrs from the bed, and I’m quick to set down the phone and join her. “That’s where Superman works, by the way.”
“I realize that.” I scoop her in close and touch my lips over hers. “Do you ever feel like there are two sides to you? One that the world sees and the other that you hardly share with anybody at all?”
“The Daily Planet verses my cape?” Her eyes gloss with moisture as if I’ve hit a nerve, and her sister bullets through my brain. Shit. Of course she feels like there are two sides to her, there were. “All the time.” She gives a ragged sigh. “And you?”
“I feel like that now. You get to see the real me.” I trace a line down her nose. “Our first time here—it was raw on every level.”
“I’ll never forget that as long as I live.” She swallows hard, and it thumps through the room like an echo.
“You won’t have to—we can live it.”
Her hand finds mine, and we thread our fingers together.
“You know”—she scoots in until her stomach presses tight against mine—“the beauty in life is that you don’t have to show the world your every side. There can be sides that are reserved only for those special people. You can let loose and be who you truly are, down to the bones, around those you’re closest to.” She sears my lips with a kiss. “The world needs you one way, and I need you another. You saved me, Ford.” She pants into my mouth before offering me her lips again, harder more urgent than ever. She pulls back and takes me in. “That day Carter and I went to lunch with you and you know who…” She gives a wry smile at Evelyn’s omission. I don’t mind. Evelyn is a like a demon, easily conjured up by the mere mention of her name.
“I remember.”
“Just listening to her made me physically ill.”
“I figured so much.” She’s done it to me on more than a few occasions, but I leave that out.
“Um…” She glances out the window. “She said something.” Her hair falls like a sheath over one eye, and I carefully hitch it behind her ear. “She said you were at the beach one summer, that you saved a girl and let her name your horse. Is that true? Do you remember any of that?” Her gaze charges into mine as if she’s going to attack.
“The girl.” I fall back on a stack of pillows, and Stevie unbuttons my shirt just enough. “Let’s see…” She lies across my chest, awaiting this obscure answer. “I was walking on the beach, and, much like that day at lunch, Evelyn was there going on and on about something. I distinctly remember wanting her to be quiet for a moment. My attention span around her was like that of a gnat, and I spent most of the day people watching. I happened to glance to the water and saw a girl screaming, she said her sister was lost. I saw a foot, then an arm, and I knew the girl was in trouble. I took off like a bullet and dove right in. The water was murky, zero visibility, my eyes stung—I couldn’t pry them open. The riptide was sucking us out pretty fast and hard, and I thought I might have just added to the body count that day. I prayed to God to let me find her. I said, I’m here. Let me do this. In that moment, my hand connected with her arm, and I pulled her out of the water and raced us to shore.”
Stevie drops a wet kiss to my chest, and the air cools over it like an ice cube.
“And then what?”
“And then—she was blue. I remember that clay face staring back at me, the feeling of failure, that I actually fucked-up at saving a life—it knifed through me, gutted me in an instant. I pumped her chest and started breathing into her mouth. Her color came back—and she kissed me.” I lock eyes with Stevie. She did this thing with her tongue—drilling into my mouth like she meant business. It was the same way Stevie kissed me that first night. She still does it now and again. It’s cute.
Tears roll down her cheeks.
“The girl had a sister”—her voice breaks—“and you told her that you and your girlfriend couldn’t come up with a name for your new horse.”
“That’s right. Evelyn was pissed that I let those girls name her. Evelyn wanted to call her London Fog. I thought it was ridiculous and pretentious, and I was hoping for a better outcome. And the girls came through.”
“The girl you saved—she thought you should name your horse Tinkerbell. Did you name her Tinkerbell?”
I try to replay that awkward lunch date back in my mind. Evelyn didn’t mention Bell. She hated that I listened to a little girl over her. I told her about that kiss and that pissed her off good and plenty for weeks. I thought it was funny, especially that a young girl could show her up in the lip-lock department.
“I did name her Tinkerbell. Did Evelyn tell you that?”
She shakes her head. Stevie takes a breath and smooths her thumb over my cheek. Her eyes swell with tears. Her lips tremble.
“Ford, I’m the girl you saved that day.” She leans up on her elbow. “My sister—that was Claire.”
A moment thumps by—nothing but dizzying silence stops up the air.
“What are you saying?” I sit up and pull her with me.
“It was me. You saved me, Ford, and I kissed you.” She runs her fingers over the stubble on my cheek, her lips parting as she pants into me. “I didn’t realize it—I didn’t think it was even a possibility until she mentioned it, and then it sort of made sense.” A brief smile comes and goes. “You see, that night at the party, I was on my way to meet Claire.” A palpable grief pulls down her features. “I was going to find a way to be with my sister again. I was done with this place, this life, this planet. And you brought me to Shipwrecks of all places.”
That horrific ride she took along the shore shrills through me like a bad memory. The way she raced into the sea like she had a death wish—and she did.
“Stevie…”
“You saved me again that night.” Her chest bucks, and I can’t tell whether she’s holding back a laugh or crying. “I was so alive with you those two weeks. You reenergized me. In all honesty, I was taking the biggest risk of my life getting into that car with you that night.” She closes her eyes a moment. “I thought you worked for the valet company.” Her head arches back until her neck becomes a hard outline. “I thought you might kill me yourself, but you didn’t.” Her teeth glitter in the dark. “Instead, you loved me. You taught me what it is to really live.” Stevie straddles me, landing her thighs on either side of my hips, settling in over my hard-on. “Ford, you loved me in a way I have never been loved before—not just with your body. You spoke to me. You heard me. You were interested in the things I had to say—or at least I think you were.” A dull laugh rattles from her. “Ford, the light that shines from your heart brightens my whole world. Thank you for that.”
It’s as if the ocean, the hostile waves that tried to suck us down that day have flooded the room.
“My God.” I thread my fingers through her hair and pull her down to me. “Stevie.” A seam of liquid lines my lids. “It’s like I’m dreaming, and everything you just said is exactly what I wanted to hear.” I want to tell her everything—all of the ways that day shaped my life. There were so many events that followed those precious hours—so many untraveled roads I took because of what happened. But right now I want to love every inch of her and thank God he answered my prayer that day. I have Stevie. I’ve had her in my heart for so long—thought about how her life was going—if she was happy, healthy, afraid of the ocean, and I didn’t want her to fear it. I had a brief fantasy that she would come back to Shipwrecks, and I could teach her to swim myself. I had nightmares for years that she went back in, and I wasn’t there to save her—but here she is, warming my bed, safe and alive in the very best way.
“Do you think we were meant to be?” She traces my brow with her finger. Her hot breath sears over my cheek.
“I know it.” I push her mouth to mine and kiss her with far more intensity than I’ve ever experienced before. I want Stevie to know how much she means to me—how I believe that something bigger than us is at play.
We claw off our clothes through a sea of wild kisses. I let her mount me and watch as she moves her hips like a belly dancer—like a seasoned striper who’s put in hours at the pole. Stevie knows how to move her body. She lets out a series of high-pitched groans and each one elicits a groan right back from me. Her head arches back, and I reach up, tracing my fingers down her beautiful neck, down her soft tits that move side to side with her body, all the way to her waist. I knead my fingers into her hips, losing it, writhing beneath her with an explosive intensity. Her breathing grows erratic, her voice echoes through the room with its own indiscernible echo. I pull her down and kiss her forcefully, pulling her body to mine rough and greedy. I’m in her so deep—I’m feeling her. I’m feeling Stevie with my whole heart.
I land her on her back and thrust in as if I were trying to burst right through her. I crush my tongue into her mouth, writhe my lips over hers so hard I’m afraid I’ll break her. I’m right there, so fucking close. Then in an explosive relief, my body seizes, and I give her shoulders the death grip, watching as her eyes flutter beneath me. She grazes my chest with her teeth as my body surges over hers, alive and electric like a cut power line meeting up with the ocean. I lean down, panting—my skin on fire, soaked in sweat as I pepper her face with wet, delirious kisses.
“I love you so damn much, Stevie. I’m all yours. I’m going to keep you safe forever.” I melt the words into her ear. “I don’t want a single day to go by without you by my side, in my life, in my bed.”
Her eyes cut the darkness with a flash as she looks up at me and gives an open mouth smile.
“I love how you love me.” Her chest pounds over mine. She scoots up, and I fall out of her, my dick already turning soft without her. “You really are my hero, my Superman.” She gives a breathy laugh right into my mouth. “I can’t live without you.” She pulls my arms around her, and I lock her in like a seatbelt. “There’s not a day on this planet I want to live without you. I don’t know how we’re going to do this, but we will. You saved me twice right here at Shipwrecks. You’re always in my path, making sure I’m okay, helping me along the way. Somehow we found our way back to each other.” Her features grow serious. The moonlight bleeds over her like ash, petrifying her in a state of catatonic shock. “Would you still love me if I hurt you, Ford?”