I open my mouth to scream, then choke as the ocean moves in to drown me. I struggle, rising, and suck in air, my ribs aching from the pounding strain of my lungs. I am still coughing out water when I see him floating facedown in front of me.
I do not hear the scream that is ripped from my throat, but I know that I am slogging through the water, trying desperately to reach his side. I do not know how, but my arms end up around him, and then we are on the beach and I am over him, my mouth on his as I give him air—sweet, sweet air—and beg him to please, please, please come back to me.
But he doesn’t. He just lays there, cold and wet, staring up at me with eyes that should twinkle like the stars but now are as flat as stone.
“No!” The word is ripped out of me, and I pounce on him again, unwilling to give up. Not able to even conceive that he could be gone.
I press my lips against his again, determined to give him life. To give him mine, if it comes to that. To do anything and everything to bring him back to me, because there is no way—no way in hell—that I can go on without him.
But there is nothing.
Despite my fighting, my pleading, my crying—there is simply nothing.
But I do not stop. I press on. I push. I plead. I threaten. And, goddammit, I will him to come back, and I do not stop. I cannot stop, because if I stop, then there is nothing left of the world, and I will float off into space, a shell of myself. Lost. And truly and completely alone.
“Don’t you dare,” I say, the words ripped from my throat as I thrust the heels of my hands down over his heart. “Don’t you dare leave me.”
A tear trickles down my nose, but I do not stop to wipe it away. It falls, landing on Damien’s lips. I blink, and another tear follows the first.
His lashes flutter. Color returns to his cheeks.
And then his lips move in a word so broken and soft that I almost do not recognize it—“Nikki.”
He is alive. He is back.
He is mine.
Chapter 4
I sit bolt upright, my skin covered in a thin sheen of sweat, my breath coming hard and fast. We are on the oversized patio chaise lounge, and Damien’s arm is around me. He pulls me back down to him, his voice so soft and gentle that I understand only the sentiment and not the words. It’s okay. I’m here. You’re safe.
I close my eyes, letting his strength fill me. And when I have taken all I need, I turn to him. “I’m okay now,” I say. “You can let go.”
He brushes my lips with a kiss. “Never.”
I burrow closer, then smile against his shoulder. That one simple word is as comforting as a down blanket in winter, and I am content? the rough edges of the dream finally smoothed away by this man who loves me.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“No,” I say, then find the words coming anyway. How he was pulled away from me. How everything in the sea seemed to conspire to keep us apart. How I found him dead in water that had been comforting only moments before, but then turned suddenly menacing.
“I couldn’t bring you back,” I say, feeling the tears well again.
“But you did,” he says. He pulls me close and captures my mouth with his. The kiss starts out sweet, then turns hot and hard, demanding and possessive. “You did,” he repeats once he has released me. “And you will never have cause to bring me back again, because I will never leave you. I was foolish enough to do that before, and it just about killed us both.”
I nod, then take another deep breath, steadying myself. Because I know the truth in what he is saying. Damien wouldn’t leave me any more than I would leave him. And yet fear still clutches me, its sharp talons digging in and taking hold.