CHAPTER TWO:
Vanessa told herself she would look away. Just finish her drink, pay the barkeep, and leave. But the truth was she couldn't.
Something about Zack's presence kept her there, caught like a ship in a current she hadn't seen coming.
He didn't come to her right away. Instead, he lingered with his crew, laughing, clapping shoulders, drinking in the taste of land after months at sea. Yet every few minutes, the gaze drifted back to her, deliberate, unhurried as if he was giving her time to get used to being watched.
By the time he finally crossed the tavern, Vanessa's glass was nearly empty, her pulse thrumming like the tide against rocks.
"You don't belong in a place like this," he said, voice low and roughened by salt air.
"And where exactly do I belong?" she asked, raising her chin. She wasn't about to let him think she could be read so easily.
He smiled slowly and dangerously, "anywhere you want. The world would move out of your way if you told it to."
Vanessa laughed softly, surprised at how the sound trembled out of her. "That's quite the line."
"I don't do lines," Zack replied, leaning just close enough for her to catch the scent of sea and smoke clinging to him. "I tell the truth."
Their conversation should have been awkward, but it wasn't. It moved like fire, quick, hungry, inevitable. She told him about her work designing a ship, the way the sea always called to her. He told her about storms and sails, about the way the horizon never stopped tempting him to chase further.
And somewhere between the second drink and the way his hand brushed hers on the counter, the air shifted. What began as a conversation became raw, magnetic, and impossible to ignore.
When he finally asked, "Do you want to leave?" Vanessa didn't hesitate.
The walk back to her apartment was a blur of laughter and heat. By the time the door closed behind them, words had become useless. Their kiss was fierce, like waves colliding against cliffs, messy, desperate, and utterly consuming.
Clothes fell away, not out of calculation but out of urgency. Every touch burned every breath Tangled. It wasn't gentle; it was needed, pure and unfiltered. Vanessa had never known a man who could ignite her so quickly, who could make her forget her carefully built composure.
That night was supposed to be only that, a one-night surrender to something bigger than both of them. A storm neither could resist.
But when the dawn spilled light across the sheet and she woke with Zack's arm heavy around her waist, she realized the storm hadn't passed. It had only begun.