A thunder crash sounded at precisely the same time my eyes fell on his dragon tattoo. His ribs exposed, his organs painted so lifelike he was part man, part skeleton, part myth.
Never looking away, his hands fell to his belt buckle and undid it. Unbuttoning his shorts and unzipping the fly, he grabbed both the waistband of the beige material and grey boxer-briefs and pulled.
He stripped with grace even while fighting gravity, and the moment he was free, he threw away his clothes as if they offended him.
What is he doing?
The question was void the moment I asked it.
I understood.
He understood.
Clothing was not welcome when facing such furious power. We were merely human at the mercy of the weather. Who cared if we died dressed or naked? We had no armament against it—might as well give in to the inevitable.
I shivered and not from the cold as he moved toward me. His right hand landed on the railing where I gripped it. His thumb grazed my pinkie. His erection hung heavy as he took another step, placing himself behind me, aligning our pieces as if we belonged to the same chessboard with a long lost king and queen.
I stopped breathing as his other hand landed by my left. His thumb mimicking his other and pressing my pinkie. He didn’t lean forward or wedge his nakedness against mine. He merely stood there, letting the wind nip my spine and the rain lick my shoulder blades. The only contact was my pinkies and his thumbs, but it was the most contact I’d ever had with anyone.
He held me with nothing but his thoughts. He touched me with something better than hands. He cradled me in feeling and no one—not my mother, friends, or Alrik—had ever done such a thing.
It cracked yet another piece of me, throwing it to the thunder hounds snapping in the wind.
His head came down, his nose tracing the shell of my ear. He inhaled me. I inhaled the sky. I didn’t know if I smelled of imprisonment and hatred or freedom and love.
I was blended now.
The storm had taken what I’d been and made me into someone I was meant to become.
It hadn’t healed me.
It had purged me.
Leaving me baptised by hell itself in its angry clawing abuse.
A low groan slipped from his chest to mine. My answering shiver was for him, not the storm. My pattering heartbeat for him, not the rain.
I was alive because of him.
I was becoming more than Pim because of him.
A wave surged inside me, breaking over the shore of my mind with the possibility of finally being honest with him, finally giving him my voice, finally admitting my true name.
Before, there was no way I could weaken myself; now, there was a way because it wasn’t weakness, it was time.
The softest kiss landed on my cheek, wiped away as quickly as it’d been bestowed.
But it had happened.
I’d felt it.
Time stood still as a man stood behind me, protecting me not molesting me, and allowed me to spread my wings and fly.
I OUGHT TO strap her ass for standing so recklessly in the storm.
I should give myself a whipping for doing the same thing.
Where had common sense gone? Where had the fear of a lightning strike or falling overboard and drowning gone?
Who the fuck knows.
All I knew was standing naked with Pim while we faced death with no fear had been better than any pot, better than any drug I could take to calm my mind and let me control my tendencies.
Being that way…free that way…had given me a glimpse into the sort of person I could become if I trusted myself that I wouldn’t fuck it up like last time.
An hour we stayed, riding the sea. An hour where my hands slowly slipped over hers, encapsulating her tiny grip while holding onto the rail beneath. An hour where my cock craved to press against her and my heart hammered at being so damn close.
And after an hour, it was as if someone notched up the churn cycle, switching the waves from rodeo to downright berserk. Our feet slipped often, we crashed against the balustrade frequently while I did my best to protect Pim from my weight as we shot forward, bending almost in half as the boat rolled, threatening to kiss the water before springing back and wrenching us into the sky.
Danger turned to potential death. We’d tempted fate enough. I untied Pimlico’s safety measure and dropped the belt into the sea. Instantly, the wind snatched it from my hands, a lick of white in the otherwise black sky.
Keeping her hand locked in mine, I dragged her back into the relative safety of her suite. She took one door, and I took the other, both struggling and puffing to shut the wild weather outside and throw the lock home.