Page 19 of Burn for Me

I reached down and wrote one more word below my first.

P R O M I S E?

Not that I thought I could particularly trust the word of the woman who tried to stab me and shove me off my own boat. Hopefully, she’d stick to her word this time.

If not I’d have to get creative with punishments.

‘Yes. I promise.’ She let out a blood-curdling scream before bursting into tears. ‘I’ll do anything you say. Cook for you. Clean up. Scrub the deck. I’ll be good. I can please you. I can even suck your fucking cock. Just get me back aboard.’

Scrub the deck. Fuck, I wanted to laugh again.

Fucking precious.

I threw down one of the life preserver rings attached to a rope and watched as she clung desperately to it.

The basking shark had long lost interest, but she couldn’t see that from her point of view.

She slipped the ring around her body and gripped the rope. Pulling deadweight—soggy deadweight—on my own was harder than I'd imagined. My forearms throbbed, veins bulging like giant bevelled cracks. Sweat beaded on my brows as I yanked, my boots barely holding their grip on the deck.

At last, the top of her head appeared, and I tied off the rope before going to her. Reaching over the rail, I slid one hand into the back of her hair, fisting it tight.

‘I promise,’ she repeated through chattering teeth as she stared up at me.

Blue tinged her full lips, and I craved nothing more than warming them back up with my own.

The thought came with a heat that soon turned to ash against my tongue. That wasn’t for me.

Taking the rope in my other hand, I hauled her aboard, dumping her unceremoniously onto the deck.

‘Thank you,’ she whimpered, unhooking the ring and pulling herself up on unsteady feet.

A violent shiver stole over her body. She needed to lose the wet clothes.

She all but growled when I pushed the top up over her head, leaving her bare-chested. The breeze whipped past us, sending her skin pebbling in its wake.

I bent to my knees, removing the rest of her clothes with firm tugs. The sopping clothes clung to her, almost as if resistant to let her go.

‘Couldn’t wait until I was dry? Well, get it over with,’ she said. I stilled at the glare she fixed me with. As much as I wanted to hear her squeal, fucking a half-frozenwoman wasn’t my jam. No, there was time for that later. I wanted her screams of pleasure, and she would beg for my cock before I’d let her have it.

Standing up, I reached forward, ignoring her flinch, and took her by the elbow.

Her eyes lit with a combative glare, but it quickly extinguished as she leaned heavily into my grip.

Between her bullet wound and the cold water, her strength had left her entirely.

Moving behind her, I tried to scoop her into my arms, yet she shrugged me off with a snarl.

‘I’ll walk,’ she muttered. And step by shaky step, never allowing more than the briefest support from my hand, she did.

TEN

Laura

Ihated him.

I hated that I needed his steady hand to get me back to the cabin, tremors shaking my frozen limbs. I’d failed. Spectacularly.

Instead of securing my freedom, I’d offered him even more of myself to get him to rescue me for a second time.

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