Page 88 of Shattered Vows

Oh, dear Bastian, your dick was big in other areas, but no one ruled the ocean.

So, I let him dive deeper and deeper into his cockiness until he tried his first wave.

He sputtered, coming up for air after being knocked off by the monster that was the sea.

Somehow, he still managed to look like Poseidon, all muscle and anger and ruthlessly glaring as water dripped from the strong lines on his face.

I can admit, I was a bit distracted by the six or eight pack of abs he was carrying and didn’t exactly give him a great lesson. Yet, he kept trying and trying. At one point, he popped up from the water with a scraped arm, his tattoos pouring blood.

“Jesus, you hit the floor?” I winced, realizing we were closer to a rock bed than I’d originally anticipated.

He shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“There are sharks,” I grumbled because the man didn’t seem to know when to quit.

“And you think out of all this water, a shark is going to pick me?”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Isn’t that a myth?” He floated, leaning his arms on his board.

“Probably.” I sighed. “I think we need to call it.”

“Because you think I can’t do it.”

“You can’t right now.” I swam languidly around my board, flipping onto my back and letting the sun hit my skin as the water made me rise and fall. “You’ll get it if you keep practicing.”

“So, when should we practice again?”

I turned and stared at him. Glaring at the board as he trailed his big hands up and down it, I saw the look of a man not used to failing.

“I’ll bring you when you want.” I tugged his board close to mine, dragging him with it. “You did good, Bastian. You’ve outperformed more than most. The first time Bradley came out here, he said he was quitting and that it was a dumb sport.”

“And you?” He squinted into the sun as though wanting to catch every movement of my face.

I glanced away. “My dad was a good surfer. He had a little bit of Samoan and Haitian in him. He didn’t talk about his parents much, but I know they practically lived in the water. I took after him.”

“He teach you?”

“Teach is a strong word. We all just sort of came here to be. My mom and dad loved the beach and all three of us surfed for as long as I could remember until we didn’t anymore.”

“Okay,” he said softly. Bastian never pried. He didn’t ask questions about my family. I think it was because he didn’t want me to ask about his.

We tiptoed around our pasts because we didn’t really have a future, and so it wasn’t like our knowledge of the past mattered.

Still, for some reason, I almost told him. My heart wanted to.

I found myself struggling with that. It was the first time in a long while I didn’t go with the flow of my emotions. I pulled them back, completely scared of what might happen.

“Should we head in? The sun’s about to set.” I pointed up and started to swim back to the beach.

He followed without argument.

24

Bastian

Mother nature or mother ocean had proven she could overpower me. I wanted to scream at Morina that I would be staying in the water all night.

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