Dollars (Dollar #2)(82)

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 f*ck 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 f*ck 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.

Once the wind was banished but the motion was not, I moved to the bed and grabbed the coverlet. Pimlico stood with spread legs, doing her best to predict where the next swell would take us, but tripped forward when the sea decided she’d guessed wrong.

Cocking my chin, I didn’t try to yell over the noise. For a moment, I wondered if I’d read our connection wrong outside. When I’d pressed against her fully clothed, her annoyance and frustration screamed loudly from tense muscles. Yet once I was naked and hovered but didn’t touch, she’d relaxed as much as she could while fighting a rabid storm. We hadn’t been able to talk, touch, or taste—only watch and balance and bow to the ferocity of Mother Nature.

But we’d been linked beyond anything else I’d ever felt.

She’d been in my head. I’d been in hers.

A connection breathed between us now that had no words but was so f*cking strong.

Tiredness and muscles ached and throbbed, but we still had a few hours before the storm stopped toying with us. We were soaked past bone and into soul, my teeth locking together from the building shivers.

Moving to the sunken couch, I sat and dug into the cushions. As Pimlico deliberated if she wanted to join me or if I’d overstepped too many of her boundaries tonight, I pulled out the seatbelts wedged in there for times exactly like this.

Fighting to stay upright for the first hour was fine. Fighting to stay seated and not tossed across the room by the fifth hour was not.

Not bothering to dress, I locked the belt around my hips, ignoring that I fluctuated between aroused when I looked at Pim and calm when I looked away. Slowly, she stumbled toward me, grabbing onto bolted down furniture as she made her way across the space.

By the time she flung herself onto the couch, her chest rose and fell with exhaustion. Giving her a smile, far happier than I should be about entrusting our lives to a tyrannical ocean, I reached across her and slid the buckle into its home.

Wrenching the seatbelt tight across her belly, I grabbed the duvet and covered both of us.

I never took my eyes off her face, watching her carefully as the material settled around us, giving instant comfort and warmth on our cold drenched bodies.

A normal person with no aversion to clothing would snuggle in straight away; perhaps even sigh in relief to be draped in softness.