At First Hate (Coastal Chronicles)

“We don’t have to talk about it,” I said with a wave of my hand as Derek went to tack.

“Yeah. Probably should keep business and personal separate.”

“Probably.”

Derek asked about my research instead, and I filled him in on the years he’d missed, the award I’d won, the paths I was working on. It wasn’t fast enough. It hadn’t done anything to save Gramps. But it was hopefully going to help some other people down the road. That was the goal at least.

We stopped in the middle of the bay again. It was a calm day with very few other boats out. We’d only passed a few fishing boats on the way into the bay, and now, it was like we had the entire water to ourselves.

Derek came to sit next to me and dropped an arm across the back of my seat. Easy and comfortable. As if his arm belonged there. As if nothing in the world had changed.

I didn’t move. I should have, but I didn’t. I was mad at him for all the things that had happened. For going off and marrying someone else. For hurting me. For helping my mom. I just wanted him to be exactly what I needed and wanted in every way, and instead, he was Derek Ballentine. Wonderful and insufferable and a mix of contradictions.

“Derek,” I whispered, “what am I doing here?”

“We’re sailing.”

“Smart-ass.”

He laughed. “You’re here because I wanted you to be here.”

I swallowed roughly and looked up. “And why is that?”

“Because I never got over you, Mars.” He put one of my curls behind my ear. “And I don’t think you ever got over me either.”

Everything in me was on fire at those words. They weren’t wrong. As much as I hated him, I’d always felt this link with him too. As if I couldn’t quite get him out from underneath my skin. Now, he was here, and he was looking at me like that and saying everything I wanted to hear. I could tell him to stop. I could walk away, figuratively speaking. But it had been years, and somehow, we’d still ended up here.

His eyes searched mine for permission, or maybe he was just looking for the same longing mirrored back at him. Because he wanted me. I’d forgotten how empowering that one perfect fact was. How much his desire stirred something deep inside me.

“Or maybe I’m wrong?” he asked with an arched eyebrow.

He didn’t think he was wrong. He knew he was right. That was why he was a hairbreadth from my lips, heat radiating from him, desire palpable. I’d kissed him after Ash’s birthday party like it was college all over again, and now, we were here with years of history between us. Could it be as easy as putting it behind me and giving in all over again? Could I survive it one more time? Josie had told me to go for it. It didn’t have to mean anything. Even though that wasn’t possible. Not with Derek.

“You’re not wrong,” I said softly. His smile was serpentine.

“I know,” he said, as cocky as ever. Then, he grasped the back of my head and crushed my lips to him as if it had been killing him to wait.

Maybe it had been killing me too, because suddenly, I was feverish. I couldn’t get enough of him. There was too much space between us. I wanted more, more, more. I pushed my hands up into the threads of his hair at the nape of his neck and drew him closer and harder against me. He groaned deep in the back of his throat.

His tongue slid across the seam of my lips, opening me to him, as he’d done so many times before. The same flare of desire shot through me as the first time I’d ever kissed him. When we were young and stupid and so hopelessly attracted to one another. The years had changed many, many things but never that. Never this.

The desire, as molten hot as an erupting volcano, had been there from the beginning. And we let it sweep us away, heedless of the destruction in our path.

His hands roved over my body. Derek had touched every inch of my body before, but it was as if he were discovering it all anew. As if the intervening years had scrubbed the memory clean. They ran down my sides, across the planes of my stomach, to the underside of my breasts. I arched into him, wanting more. His finger brushed gently against my nipple through the material of my tank top and lacy bralette. I jerked into his touch, as if I were naked before him.

“Sensitive,” he growled.

He pulled down the front of my top, exposing my breast to the open air. His mouth came over my nipple, sucking it in and swirling his tongue around it. I fisted my hands into his button-up. Coherent thought fled as he moved to the other nipple. He was sure to give each breast equal attention.