Jake smiled and stepped down into the boat, holding out his hand to help me onboard. Jake fired it up, and I took the seat next to his. He turned on the spotlight and backed us out of the dock. We puttered down the canal, the spotlight shining off the eyes of a few alligators, and scattered the iguanas lining the seawall, some of them diving into the water, others found refuge in the mangroves.
The open waters of the Coral Pines River shone orange with the glow of the full moon. Jake pressed down on the throttle, and it felt as if we were skating on top of the calm waters, the warm salty air skipping over the front windshield, tangling in my hair.
With all the ugliness I'd experienced here, it was easy to overlook how beautiful the place really was.
We were only on the open water for a few minutes before Jake slowed the boat in the middle of the river. He pulled to the side of a marker, killing the engine when we were hidden between the mangroves of a small cove. He tossed the anchor.
"Why are we out here, Jake?" I asked. It was so quiet my regular tone of voice sounded like a scream.
"I told you why, baby. I figured out a way to help you." He lit another cigarette, rested his elbows on his knees and leaned toward me. "And this is where I think I should do it," he said so quietly it was almost a whisper.
"Do what?" I whispered back. My heart now firmly in my stomach.
"You trust me, don't you?"
"Why do you keep asking me that?" Yes, of course I trusted him. I would trust him with my life and Georgia’s, but it was the second time he'd asked me the same question, and that was making me nervous.
Jake put out his cigarette in an old soda can and stood up, holding out his hands to me. "Come here," he said. Pleading with his eyes.
I stood and took his hands. He pulled me into him and pressed his warm lips to mine. I was so caught up in the kiss that I hadn't noticed the small knife in his hand. He pulled back from our kiss and held up the knife between us.
"What is that for?" I swallowed. My heart beating loud enough for fish to hear.
Jake kissed that magical spot behind my ear and whispered against my neck. "I want to cut you."
"What?" I breathed. His words frightening, his touch tempting. I didn't know which way was up. I didn't think I'd heard him right, because he couldn't have just said that he wanted to cut me.
"You say that you look at your scars every single day, and you remember what happened. You feel the hurt all over again, and as much as I want to, I can't take that away for you, but I can do something else." Jake took a deep breath. I can give you a new mark, a new scar associated with a good memory so that when you see your scars, there will be a tiny bit of good mixed in with all the bad."
There was a reason why I loved Jake, why I was drawn to him from the get-go.
He fucking gets me.
No shrink, no meditation, no standard orthodox method of mental repair was going to fix me, and Jake knew it. So he offered me what he could.
"Do it," I breathed. I hated the idea of being cut, but I loved what he was offering me. The scars had me trapped in my own mind. He was offering me freedom. "Do it."
Jake didn't answer me. He just pulled me into him and kissed me, his tongue seeking entrance. With one hand on the back of my head, he tangled his fingers in my hair and pulled until my head tilted back and I opened my mouth to him. He smelled of sweat and the salt water. He tasted like mint and cigarettes. I couldn't get close enough. He pushed me back until the back of my knees hit the small bench seat in the back of the boat. Jake pulled back from me and unbuttoned my shorts. I lifted my hips to so he could slide them down my thighs. He tossed them on the captain’s chair and hooked his thumbs into the waistband of my panties and slid them down. He ran his tongue from my belly button down to my clit softly sucking on my sensitive bud as he tossed my panties overboard.
"Hey!" I tried to argue with him about discarding my underwear, but he just lapped his tongue over me, pulling my legs up over his shoulders as he knelt down in front of me. I quickly forgot what I was about to say.
He licked my core like he was kissing me. It was intimate, soft, yet sexy and passionate. He was telling me he wanted me with his tongue, and my * was responding in turn by pulsing around his tongue as he licked and sucked on my folds.
I vaguely remembered him saying something about cutting me, about not replacing the bad memories, but dominating over them. I couldn't focus. The boat was rocking from side to side as I tried to buck my hips. Jake held me in place with his strong hands, pulling me toward him and devouring me with his tongue like I was his last meal.
I opened my eyes as my orgasm hit. Staring up at the night sky, I clenched my thighs around Jake’s head as I was pelted by wave after wave of pure fucking pleasure, courtesy of sexy Jake fucking Dunn.
My HUSBAND.