The Water Took Me First but It Likes Him Better
Piper Hayes · Completed · 6.3k Words
Introduction
Out on the water, Sadie spots a small octopus drifting near the surface and decides she has to have it. The thing pulses with glowing blue rings.
I'm a certified expert diver. I know exactly what it is the second I see it. I try to stop her.
She bursts into tears and tells Beau I'm going after her.
So Beau, ever the hero where Sadie's concerned, jumps in himself and fishes the thing out.
Sadie plays with it. It bites her. She's on the deck before she even knows what hit her.
Beau grabs me, screaming at me to suck out the venom. I refuse. He calls me a cold, heartless bitch, and in the chaos, shoves me overboard into shark-infested water.
I die out there. Nothing left of me.
They use my phone to fake a suicide note. Depression, they say. Jumped on her own. Then they take my company, my assets, everything.
They post online hinting I tried to push Sadie in and slipped.
My parents, worn down by the online harassment and the grief of losing me, both die of heart attacks.
Then I open my eyes. And I'm back. The morning of the trip.
Chapter 1
Rowan's POV
Beau and I have been together for three years. I paid for the entire yacht charter out of my own pocket, and he shows up with his childhood best friend Sadie in tow, then goes around telling everyone it was his idea, his grand gesture.
Out on the water, Sadie spots a small octopus drifting near the surface and decides she has to have it. The thing pulses with glowing blue rings.
I'm a certified expert diver. I know exactly what it is the second I see it. I try to stop her.
She bursts into tears and tells Beau I'm going after her.
So Beau, ever the hero where Sadie's concerned, jumps in himself and fishes the thing out.
Sadie plays with it. It bites her. She's on the deck before she even knows what hit her.
Beau grabs me, screaming at me to suck out the venom. I refuse. He calls me a cold, heartless bitch, and in the chaos, shoves me overboard into shark-infested water.
I die out there. Nothing left of me.
They use my phone to fake a suicide note. Depression, they say. Jumped on her own. Then they take my company, my assets, everything.
They post online hinting I tried to push Sadie in and slipped.
My parents, worn down by the online harassment and the grief of losing me, both die of heart attacks.
Then I open my eyes. And I'm back. The morning of the trip.
"Rowan, oh my god, look at that little octopus — it has these blue rings and they're literally glowing! Beau, can you grab me a net? I want to catch it!"
That voice cuts straight through me, saccharine and grating all at once. A reminder that this is real. I actually came back.
In the glare of the sun, Sadie hangs over the yacht railing, pointing excitedly at the water. Behind her, Beau hands her a long-handled net, grinning like she just made his whole day.
Exactly the same as last time.
"Rowan? Hello? Sadie wants the octopus. You've got those cut-proof gloves, right? Go help her get it." Beau's already got that impatient edge in his voice.
I stare at his face. The face I spent a whole lifetime hating. I dig my nails into my palm and hold it there until the pain pulls me back to the present.
One second. That's all it takes to go from the girl who swallowed every insult just to keep the peace, to someone who crawled back from hell with nothing left to lose.
"That's a blue-ringed octopus." I take a step back, voice flat. "Tetrodotoxin. Twelve hundred times more toxic than cyanide. One octopus carries enough venom to kill twenty-six adults in minutes. There is no antidote. None."
Sadie's hand tightens around the net. Something flickers behind her eyes for just a second. Then it's gone, back to that same mix of contempt and wounded little girl act she always runs.
"Rowan, if you don't want to help, just say so. Why are you making stuff up to scare me?" She pouts and turns to Beau. "You see what she does? Every single time I want something, she pulls this. It's just a tiny octopus. I've literally seen them at the aquarium back home."
Beau's face pinches. "Rowan, seriously? Sadie's just trying to have a good time. If you don't want to help, fine, but quit trying to freak her out."
That almost makes me laugh.
Let go of the need to save people who won't be saved. If they're this dead set on walking into it, that's on them.
"Fine. Go ahead." I pull out my phone and hit record, pointing the camera straight at both of them. "I've told you what it is. You still want to touch it, that's your choice. I just want this on video so when something goes wrong, the Australian coast guard doesn't point the finger at me."
"What is your problem?" Beau's face goes tight.
Sadie sets her jaw and shoves the net into the water to prove a point.
"Just watch. Beau, when I get it up here, we're cooking it."
I watch her hang halfway over the railing, dragging the net around blindly below.
The octopus inks and disappears into the deep.
"It got away!" Sadie slams the net onto the deck and turns on me, her expression pure fury. "That's your fault. If you hadn't been standing here recording everything like some kind of freak, I would've had it. You literally ruin everything."
I pocket my phone without sparing her a glance and head for the helm.
"You missed it. Go back inside. Water's getting rough and I'm speeding up."
"Rowan, don't you walk away from me." Beau grabs my wrist. When I turn around, his jaw is tight, something ugly simmering just underneath. "What is going on with you today? Sadie is my guest. You owe her an apology. Right now."
I look down at his hand wrapped around my wrist.
That hand. The same one that shoved me into the water without a second thought.
I pull free. When I look up at him, my expression gives him nothing.
"You want me to apologize?"
Last Chapters
You Might Like 😍
Game of Destiny
When Finlay finds her, she is living among humans. He is smitten by the stubborn wolf that refuse to acknowledge his existence. She may not be his mate, but he wants her to be a part of his pack, latent wolf or not.
Amie cant resist the Alpha that comes into her life and drags her back into pack life. Not only does she find herself happier than she has been in a long time, her wolf finally comes to her. Finlay isn't her mate, but he becomes her best friend. Together with the other top wolves in the pack, they work to create the best and strongest pack.
When it's time for the pack games, the event that decides the packs rank for the coming ten year, Amie needs to face her old pack. When she sees the man that rejected her for the first time in ten years, everything she thought she knew is turned around. Amie and Finlay need to adapt to the new reality and find a way forward for their pack. But will the curve ball split them apart?
The Unwritten Princess
My name is Mia, and everything I touch is dying.
The flowers beneath my mother's window turned black overnight. The herbs I gathered at dawn rotted in my hands. When the court wizard finally told me the truth—that someone cursed me, that my presence would kill everyone I love—I realized the prophecy everyone believed was never meant to save the kingdom. It was meant to destroy me.
So I ran. Not to fulfill some destiny, but to survive it.
Now I'm traveling with a hunter who lost his companions to the same curse I carry, chasing fragments of a prophecy the Fae sing differently. An elf took a baby from the palace the night I was born. And somewhere between the lies I've been told and the truth I'm hunting, I'm starting to suspect: What if I'm not the princess from the prophecy at all?
The Alpha Who Hated Me
"Why isn't it working?" he demands.
"Because it's real," I whisper. "Whether you want it or not."
"Then I'll make it clear another way," he says.
He turns to address the entire cafeteria. His voice carries to every corner of the room.
"Let me be perfectly clear," he announces. "She's not my mate. She's not my anything. She's just a sad little girl who needs to learn her place."
The silence that follows is deafening. Hundreds of students stare at me with pity. With disgust. With relief that they're not in my position.
I sit there shaking. My wolf curls up in a corner of my mind and whimpers.
But he's not our mate anymore. He made that clear.
He's nothing to me.
She came to survive. He was born to rule. Fate made them mates. And that’s where the nightmare began.
Evangeline has spent her whole life on the edge, unwanted, unclaimed, and surviving in the shadows of Crescent Moon Pack. A omega by blood and an outcast by choice, she’s learned to keep her head down and her scars hidden. But when her dying uncle asks her to enroll at Blackclaw Academy, a school built on bloodlines, brutality, and unforgiving rules..... she agrees. For him, not for herself.
She expected whispers. Glares. Even cruelty.
What she didn’t expect was Ronan Nightbane.
Glimmerdrop: The Crownwake Series
"This is your last chance to push me away."
At the fiercely hierarchical Haldorian Academy, magic-less commoner Hettie just wants to remain invisible. But Zadok, the academy's most untouchable elite, backs her into a corner she can't escape.
His fatal obsession sparks ruthless revenge: Dana, a high-tier wind mystic, turns paper into deadly blades during combat class, nearly blinding and disfiguring Hettie in a bloody attack .
The massive class divide and brutal bullying force Hettie to draw a line, demanding their romance be kept strictly underground .
That forever unattainable golden boy pinned her against the tree trunk, his scalding and aggressive kiss accompanied by a hopeless surrender: "You're going to be my doom ."
Worse still, Hettie discovers her parents’ dark secrets are dragging her into a deadly conspiracy of betrayal . Survival clashes with forbidden desire. In this deadly, cross-class temptation, whoever gives in first is doomed!
COLD (Ruthless Player)
“Please… Nick, wait.” He pulled out, thrusted back in. “How much? Twenty thousand? Fifty? Hundred?” With every question, he thrust harder and harder. My neurons are frying with the confusing feeling in my brain. Torn between pleasure, fear, and panic. I couldn't utter a single sentence to save my life.
His cold eyes pinned me in place while he plundered my body with deep thrusts, which only added to my confusion. My dumb body mistook the mixed signals, my pussy becoming even wetter than before.
“I hope she'd paid you well, because I'm going to fuck you all night long, hard,” he growled. “Sleep, then do it all over again. I want to feel you come for me, Andrea, want to feel you squeeze my cock, milking me.
Begging for me to give you the high only I can, I'm going to fucked you until I fuck all my wife's money's worth, I want you to remember how hard I took you while you're meeting her.” I sobbed, moaned, and tried to scramble out under him.
“No, please…Nick, let….let me explain.” Nick abruptly pulled out. His eyes were cold but hooded.
Andrea was sent to take down billionaire magnate Nicklaus Montgomery.
Her mission was simple: get close, seduce him, find the proof, and disappear. Instead Andrea finds herself exposed—cornered into signing a contract that binds her to Nicklaus's side as his lover. Now she’s living in his world of wealth, danger, and secrets… and the deeper she falls into his bed, the harder it becomes to remember what side she's on.
Omega Bound
Thane Knight is the alpha of the Midnight Pack of the La Plata Mountain Range, the largest wolf shifter pack in the world. He is an alpha by day and hunts the shifter trafficking ring with his group of mercenaries by night. His hunt for vengeance leads to one raid that changes his life.
Tropes:
Touch her and die/Slow burn romance/Fated Mates/Found family twist/Close circle betrayal/Cinnamon roll for only her/Traumatized heroine/Rare wolf/Hidden powers/Knotting/Nesting/Heats/Luna/Attempted assassination
Alpha Of Glass And Gold
Four years later, Levi Kingston, the ruthless Alpha who traded his pack for power and built an empire in glass and gold, returns with a proposition that reopens every wound she buried.
A ninety-day marriage contract.
His terms: protect her twins from the enemies his rise created.
Her condition: never fall for him again.
She’s human, or at least that’s what she tells the world. He’s the heir to the city’s hidden packs, a man forged in dominance and secrets. Between them lies a history of rejection, desire, and a bond that refused to die even when they did.
In a world where loyalty is currency and love is leverage, Aurora must decide whether to guard her heart or the truth that could bring Levi Kingston’s entire empire to its knees. proposition that reopens every wound she buried.
Alpha, Billionaire, Strong FL, Fated Mates, Rejected Mates, Secret babies, Twins, A Marriage of Convenience,
Bound by the Dragon Mafia
The head chef looked like he was silently praying for death.
I rushed forward. “Amara. Stop traumatizing these poor people.”
She spun around, delighted. “Sera! Good, you’re here. Taste this. It’s missing despair.”
The chef’s face morphed into existential crisis.
I grabbed her arm. “Put the spatula down.”
“But—”
“Down.”
With exaggerated offense, she dropped the spatula and muttered, “Fine. But if no one here has artistic vision, that’s not my fault.”
She went undercover to expose a mafia empire.
He offered her thirty nights to save her life.
When investigative journalist Seraphine Vale steps into the glittering underworld ruled by billionaire crime lord Dante Vescari, she thinks she’s chasing a story about missing women and corruption.
Instead, she uncovers a secret older than blood—an empire built on fire, sin, and dragons.
Bound to Dante by a forbidden pact, Seraphine finds herself caught between fear and desire, truth and temptation.
Each night pulls her deeper into his world of power, passion, and danger…
and closer to the monster hiding beneath his perfect skin.
Thirty nights. One bond.
And a love that might just burn the world to ash.
A pack of their own
The Hockey Alpha's Fake Girlfriend
Then there’s Rafael. Dark. Untouchable. The boy everyone talks about but no one really knows. He should be the last person Vivienne gets close to, yet she can’t look away. He pulls her in with a kind of danger that feels both terrifying and safe, like he sees the parts of her no one else can.
But Rafael carries secrets—secrets that could destroy them both. And the closer Vivienne gets, the harder it is to tell if he’s her way out… or the reason she never escapes.
Taming The Hot Billionaire
Eva loses all hope when Alexander announces his engagement to the daughter of a business mogul. For four years, she concentrates on her studies and career, avoiding Alexander at all costs. With his parents hating her with a vengeance, it isn’t a difficult task at all.
So, what will Eva do when Alexander breaks his engagement after four years? What will she do when she needs to live with her best friend in the same building as him? Can she deal with the whirlwind of feelings that seeing Alexander every day unleashes within her? What happens when hidden secrets about her family are unearthed? Will Eva realize why his family is against her? Will she lose hope in Alexander forever?
Read this unique and epic romance to know how Eva tames the possessive, dominant, overprotective, hot, and jealous billionaire with her sweetness.
The Alpha's Stripper Mate
"What?" It was out of my mouth before I could stop it. I did not wait for him to answer me, I walked toward him.
"Dance on my lap."
My head screamed at me to turn around and run. But my whole body responded to his command.
"Yes, Alpha," I pulled my dress over my body, it dropped over my head and fell to the ground behind me. I was left in nothing but my matching bra and thong. My hands covered my chest on reflex.
"Let me see."
My hands dropped to my sides.
I lowered myself into his lap, facing him. His eyes peered into mine, and I could feel his hot breath fan my face. His dick responded to all my moves, hardening against my now-moist vagina. I swallowed hard, allowing my lips to part in a ragged breath. His hands trailed up to my waist.
"No touching."
At the tender age of eleven, JoJo Wyatt was forced to grow up far sooner than she should have. Born to a cruel father and a weak mother, she quickly realized she had to become the breadwinner for herself and her sister. Nothing else mattered to her, not even the hottest men. In fact, she despised them. After one horrific night, she swore never to have any contact with the male species again. That was, until she started working for him as his stripper.
Meanwhile, Alpha Lake Rush, thirty, was the most feared Alpha in the country. Burdened by his own share of life's struggles, he had learned only to be cruel and reckless, rejecting not one but two mates. But what happens when he discovers yet another mate, and she turns out to be his stripper?
