He lunged across the short space and grabbed hold of a slender arm.
He wasn't expecting the stowaway to be so small or so ... female, and let go in surprise. She immediately tried to duck around him. Eren grabbed her around the waist. She started kicking him. For someone who didn't weigh half what he did, she was extremely energetic.
"Let me go!" she yelled, struggling. In his attempt to contain her, Eren stumbled into the wall and bashed his head on the ceiling, which was low enough that he generally had to duck.
"Whoa, hey, I'm not going to hurt you! I'm just trying to stop you from hurting yourself—or me. There's nowhere to go out there, just water." She was starting to relax in his arms, though it was the tense kind of relaxation that suggested she might be gearing up for another fight. "If I put you down, will you relax a little? This is my family's fishing boat. I just want to talk."
"Okay," she said after a moment.
Eren carefully set her down. He was prepared to stop her if she tried to make another break for it—he didn't want to have to fish her out of the sea—but she stayed where she was, and as the light coming down the stairs from the pilothouse fell across her face, he got a look at her for the first time.
She was beautiful.
She was a slim, gorgeous Black woman looking up at him with wide dark eyes. In the shaft of sunlight from the stairway, they were shot with subtle hints of gray and green. Agate eyes, full of hidden depths.
There was a smudge of dirt beside her mouth that he had a sudden urge to wipe away.
She looked about his age, somewhere in her mid-twenties. She also looked way, way out of his league. She was the kind of classy that he not only wouldn't expect to find on a fishing boat, but in Newfoundland, period. She looked like she ought to be on TV. Her hair was done up in some kind of fancy style he didn't know the name of. She wore a low-cut pink blouse with ruffles that was kind of rumpled and dirty, like she'd been wearing it for a while, but also looked extremely stylish and expensive. Her artistically ripped tights and strappy shoes were the same way. Underneath it all, she was lush and female and gorgeous, and she smelledamazing.
His bear was suddenly fascinated and still in a way that itneverwas.
She was looking at him like he was something wild—and like she was as fascinated with him as he was with her.
"Hi," he said, and tried to get some breath back. "Hi, uh, I'm Eren. Eren Nilsson. This is my boat. I mean, my family's boat. Who are you?"
The vision of lush, curvy female beauty frowned a little. "I don't think I should tell you that."
"Just your first name, maybe? I need something to call you."
She worried at her lower lip nervously before she said, "Lucy."
The name fell on his ears like bells and birdsong. "That's a beautiful name," he said before he could stop himself.
Lucy took a step back. "Okay, buddy, don't make this weird."
"Right," Eren muttered. "Yeah, so—I guess you're not going to tell me why you're here?"
She didn't answer for a moment, then she said, "I don't want trouble. I can just leave."
"There's nowhere to go. We're in the middle of the ocean."
"Oh."
He made a decision. She might not have been invited, but she was definitely a guest, and probably the most stunning guest this boat had ever seen. "You want a drink? I was just coming down to get myself something."
"You found me stowing away on your boat and you're going to offer me a drink?"
"You look like you could use one."
She honestly looked like she had been through Hell, but he didn't want to ask quite yet. Not until he gained her trust a little more.
He couldn't risk messing this up. He had a hard time telling for sure, because his bear was being weird and cagy as usual, but he thought this gorgeous woman might be his mate.
He had always thought you'd be sure. That was what it sounded like from the way everyone talked about it. Tor had said he knew the minute he laid eyes on Bernadette, although he hadn't told the family for a while because of the whole stoic big brother thing he had going on.
Maybe the uncertainty was just because of Eren and his fucked-up bear.
But one thing he could do was give her a drink. His bear seemed to like that idea, probably the first thing it had liked in years. Eren went down to one knee in front of the fridge.