{"In his arms, the sea quieted, and for the first time, I understood what it meant to be wanted without fear." }
His fingers brushed the edge of my jaw again. Slower this time. Not reverent fascinated.
"I've never seen you like this," he murmured.
"Bare?" I asked with a half-smirk.
He stepped closer. "Real."
His words sank somewhere deep inside me. I did not pull away. I did not mask myself in wit or distance. Not now. Not with him standing this close, golden-eyed and sea-slicked, as if the ocean itself had carved him just for me.
"Then look," I whispered. "No one else gets to."
His breath caught. His hand slipped from my jaw to the side of my neck, fingers curling into the soaked ends of my hair. My heart kicked against my ribs as I let my hand rise to rest lightly against his chest. Steady. Warm. A heartbeat I was beginning to memorize. "You make it hard to think," he said with a crooked smile.
"That's because you're too busy feeling."
And gods, I wanted to feel too.
