Page 9 of After Hours

“Call it what it is, baby,” he told her, and that, too, was a command.

Her whole body came to attention. She had to blink a few times.

“Okay,” she breathed. “Let’s go fuck.”

“And?”

Romily made a soft noise of something that sounded like distress, but he knew it was more textured than that.

He could feel it him, too.

“And let’s see,” she said, so prettily, like she was made for him, “if I can make it up to you.”

Chapter Four

Romily had no idea what came over her.

Or what these words were, coming out of her mouth like she’d been born to say them.

She felt as if she was lit on fire. As if her skin might crack and peel at any moment, though she suspected that even that would give her no relief. His gaze on hers, such a piercing, impossible blue, haunted her with every breath.

After she’d run off from his door she’d gone back to her boat, but couldn’t seem to think her way out of this. She couldn’t seem to settle, no matter what she did. Chamomile tea was a joke. The cold water in her tiny onboard shower only made her aware of how overly warm she was. Everywhere.

She’d given up.

Eventually, Romily had crawled out of her berth, pulled on her scuffed up sneakers and her favorite hoodie, and tucked her hair away so that maybe that might give her some anonymity. Not that anyone would be looking for her, she knew — except possibly the police, and for good reason, since it turned out she was some kind of weird voyeur — but it was better not to go outaround here in the middle of the night while obviously fragile. Much less female.

And then he’d been right there.

As if she’d conjured him up from her overheated dreams.

Zachary.

She could taste the syllables of his name in her mouth. And she could taste him, too. Because he had kissed her with such filthy, glorious thoroughness that she was fairly certain she would never be the same.

More than that, it was as if all the wrecked and ruined parts of her suddenly… clicked into place.

As if she understood herself in that moment more than she had in all these years.

As if this man was the answer she’d been searching for all along.

The truth was, she would have followed him no matter where he went, and the fact he offered her his hand was just icing on the cake.

Because she loved the feeling of his skin against hers. She would do anything for more of it. Anything at all.

She knew where he was heading now, so she paid no mind to the details of the walk she knew so well. She was unable to keep her eyes from drooping to something like half-mast. Unable to care about anything but that large, imposing, perfect Viking at her side like all her dreams come true. Unable to keep the smile off of her face as they moved through the thick night air.

And for the first time since she’d moved here, she paid absolutely no attention to her surroundings.

Because Zachary made her feel safe.

There was a part of her brain—or maybe her wary, suspicious heart— that tried to shout out warnings and wave red flags, but she dismissed them.

Not because she was a fool, though she’d certainly been one in the past. But because she knew those were ghosts. Echoes of a time gone by. Scars from the life she’d left behind.

The thing about Zachary was that he made her feelprotected, here and now. Stars and ghosts and all.

It was something about the stern, sure way he’d talked to her about prices to be paid with that hot, knowing gleam in his blue gaze. It had made her feel like she was trembling into pieces, like a hot, wet lick straight down the center of her being.

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