Page 58 of Property of Anchor

“Oh, lord,” she laughed, a shiver running through her.Nervous.Beautiful.“We’re barely together.We’re literally in the early stages—”

“Barely together?”I asked.

“Yes.”She sighed.“This is new, and with everything going on… I don’t want to make it something more than what you think it is.Too much…”

I leaned closer and brushed my lips against her temple.“Too much what?”

She hesitated.“Just, this is fast.Like… fast-fast.”

I slid an arm around her waist and pulled her flush.“You know what’s fast?”I smirked, eyes whiskey-dark.“Bernice when it’s quitting time.You and I are just right.”

She giggled again, and it sounded like wind chimes in a storm.She stared up at me.“I do have one question.”

“Hit me, doll.”

She bit her lip and gathered courage.“If you think I’m yours… does that mean I can think you’re mine?”

The world slowed.

I took both her cheeks and brushed my thumbs over paint dust.“That is exactly what it means.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Pearl

I should have been exhausted.After a full day of painting and dodging glances from the crew who now definitely knew something was going on between me and Anchor, I should have wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and pass out.

But instead, I was standing in the shower with water cascading down my back, bracing my hands on the tiled wall and trying to calm the butterflies in my stomach.

Everything had changed so fast.

One day, I was showing up to paint a haunted house, and the next, I was kissing a man who made the ground feel steadier under my feet, even while the world around us felt anything but.

Fast.Yeah, that was the only word for it.But fast didn’t feel wrong.

Fast felt right when it came to him.

I shut off the water, dried off quickly, and tugged on one of his T-shirts that he’d left behind.It smelled like him: wood smoke, leather, and a hint of whatever soap he used that somehow made him smell better than anyone had a right to.I barely made it two steps into the main room before I stopped short.

He was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, legs outstretched, with two greasy paper bags set between us.

My brows lifted.“What is that?”

Anchor looked at me with that lazy, half-smile that always made my knees wobble.“Dinner.”

This didn’t look like anything from the kitchen.“From where?”

“Mainland.”

“You went to the mainland?”I asked.

“Nah.Sent Wannabe.”

I blinked.“You sent one of your guys to the mainland… to get fast food?”

He shrugged like it was the most normal thing in the world.“Figured you could use something other than coffee and freezer meals.”

A laugh bubbled up out of me as I walked over and dropped to the floor beside him.“This might be the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me.”