I regain my balance and press my palms to the ocean’s surface, feeling it pulse beneath my skin with the motion of the waves and the pull of the tide. A current tugs at my ankles, silently urging me to let go. To melt into the water and submit to the power of the ocean.
Damien, I think, certain that I have found him. He is the ocean. He is power and motion and grace and beauty, and the reason I cannot find him is because he is already there. Surrounding me, stroking me, urging me to come to him.
I relax and give in to his sensual lure, letting the water tug me down, down, down, until my entire body is below the crystalline surface. I open my eyes and realize that I can see all the way to eternity. The world here beneath the waves is vibrant and alive, an explosion of colors despite the darkness of night above. I watch in awe as an orange and red coral reef rises above me. Fish dart to and fro, as if late for important engagements.
I have forgotten to breathe, and I panic, then realize that breath is not required at all. This is where I belong. Here, in the nether land. Here, where Damien surrounds me.
Except …
Except it is not Damien I feel around me. Not his comfort, nor his warmth. On the contrary, I feel cold. Lost.
Most of all, I feel afraid.
A little frantic, I search the ocean. I want to cry out, but the water presses against me, and I cannot. My heart pounds a fearful rhythm in my chest, and the vibrations radiate out, causing the sea to churn.
I reach to steady myself, but there is nothing to hold. I grapple, searching for purchase and finding none. I try to cry out, to beg for Damien to hold me, but no sound comes out.
And then I see him, and my heart twists.
He is standing near me, his torso rising above the water while his feet are planted in the sand. I watch from my odd perspective beneath the water as the waves buffet him. He reaches out a hand. At first I think it is to steady himself, and then I realize that he is reaching for me. I slog forward, my own hand extended. I can almost touch him. Just a little bit closer …
My fingers brush his, and I almost weep with relief—and then he is pulled away, the current taking him, and I cry out in horror as I try to swim toward him, only to find the way blocked. The reef, the wildlife, the tide. Everything in this new universe is conspiring to keep us apart, and when they finally move away and my vision clears, he is gone. There is nothing but ocean as far as the eye can see.
No! No, I can’t have lost him!
I open my mouth to scream, then choke as the ocean moves in to drown me. I struggle, rising, and suck in air, my ribs aching from the pounding strain of my lungs. I am still coughing out water when I see him floating facedown in front of me.
I do not hear the scream that is ripped from my throat, but I know that I am slogging through the water, trying desperately to reach his side. I do not know how, but my arms end up around him, and then we are on the beach and I am over him, my mouth on his as I give him air—sweet, sweet air—and beg him to please, please, please come back to me.
But he doesn’t. He just lays there, cold and wet, staring up at me with eyes that should twinkle like the stars but now are as flat as stone.
“No!” The word is ripped out of me, and I pounce on him again, unwilling to give up. Not able to even conceive that he could be gone.
I press my lips against his again, determined to give him life. To give him mine, if it comes to that. To do anything and everything to bring him back to me, because there is no way—no way in hell—that I can go on without him.
But there is nothing.
Despite my fighting, my pleading, my crying—there is simply nothing.
But I do not stop. I press on. I push. I plead. I threaten. And, goddammit, I will him to come back, and I do not stop. I cannot stop, because if I stop, then there is nothing left of the world, and I will float off into space, a shell of myself. Lost. And truly and completely alone.
“Don’t you dare,” I say, the words ripped from my throat as I thrust the heels of my hands down over his heart. “Don’t you dare leave me.”
A tear trickles down my nose, but I do not stop to wipe it away. It falls, landing on Damien’s lips. I blink, and another tear follows the first.
His lashes flutter. Color returns to his cheeks.
And then his lips move in a word so broken and soft that I almost do not recognize it—“Nikki.”
He is alive. He is back.
He is mine.
Chapter 4
I sit bolt upright, my skin covered in a thin sheen of sweat, my breath coming hard and fast. We are on the oversized patio chaise lounge, and Damien’s arm is around me. He pulls me back down to him, his voice so soft and gentle that I understand only the sentiment and not the words. It’s okay. I’m here. You’re safe.
I close my eyes, letting his strength fill me. And when I have taken all I need, I turn to him. “I’m okay now,” I say. “You can let go.”
He brushes my lips with a kiss. “Never.”
I burrow closer, then smile against his shoulder. That one simple word is as comforting as a down blanket in winter, and I am content¸ the rough edges of the dream finally smoothed away by this man who loves me.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“No,” I say, then find the words coming anyway. How he was pulled away from me. How everything in the sea seemed to conspire to keep us apart. How I found him dead in water that had been comforting only moments before, but then turned suddenly menacing.
“I couldn’t bring you back,” I say, feeling the tears well again.
“But you did,” he says. He pulls me close and captures my mouth with his. The kiss starts out sweet, then turns hot and hard, demanding and possessive. “You did,” he repeats once he has released me. “And you will never have cause to bring me back again, because I will never leave you. I was foolish enough to do that before, and it just about killed us both.”
I nod, then take another deep breath, steadying myself. Because I know the truth in what he is saying. Damien wouldn’t leave me any more than I would leave him. And yet fear still clutches me, its sharp talons digging in and taking hold.
Now that I have shaken off sleep, I think I understand the nature of my fears. Despite being married—despite being taken, claimed, possessed by this man that I love so dearly—I am desperately, horribly afraid of losing him, no matter how determined we are to stay together.
I finger my wedding ring. I thought that I would have no fears once he slipped it on my finger. But even matrimony cannot erase reality, and I know that there are still things out there. Things like Damien’s murder trial. Yes, the case was dismissed. But what if it hadn’t been? He would have been ripped from me, forced to spend his life behind bars. And there is neither a vow nor a ring that can protect us from that.