I stayed buried inside her until I was sure she was back with me. She came like that, like she was out of her fucking mind, and it drove me absolutely wild. I held her close, the tip of my cock firm against her cervix, and one wave of contractions after another passed through her pussy and into my shaft. I made my mind drift away. I forced myself to stave off the orgasm. But I didn’t think about boats or pool or fucking clapboard shakes or any of that shit because there was no need. Just the memories of her were enough to suspend my thoughts and my urge, to put me in fucking stop-motion. Jackie Chan had nothing on that. One memory in particular made me think of the way she was when she came. The most scared and beautiful I’d ever seen her.

She and I had gone cliff jumping in Katahdin—dangerous as fuck but so much fun. It had been my birthday present, that jump, the thing she knew I’d always wanted to do but never got around to doing. Or maybe never had the balls to do without her beside me.

But she was gutsier than me, by far, at least until we got to the platform. We’d stood together on the board, all belted up. She wore black leggings, and I remembered pulling my eyes off her ass, forcing myself to look away from the way the harness and cords hugged her. I wasn’t allowed to look at her like I’d wanted to, so I hadn’t. But it was burned into my memory, the way she looked. I remembered a strip of her stomach being visible, because her tank top had gotten tangled up in the harness. We’d stood on the platform together, her with her back to the thousand-foot fall, facing me. I remembered her hands trembled, just like they did when she came. I remembered the afternoon light on her cheeks and how she was flushed—and petrified.

“You don’t have to do this,” I told her.

She gripped my hands harder. Her hair was messy because of her helmet, and I remembered she smelled sweet, like sunscreen.

“I want to. I told you I would,” she said, barely a whisper. She looked down at her toes and lifted them up just slightly. “But I just can’t. I can’t jump.”

It was, admittedly, scary as shit up there with nothing between us and a catastrophe on the rocks below but elastic bands and pure faith.

But if she didn’t want to do it, I wasn’t going to push her. I’d been about to pull her back from the edge when she took half a step backward. The heels of her shoes were off the platform. She hung on tight to my forearms. “I can do it if you let me go,” she’d whispered. “I can do it if you decide.”

It was as if the whole fucking universe stopped then. Just her and me and the clouds. “You sure?”

She’d swallowed and given me those wide, honest eyes. “Yes.” She edged back another quarter of an inch, and half her Converse were off the platform. She inched her hands down my forearms and linked her hands with mine, fingers hooked over fingers. It was the first time she’d ever held my hands. She let her body tip back, anchored against my weight.

“You ready?”

She answered with a few quick nods. In the sunshine, I remember seeing her pulse in her throat, that steady heartbeat that had slowly but surely become more important than my own.

There we were, hands clasped together, in the mother of all the trust-falls. “Count of three,” she whispered.

“Three,” I told her, gripping her tighter. The tighter I squeezed, the more natural it felt. It was like her fingers were meant to be between mine—a perfect fit.

“Two,” she said, shutting her eyes and taking a deep breath.

“You sure about this?” I said.

She’d flashed her eyes at me. “Max!” she’d gasped, laughing. “Q&A is over.”

“Like, sure-sure?” I’d asked, teasing her now, loving the feeling of how she trusted me—with her fucking life, right over the edge into the nothingness.

“Yes,” she said, with one more squeeze. “See you on the other side.”

“One and a half…”

One sure nod. One wrinkled-up nose and a giggle.

“One and a quarter…”

That’s when I let her go. For a suspended, strange, endless second, I held her eyes as she fell backward. It was the fucking title sequence of Mad Men, except it wasn’t Don Draper swiping at the sky—it was Rosie, my Rosie, falling from Mount Katahdin, leaving my arms. As she fell, her hands stayed open, like they were still reaching out for mine.

And I’d known it then, as strongly as I knew it now. I’d always loved her. I always would.

Just as she’d come back to me after that jump, she came back to me in the back of my truck. Her whimpers and moans changed to more regular breathing. Her grip on the toolbox loosened, and she relaxed into me.

I enveloped her body with mine and shifted her hair aside, kissing the nape of her neck, smelling her shampoo, that old-school perfume, the creamy softness of her skin.

“You good?” I asked her.

She nodded against my cheek and inhaled hard. “That was amazing. That’s the sort of orgasm that makes people believe in God, I think.”

Fuck. Every word she said made me fall for her more. I crisscrossed my arms in front of her and pulled my cock out of her pussy. “Noooooo,” she moaned. “Don’t do that.”

“I’d stay inside you always if I could,” I told her, “But first…” I helped her onto her back in the middle of the bed and made a pillow for her from my pants and shirt. Straddling her, I took my cock in my hand and adjusted my balls so they were just between her wet thighs—wetter than the ocean could have ever made her. Wet from inside. The best kind of wet there was.

I placed the head of my cock right on her tattoo, the tip pressing on the ink. In the moonlight, it was as clear as could be what I was telling her I wanted. To mark her, to claim her, to do all the primal shit there was. “Oh my gosh,” she gasped. “Yes.”

“Yeah?” I stroked more roughly, pinching the head on the outstroke and gripping the base as I returned. With one hand, she cupped my balls, and with the other, she dipped her fingers inside her and rubbed her wetness on my shaft.

“You look so sweet,” I told her as I pressed my head into one of the petals. “But you’re not.”

She bit her lip and shook her head. “Not with you.”

As we locked eyes, she took over for me. The change in pressure was fucking crazy-making. My roughness with my cock almost dulled my senses, but her soft, delicate, almost worshipful way of holding it made my balls tighten instantly, and I felt that telltale shiver going right up my spine.

She worked me slowly, patiently, and she didn’t rush. Her eyes stayed on my cock the whole time. I balanced the edge of her jaw on one of my fingers and made her look up at me. When our eyes met, it started to happen, and a drop of precum spilled from me onto her ink.

“That guy might have inked you, but I’m going to be the one to mark you.”

Rosie didn’t say a word. Every word that needed saying was in the way she was stroking me. Yes. And yours. And always.

After a few more strokes, she had me coming on her, a powerful few spurts that rushed out of me all over her perfect skin. My cum covered the green of the stem and leaves. But before the second wave came, I couldn’t handle it anymore. I took myself in my fist, put my head to her opening, and drove into her pussy. I felt my cum between our thighs as I spilled myself into her as deep as I could get.

When she had me like that, fucking spent, half hard inside her and still growling, she slid her palm between us, wetted her finger with the cum I’d left on the leaves and petals. She licked it as she watched me watching her.

What a fucking goddess. Athena and all the rest? They had nothing on her. Not one goddamned thing.

* * *

On the drive home, she fell asleep on my shoulder, with her arm looped through mine. I pulled into her driveway, where I always parked, and cut the lights. I ran my fingers lightly through her still-damp hair to try to wake her up, but she nestled against me tighter, her cheek against my shoulder. I turned off the engine and watched her for a while, caressing her forearm, trying to wake her up. “Rosie,” I whispered. “We’re home.”

Home. It wasn’t a word I thought of often. My boat wasn’t really home, never had been. It was a place to crash, but it wasn’t home. But her and this place and this world that meant so much…

I trailed my fingers along the inside of her forearm. Home. Absolutely. Home.

But still, she didn’t wake up. As quietly as I could, I opened my door and lifted her in my arms. “I’ve got you,” I told her as I pressed my door closed with my hip. This time, I wasn’t pissed with her for leaving the front door unlocked, because it made it easy to get inside. Cupcake’s head popped up from her crate, sleepy in the eyes and confused. I gave her a wink, and she gave me a wiggle, and then tucked herself back into her little nest.

Up the stairs, I carried Rosie, careful not to let her bare feet touch the banister, careful not to bump her shoulder against the wall. Julia was too sleepy to make a break for it and stayed where she was on the windowsill. I laid Rosie down on the bed, gently rolling her onto her side. She hadn’t zipped her dress up all the way, and it was easy to slip off of her. Speckles of sand clung to her thighs, and I brushed some off of her ankles, too. Her skin was a bit gritty with salt water, same as mine, and I wanted to go all out—draw her a bath, clean every inch of her until she was warm and pink and soft. But I didn’t, because she was perfect exactly as she was. I tucked her in and put Peter Rabbit under her left forearm.

As I did that, though, her eyes did flutter open.

“Go to sleep,” I told her. “Everything’s good.”

She smiled this sleepy, dreamy, perfect smile. “Love you,” she said as she closed her eyes and curled up in the sheets.

She’d said the same words earlier, but that had been like a cannon shot over my bow. That I love you was shock and awe. This was quieter and softer and easier to soak all the way into my heart. Four letters, the be-all and end-all. I’d said it to her, too, but not until then, with her curled up in bed—sleepy, damp-haired, and helpless—did I really get it. Love. Fucking life-changing, world-wrecking, happiness-making love. Love that made my body ache, love that made everything finally make sense. “I love you, too,” I told her and put a kiss on her cheek.