“I showered on the ship.” Austin tightened her grip, heat scouring through her. “And I’m already plenty warm. Come to bed with me.”

Gem laughed shakily. “Oh, I intend to.”

“All I want is you.”

“God, yes,” Gem gasped, folding down onto the bed and pulling Austin on top of her. “Are you sure? I can wait—”

“Can you?” Austin kissed her throat, opened the top buttons on her shirt, and kissed lower. “Because I can’t.”

Moaning as her skin electrified, Gem wrapped her legs around Austin’s, pressing her center to Austin’s pelvis. “No, no, I can’t. I’ve never wanted like I want this.” She arched, the tension tightening in her pelvis. “Like I want you.” She framed Austin’s face, searched for the safety of her dark gaze. “I love you. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you before.”

Austin pushed up on both hands, fighting through the mist of desire to focus on Gem’s eyes. They were clear, certain, strong, and sure. She came alive inside, a sensation she finally recognized as completeness. “I love you.” She laughed. “I love you. It feels so good.”

“It does, doesn’t it. Like the sweetest, most exciting, most amazing thing ever.” Gem tugged Austin’s shirt free from her pants, unbuttoned the waistband, and slid down the zipper. She pushed the clothes off Austin’s hips. “It feels wonderful. You feel wonderful. And I want to feel you all over me, right now.”

Austin pushed off the bed and shed her clothes with lightning speed as Gem removed her shirt and jeans. Austin stilled, taking her in as Gem stretched naked, the faint glow of the bedside lamp sending flickering fingers of gold across her skin. “You’re so damn beautiful. I could look at you forever.”

“You can look at me as often as you like, but right now, I want you on top of me.” Gem held out a hand. “I need you to make me yours.”

“You are mine.” Austin covered her, sliding one leg between hers, framing her shoulders with an elbow on either side, kissing her as she fit their bodies together. She might’ve gone on kissing her for hours, lost in the taste of her, floating on a sea of exquisite sensation, if Gem hadn’t caught her hand and guided it down her body and between her legs.

“I need you,” Gem whispered against her ear. “I want you inside me. Everywhere. Please.”

Kissing the fragile spot on Gem’s throat where her pulse beat madly, Austin cupped her, caressed her, and when she arched and cried out, slipped inside her.

Gem clutched Austin’s shoulders, her head twisting to one side, her breath a ragged gasp. “Can’t wait.” Pushing down, tightening as Austin stroked deeper, over and over, she rode the whirlwind to the crest. “You make me want to come so much.”

Austin lost herself in Gem’s pleasure, swept beyond sight and sound to a place only they could go. “Anything. Always. I love you.”

“I’m yours,” Gem groaned. “Oh. Now. Now. You’re making me come.”

Austin watched the ecstasy break across Gem’s face, felt time stop. Nothing would ever be the same. Outside the boarded-up windows, Norma raged. But here, here in Gem’s arms was home. Unassailable, indestructible, hers.

❖

Gem drifted, listening to the keening of the storm and Austin’s soft, rhythmic breathing. She stroked her hair, her back, the curve of her ass. The urge to protect her, keep her safe, filled her with tender fierceness.

Something—a branch, a broken board—bounced off the plywood covering the balcony doors with a loud crack.

Austin twitched, and her body tensed.

“You’re okay,” Gem murmured, kissing the side of her jaw. “You’re okay.”

“Damn,” Austin said. “I fell asleep, didn’t I.”

“You did,” Gem said with infinite satisfaction. “Inside me, in fact.”

Austin groaned. “I’m sorry.”

Gem laughed. “Oh, I’m not at all. That was maybe the sexiest thing I’ve ever felt.”

“I’m pretty sure I can top it.”

“Really?” Gem stretched, every muscle loose and warm, and a heavy ache in her depths to be filled again. “If you can, I might not survive.”

Austin leaned up on an elbow and grinned. “I bet you can.”

“Well, we’ll see, won’t we.” Gem couldn’t quite get used to seeing Austin this way, so completely hers. She basked in the intensity of Austin’s gaze, absorbing her attention like rain on parched soil. “I love the way you look at me. Like I’m everything.”

Austin kissed her. “That’s because you are. I love you.”

“I love you too. When I look at you, I feel as if I always have.”

“You know this is the beginning, right?” Austin said. “Of us, together. When the storm is over, when the sanctuary is safe, when our work here is done, we’ll go on—you and I.”

“Us,” Gem said, for once in her life not caring about the details. Only knowing what was true. “I want you, now and always.”

“I’m yours, now and always.”

“We’ve got a few more hours,” Gem said, shifting until Austin rolled onto her back. “And I have something I want to say.”

“I’m listening.”

Gem smiled. “You always are.” She straddled Austin’s hips and cupped her breasts. Brushing her thumbs lightly over Austin’s nipples, she said, “This time, though, hear me inside.”

“I’m not going to last long.”

“Try.” Gem squeezed slowly, her eyes narrowing in satisfaction as Austin jerked. “I know you can do anything you want to do.”

Groaning, Austin gripped the sheets in both hands, desire slashing through her. Gem’s mouth was molten, her hands flame. By the time Gem kissed her way slowly down the center of her stomach, her breath was gone and her heart a wild thing trying to beat its way out of her chest. When Gem settled between her thighs and took her into her mouth, lightning seared her senses. When she came in Gem’s mouth, she soared, an eagle on the wind.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Gem woke wrapped in the curve of Austin’s body, Austin’s arm around her middle and a knee tossed protectively over one of her legs. They’d lost power when Norma’d slammed ashore, and she lay on her side staring into the dark, relishing the sensation of simply being held. A kiss, warm and soft and wordlessly possessive, pressed to the back of her neck. She smiled and made a purring sound in her throat. She found Austin’s hand and linked their fingers together.

“The wind has dropped,” she said.

“I know,” Austin said, her voice low and languorous. “About an hour ago.”

“Rain sounds pretty steady.”

“Mmm, Claudia predicted heavy throughout the day, but if the wind stays down…”

Gem’s chest tightened and she held Austin’s hand harder against her breast, as if the beat of her heart, of the love that filled it, could somehow flow into Austin and keep her safe. “You’ll head back out to the rig?”

“With Tatum in the launch or the birds, if they can fly.” Austin nuzzled her neck. “The sooner we do, the safer the sanctuary will be.”

“I don’t want you to take risks.” When Gem heard herself say that, she laughed wryly. “And now there is an unlikely possibility.”

“No, it isn’t. I’ve never been reckless, just willing to take a calculated gamble.” Austin leaned over and lit the candle Gem had left by the bedside the night before, guided Gem to her back, and kissed her. “But I won’t bet on the long shots any longer. I promise.”

Gem studied her face in the candlelight, bold and strong and beautiful. “I wish I could draw the way you do.”

Austin smiled. “What would you draw?”

“You—when you’re sleeping…the way you look at me…the way you watch me when I come.”

Austin’s eyes darkened, got that hungry look that said she wanted her.

Gem’s blood raced, the thrill of being desired turning her liquid inside. “I have something of yours.”

“You have everything of mine,” Austin said.

“All I want is your heart.”

“It’s yours, along with all the days of my life.”

“Claudia gave me some drawings of yours. Something I’d like to keep, if you don’t mind.”

Austin’s brows drew down as if she were searching her memory. “Ah—the sketches.”

“I’m not nearly as beautiful as you made me appear, but I’m glad you see me that way.”

“I told you I was in love with you from the first moment. When I couldn’t have you—when I was afraid you wouldn’t want me—drawing you was my way of making you mine.”

Gem pulled Austin on top of her, entwined their legs, and kissed her. “It’s true. I’m yours.”

“And you’re even more beautiful than I could ever capture,” Austin murmured.

“When I look at your drawings,” Gem said, “you make me feel beautiful.”

“Then I’ll have to sketch you nude next time.”

Gem laughed a little self-consciously, but the idea excited her. “As soon as we can escape together somewhere alone. If I’m getting naked with you watching me the way you do, I’m going to want you to make me come.”

“That’s a promise.”

“I don’t want to let you go,” Gem whispered against Austin’s throat.

“I don’t want you to.” Austin kissed her slowly until Gem was breathless. “I’ll come home. Wherever you are, I’ll always come home to you.”


Thirty-six hours later

“Hey, Gem,” Emily called. “Your hottie’s on the tube again.”

Someone in the break room chuckled.

Gem shoved the coffeepot back onto the burner and spun around, a welcome surge of energy flooding her weary body. Her head ached, her eyes were gritty, and her limbs had gone numb hours ago. Or was it days?

The sandbags had kept the worst of the storm surge out of the estuaries and the marshes, but the beaches were badly eroded, and FEMA and Gem’s crew had been filling the worst of the trenches with the sand from the bags they’d spent hours filling. The rain had mostly stopped, and for brief blessed patches, the sun actually shone. GOP’s vessels trolled up and down the coastline, monitoring the booms and the course of the oil. None had reached shore.