Who the hell are you kidding? You know exactly which one it is!

“I’m gonna have to insist,” I say through gritted teeth. I don’t want to make a scene. Not because I’m personally opposed to kicking this guy’s ass on the steps of a club, but because it would embarrass Cash and probably Marissa. And it’s them that I care about. Not me. And certainly not this pompous piece of shit.

“Insist all you like, I’m taking her home.”

His pale eyes are challenging me. For some reason, it strikes me as funny. He has no clue what I’d do to him if I let loose. No. Clue.

“You don’t want to do this, lawyer boy. Trust me.”

“Maybe I do,” he says, his bravado increased by his alcohol consumption.

“Hey!” Marissa shouts. “Boys. Please. I’m driving myself home, so you can both put it back in your pants.” She giggles at her words and pulls her arm out of Jensen’s grasp.

She attempts to walk past me, stumbles, and falls against my side. I reach out to steady her and she melts against me. She looks up into my face and smiles. “Sorry.”

“Let me take you home,” I say quietly.

She stares deeply into my eyes, like she’s trying to see . . . something. I don’t know what, but evidently she finds it. She nods. “Okay.”

“Marissa, I—” Jensen begins, but I cut him off when I plant my palm in the center of his chest, stopping him in his tracks when he would take a step toward her. I don’t even bother to look at him; I keep my eyes trained on Marissa’s sparkling blue ones.

“Last chance,” I warn.

Marissa looks to her left. “Jensen, it’s all right. I appreciate it, but we’ve both had too much to drink to be driving.”

I hear him sigh and, perversely, I hope he keeps pushing it. I’m itching to teach this prick a lesson. But on the other hand, I wish he’d just shut his mouth and go away. Right now, what I’d like even more than smashing lawyer boy’s face is Marissa. Just Marissa. And what I see when I look into her blue, blue eyes.

From the corner of my eye, I see him turn and stomp back up the steps. With him gone, my focus is complete. And so, for a few minutes, anyway, is my soul.

“Can you make it down the stairs okay?”

She nods and turns to take another step toward the bottom. She wobbles and I steady her.

“Whoa,” she says.

Without asking, I sweep her up into my arms and carry her down to the landing. I’m sure I could safely put her down now. But I don’t. I carry her out the door and into the chilly night.

“Where are you parked?”

“Over there,” she says, pointing out and to the right, then laying her head on my shoulder. She loops her arms loosely around my neck and snuggles in. I pull her in tighter against my chest. It’s like she was made to fit there. Perfectly. In my arms.

Holy shit, woman! What have you done to me?

When we reach her car, she digs her keys out of her pocket and hands them to me. I hit the fob and hear the hushed click of the locks opening. I set Marissa on her feet long enough to open the passenger door and get her inside without cracking her head.

On the drive home, neither of us says anything. I glance over at her several times to see if she’s asleep. She’s not. Each time, she looks back at me, holding my gaze but never speaking.

Anticipation is so thick inside the quiet interior of the car, it’s almost palpable. It’s made me diamond-hard behind my zipper.

I park at Marissa’s and come around the car to get her out. She starts up the sidewalk, but I stop her, picking her up to carry her again.

“I can walk,” she says, but still she nuzzles her face against my neck. She probably can walk, but she doesn’t really want to walk. And I don’t want to let her.

I don’t respond, just carry her to the door, hand her the keys, and bend enough that she can unlock the knob and deadbolt.

Once inside, I kick the door shut behind me and set her on her feet. I don’t want to be too presumptuous, so I wait to see what she’s going to say. Or do.

In the low light spilling in through the glass panel at the top of the door, we stare at each other. Silent. Thoughtful. There’s a lot I’d like to say, but I can’t. I shouldn’t. I won’t. There’s no reason to. It won’t change anything. And if she doesn’t feel the same, it would kill me. But if she does, it would be even worse, I think.

I reach up and rub the backs of my fingers down her satiny cheek. She tilts her head into the touch. When I bend down and take her lips, the kiss isn’t as feverish and desperate as I figured it would be. There’s something sad and . . . final about it. I don’t know who is making it feel that way, her or me. But it has a definite “the end” ring to it.

For the first time in my life, I make love to a woman. I’ve had sex hundreds of times, with too many women to count. I’ve done dirty, wicked things to them. Hell, I’ve done dirty, wicked things to Marissa. And I’d like to do more. But tonight isn’t about that. Not even if I wanted it to be. Tonight is about leaving her with the other piece of my soul, the small part she hasn’t already taken.

With every article of clothing I strip from her body, more than ever, I’m aware of the smell of her perfume, the silk of her skin. It’s as though all my senses are heightened and completely concentrated on her. Every soft place, every sweet sigh, every delicate shiver will be forever burned into my mind. I’m not sure that’s a good thing, but it doesn’t matter. No consequence is enough to stop me.

From the time I first slide into her warm body, all the way through the last squeeze of her orgasm, I’m aware that we’re giving each other a bittersweet, wordless good-bye. For these few minutes, I’m happier than I can ever remember being. And sadder. And forever, I’ll be a better man for just having known Marissa. She healed the breaks in me that I thought I’d die with, that I’d never live to overcome. Because of her, I have some semblance of a life to go to now.

My breathing is just returning to normal when I feel the first wet splash on my skin. Marissa is lying with one of her legs thrown over mine and her head on my chest. And she’s crying. I feel each tear as it falls from her face. They’re only slightly warm, but they burn nonetheless.

“Will you be gone when I wake up?” she whispers, her voice catching on the last word.

I think about her question before I answer it. I hadn’t really made any kind of plan, but I know now what I have to do. “Yes.”

I feel her shoulders shake as she sobs. Each one feels like a fist squeezing tighter and tighter around my heart.

Suddenly, she moves, levering herself off me and rolling off the bed. She doesn’t turn to look at me. She just squares her shoulders and walks tall and proud across the room. “Good-bye, Nash,” she says softly. Then she disappears into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind her. I sit up in the bed, stunned, until I hear the shower cut on.

One thing runs through my head as I dress and call for a cab.

It’s for the best. It’s for the best. It’s for the best.

She still hasn’t come out of the bathroom by the time the cab arrives. I know those are the last words she’ll ever say to me.

FORTY-TWO

Marissa

I don’t know why I’m still lying in bed. I know I won’t be sleeping tonight. As much as I wish I could leave reality behind, even for a little while, the pain of letting Nash go is too excruciating to let me rest.

I turn my face into the pillow for the tenth time at least, inhaling deeply. Beneath my nose is the scent of Nash—man and soap. Beneath my cheek is damp cotton, my tears making an ever-widening wet spot.

I knew on some level that tonight was a good-bye. If I had one ounce of self-preservation, I’d have steered clear of Nash. But I don’t. And, in a way, I don’t regret it. As painful as it is to lose him all over again, it was worth it to have him back in my arms, even if it was just for a little while.

The sobs start again. They echo in the emptiness of the room, much like they echo in the emptiness of my heart. I almost don’t hear the pounding at my door over my own agony.

My heart stops for a breath before it picks up again at a faster pace. A teeny, tiny part of me responds to the fear that it might be some dark figure from the past, coming to take me away again. But it’s overwhelmingly overshadowed by the hope, the desperate hope, that it’s Nash.

Please God, please God, please God, I chant in my head as I scramble to push my arms into my robe on the way to the door.

I look through the peephole and my breath catches. It’s Nash.

I open the door and he takes my face in his hands, almost angrily, and crushes his lips against mine.

“What the hell have you done to me?” he murmurs against them. I don’t care what he’s saying and I don’t answer; I only care that he’s back. If only for a little while, he came back.

He kisses a trail across my cheek and jaw, down to my neck, and then he pulls me in tight to his body, holding me against him.

“I can’t leave you again. Not like that. Ask me to stay,” he says into my hair. “I’ll be whatever you need me to be, whoever you need me to be. I’m not perfect, but I’ll be perfect for you. Just give me a chance.”

I try to lean back, but he won’t let me go. “Nash,” I say, pushing against his chest.

Finally, he eases up enough that I can pull back and see his shadowed face. When I start to speak, he lays his finger over my lips. “I’ve sailed all over the world trying to get away from you, trying to get away from what you make me feel. All I’ve found is that there’s no ocean big enough to drown out thoughts of you, no place far enough to escape your pull. You find me. You always find me. When I was lost at sea, you found me. When I was lost in life, you found me. You found me and you saved me. And I know there’s nowhere I can go that will make me happy as long as I’m sailing away from you. The best part of me is you. The only part that matters is the one you have, the one you hold in the palm of your hand.”

“You’d stay? Here? For me?”

“I’d do anything for you.”

“But what about the boat? Cash told me you bought a yacht to charter.”

“I’ll sell it. I’ll give it up. I’d give it all up for you. Anything. Everything. Everything for us. If it means that I can keep you, that it will make you happy, then I’ll do it. Whatever it is. Just say the word.”

My heart is near bursting. I don’t have words at first. I find myself wondering almost confusedly if this is real or if I’ve dreamed the whole thing. The only thing I know is that if it’s a dream, I never want to wake up. Never.

“What if I don’t want you to?”

He goes completely still and says nothing for a few seconds. “What if you don’t want me to what?”

I know what he’s thinking. I can see by the stricken expression on his face. He thinks I’m getting ready to tell him I don’t want him.

“What if I don’t want you to sell the boat?” He says nothing, just watches me. Finally, I smile. It’s probably the happiest smile I think I’ve ever smiled in my life as I wind my arms around his neck and pull his head down to mine. I whisper into his ear, “What if I want to sail away with you?”

I hear him exhale right before he hugs me so tight, he nearly squeezes the breath from me.

“Damn, I love you, woman,” he whispers into my neck. If I thought I’d been deliriously happy a few seconds ago, I was wrong. Never in my life have a few words made me feel so dramatically, wildly, indelibly changed. In this one short space in time, my life has gone from uncertain and unfulfilled to overflowing with hope and love and a peace I’ve never known. His next words mirror exactly what I feel all the way to the deepest part of my soul. “You make me feel whole.”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” I admit.

“You were?” he asks, a smile in his voice.

“That and one other thing.”

“What’s that?” he asks. When I don’t respond, he straightens his head and looks down at me. “What’s that?” he repeats.

I reach up and stroke his stubbly jawline with the tips of my fingers. “That I love you. That I love this stubble. And these lips,” I say, moving my fingers over his full bottom lip. “And this face. And this hair,” I say when I tuck a few loose strands behind his ear. “And that you’re right. You are perfect for me. Already. You’re everything I didn’t know I needed, but everything I always knew I wanted.”

Reaching up to wind his fingers around my wrist, Nash turns his face into my palm. “I’ll spend the rest of my life making you happy, proving to you that you made the right choice. I promise you won’t regret taking a chance on me.”

“I’m not taking a chance. I feel like I can’t breathe without you. I’m just doing what I need to do to survive. It’s as simple as that.”

“Then let me be your air,” he says quietly. This time, when his lips meet mine and he sweeps me up into his arms, I feel like he’s carrying me away to our future, to happiness, to wholeness. And I’m thrilled to go along for the ride.

FORTY-THREE

Nash

Four months later

The sun is streaming through the cabin window, turning Marissa’s sun-kissed skin to glistening gold. She’s on her stomach, facing away from me, her breathing deep and even. I could watch her sleep for a while longer. But not only would that be creepy as hell, I’ve got a raging hard-on that’s got her name written all over it.