Page 170 of Surfer's Paradise

Alive.

Safe.

He stared at her in the darkness, throat raw with guilt.

You were supposed to protect me.

He had.

But not soon enough.

And now, he didn’t know how to live with that.

Beside him, she stirred—bare skin warm against his. He felt her shift, felt her reach. Her fingers traced along his chest, slow and gentle, like she was trying to ground him.

“You okay?” she whispered, voice thick with sleep, concern laced beneath it.

He swallowed hard. “Yeah.” His voice came out hoarse. “Just a bad dream.”

She didn’t buy it. He knew she didn’t. But she didn’t push—yet.

“Babe…” she said, pressing closer. Her hand slid over his chest again, down to his stomach, curling lightly there. “I know something’s up. I just wish you’d talk to me.”

Isaac stared up at the ceiling, jaw clenched. The fan creaked overhead. The weight in his chest hadn’t let up. He dragged both hands through his hair, sitting forward just slightly. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

It wasn’t nothing. And he wasn’t fine.

But the words wouldn’t come. Not yet.

Behind him, she shifted again, her palm now sliding lower, skimming across his abs. He felt her pause when she brushed over the hardened length of him beneath the sheets.

He sucked in a breath through his nose, dragging a hand down his face.

Her fingers stilled, resting there. “You’re… okay, huh?” she asked gently, a teasing edge under the concern.

He let out a slow, bitter breath. “My brain’s fucked. But the rest of me’s clearly still functioning.”

She smiled against his shoulder, her lips brushing skin. “I noticed.”

He didn’t move for a second. Then he turned, just enough to look at her. Her hair was tousled. Her mouth still soft from sleep. She was looking at him with something he couldn’t name—patience, maybe. A kind of softness that killed him.

His hand slid up to her face, fingers tracing the line of her cheek.

“I don’t know how to talk about it,” he admitted quietly. “And I don’t want to fuck this up.”

“You won’t,” she said. Simple. Sure.

But he didn’t believe it.

Still, when she leaned in and kissed his collarbone, when her lips moved lower—he didn’t stop her. When she whispered his name and slipped her leg over his hip, he pulled her close.

He kissed her like she was the only thing that kept him tethered to the world.

Because maybe she was.

He didn’t mean to kiss her like that.

Didn’t mean to take her mouth so hungrily, like he was starving for something deeper than skin, deeper than sex. But there she was, beneath him, fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer. Holding him like she didn’t care what monsters he dragged behind him, what memories he refused to name.

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