Page 75 of These Rough Waters

“I don’t know who they were,” I lie, “Could it have been a mistake?”

“This is a very small town, Maya, this kind of thing doesn’t happen and they were all from the mainland. Likely came in on a boat earlier in the day and waited for nightfall to attempt a break in.”

I shake my head, dislodging his finger and step away, “I can’t do this again.”

The words come out on a whisper that I hadn’t even meant to even say.

“What, Maya? What can’t you do?”

“Torin,” I turn my wide eyes to his, “I have to leave.”

“No!” He growls. “No. I will protect you, but I can’t do that unless you tell me!”

“I can’t expect you to do that.”

I step away from him, putting up that wall to protect my heart and his too. This had gone too quickly anyway, these feelings in my chest were too much, too soon, and I should have known a happily ever after was never in the cards for me.

“Maya,” He says in a low, dangerous tone, “I will burn anyone who comes after you, I’ll destroy this whole fucking town, and the next, and the next to keep you safe.”

Tears sting my eyes, “No…”

“Yes.” He declares fiercely, closing that gap between us, shattering everything I am trying to build. He grabs my hand and slaps it against his chest, above his heart, “This thing right fucking here stopped feeling five years ago. I was not living, just surviving. Watching the clock tick, waiting for my time to come where I’ll meet my fate and answer for all my sins but then you fucking showed up.

“You showed up and it was a shock to my system. This beautiful mysterious girl who I believed meek, believed to be a little doe waiting to be taken out by the wolf, but then the wolf bit and the doe revealed her thorns and he realized that he would rather follow that little deer around, day in, day out, to watch over her, to protect her.”

I stand mesmerized by him, by the emotion saturating his voice and filling his eyes. The passion and intensity leaking out of him.

“I was not living, I was just pretending. Going through the motions until you got on my boat and kickstarted me back to life. So don’t you fucking tell me I can’t protect you or that you’ll leave, because I don’t care what you say to make yourself believe it, you feel the same fucking way I do. You’re as mesmerized by me as I am by you and –” He lifts his hand and presses it over my heart, feeling the erratic pump of the organ in my chest, “This beats for me. It beats for your daughter but before you came here you were nothing but a shell.”

“Torin.”

“The way you say my name, little doe, with reverence,” His eyes roll closed, “and the way you look at me, it all leads back to the truth.”

“What truth?”

“That you are mine!”

Thirty-six

Her lips part and glassy green eyes widen, the heart beneath my palm speeding up so much so I can see the blood pulsing in her neck. She was mine.

Mine!

I lift both my hands and frame her face before I crush my mouth to hers, feeling her melt against me, her own hand still trapped between our bodies. I wanted her to feel what she did to me, how much that fucking thing in my chest beats for her.

Fuck.

She couldn’t leave. I needed her.

She whimpers into my mouth and opens wider to let me in further, so I sweep my tongue inside, tasting her as I back us up and follow her body onto the couch when she stumbles onto it. I cover her body with mine, my thigh twinging with pain that I ignore in favor of feeling Maya beneath me.

We wereittogether and if I had to remind her every day, every hour, every second of what that meant, then I would.

My obsession with this woman knew no bounds.

“Torin,” She whispers, clinging to me, opening her legs to let me in closer. I grind against her through the small sleep shorts she’s still wearing, feeling her push back against me.

“Tell me how much you’re not mine, Maya,” I growl against her lips, “tell me I’m not yours. Lie to me, little doe, they always sound so pretty.”

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