by Tessa Bailey
He waited for Fox to signal a number through the window of the wheelhouse.
Seventy.
Brendan made a note of the number in his log, his mouth moving as he did the math. Their quota issued by the wildlife commission was eighty thousand pounds of crab for the season. They were at 99 percent with five pots left to collect. But with the storm howling outside and the men growing weary, it wasn’t worth continuing. Especially not if he could beat the Russians to market and get a stronger price for what they’d caught.
He signaled Fox to wrap up the operation, secure the gear on deck, and get everyone below. They were heading back to Dutch early. And the fucking relief that gripped him around the throat was so much stronger than usual, he had to take several bracing breaths, his fingers flexing around the wheel as he waited for a break in the swells to start executing the turn.
Had this storm made landfall yet back home?
Where was she?
Would she be waiting for him?
Brendan braced his body against the side of the wheelhouse as the Della Ray carried over a three-story swell and slapped back down into a black pit of churning seawater. Goddamn this storm. It wasn’t any fiercer than the ones they’d worked through in the past, but this time . . . the boat didn’t seem quite as substantial under his feet. Was the wheel vibrating with too much force in his hands?
His life felt too easily snatched away.
These were worries he hadn’t acknowledged since being a greenhorn, and it was because he’d never wanted to get home so badly. Not once in his fucking life.
A crew crabbing not too far from them had lost a member yesterday when his foot had gotten tangled in a rope, dragging him straight down to the bottom of the drink. Another boat had gone missing entirely, seven men on board. A bad season. More loss than usual. So easily, it could have been one of his crew. Could have been him.
Whitewater, high and downward-sloping, broke out of the corner of Brendan’s eye, and he grabbed the radio, shouting down to the deck to brace for impact. Rogue wave. And for once, Brendan resented the wild rush he got from the danger. From taking on nature and winning. At that moment, it was just the thing keeping him from Piper.
The wave hit, and the boat groaned, tilting sideways. For long moments, the violent wave rained down on the wheelhouse and obscured his view of the deck. And with his world on its side, all he could hear was Piper’s voice telling him to be careful.
The coast guard shouted through the radio, interspersed with static, and he prayed.
He prayed like he never had before.
Just let me go home and see her.
But the Bering Sea chose that moment to remind him exactly who was in control.
Chapter Eighteen
Piper woke up to her phone ringing.
She blinked at the device, then at her surroundings. White walls, navy bedspread, beige chair angled in the corner by a lamp. No storm sounds. Was it over?
The world was almost eerily quiet around her, save the jangling notes of her ringtone, but she ignored the winding sensation in her stomach. There was a glow on the horizon that told her it was very early in the morning. Everything had to be fine now, right?
Taking one final inhale of Brendan’s pillow, she answered her sister’s call. “Hey, Hanns. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just got back to the building. Where are you?”
Piper’s cheeks fused with heat. “Brendan’s,” she said sheepishly.
“Oh.” There was a long pause. “Piper . . .”
Suddenly alert, she sat up, shoving the fall of hair out of her face. “What?”
“I don’t know any of the details, okay? But I ran into one of the crew members’ wives on the way back. Sanders? All she said was . . . there’s been an accident.”
Her lungs filled with ice. “What?” She pressed a hand between her breasts, pushing down, trying to slow the rollicking pace of her heart. “What kind of accident?”
“She didn’t say. But she was upset. She was leaving for the hospital.”
“Which . . . ? What?” Piper scrambled off the bed, naked, the towel having loosened overnight. “Did she say anything about Brendan?”
“Just that he’s at the hospital.”
“What?”
“I’m sure he’s fine, Piper. Like . . . he’s built like a semitruck.”
“Yeah, but he’s up against a body of fucking water and a cyclone. A cyclone!” She was screeching now, off the bed and turning in circles, trying to figure out what to do. Where to start. “Okay, okay, I’m not his girlfriend. I can’t just go to the hospital, can I?”
“Pipes, I’d like to see someone try and stop you.”
She was already nodding. As usual, her little sister was right. If she stayed there and waited for news, she would go absolutely insane. “Did she say which hospital?”
“Grays Harbor Community. I already mapped it and it’s half an hour away. They were brought to a hospital in Alaska first, then flown back here.”
Piper yanked open a middle drawer in Brendan’s dresser and grabbed the first shirt she could find, then ran for the bathroom. “In a helicopter? Oh my God, this is bad.” She met her own wild eyes in the mirror over the sink. “I have to go. I’ll call you in a while.”
“Wait! How are you going to get there?”
“I’m stealing Brendan’s truck. There has to be a spare key around here somewhere. He’s such a spare-key guy.” Her hand shook around the phone. “I’ll call you. Bye.”
It took her five minutes to put on Brendan’s shirt and her hang-dried yoga pants from the day before. She found a spare toothbrush under the sink, used it in record time, and ran down the stairs while finger-combing her hair. After shoving her feet into her still-soaked sneakers, she began her search for the truck’s spare key. It wasn’t in any of the junk drawers or hanging from any convenient pegs. Where would Brendan put it?
Trying desperately not to dwell on the image of him in a hospital bed somewhere, unconscious and gravely injured, she jogged to the kitchen and climbed up on the counter, running her hand along the top of the cabinets. Jackpot.
She was out the door a few seconds later, sitting in the driver’s seat of Brendan’s big-ass truck. And dammit, his scent was there, too. So strong that she had to concentrate on punching the hospital name into her map app, cursing autocorrect every time it swapped out right letters for the wrong ones. “Come on,” she whined. “Not today, Satan.”
Finally, she was on her way, flooring it down the quiet, empty, debris-strewn streets of Westport and onto an unfamiliar highway. There was no one on the roads, and she hated that. It made last night’s storm seem even more serious. More likely to cause casualties.
Please, please, please. Not Brendan.
Okay, fine. She wasn’t planning on getting serious with the man, but she really, really needed him to be alive. If someone that vital and enduring and stubborn could be wiped off the face of the earth, what hope did the rest of them have?
She used her shoulder to wipe away the moisture dripping down her cheeks.
Not getting serious about Brendan.
Right.
It took her twenty-five minutes to reach the hospital, and it was as quiet as the roads. There were a couple of cars parked outside and a sleepy administrator manning the front desk. “Sanders. Taggart,” she blurted.
The woman didn’t look up from her computer screen as she directed Piper to the fourth floor, nodding toward the elevator bank across the lobby. Upon entering the elevator, her fingers paused over the button.
The fourth floor was the ICU.
No. No. No.
After pressing the button, she closed her eyes and breathed, in and out, in and out, all but throwing herself through the doors when they opened. More lack of activity greeted her. Shouldn’t doctors and nurses be rushing around trying to save Brendan? Her wet sneakers squelched on the linoleum floor of the dim hallway as she made her way to the information desk. There was
nobody there. Should she wait or just start checking rooms?
A nurse left one room and ran to another, a clipboard in her hand.
Going to see Brendan? Was something wrong?
Heart in her throat, she crept toward the room where the nurse had gone—
“Piper?”
She whirled at the sound of Brendan’s deep voice. And there he was in his signature jeans, beanie, and sweatshirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Above his head, the hallway light flickered, and briefly, she wondered if that meant he was a ghost. But no. No, there was his scent, the furrow of his dark brow, that baritone. He was there. Alive alive alive. Thank God. His eyes were so green. Had she ever noticed how beautiful a shade they were? They were ringed with dark circles, but they were incredible. “Oh good,” she croaked, his image rapidly blurring. “Y-you’re okay.” She tried to be subtle about swiping the tears from her eyes. “They just said there’d been an accident, so I . . . I just thought I would come check. To be neighborly and all.”
“Neighborly.”
His raspy voice sent a hot shiver down her spine. “Yes. I even brought you your truck.”
Brendan took a step closer, his eyes looking less and less tired by the moment. “You were at my house?”
She nodded, backed up, narrowly missing a supply cart.
His chest rose and fell, and he stepped forward again. “Is that my shirt, honey?”
Honey. Why’d he have to go and call her that? “No, I have one just like it.”
“Piper.”
“Mmm?”
“Please. Please come here.”
* * *
Brendan’s heart hammered, the tendons in his hands aching from the strain of not reaching for her. She’d come to the hospital. In his clothes. Did she realize tears were spilling down her cheeks and she was shaking, head to toe? No, she didn’t. Based on her flirty shoulder shrugs and attempts to wink, she thought she was playing it cool, and it made his chest burn.
This girl. He’d be keeping her. There was no way around it.
There had been a moment last night when he’d thought his luck might have run out, and there’d just been images of her, flashing back to back, and he’d railed at the unfairness of meeting Piper but not being given enough time to be with her. If they weren’t at the outset of something real here, his gut was a filthy liar. If he was honest with himself, it had been trying to tell him Piper would be important from the second he saw her in her floppy hat through the window of No Name.
“Piper.”
“Mmm?”
“Please. Please come here.”
She shook her head, stopped trying to put on a brave smile. “Why? So you can put me in the recharging station? You have the most dangerous job in the country, Brendan.” Her lower lip wobbled. “I don’t want your hugs.”
His brow arched. “Recharging station?”
“That’s what I call it . . .” Still backing away from him, she flipped her hair back, sniffed. “Never mind.”
“When I hug you?” Fuck. His heart was turning over and over like a car engine. “My hugs are your recharging station?”
“Stop assigning meaning to my words.”
An obstruction formed in his throat, and he had a feeling he’d never be able to swallow it. Not as long as she looked up at him, all beauty and strength and vulnerability and confusion and complications. “I should have called, but I left my phone on the boat and it’s been hectic transporting him here on the helicopter. I didn’t have time to find another phone, and then I worried you’d be sleeping.” He paused. “Can you be mad at me while I kiss you, baby? It’s all I’ve wanted to do for the last two weeks.”
“Yeah, okay,” she whispered, reversing directions and coming toward him. She jogged the final step and leapt. He made a gruff sound, wrapping his arms around her as tight as possible, and lifted her off the ground when her trembles increased.
“No, honey. No shaking.” He planted kisses in hair that smelled suspiciously like his shampoo. “I’m fine. I’m right here.”
Her face pressed into the crook of his neck. “What happened?”
“Sanders has a concussion. Bad one. A wave sent him sliding down the deck, and he clocked himself on one of the steel traps. We got back to Dutch and took him to the hospital.” He rubbed circles on her back. “I left Fox in charge of bringing the crab to market and flew back with Sanders this morning.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“Yeah. He is.”
She nodded, wrapped her arms tighter around his neck. “And the hydraulic system worked well the whole trip? No problems with the oil pressure?”
With an exhaled laugh, he angled his head back to meet her eyes. “Did you do a little googling while I was gone?”
“Maybe a little,” she said, burying her face farther into his neck. “Are you sure you want to kiss me with my eyes all red and puffy?”
He fisted her hair gently, tugging until they were nose to nose. “I especially want to kiss you with your eyes all red and puffy.”
The moment their mouths collided, Brendan knew he’d made a mistake. He should have waited to kiss her until they were home in his bed, because the uncertainty of the last eleven days reared back and punched him. It did the same to Piper—he could feel it.
She gave a broken moan and opened her sweet mouth for him, her breath coming in short pants almost immediately, just like his. He’d barely slid his tongue between her lips when she gripped his shoulders, drew herself high against his chest, and slung her legs around his waist. And Jesus, he’d already been halfway to hard, but his cock surged against his fly now, swelling like a motherfucker when she settled the warm give of her sex on top of him, the drag of friction making him curse. Making him wish they were anywhere but a hospital hallway, half an hour from his house.
Still, he couldn’t keep from kissing her like he’d been dreaming of doing every night since he’d left, roughly, hungrily, using his hold on her hair to guide her left, right, meeting her lips with wide slants of his own, swallowing down her little whimpers like they were his last meal. God. God, she tasted so fucking good. Better than any port after a storm.
Home. He’d made it.
“Piper,” he growled, taking two steps and flattening her against the closest wall, his mouth raking down her delicious neck, his left hand sliding up to cup her tits. “I can’t fuck you here, baby. But that’s exactly what I’m going to do if we keep at it like this.”
Dazed blue eyes met his, her mouth wet from kissing. “I need you now,” she said hoarsely, tugging on the collar of his shirt. “Now, now, Brendan. Please, I can’t wait.”
He learned something about himself in that moment. If this woman tacked the word “please” onto any request, he would find a way to fulfill it.
Build me a palace, please.
How many floors, baby?
Brendan was already carrying her to the darker end of the hospital corridor before she finished phrasing her demand. Thank Christ the floor was mostly empty, because nothing was going to stop him from getting inside her now. Not when she was scoring his neck with her teeth, her thighs clinging to his hips like ivy. He stopped in front of the farthest door from the mild action in Sanders’s room, looked through the glass to make sure there was nobody occupying it, then brought her inside, capturing her mouth in a kiss as he walked them to the far side of the room. She rode her pussy up and down the rigid length of him, mewling into his mouth and pulling at his shirt, and Jesus, he was so turned on, their surroundings were inconsequential in comparison. Still, he wouldn’t have someone walking in and seeing Piper in a private moment—that was for his eyes only—so he forced himself to focus. Just long enough to make it right.
He set Piper down on her feet and called on his willpower to tear himself away from her mouth. “Don’t move,” he said, propping her against the wall—yes, propped. Her legs didn’t appear to be working, and hell if he wasn’t gratified to know he wasn’t so far out of practice that h
e couldn’t get Piper hot and bothered. Thank God.
Wanting to get his hands back on her as soon as possible, he charged to the door and shoved a chair under the handle. On his return to the far side of the room, he yanked the curtain that would block them from view, in case anyone walked past. Then he was in front of Piper, framing her face in his hands, marveling over the feverish urgency in her eyes. For him. Less than twelve hours ago, he’d been sure his luck had run out, but he’d been wrong. It overflowed.
She ran her hands up under his sweatshirt, her fingernails dragging through his chest hair. “Will you take your shirt off for me?” she whispered, scrubbing the ridges of his abdomen with the heels of her hands. “Please? I love your body.”
“That’s my line,” he said unevenly, rocked by her confession. Yeah, he took care of himself and the work kept his body strong and able, but he was a damn long way from perfect. Not like her. But as he’d already discovered, if Piper said please, he would comply, and he did so now, tugging off the sweatshirt in one quick move, finding her mouth as soon as his head was free of the collar.
Lips seeking and wet, their kiss escalated to the point of no return again. They both wrestled with the waistband of her yoga pants, shoving them down past her hips, lower until she could kick them away. And then she was back to climbing him, her lithe thighs skimming up to his waist, his hips punching forward to get his cock up against her softness, pinning her to the wall in the process.
“Noticed we didn’t have to get any panties off,” he said in between kisses, finding her incredible ass with both hands and kneading her buns almost angrily, because Jesus, this thing drove him fucking crazy. “You drive here in my truck with a bare pussy, Piper?”
She bit his bottom lip, tugged. “Slept in your bed with it, too.”
“Christ.” A rumble started in his chest, didn’t stop until he’d drawn off the borrowed shirt she wore, dropping it to the ground, leaving her completely, blessedly naked. Naked and wrapped around him, all messy morning hair and eyes puffy from crying over him. If his cock wasn’t throbbing with pain, he might have gotten down on his knees and worshiped her. All those moments on the boat, begging to see her one more time, had been well founded. If anything, he should have begged harder, because she was a siren, an angel of mercy, and a horny woman all rolled into one. A fucking dream.