Page 37 of Ruining His Smirk

And just like that, I was back being caught in his gaze like a fly stuck in honey. He had some serious hoodwink power over me.

The smaller back surfaced again beside Lady. “So what is it?” I asked.

“That’s her calf.”

What?

I turned to look at him. I thought he had stopped breathing. Keith took a long stride and enveloped Braddock in his arms. Braddock seemed to be in shock.

“Lady has a calf,” he repeated, still looking straight at me. “Lady’s a mum.”

His voice cracked.

The second Zodiac must have heard him through the earpiece. A roar of cheering burst faintly across the water. Then everyone was yelling like madmen.

Through it all, Braddock kept staring at me.

I turned to look. The calf surfaced beside Lady. It stayed close against Lady’s side, disappearing when Lady disappeared and rising again only a moment after her.

When I glanced back at Braddock, his eyes shone bright with unshed tears. Then a tear slipped over his lower lid and tracked down his cheek. He slapped a hand over his mouth, but the raw emotions pouring out of him had me reeling.

Keith stepped away and went to hug the driver, who was whooping with joy.

There was beauty all around us, but all I could see was him. The wind pushed strands of wet hair across his face. I had never seen a more beautiful sight.

I reached for him and pulled his hand away from his mouth. His lips trembled and his gaze burned into me.

This annoying gnat of a fucking man was crying. Because his whale had become a mother. And she had brought her calf to show us that.

So I lowered my head and kissed him. This one wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment action born of adrenaline.

I kissed him because some things cannot be said in words or even understood through words. Some things are beyond all that. Some things can only be shown.

I couldn’t have stopped myself even if I had tried to. His eyes were saying things to me that went straight to my heart. And my heart was singing back to his just like these creatures of the ocean who sang to each other underwater.

Maybe I had gone mad. Maybe I was a fool to forget how he had cheated. But I didn’t care in that moment.

His lips parted in surprise beneath mine. For one heartbeat, he didn’t react, but then he grabbed me and pulled me impossibly close as his mouth crashed against me in a desperate hunger and need that swept me under. Our lips were cold and frozen, our faces wet, and there were a million layers between us, but none of that mattered.

Behind us, Keith made a strangled sound. I pulled back. The kiss lasted only a few seconds. Braddock’s gaze flicked past my shoulder to his friend. His cheeks flushed a gorgeous pink color.

Lady surfaced again with her calf beside her.

“Wanna tag her?” Keith asked.

“Absolutely. She must be lactating.” Braddock untangled from me, and in a heartbeat, he was back to being a whale scientist. “I want to study her tissue.”

And fuck my stupid heart, I really liked that.

10

Nate

Lady’s tissue filled the circular field beneath the microscope, stained cells suspended in shades of rose and violet against the illuminated glass. I adjusted the focus by a fraction, bringing the edges into sharper relief. The sample was clean, the tissue in good condition, and every preliminary indication supported what I had already observed from the Zodiac.

Lady was healthy.

I sat back and blinked.