“I’m not. I’m angry at the whole fucking world, Jane. You’re just close to me.”

“That’s not—”

A sympathetic smile. “Fair?”

I swallow. “I’m glad you got the kids out.”

“Don’t thank me. Fight me.” He shoves me up against the door, and I make a soft sound of surprise. “Hit me. Beat me. Mark me. Break my bones, one for every one you broke.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head back and forth against the wood. It’s so thick I can feel the striations in the wood as I move. “I won’t.”

“I’d do it, you know that, right? I’d break my own bones. I’d fight a goddamn dragon if it means I could go back and undo that hurt you felt.”

A wild laugh bursts out of me. Or maybe it’s a sob, because I do know that about him. He’s such a bastard to me, but I also see the good in him. The way he cares about me, even though he doesn’t want to. “I know.”

He presses his lips against mine, artless and heavy. “Go on.”

And I do—I bite him, I bite at his lips, not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to hurt him. He doesn’t flinch away. He takes my rage and my pain inside himself, and becomes what I need in this moment. My hands turn into fists and I bang them against his chest. He’s strong enough to take it. I’m the endless, frantic sea, and he’s the cliffside, stoic and strong.

He gentles, and I subside with a soft cry. It turns into a real kiss then, something loving. I let out a shaky breath, and he breathes it in. He takes everything I have to give—the anger and the hurt, but also the fear. I’ve lived with so much of it, and he doesn’t turn away.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Beau Rochester

I grew up with a healthy respect for the sea. It was tinged with fear. We all knew men who had gone out to fish and never come home. Every family had lost people, but we did not shrink from the waves. Instead we learned the proper way to ride them.

One weekend when I was out with my father, a storm came in quick.

It had been drilled to us early—never turn your back on the ocean. But the ocean was everywhere on this day. It came up on the sides in heavy waves. It knocked our boat around like it was a plastic toy. Rain came down so thick it felt like a curtain.

My brother went over the side. A wave came three yards above the bow. Rope caught him around his boot. A slippery deck did the rest.