Page 33 of Until You Found Me

She doesn’t want to tear her attention away from the water,but she follows his instructions to release the second panel into the air where it catches a gust and propels them forward at twice their speed. Rushing back, they leaned over the rail at the bow, watching the dolphins approach the boat.

Tessa gasps when the first one pops up beside them, and she reaches out to grab Logan’s forearm. Her hand lingers warm and light, heating his skin.

Dolphins like to play. They’re toddlers at heart and enjoy pretending to fall behind before surging ahead and jumping out of the water in victory, only to start all over again. He’s seen it a hundred times and so instead of watching them, he watches her, though he has a feeling his attention would stray in her direction even if he’d never seen a dolphin in his life. He soaks in her childlike wonder, the way the sun glints off those freckles he has to strain to see, and how good she looks when her worries melt away. There’s a flash of pride in his heart that he was able to prompt this moment of joy for her after knowing how much she’s struggled.

When she turns that beaming expression toward him he’s never felt more special. “This is the surprise? You knew they’d be here?”

He nods. “I hoped they would so you could see them.”

“I don’t know how you always make me smile when I think I can’t.”

The boat dips with the waves and he steadies her before she can stumble with both hands on her waist. It’s a gesture he doesn’t notice is dangerous until the warmth of her seeps into his palms. He should pull away, but his body won’t cooperate and she hasn’t moved yet either. She leans into him, bracing on his chest, and for the first time in what feels like forever, he isn’t thinking of a way to escape contact, only how to stayright here as long as he can.

‘What’s the worst that can happen if I go for it?’He asks himself, like the worst outcome wouldn’t shatter his slim shred of confidence along with his heart.

He wants to kiss her. Wants it so badly that it shocks him when he’s rarely kissed anyone unless he was shit-faced drunk. Always assumed he had to be to want that at all. The only thing he’s drunk on now is the sight of her. In a split second, completely rash decision, he leans forward a beat, feeling her fingers curl into his shirt as if to pull him closer, and then the dog barks at the dolphins, startling them both.

He steps away, regretting that he wasn’t quicker, but grateful that he didn’t make an irreversible mistake. Her look of disappointment peeks through the cover of amusement at the dog and makes him question everything all over again.

“We should head back.” Logan clears his throat and turns away, steering the boat toward the bay and leaving the dolphins behind.

It’s better this way. The dog saved them both from something they can’t come back from. Whatever he thinks is happening here between them is only in his own head. Even if it wasn’t, it would only be cruel to take advantage of her when she isn’t herself.

This version of her may like him, but the real Tessa might not.

Chapter 8

Tessa’s had trouble sleeping since she woke up in the ground, but tonight she tosses and turns for unfamiliar reasons.

She can’t stop thinking about Logan.

She’s replayed that moment on the boat a hundred times, wondering if it’s delusional to assume he was about to kiss her. Her memory loss has left her without a frame of reference for so many important things. Her understanding of how men show interest is vague at best. It’s available to her in faded, sparse images. None of it comes from experience anymore, if it ever had.

Her certainty had never been stronger than in those tentative moments as he leaned in, but instinct can only supply so much. Now she doubts if her read on the situation was accurate at all. He’d been flustered after the dog startled them and could barely look at her, so it seems her regrets are far more delayed than his.

All she knows is that their lack of follow-through hit harder than she expected it might. The ride home was uncomfortably quiet, and he bid her a quick goodnight before speeding off across the field, leaving her to wonder if she’d done something wrong. Is he upset at her or himself? Maybe both.

Her mind is a tangled mess keeping her awake, tossing andturning in bed. She can’t stop imagining how he might have felt if their lips touched. If he would be sweet and slow, or hungry and rough. Fantasies take over tonight, and they’re a welcome, pointless break from the routine of nightmares.

Logan would kiss her like he does everything else, with a mixture of shy hesitation and rough edges, and fuck, she wants to know how that feels.

Her hand slips beneath the covers to rest on her lower belly. Desire has her heated and restless, a tingle already teasing between her legs. It occurs to her then that she has no memory of a single orgasm. She must have had them alone with the assistance of double A batteries at the very least. The man who tried to kill her never made her come. She doesn’t need her past intact to know that much. Was there someone else before him? Or did she only know pain from touch instead of pleasure?

Suddenly, all that matters is giving herself a brand new memory featuring Logan in the starring role.

Venturing into the unknown brings a rush of excitement that pushes away the sadness at not knowing her own body. She slides her hand beneath her underwear to settle where a gentle throb caresses her fingertips. Curiosity has her straying from her ultimate goal to follow each dip and valley on a detour to learn herself that doesn’t have much to do with arousal.

She traces the moisture at her entrance and carefully slips a finger inside, her nose wrinkling in discomfort until her own wetness allows her to curl that digit with an easy slide.

There’s something forbidden and frightening about this exploration. Her heart thumps in her chest and her free hand shivers the slightest bit until she grips the blanket. Herknuckles graze a raised line on her inner thigh and she startles, sitting up straight like she discovered a bomb. Flips the covers off and opens her legs, letting moonlight from the windows illuminate a deep scar running parallel along the panty line, so close to so many important veins.

Tessa hadn’t touched herself like this in the shower at the clinic and never noticed the scar until now. Rage flows through her at what a past version of herself had to endure. She’s angry at the man who did this, and at herself for allowing it, no matter how misguided that may be. It couldn’t have been her fault and yet rational thoughts have no place here tonight.

She falls back against the pillow with a disgusted huff. This can’t be all she knows. It can’t be who she is anymore.

With a renewed sense of determination, she decides to come tonight while thinking of Logan. She’ll try until she’s chaffed if she has to. Thankfully, it isn’t all that difficult to find arousal again when she allows her mind to drift back to their time on the boat.

The flutter of his fingers at her waist…his slow cat-like blink as he stared at her lips…the firmness of his chest where she gripped his shirt…

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