Page 81 of Wicked Sea and Sky

“Luck. Never chain a man to a rusted rail.” His voice turned savage. “I’m here because I never fixed that damned railing!”

Chest rising on a sharp inhale, Gavin ripped the rope from my fingers and tossed it into the dark. Fists clenched, I lurched to find the rope, but he clamped a hand on my arm and dragged me back.

“You’re not leaving without me.” Gavin cornered me against the vine, my back pressed against the coarse stalk.

I felt myself unraveling, losing control as I fought to speak against the twisted knot wedged in my throat.

“Why?” I cried, wrenching my arm out of his grip. “You wanted gold? I said I’d bring you some. You wanted my house? You have it!” I shoved at his unmovable chest. “I’m fighting formy life. Why can’t you justlet me go?”

Gavin’s body jerked, absorbing my words like they were knives. Then he was still. Barely breathing.

“Let you go?” There was that hollow tone again, the kind waiting to be filled. And then, the dam broke. “You don’t have a clue what I want—whatI’mfighting for!” A broken laugh tore from his throat. “For three years, all I’ve heard are your screams in my head, begging me.” His fingers circled my wrist. “I lost my grip. I let you go. It haunts me. Do not ask me to do it again.”

His grip on my wrist tightened. A spark of warning flashed in his eyes before his head dipped, mouth crashing down on mine.

Heat and fury surged through me as I gasped against his mouth. But he took advantage, roughly tilting my chin back with his hand and kissed me harder. There was no restraint in him. No veiled meanings twisted into a teasing joke. He was raw, desperate. A man I’d pushed too far, who’d decided to take me over the edge with him.

My knees buckled. He caught me. One hand shackling my wrist against the vine like I'd shackled him to the rail.

Shock melted into something liquid that flowed like molten fire through my veins. I curled my free hand into his shirt and pressed myself closer. When I opened for him, it was instinct. The way you grab a rope in a fall, grappling for the one thing that could save you.

Gavin groaned in the back of his throat; the sound was addictive, essential. He gripped my chin, thumb stroking my cheek as his mouth slanted over mine. Again and again. Like he’d never stop—couldn’t.

And I didn’t want him to. Gods helpme, I didn't.

He finally broke the kiss, but his mouth lingered above mine, breath uneven as he rasped, “Going in the same direction?” He laughed roughly, echoing my words from before. “I’m your partner. You’ll rely on me. Need me. You will want me, Mare. So start getting used to it.”

I shivered as he unlatched my harness. Then he dropped it at my feet.

“Go back to the house and get some sleep. The climb will be hard enough. We're not starting in the dark.”

“What are you going to do?”

He wrapped his hands around my waist and switched places with me, his back facing the vine.

“I don’t trust you. I’m guarding the way up.”

Gavin angled his chin toward the house, and I bent to pick up my gear. My mind was still reeling from his kiss as I left him standing in the orchard.

This round went to the lion.

Part III

The Map of Us

Chapter 27

Marin

I touched my lipswith my fingers. The first rays of the sun spilled over the terrace, glazing the tiles in gold. I hadn’t slept, just stared, unseeing, at the stars until they faded in the brightening sky.

I didn’t know how to react after our fight in the orchard. Because it hadn’t ended in anger, and that was all I’d had inside me for three years. Now there was something else. It was delicious and wicked and so undeniably dangerous because now that it was there, I wanted more.

And Gavin’s words haunted me. Not just what he said, but the guilt buried there. I hadn’t known he’d carried my words from the ship. That they’d stayed with him, clawing at his conscience. He was a man trying to make amends for a mistake he couldn’t take back and had created a prison of his own.

Turning my head to the side, I glanced at the gear he’d left behind and the broken rail he must have kicked loose. Gavin had called it luck. But it was really a foiled plan ten years in the making. The iron, rusting through time from salt and the wind, felt like the house was saying,See? You can’t escape him even when you try.

Rubbing my hand over my face at the grim irony, I pushed to my feet. My stomach rumbled with hunger, and my clothesitched my skin. I needed food and a fresh tunic, in that order, and preferably before I came face-to-face with the man who’d turned me inside out and had ruined sleep. Possibly for the foreseeable future.