Page 64 of Ruining His Smirk

I moved without thinking. As Nate turned farther away, I caught his wrist and pulled his hand across the narrow space between us, pressing his palm flat against the center of my chest.

Nate flinched, but I held his hand against the pounding beneath my…hissweater.

“You feel that?” I asked. “My heart’s trying to beat clean out of my chest. Somehow, I screwed this up, and I’m gonna make it right. But don’t shut me out, Nate.”

His eyes stayed on mine.

The submersible continued its slow descent beside the ship. Blue-green light filtered through the water and curved acrylic, sliding over Nate’s face in moving bands. It caught in his pale green eyes and transformed them into something almost unreal, bright and clear against the deepening color around us.

He was so beautiful.

The thought moved through me with enough force to make everything inside my chest tighten around it. Not merely his face, though God knew that was enough. It was the fury he had shown me, the hurt beneath it, the stubborn dignity with which he had refused to let me diminish him. Every part of him struck me at once, and I had no defense left against any of it.

My voice came out softer. “I wouldn’t know how to get back in if you did. I’ve been wrong about some things. Got things in my head and treated them like they were facts.”

We sank farther.

The ship’s hull remained close beside us, a bright red wall through the acrylic, but the surface light above had already begun to lose its strength. Dark shadows moved over Nate’s skin.

His gaze dropped to where his hand rested against my chest. There was no chance he could miss what he felt beneath his palm. My heart hammered so violently that each beat seemed to strike against his hand.

I had never been this nervous in my life.

I had faced men twice as mean as they were smart. I had worked in weather that could kill a person before he finished making one bad decision. I had climbed, welded, cut, repaired, and handled machinery powerful enough to tear a man apart if he lost focus for half a second.

None of it had ever left me this scared shitless. I did not want whatever existed between us to end here, twisted beyond repair before I had even understood what it was. The need for Nate to give me another chance rose inside me with a force that left me reeling.

I wanted him to keep looking at me the way he had over the past few days. I wanted the shy smiles. The warmth beneath his teasing. The softness in his eyes when he forgot we were supposed to be enemies. I had not understood how much those things meant until they disappeared.

“Please,” I repeated.

His expression shifted by degrees as he looked at me, one emotion after another moving across his face. Anger was still there, but it no longer stood alone. Surprise broke through first, then uncertainty, then something softer. He was thinking. That had to be a good sign.

The silence settled between us, but it no longer felt empty. It felt suspended, as though everything depended upon what Nate chose to do next.

A burst of static cracked through the cabin.

Nate startled and instinctively began to pull his hand away so he could reach the communication panel. I tightened my grip around his wrist.

I brought my other hand over his, holding his palm firmly against my chest between both of mine. I shook my head like a stubborn boy. “I’m not letting you go.”

The tension around his mouth eased. The anger in his eyes loosened. He stared at me for another second before twistingcarefully in the narrow seat and reaching for the microphone with his free hand.

“Submersible to bridge.”

“We didn’t receive your scheduled check-in. Confirm status,” the communications officer said through the speaker.

He checked the readouts beside him, his eyes moving quickly over the panel. “Apologies. Passing twenty-five meters. Internal pressure stable, life support normal, descent rate steady.”

“Copy. Continue descent.”

Nate left the microphone open.

“Thirty meters,” he reported after a few moments. “All systems remain nominal.”

His voice was composed again, precise and professional, but his gaze returned to me between every check of the instruments.

The light continued to fade.