Page 71 of Swept Away

“No, seriously. It wasn’t like that. If this…” I nod at the sea, then wish I hadn’t—it makes her glance through the railings and blanch. “If this hadn’t happened, yeah, maybe we would have just gone our separate ways and never seen each other again, because that’s what you wanted. But I wouldn’t have forgotten you.”

“No?”

“No. And I never wanted you to leave that morning, you know.”

“I seem to remember you thought I was trying to steal your houseboat.”

I smile. “Well, yeah. But even so. I knew there was something about you even then.” I look down, the sea tugging at the edges of my vision. “Maybe I’ve had sixty-five one-night stands, but I’ve never once had this.”

“What, you’ve never once ended up lost at sea with a woman you slept with? Does it even count as sleeping around if you don’t tick that one off?”

I cut her a look. “I’ve never hadthis.” My voice shakes slightly as I say, “I’ve never felt like this about a person before.”

She inhales, as though I’ve shocked her. My heart pounds. I love her. It’s obvious to me. Not like some blindsiding bolt from the sky—I just know it in my gut, in the way I know it’s right to be kind. It’s an instinct.

“Zeke,” she whispers. “Don’t. You can’t mean that.”

“Why not?”

“I just…I don’t…you…” She’s shaking.

“Can I touch you right now? Can I hold your hand?” I whisper back.

She stretches out the hand that isn’t gripping the railing, and I twine my fingers through hers.

“Does this change the rules?” she says quietly. “Between us, does this…”

“I don’t know. Does it?”

“I don’t…I don’t really knowwhatI want to say right now, and my brain feels like mush, but…” She takes a deep, unsteady breath, watching my thumb smooth over hers. “I think we might die on our way back down this tower, and if we do, I’m pretty sure I’ll be out there in the afterlife thinking,Why the fuck didn’t you kiss Zeke Ravenhill when you had the chance?”

I smile slowly, something warm spilling through me. Her eyes slide back to meet mine. I don’t give her another moment to second-guess herself, to remember the sheer drop and the terror and everything that’ll pull her away from me. I just lean forward and kiss Lexi Taylor on the top of the world.

It starts tender and slow. Then her tongue touches mine, and my body is so full of pent-up adrenaline and desire that the sensation just floors me, and now it’s passionate and fierce, every bit the kiss that might be our last. The wind wraps around our shoulders and the sky falls away beneath us. The world stretches out and out and out. And still none of it’s big enough for the way I’m feeling. Lexi makes another sound in her throat, and I close my eyes, forgetting the empty skyline. Knowing that no matter where we were right now, it would feel like nobody else mattered.

Lexi

That kiss.

It turns me inside out. I am condensed down to the purest essence of myself today; that’s what it feels like, and that kiss is the same: concentrated joy, desire, sweetness and a dash of vertigo, all in one moment.

As we pull apart and I rest my forehead against his shoulder, I think of what I’ve done today, from waking up with a head injury to throwing myself into the sea to scaling the tallest tower. And all those things that seemed impossible back home, suddenly they seem tiny. Do I want to stop working in my mum’s old pub? Do I want to set up a café, the little place serving shit-hot coffee that I’d dreamed of creating before my mum died? Do I want to do my own thing, start my own life?

Yes.

So go the fuck on, then, I think.Do it.

Because right now I feel like I could do absolutely anything.

Climbing down from the tower puts this new epiphany to the test. It’sawful. Not as bad as the climb up, but physically harder, and I’mso tired that I’m terrified I’ll slip. At least every rung makes falling a little less dangerous. That’s what I tell myself.

“You get a biscuit when you get to the bottom,” Zeke calls down to me at one point when I stop for a break, clinging to the ladder.

“What am I, a golden retriever?”

“I wouldnotgive those biscuits to a dog,” Zeke says.

“Please. You’d sneak one out for Eugene in a heartbeat.”

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