Amy and Camden enjoyed their jokey interplay as she drove him up to Marina del Rey. Colorful sails danced on the waves against the horizon, families played on the manicured lawns, restaurants and souvenir shops lined the parking lot.

Amy climbed into her black one-piece, the weather just a little too chilly for a bikini. The cushioned life vests provided even more warmth, but it didn’t do much good once the boat’s engine started to churn. Amy was chilled to her core, and she was suddenly struck with the idea that she’d claimed a little too much freedom, that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea at all.

Amy looked over at Camden sitting next to her, both securely strapped in, the wind pushing against the huge, rainbow-colored parasail expanding behind them. The speed of the boat and the push of the wind worked together to pull Amy and Camden up off the Pacific Ocean’s surface. When her feet left the water, Amy felt a touch of nausea, instant worry for her own safety.

If I fall and die, all my family will ever say is how right they were!

But visions of her family were blasted from Amy’s imagination as her body was lifted up off the water and rose higher, twenty feet quickly turning into thirty … fifty … higher still until she couldn’t even think about it. She felt tiny, vulnerable, helpless there above the Earth, the towing craft speeding along ahead and below. She couldn’t help but think about being cuffed in that van, the thrill of the danger, the sense of controlled risk. It was key to a new door in her life, behind which lay adventure that most people would never discover. Her life of seclusion was over, Amy knew that. Camden had blasted it away and left behind only wreckage, demolition. But that made way for rebirth, restoration, renewal.

Everything was unimaginably small in Amy’s perspective; boats and surfers, cars and shops and even the spectacular mansions that caked the gorgeous Southern California coast.

Amy’s head went light, one hand clinging to the harness while her other was clamped in Camden’s. She looked at him, but he didn’t seem nervous at all. He looked out over the horizon, around in each direction, as if great thoughts were pulsing through his mind, that he was seeing things that Amy couldn’t see. But she wanted to, and she wanted him to teach her how to do it, every day and in every way.

But a shift in the energy of the contraption around her couldn’t escape Amy’s notice, or Camden’s. The harness lurched and dropped a few feet, like a plane in turbulence hitting an air pocket of hideous size and depth. Amy’s stomach lurched up into the bottom of her lungs, legs jutting upward with their sudden descent.

Amy and Camden both looked down to see the tow boat beneath them no longer running the trail of white water behind the engine sputtering out like the engine itself. Amy and Camden swung downward, thrusting their faces toward the ocean beneath them. It was a too far a fall to survive, she knew that right away.

And the fall began quickly, chaotically, the parasail behind them failing to bring them down slowly or safely. Their hands gripped each other’s even more tightly, eyes locked on one another. She couldn’t control the fear in her own expression, but Camden was calmer, looking at her with a serenity she couldn’t share until she came to understand it. Camden didn't have any regrets, even if they were both about to die. Because he’d found her, and it would be worth it. His life was nothing before her, that’s what his eyes were telling her, and it would be nothing after her.

They swung hard as the parasail wrestled with the wind, the boat beneath them still idle in the Pacific chop. They fell further, Amy leaning back and clamping her eyes shut. Amy would have prayed if she could have, but the Deys had never lived that kind of life.

Her father hadn’t died that kind of death.

But Amy couldn’t help pray to him, lacking anybody or anything else to pray to. Daddy, help me, please! I don’t wanna die, I want to live, finally, I just want to live!

Amy felt a strong pull from in front and below, her eyes opening to see the tow boat beneath them jumping forward on the waves, a new white trail spilling out from behind the revitalized engine. The boat sped forward and the pressure on the harness increased from both sides. The line once more taught, the parasail spread out behind them to its full glory, more behind them than above. They flew forward, her ice-cold blood suddenly beginning to warm up.

* * *

Once they were down and unhooked from the parasailing equipment and on dry land again, Amy and Camden wanted to calm their nerves with a glass of wine and some lunch. They decided on checking out one of the newest and trendiest restaurants around, Delilah on La Cienega for a variety of reasons. It had an art deco look and feel, the early twentieth century’s idea of what the future would look like, now quaint in the twenty-first.

The deviled eggs were creamy and spicy and peppery, the tarragon aloe crab cake was crispy and tangy, the slaw crisp and cool.

But it wasn’t about the food.

Amy could hardly contain her smile when she said, “This place was originally an S&M club.”

Camden looked up from his plate with a surprised and amused grin. “Is that so?” He looked around. “I guess fetishes come and go with the times. I’m loving these crab cakes, I can tell you that.”

“Considering we were almost a pair of crab cakes ourselves!” They shared a little chuckle, Amy shaking her head and staring at her wine glass. “Just goes to show you though, something like that, how precious life is, how fragile. It’s a shame that we don’t treat each other better, isn’t it, that we don’t truly prize the people in our lives while we have them, in those brief few moments we can share and truly enjoy.”

Camden looked at her in admiration, with a long moment of silence, his eyes piercing hers. “It is,” was all he said, clearly feeling that nothing needed to be added and that he had no need to add anything. A man of Camden’s strength and quality knew when silence was the true power, the real statement, just another thing Amy was learning from him.

And she was learning fast.

And one thing she was learning, was how to read Camden. And it didn’t even take her own new insight to see that he seemed distracted, his attention wandering to something he didn’t want to discuss. Amy tried gently several times to ask about it, but Camden brushed her off with courtesy and grace, the way he seemed to do everything, even in the most severely lustful circumstances.

“You sure you’re all right?”

Camden smiled. “I’ve never been kidnapped before.”

Amy’s brow rose up over one eye. “How do you like it?”

Camden leaned closer to her, their lips nearing to a kiss. “I love it,” he said, their mouths finally finding a warm and delicious union. It was a delicate combination of anticipation and excitation, the spark of a new fire, ready to burn long and hot.