All Chapters of Hearts at the Helm:A Billionaire's Gamble on Love: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Jonah awoke with the dawn. The gentle, rolling motion of the yacht was a cradle. The air in his cabin was cool and had the fresh, salt-tanged breath of the open sea. The weighty burden of the city—its noise, its drive, its endless problems—was shed. It was a shedding, a peeling off of skin.He pulled on trousers and a pullover and went barefoot out onto the deck. The world was bathed in pinks and silvers. The sky was a huge lightening dome, and the sea was a rolling plain of liquid mercury, stretching out to every horizon with no break. There was no land, no other ship, no sight of human life anywhere. It was the loneliness he'd ever felt. And freedom.He walked out to the bow, leaning on the rail. The wind, crisp and cold, tore at his hair and sweater. There was no sound but the muffled sigh of the yacht cutting the water and the screech of an isolated gull riding the air currents. He sensed a wideness that was close to fright. Here, the rules were otherwise. The roles they played—th

The perfect, star-filled calm of the evening started to curdle. It was subtle at first. A change in air pressure, a faint metallic gloss that undermined the crisp salt smell. The gentle, soothing rocking of the yacht developed a new, heavy weight.Jonah had felt it in his bones long before he realized it consciously. The charged tension between him and Clarkson, so palpable over dinner, now was being reflected, amplified, by the air itself.Clarkson saw it too. Gone was that naked, uncensored glint in his eyes, hidden behind a sudden, tightly-held watchfulness. The world-wise man vanished; the captain reappeared. He stiffened, head cocked to one side as he heard something Jonah couldn't yet hear."Breeze in their back," Clarkson muttered to himself, half whispering. He walked over to a shiny panel mounted in the bulkhead and pressed a button. A soft chime echoed somewhere in the yacht. A second passed before the captain's voice, calm and professional, echoed out of a hidden speaker."

The storm rage had spent itself, leaving behind a world rinsed clean and unaccountably silent. The only sounds were the gentle, rhythmic hiss of the waves against the Sea Helm's hull and the distant, dwindling rumble of thunder—a fleeing monster with its injuries. The emergency lights created a warm, amber light over the desolation of the main salon, bathing the destruction in a queerly intimate glow. Puddles of sea water and spilled liquor reflected on the sloping floor, and ozone's pungent, clean scent and the wet, organic smell of the sea filled the air.They sat in the middle of it all on the floor, surrounded by the devastation of the storm and the shattered remnants of what had been their enclosures. Jonah knelt, knees drawn up. Clarkson was half-supported against him, his body twisted to put the weight from his bruised back, his head pressing into Jonah's shoulder. The raw adrenaline of the rescue, the sheer revelation, the sealing kiss—all of it had washed away, replaced by a

The captain had insisted Clarkson be inspected. The yacht's medic, a starched, no-nonsense woman named Dr. Evans, had been summoned to the master stateroom. Jonah stood in the salon, the crew already busily engaged in the precise task of imposing order on the wreckage. The sound of broken glass and the soft hum of conversation seemed almost an insult to the sacred silence just breached.He couldn't stay there. The memories were too vivid, too discordant. He walked back to his cabin, the building somehow familiar but utterly alien. He bathed, the scalding water burning the tiny cuts on his palms and washing away the salt and perspiration of the night. He dressed in clean clothes, his movements automatic, his mind far away.He went on to view it. The unadulterated fear in Clarkson's eyes. The precipitous plunge. The way his body had dangled limp against him, the weight of his beliefs heavier than any worldly weight.A soft rap on his door. It was the steward from dinner. "Mr. Clarkson w

The storm broke like a fever. The shrieking, riotous winds expired in a mournful sigh. The great waves fell into a rolling, ponderous swell. The Sea Helm, damaged, righted herself with a final groaning shudder, riding the after-waves with a weary grace.In the sudden, relative quiet, the only sounds were the drip of water, the rent orchestra of their own breathing, and the feral drumbeat of Jonah's heart in his chest. He was still pinned against the sofa, Clarkson's body a warm, heavy presence on top of him, their legs entwined.Neither of them moved.The adrenaline which had pumped through Jonah's system began to recede, and in its place was a profound, bone-deep trembling. But it was not chemical recoil alone. It was the aftershock of the look which had leapt between them, of the insane, life-risking leap, of the way Clarkson was now holding onto him as if he were the only solid thing left in the world.Slowly, cautiously, Clarkson pushed himself up on his arms, his body still cover