For years the rock had been my playhouse while my father surfed. By the time I was in junior high, it had become my refuge, the place I came to think when my life—and my brain—grew too crowded. And in high school it also became a great make-out spot as well. Mark had gotten to second and third base for the first time while stretched out on top of this rock with me, late at night.
It had been a year since I’d come here for comfort—or anything else. A year since I’d dived into the ocean after Kona and become the thing I’d always hated.
“You wanna sit?” Mark asked, jerking his chin toward the top of the rock. The closer I got to breaking his heart, the more dark and brooding he became.
“I don’t think this is going to work.” The words tumbled out before I knew I was going to say them.
He lifted a brow. “So you’d rather stand?”
I shook my head. He knew what I meant—I could tell by the sudden stiffness of his spine, the angry set of his mouth.
“Mark—” I reached for him, put my hand on his arm. He shrugged me off.
“You don’t get to do this,” he told me, his voice sharp with anger and a hurt I knew he was working hard not to show. “You don’t get to go back and forth, changing your mind again and again because you’re afraid or feel guilty. I let you walk away from me once. I’m not going to do it again, not when I know you love me.”
“It’s not that simple—”
“Bullshit. It is exactly that simple.” He lowered his head so that we were eye to eye. “Last night you stood out here and you cried because you loved me so much. Now, I don’t know what happened today to spook you like this, but that kind of emotion doesn’t just change from one day to the next.”
“I never said I didn’t love you, Mark. I said this wasn’t going to work.”
“I don’t accept that.”
I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “You don’t have a choice.”
“The hell with that. We broke up once because I thought it would make things easy for you. Because I thought it was what you wanted. But I’m done with being the guy who just steps aside so that everything can be tied up in a pretty bow. What I feel for you isn’t always pretty. It’s raw and it’s deep and, damn it, it’s real. You aren’t going to take that from me. From us. Not on a whim.”
“This isn’t a—”
He kissed me then, and it was wild and electric and real, so real that I couldn’t do anything but kiss him back. If this was the last time I was ever going to hold Mark, then nothing would stop me from taking—and giving—everything I could.
Tilting my head, I opened my mouth, let him in. As soon as I did, he relaxed, his mouth softening to sweetness on mine—as if my acquiescence was what he’d been waiting for all along.
I loved the honeyed taste of him, the pure simplicity of his kiss, but I wanted more. Craved it with a dark, desperate intensity I had never felt before. Pulling him closer, I nipped at his lower lip before sucking it between my teeth and running my tongue over the small sting.
It was the right move, because Mark went from sweet to needy in an instant. One of his hands came up and tangled in my hair while the other worked its way beneath his jacket and the low-cut fabric of my dress to press against the skin of my lower back. His fingers were callused from all the hours of playing basketball and waxing his surfboard, and they sent shivers through me wherever they touched.
I arched even as his mouth consumed mine, his tongue stroking deeper into my mouth with every second that passed. My breathing grew harsh, fragmented, and I could feel by the ragged movements of his chest that his was doing the same. In those moments I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anything—even my humanity. I wanted to hold him forever, to crawl inside him and let his love shelter me from everything I had done, everything I still had to do. But I knew that wasn’t to be, and that knowledge only made me more determined.
Without conscious thought, I moved my hands to his dress shirt and tugged it out of his pants. He groaned a little, gasped as my ice-cold fingers made their way up his back to the bunched muscles of his shoulders. He felt so good, so right—made me feel so right—that I never wanted this moment to end. Which was why, when he lowered me to the sand behind the curve of the rock, I let him. More, I welcomed him.
We stayed like that for long minutes, the crashing sea and wild wind only adding to the urgency I felt to be with Mark. In these final moments he was mine in a way he never would be again, and that was enough. More than enough, which was a good thing, as it had to last me for an eternity.
Caught up in my feelings for him, I slid my hands around to his flat, muscular stomach. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, I just knew that I wanted more. Wanted everything. After tonight I was going back to Coral Straits to find Tiamat and end this war once and for all. If I succeeded, we might have a future together. But if I failed … if I failed, this would be the only chance I’d ever have to show Mark just how much I felt for him.
As I moved my hands up to stroke the hard muscles of his chest, Mark tensed against me, wrenched his mouth from mine, and I knew he was going to stop. To tell me that this wasn’t the time or the place. To demand to know if this was what I really wanted or if I was just doing it to shut him up. He was that kind of guy, that kind of boyfriend. And while most days I really appreciated how much care he took with me, tonight I wanted him to just act. To let himself be swept away.
“I’m fine,” I told him, reaching up and cupping his cheek with my hand. His jaw was prickly with stubble, his skin heated despite the chilly night, and I felt an answering warmth deep inside myself. This was Mark and I loved him, so much that sometimes it was impossible to think around the feelings that welled up inside of me. Here, now—a million miles away from Tiamat and the evil that permeated the very water she breathed—it was enough. More than enough.
I wrapped my arms around him, held on tightly. He must have felt my resolve, my certainty, because as I pulled him back down to me he didn’t say anything else. And when he leaned forward, once again covering my mouth with his, I knew I had gotten my way. At least until I heard footsteps padding along the beach toward us.
Sitting up abruptly, I shoved my dress back down just as a deep, sardonic voice drifted from the foot of the rock. “Don’t let me interrupt.”
I froze at the sound of it, my entire body stiffening as a feeling of unreality came crashing down on me. I would know that voice anywhere, even behind a rock in the middle of a windstorm.
Kona had come to find me.
Part Three
Seismic Waves
“It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line,
though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean.”
—John Locke
Chapter 11
“What are you doing here?” I demanded as I ducked out from under Mark and scrambled to my feet. My heart was beating double time, whether from Mark’s kisses or Kona’s sudden appearance, I didn’t know. It was probably a combination of both, I admitted to myself, as I had no idea what to expect from this meeting. Had actually hoped to avoid it as long as possible—maybe even forever if my plan to disappear from my human life had actually worked.