Through the window on the kitchen door I watched Rene as she worked on a huge pile of vegetables. She had impressive skill. My mind couldn't help but take those skilled hands elsewhere—to my body. Would they be work-roughened? Would they be strong or gentle?
Shake it off, Dylan. It's a new day, I reminded myself. Donning what I hoped was a sunny and completely non-threatening smile; I pushed through the swinging door.
"Good morning, Rene." The knife slipped from her hand and landed with a jarring clang at her feet.
"Oh . . . you surprised me. Good morning to you."
"I guess I need to announce myself better. I seem to constantly catch you off guard. I wouldn't want to cause an accident."
"I can make you something to eat. I fed the crew a long time ago."
"I slept in."
"Late night?"
"The usual."
"Did you get lucky?"
I answered that with a questioning look. Was she asking me if I got laid?
"I mean," she stammered, "did you score big? No. Oh, um. Did you win at gambling?"
"You turn the most amazing shade of red I've ever seen on a person, did you know that?"
"It's because I'm so pale to begin with." She picked the knife up from the floor and got a new one from the rack.
"A little color does you good. You're cute when you blush." Rene busied herself with a couple of peppers that were nearly the color of her face. "Am I allowed to say that? Cute, I mean. Is that a violation of our agreement—sexual harassment and all that?"
The look she gave me said 'not funny' loud and clear.
"Because, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure what the rules are." I had just warned myself not to pressure her and I was doing exactly that. Thick headed much?
"Give me a break, will ya?" Rene asked and wouldn't meet my eyes. The peppers that she had been chopping without even looking at them moments before suddenly became worthy of her total focus.
"Seriously. I want to know if telling you that you're cute falls into the 'smexy whorehound' category. I don't want to risk offending you."
"You didn't offend me."
"Funny, you sound like you'd like to use that knife to carve me up right now. Of course, at this point in our journey, it would be hard for you to walk away. Unless you are a Guinness record-worthy swimmer . . ."
"I can hold my own in the water. I grew up in Florida, you know."
"In that case, can I talk you into a swim after you get done with lunch?"
"I really don't think I'll have time to swim."
"Bull. It can't possibly take you all afternoon to do dinner."
"Yes, it can."
"Well then, I request a bowl of granola and some yogurt for my dinner. That should shave some time off your prep work."
"The crew . . ."
"Will be satisfied with poison sandwiches for lunch and something equally appalling for dinner."
"I was making fajitas. Grass fed beef, organic veggies, whole wheat tacos. Everything wholesome."
"And I can see you're already done chopping most of what you'll need. I'll have my granola for lunch, then and see you on deck at two. I'll bring the sunscreen." I expected more arguments but she calmly put the knife down and fetched a bowl, a bag of raisin-nut granola and a carton of Greek yogurt from the walk-in.
She poured the bowl full and dumped the yogurt on top. Without a word she went out to the dining table and plopped the bowl at my place at the head of the table. She banged a spoon down beside the mess in the bowl.
"Would you care for some juice? Or maybe something for the monkey?"
Lady D. had been so silent and still on my shoulder I had forgotten that she was even there. When she heard the word 'monkey' she beamed her monkey charm at Rene and I saw my pretty chef stifle a grin.
"You don't have to take it out on Lady D, you know."
"Take what out?"
"Your distaste for me. She's just a monkey. She hasn't got a dime to her name and it isn't her fault I've spoiled her. Cut her some slack."
"I wasn't taking anything out on her."
"She thinks you don't like her."
"How do you know what she thinks?"
"We're buddies. I can tell by how quiet she is that you've hurt her feelings."
"You're lying. I haven't hurt her feelings. She just smiled at me."
"She smiles when she's nervous." I stroked the soft fur on her back sympathetically. Of course I was making it all up, but I had seen Rene's soft spot for the mini-simian the day before. I was ready to use whatever I could to break the ice. And, man, there was a chill in that room.
Rene put out a timid hand toward my shoulder and touched Lady D.’s fuzzy head. "Awww, I'm sorry Lady D." My little girlfriend jumped from my shoulder to Rene's in a split second.
"Is there a treat I can give her?"
"She'd sell her soul for a vanilla wafer."
"Will she go to the kitchen with me?"
"Lady D. is a sugar glutton. I'm sure she'd turn me in to the ASPCA for cruelty if I stopped her daily ration of gummi bears."
Rene turned a moonbeam smile at the animal. By the end of the day, by god, I was going to win one of those for myself. There was sugar under all her salt and the more I saw of her, the more I wanted to know that sweetness.
I wasn’t going to push it and I wasn’t going to beg, but dammit her lips belonged on mine. I couldn't forget the taste of her mouth.
Chapter 13—Rene
I was being cold. Downright bitchy, really. He made me nervous. No, that's a lie. He terrified me because of the way I felt when I was near him. Every fiber of me strained to connect and intertwine with him and every brain cell in my head screamed: Don't DO IT! There was a war going on inside me. When he was near me, I wanted the animal, the wild throw-caution-to-the-wind side to win. When he was out of sight, the rational me fought back, inch by inch.
I tried to put him in the Narcissistic Chef box; the box where I kept my mistakes. He could go right in there with the chef and Nathan. I had another place for poor Jake. He was the only occupant of my not terrible mistake box.
But the fantasies wouldn't leave me alone. Even though I hadn’t had a guy in quite some time I took care of myself. Of course I did. I'd lived over a porn shop for two years. They had more instruments to make private parts sing that I had ever known existed. Plus, the owners loved us. We got most of our toys as gifts. It was a bonus for them that two young women paraded up and down the side stairs of their store. Worth a few hundred bucks in freebies just to give the customers some eye candy. Not that I considered myself such. But Hannah, for sure. Me . . . I was young and slim. Maybe that was enough to make the single bucks think the place was all that.
But with a man? Never. Not once. I don't even think I came close. Maybe I was one of those women who had to be in love to experience orgasm with a man. I wouldn't know until either I'd had casual sex that rocked my world or fell in love and had sex that rocked my world.
Was I curious? Damn right I was. I didn't want to enter my thirties without experiencing what it felt like to crash into someone in that mighty moment of pleasure and release. I wasn't setting any particular emotion as a pre-requisite, either. Lust would do as long as it eventually resulted in me coming in a mind-blowing flash of the little death.
I sighed out loud and Lady D. gave a sympathetic little cluck in my ear. I found the vanilla wafers and her interest turned instantly from me to the unopened box. She started clucking and squealing as I walked through the kitchen and got the scissors. The second I gave her the cookie she jumped up on one of the pot racks and started to eat it.
"You've got quite the life, don't you? You're a spoiled little girl that's for damn sure." I could tell that until the last crumb was gone I was getting no more of her attention so I put all my prep work away and sat down on one of the stools to wait for her descent. Dylan was right; I had little to do other than putter around wasting time all afternoon.
I entertained Lady D. with so
me measuring spoons and decided I would try to enjoy an afternoon swim on deck with my incredibly edible boss. That's the way I thought of him. Starting with the warm mouth that just asked to be nipped and pulled into my mouth, past the hook tattoo on his delectable chest, down the trail fur to what lay beneath. The imagined deliciousness of all his parts was unreal.
"Uhmm, uhmm," I said out loud at the mental image. I dangled the spoons in front of the monkey's grasping hands. "Did you get to have wild monkey sex before they took your wild monkey parts, Lady D? I'd like to try that sometime."
"Did you have anyone particular in mind?" Dylan asked.
He had once again padded into the kitchen on those weirdly sexy bare feet. So many men have such ugly feet. His could have been on a Reef ad for high dollar flip-flops. I realized I had developed a habit of mocking up advertisements featuring Dylan. Maybe I'd do a collage someday. "You know, you've got a terrible habit of sneaking up on me. I wasn't talking to you." How embarrassing. I had to hand it to Dylan, he'd given me more reasons to want to crawl under the nearest rock than anyone I'd ever met, including Chef Asshole.
"Lady D. never had the pleasure. She was spayed before she had the chance, poor thing."
"It might be a blessing for her."
"I feel sorry for her. She's got no one of her own kind to play with."
"Can't you get her a friend?"
"Too late for that, I'm afraid. So, what about it? Who's going to join you for this simian sexcapade?"
"I was just babbling." I hoped it sounded casual enough to be convincing. I very much had someone in mind. Him. "I haven't had a lot of experience entertaining a monkey."
"But you do it so well." He tapped his shoulder and Lady D. jumped up to her perch.
"Thanks. I guess."
"See you on the foredeck at two." And he was gone.
***
The sun started to move behind us as we headed east. By the time I got up to the pool deck, there was a sliver of shade for me to hide my pale body in. My bikini was nearly brand new. I hadn't had many chances to use it since I bought it over a year before.
Dylan was already in the pool. He was sitting on one of the underwater ledges, long legs extended way into the center of the small pool. To my utter horror, he had ditched the board shorts and wore a European style bikini. In South Florida only gay men and foreign tourists appeared in public in one of those things. 'Course it wasn't South Florida. Maybe being so far out to sea qualified him as a foreign tourist anyway. I tried not to look at the pouch under the water. I think the reason most women can't take Speedos is that it's impossible not to look.
He watched me wordlessly as I positioned a deck chair under in the only available shadow.
My bathing suit is pretty modest compared to many, but I was so conscious of the state of my body that I felt more naked than not; being with him and all his flesh seemed way more intimate than innocent.
I pulled a tube of sunscreen out of the bag I'd brought with me and started rubbing it on my legs.
"You'll have to tell me what kind of stuff you're using there. It has to be pretty potent to keep you that white."
I laughed. "I haven't been to the beach during the day time for more than a year."
"But the cream is new, right?"
"Uh, no. I can't remember when I bought it. Couple years ago."
Dylan quickly got out of the water and picked up a big bottle from the poolside table. "You're going to fry like a piece of baitfish in the sun, then. Sunscreen has a short shelf life."
"I didn't know that," I said as I put up my hand to take the bottle.
He moved it away from my reach. "Uh-uh. My sunscreen. I get to put it on you."
I rolled my eyes at him.
"Oh, please. Lighten up, would ya? It's just some suntan lotion."
But it's in your hands, I thought as I reluctantly rolled onto my stomach. At least I wouldn't have to look at his incredible face for most of the process.
He nudged me over to make room to sit on the edge of my lounge chair. His hip rested against mine. Every time he had been close enough to touch me I felt like a compass and every direction was his mark. I didn't know this territory. It didn't feel or look like anything I'd ever experienced before.
I heard him rub his hands together briefly and then they were on my back. He slid his palms over the small of my back, spreading the sunscreen out in both directions from my spine. Gentle fingers massaged the cream into my skin.
"This stuff is amazing," he told me casually. Evidently he couldn't see that my very cells were melting under his touch, torched with the atomic blast of his attention. "You'll never burn with this, but eventually, you'll tan a little bit. Just a little healthy bit."
I turned toward the knee resting at one side of my head. Time to say something—anything—nonchalant. "You've sure got a healthy tan."
"Yeah," he agreed as he began the top half of my back, "it makes me feel good. I spent a lot of years looking as ghostly as you do. But not by choice."
"Were you in prison?" I wanted to make a joke, even a lame one. His hands were doing things to me. I was ready to roll over, jerk that sorry excuse for a bathing suit off his body and have him just the way my overheated brain wanted him..
"You could say that." The tone of his answer cooled me down a few degrees. He'd said something important. He'd said it into my back and I couldn't see his eyes, but I knew all the same that there was a clue there. I rolled over and looked at him.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning I was pretty much locked up for a lot of my childhood. It's a long and complicated story."
"I've got a lot of time on my hands right now." He avoided my gaze and went to work on my legs.
"Maybe another time."
Curiosity was eating me alive but I kept quiet. There are times to push and times to back off. I didn’t always know the differences but this time, thankfully, I did.
He worked the lotion into my thighs. The sun had to be getting jealous of the radiation coming from me. I shifted up to my elbows and watched him linger just a few more seconds on the sensitive flesh of my upper thighs. Then his hands moved down the length of my legs, carefully covering every inch of each one.
"You get a double dose of rays when you're out at sea. The water reflects them back at you so it's really important to protect every little bit."
He took my left foot in his slippery hands and started to massage it with his slick hands. Oh God, I thought, not the feet. My feet have always been one of my secret erogenous zones. Not that any man had ever known that. I just knew how good it felt when a good beautician gave me a real foot massage. Connected to a pair of hot male hands, the tootsies nearly made me come unglued. A small groan of pleasure escaped, I couldn't hold it back.
"Sensitive feet?"
I gave him a mute and sheepish nod.
"Mine are too." Then he smiled at me, all impish and child-like, as if he'd made a great secret confession. It made me laugh out loud and move a little bit closer to jumping off the edge. Abruptly he slid off of the chaise and into the water. When he surfaced he turned toward me, arms over the edge of the pool. "Sorry, I had to get in. I was . . . overheating."
If that was code for getting a hard-on I didn't want to know. I was losing the logic war fast. The battle could have easily been won at the toes.
Chapter 14—Dylan
I had to get in the water fast. It needed to be a lot colder than it was to do the job, though. I leaned up against the side and kept my promise to myself. I was not going to pressure her. I was not going to push. Down boy, down!
Talk to her. Talk. To. Her. Pretending she was someone other than who she was struck me as a grand idea. She could be a guy or someone's mother in my head. I fought to think of what I might say to a person who wasn't Rene. Small talk is what I was after. Small talk would magically make me small where I desperately needed to be. I couldn't risk having her see me practically busting a hole in my swimsuit. I made a note to self: mankini = bad
, bad, bad idea.
I cleared my throat and threw up the first thing that came to mind after 'what do you do?' 'Cause I already knew what she did.
"Did you grow up in Ft. Lauderdale?" She was sitting up rubbing the sunscreen into her arms, finishing the job I started.
"Boca."
"That's right, I forgot FAU was in Boca." I'd forgotten just about everything at that moment in time. I tried a slightly more open-ended question next. "So, how was life in South Florida?"
"Fine, I guess. I can’t complain. My parents were great, but . . ."
I could see that she was struggling to find the right words. "But?"
"I hate to sound ungrateful. My parents loved me—love me—a lot. But I'm an only child. I have a couple of PhD. parents. Sometimes my childhood felt like one long seminar. I used to hate being an only child. Other people had siblings to share all that attention."
"Yeah. I understand. I would have been lost without my sister."
"Dawn?"
Having Rene say my sister's name startled me. I must have looked shocked.
"I Googled you. That first night. I couldn't sleep after our little encounter in the ki—galley. “ She smiled. “See? I am trying to use the right ‘nautical’ words.”
"And you’re doing so well at it! I never apologized to you for that shock in the galley. What a way to start your job, huh?"
"It was unique, for sure."
"Well, I am sorry."
"It's okay. It's your boat . . . your home. Hannah and I never bothered to put clothes on to get a drink from the fridge in the middle of the night."
"Hannah?"
"My roommate in Lauderdale."
"I've never lived with anyone. I think I'd be difficult."
"The best roommates are opposites, I think. At least that's what I think makes Hannah and I work."
"What's she like?" I figured if Rene thought of Hannah as her opposite, I could get a pretty good idea of what Rene thought of herself. I considered that important information.
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