Fake dating the captain

Chapter8

~Liv~

The rain was coming down so hard it sounded like someone was throwing gravel at the windshield. I blinked awake with my cheek stuck to the passenger window and the taste of last night’s vodka still crawling around my mouth like a dying rat. My head throbbed. My thighs stuck together. My dress was somewhere around my waist and Rowan’s jacket was the only thing keeping me from full public indecency.

Rowan’s hands were white on the steering wheel. He hadn’t said a word since he scooped me off the pier. Not one. Just that tight-jawed silence.

Lightning cracked and the whole truck lit up. I saw his face for half a second…eyes red, mouth flat, looking like he’d aged ten years in ten minutes.

“Stop staring at me like I’m roadkill,” I croaked.

He didn’t answer. Just flicked the wipers up higher.

I shifted and felt the ache between my legs, the memory of his mouth, his fingers, the second before everything went black. My face burned. “So we’re doing the whole brooding hero thing now? Cool. Very sexy. Ten out of ten, no notes.”

“Liv.”

“What? You want a thank-you card? Dear Rowan, thanks for the almost-f**k and the almost-concussion, xoxo the town drunk.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

He slammed the brakes so hard my forehead smacked the dashboard. The truck skidded onto the shoulder, gravel pinging everywhere, and the engine cut. Rain hammered the roof like it was personally offended.

I rubbed my head. “Ow, asshole.”

Rowan turned to me, eyes wild. “You passed out. While I was. ” He stopped, jaw working. “Jesus Christ, Liv, you scared the s**t out of me.”

“Yeah, well, join the club. I scare the s**t out of me daily. It’s basically my brand at this point.”

He dragged a hand through his hair. It stuck up everywhere. He looked like a pissed-off hedgehog. A hot one. Goddammit.

I reached for him without thinking, fingers sliding straight into the waistband of his jeans because apparently my brain and my impulse control had filed for divorce years ago. He was still hard. Of course he was. I wrapped my hand around him and squeezed just to watch his eyes flutter.

“Liv, no.. ”

“Shut up,” I said again, softer this time, and climbed over the console like a drunk spider. My knee hit the horn. It blared. Romantic.

He grabbed my hips to steady me, which was a mistake because then I was straddling him in the driver’s seat and the steering wheel dug into my back and I didn’t care. I kissed him hard, tasted rain and blood where I bit his lip too hard.

He groaned into my mouth and kissed me back for one perfect, stupid second before his hands clamped on my wrists. “Stop.”

“No.” I rolled my hips just to be a b***h. “You want this. I want this. Math is easy tonight.”

“You’re drunk.”

“I’m always something. Drunk, sad, pissed off, take your pick.” I leaned in, licked the shell of his ear because I knew it made him shiver. “Come on, Rowan. f**k the sadness out of me. Five minutes. Ten. I’m not asking for a ring.”

His head thunked back against the seat. “You think this is gonna fix anything in your life?”

“No,” I laughed, and it came out wet. “I think it shuts my brain up for a little while. That’s enough.”

He stared at me like he was trying to see through my skull. Then his hands slid up my thighs, rough and fast, and he yanked me into the backseat so hard I yelped.

I landed on top of him. Buttons went flying when I ripped his shirt open. Rainwater dripped off his hair onto my chest. I licked it off his collarbone because I’m classy like that.

“Tell me to stop,” he said against my throat, teeth scraping. “Say it and I swear I’ll stop.”

I answered by grinding down hard enough to make him curse. He flipped my dress up, shoved my panties aside, and then kept looking inside me.

“f**k….Liv….you look so good I really wanna f**k you with no condoms right now.”

“Yeah, talk dirty to me, baby,” I was already breathing hard, laughing and crying at the same time because everything felt too much at once.

Lightning flashed and I saw us: me with mascara down my face, him with his head thrown back, mouth open, looking wrecked. Beautiful. Mine for thirty seconds.

He eye f****d me so hard I came so hard he started laughing, I pulled him down and clenched around him like I could keep him there forever if I just squeezed tight enough.

We stayed like that, breathing like we’d run ten miles, sweat cooling fast. I felt him soften inside me and wanted to scream because it was already over.

I climbed off him clumsy, knees knocking the seats. My thighs were shaking. I tasted salt and wasn’t sure if it was tears or rain.

“Now,” I said, voice shredded. “I need inside me now….”

I reached for the door handle, ready to drag him into the storm because cold and wet sounded better than empty.

His hand shot out and caught my wrist hard enough to bruise. “No.”

I tried to yank free. “Let go.”

“No, Liv.” His voice cracked. “Not like this. Not because you hate yourself tonight.”

I laughed so hard it hurt my ribs. “Newsflash, genius, I hate myself every night. Tonight’s not special.”

He sat up, zipped himself with shaking hands. “Then I’m not helping you do it harder.”

“Oh, f**k you and your moral compass!” I shoved his chest. He didn’t budge. “You think you’re better than me because you can stop? Because you get to be the one who says when?”

“I think,” he said, low and dangerous, “you’re trying to erase yourself one bad decision at a time and I’m not gonna be the shovel.”

I slapped him. Hard. The sound cracked louder than the thunder.

His head snapped to the side. He didn’t move. Just breathed through his nose, slow, counting to ten probably.

I waited for him to hit me back. Yell. Anything.

He didn’t.

He reached past me, grabbed his jacket from the floorboard, and draped it over my shoulders. Then he climbed back into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and pulled onto the road like nothing happened.

I sat in the back, knees to my chest, soaking wet and shaking. Not from the cold.

After five minutes or five years he spoke without looking back.

“You’re not nothing, Liv. Not to me. And I’m not f*****g you in a rainstorm just so you can wake up tomorrow and add me to the list of things you hate about yourself.”

I opened my mouth to rip him apart. Nothing came out except a stupid, broken sound.

He kept driving.

I cried the rest of the way to his cabin. Quiet, ugly crying that made my nose run and my chest hitch. He never looked in the rearview once.

When he parked, he got out, opened my door, and lifted me like I weighed nothing. I was too tired to fight. My head lolled against his shoulder.

Inside smelled like pine and old coffee. He carried me to the couch, set me down, disappeared, came back with a towel and one of his T-shirts.

I just stared at the floor.

He crouched in front of me, peeled the wet dress off like I was a kid, dried my hair rough but gentle, tugged the dry shirt over my head. His fingers brushed my cheek when he pushed the hair out of my face.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. It came out tiny.

“I know.”

“I’m always sorry after.”

“I know that too.”

He sat on the coffee table across from me, elbows on his knees, watching me like I might vanish.

I hugged my knees tighter. “You should’ve just let me drown on that pier.”

“Shut up,” he said, but there was no heat in it.

“Make me,” I mumbled into my own arms.

He sighed, long and tired. “Get some sleep, Liv.”

“I can’t.”

“You will.”

He picked me up again, carried me to his bed, pulled the covers over me. I grabbed his wrist before he could leave.

“Stay.” My voice cracked on the word. “Please. I won’t….I just don’t want to be alone with me right now.”

He looked at me for a long time. Then he kicked off his boots, climbed in behind me, and wrapped an arm around my waist like it was the simplest thing in the world.

I cried harder. He held tighter.

At some point I stopped shaking.

His voice was a rumble against my spine. “Tomorrow’s gonna suck.”

“Yeah,” I hiccuped. “Tomorrow always does.”

“We’ll suck together.”

I laughed once, wet and surprised. “Can you suck me right now?”

“Livvvvv.”

“Okay okay Fine.”

“Shut up and sleep, Liv.”

So I did knowing fully well I'll regret almost forcing s*x with my fake boyfriend.