Page 42 of A Game So Reckless

I’m oriented so that I’m facing the back of the boat. Darragh looks so at ease, so in control – relaxed, even – in his seat.

He doesn’t look back once. I could bounce right off and he wouldn’t even know.

Maybe I should try to jump. It would have to be better than this bullshit. But the water, when it hits me, is like freezing, jagged glass. The thought of pitching my entire body into it at this speed is a chilling one.

So I suck it up and hold on tight until the boat finally slows down. Once I’m not completely focused on not falling off the tube, I become aware enough of my surroundings to see that Darragh is approaching the waterfront in front of my cottage.

Of course. Of course, he knows which one is ours.

Although, he doesn’t pull the boat up to our dock.

He pulls up to Mr. Robinson’s. While Darragh is busy tying another length of rope to an anvil-shaped hunk of metal on the dock, I take the opportunity to slither out of the tube. I can’t hop out like I normally would. My legs are shaking too badly from the tension of that ride. Even now, my muscles are locking up involuntarily as I slowly wade out of the water, half dragging, half leaning on the tube as I go.

By the time I’m all the way out of the water and standing on the rocky shore with the tube at my feet, Darragh has hauled himself onto the dock.

“You’re trespassing, you know,” I tell him peevishly as I unhook the metal clasp from the loop on the tube.

“Don’t count on it, pet,” Darragh shoots back blithely. “The dock came with the house.”

I go still, bent over, one hand on the tube, the other on the metal clasp. Slowly, I release them both and straighten up. Darragh walks up the remaining length of the dock, then jumps down, crunching over rocks until he stands before me. I shiver in my cold, damp swimsuit, and before I can stop myself, I wonder how hot the surface of his skin might be against mine.

“So you’re saying that you bought this place?”

“Well, I didn’t win it in a hand of cards, now did I?”

“How the hell would I know?” I snap. “What, out of all the cottages and vacation properties in the country, you had to pick this one?”

Darragh’s jaw tightens.

“What I had to do,” he growls, taking another step towards me, “was get some fucking sleep.”

What that’s supposed to mean is anyone’s guess. Darragh isn’t exactly known for his mental stability, so I ignore his bizarre comment about sleep.

“Well, what I’ve got to do,” I say, “is go put some fucking aloe on the welts all over my back and thighs. Thanks for that, by the way,” I mutter.

Darragh’s gaze tightens to hardened slits. His eyes drag down my front, and I can feel every hair on my body rise in response. He lifts a tattooed hand, extends his index finger downwards, then swirls it, as if he’s stirring a drink and his finger is the spoon.

“Turn around.”

“Fuck you.”

Darragh inhales sharply, then appears to run his tongue along his teeth. His tongue comes out briefly to prod at the red place where I bit him.

Then, he’s moving.

He’s at my back before I can stop him. I try to spin so that I can keep him in my sights, but he grabs a fistful of my hair, right at the nape of my neck, and pins me in place.

The knuckles of his other hand go to the sensitive place between my shoulder blades. Agonizingly slowly, they skate down my spine.

My skin explodes with sensation, as if every single nerve in my body is suddenly concentrated along the line Darragh’s knuckles trace down my back. Unlike the unforgiving iron of his right hand’s hold on my hair, his left hand moves lightly, a rough whisper against my flesh.

When he gets to the chapped place where the tube chafed me, just below the tie of my bathing suit, I flinch and make a small sound. Darragh’s knuckles instantly stop moving, then draw away. When his touch returns a heartbeat later, it’s the calloused surface of his thumb. His thumb slides back and forth along the painful red line on my back while his fingers splay along the side of my ribcage. It’s blisteringly uncomfortable, to have him touching that raw and tender place.

And for some horrific reason, I don’t want him to stop.

As Darragh’s thumb runs back and forth, his index finger slips beneath the wet fabric of my bathing suit. And suddenly, my whole body is screaming with the memory of how lethally good it felt when he dragged his demanding touch across my nipples when he was kissing me. So good that my body terrified me with its own response, arching against him without me even telling it to.

So good that I’m flooded now with the haunting ache of treacherous need.

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