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“What the hell, Rex? What do you want? To gloat about how you won another woman over? Your doctor, no less?”

I won her over? A thrill shoots up my spine. I quash it. She’s pissed. I need to focus on that.

I grapple at the wall until I find a light switch and flick it on.

A dim lightbulb illuminates the tight space we’re in—a supply closet, apparently. Olivia crosses her arms over her chest and tilts her chin up, glaring at me.

“Well? If you have nothing to say, I’m going back to my room to get out of these damn wet clothes.”

She whirls around and twists the doorknob. The same fear from moments ago jolts my senses.

“Wait! I-I’m sorry.” The words tumble out of me.

Don’t go. Don’t leave me. Hold me in your arms again. Worry about me. Love me.Thoughts swirl inside my mind, more chaotic than the storm outside, but somehow they make sense.

I need her more than I need my next heartbeat.

She stills, her hair half-loosened from her usual bun. Her shoulders rise and fall, and I hear our heavy breathing. She doesn’t answer me.

“Look, I know I’m a fucking screwup. I disappointed you again. I joke around all the time and, frankly, have no business leading this cruise. Look what happened. People fell overboard because I couldn’t manage shit—”

Olivia spins around, her dark eyes flashing. “You think I’m disappointed in you because idiots fell overboard doing shit they weren’t supposed to be doing?”

She steps forward and jabs her finger at my chest. “You thinkI thinkyou’re a screwup and that’s why I’m angry?”

Another hard jab. Her voice rises in volume.

“I-I was scaredshitless, Rex. Terrified!”Jab.“Y-You just jumped in with complete disregard for your life!”

Renewed heat surges through my chest, spreading to my extremities as I take in this bewitching woman, this siren, making her wrath known.

Jab. Jab. Jab.

“If something happened to you, do you know how your family would feel? How devastated they would be?”

Her eyes flash with anger, her words javelins to my heart. There’s anguish, fear, and grief in her voice. Pain from personal experience.

She jabs her finger at my chest again. “Do you know how terrified I was? I thought I lost you. I-If I lost y-you—”

She rakes in a sharp inhale, then freezes, as if realizing she’s spiraling out of control.

I grab her hand—the one that was inflicting pain seconds ago but is now limp.

“What would you do?” I rasp. “Why were you terrified, Olive? Don’t you hate me? I drive you crazy. I don’t listen to you. I make you do things you don’t want to do, like leap off a cliff.”

Her throat ripples. She trembles and shakes her head. “S-Sorry, Mr. Anderson. It’s been an intense night. I-I’m not myself. I need to go.”

Blowing out a breath, she tugs her hand loose and turns around.

No.

I don’t think, I just react.

I grab her wrist and haul her against me, then I crush my lips against hers.

Nirvana. She tastes like nirvana.

Pleasure explodes as I get my first hit of the woman of my dreams.