She hesitates a second, like she is trying to decide if she should say anything or if I’m going to. When
I don’t, she storms out the door without another word.
I take a deep breath as I go over to the bed and lie down, ensuring the ice pack is still on my face.
Shit, I curse to myself when the ice stings my face again.
If I’m going to keep this up, I need to be better prepared. I can’t keep getting hit like this. Next time, I might get a concussion, and then I won’t be able to surf. I won’t let that happen. Next time, I’ll be ready for a hit.
Maybe I should take some boxing classes or something.
I grin. Despite the pain I’m feeling now, I’ll sleep like a baby for the first time in weeks. I stole her heart and then tore it to pieces. It feels good.
One Year Later
I see the towering wave in front of me. It’s huge and getting bigger by the second. It doesn’t stop me. Instead, I push my board to move faster as I surf into the wave. My heart pounds fast and hard in my chest as the wave surrounds me, forming a tunnel that can collapse at any second. If it does, I’m going to have to fight like hell to get back to the surface to be able to breathe. I’ve been crushed by waves like this before and ended up with a couple of cracked ribs that hurt like a bitch and take forever to heal.
I’m not going to let that happen to me again. But remembering that pain doesn’t stop me from attacking this wave either. Most wouldn’t bother. Not when it isn’t a competition. Not when I don’t have anyone out here to rescue me if things take a turn for the worse. It’s just me and the wave. That’s how I like it.
I love the thrill. I love knowing that one wrong move could fuck everything up, even my life. I could die if I don’t do everything perfectly.
This is what I live for though. I don’t live to win competitions even though I win a lot and the money is nice. I live for this feeling right now—the feeling that, at any point, the ocean could steal my life from me or I could conquer it and live for another day. There is no other feeling like it in the world.
I surf the wave and come out the other end of the tunnel, unscathed. I win—for now. I step off the board and let the cool, salty water refresh me before I begin heading back to the beach. It’s starting to get dark, and as much as I would love to stay out here all night, I’m hungry, and I have other cravings I need to satisfy.
Because I lied when I said that there was no feeling like surfing a wave that could destroy you. There is one feeling that is better—the feeling of stealing someone’s happily ever after. The thrill of chasing a woman already claimed by another man just does something to me that nothing else can. It twists my soul and makes me want more of the drug that pulses through my veins every time I finally make the woman mine instead of his. It’s a drug that pulls me in over and over again, a thrill I can’t resist.
But why would I want to?
I’m a thief and a surfer. Both things keep me completely satisfied. And neither makes me feel guilty. I don’t feel bad for the women or the men I hurt. I’m doing them a favor really. They believe in true love and happily ever after. They believe in the fairy tales they have been fed their whole lives. I just teach them how wrong they really are. In the real world, love doesn’t exist.
“That was some wave, Asher,” Luca, my only friend in the world, says.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be home, resting, after your concussion. Or are you finally taking my advice over the doctor’s and getting your ass back out here?” I ask with a grin before walking over to where my towel is slung over the back of my pickup truck. I toss my surfboard in the back before I take the towel and begin drying my shoulder-length dark hair.
Luca laughs. “Nope, just wanted to see if you wanted to grab a drink and a bite with me.”
I stop drying myself off and grab a T-shirt to throw on. “Is that new girlfriend of yours coming?”
Luca frowns. “Hell no. She’s back on the mainland, visiting her family. But, even if she wasn’t, I wouldn’t let you anywhere near her.”
I walk to the driver’s side of my truck and open the door. Luca is already climbing into the passenger seat without waiting for me to say that I want to hang out tonight. He already knows my answer is yes.
“Why not? I should meet her if you guys are getting serious, shouldn’t I?”
I climb in and start up my truck, waiting for the purr of the engine before it fully starts. It doesn’t start up right away. I get out and give the hood a love tap with my fist before I jump back in and turn the key over again to get it to start.
“You should really get a new truck, Asher. This thing is a piece of junk, and you can afford a lot better.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Why would I want anything better? The truck still runs, and all I use it for is to get me from my place to the beach. Why would I want to get a new truck? It would be a waste of money. After one drive, it would be full of sand and look just as bad as this old thing. How would I know if the new truck could handle the sand as well as this old thing anyway?”
Luca nods to the truck. “This old thing can barely handle the sand. They do make trucks designed specifically for handling sand and rough terrain nowadays, you know?”
“When this one dies, I’ll think about it.”
I don’t have to tell him the real reason I don’t have nice things. People would assume I stole the new car instead of buying it. I’ve learned it’s actually better to live without the finer things in life.
I reach my hand out the window as I drive back to my house—if you can call my place a house. It’s more like a shack on the beach. But it has the most amazing view. I love feeling the warm, salty air as I drive the couple of miles back. Luca does the same. You can’t help but do that here.