Just how much had Davis noticed Jordan checking him out? Despite her efforts to conceal it, he seemed to read her attraction to him as easily as Jordan read a nautical chart. Did he see anything else, besides her improbable, infuriating desire?
Did he know already that she’d never had great sex—that her singular, early focus on her career had kept her landlocked well away from the dating pool? Could he tell that she compared him in her imagination to what little experience she’d already had? …Or that she wondered what he’d look like naked, what it would feel like if he held her close to his strong, bare chest and reached down to part her legs with his hand, and pressed his…
No! She turned away from him in a fury and climbed out of the cockpit, up to the rear mast. With some distance between them she could breathe again, command her thoughts, focus. This was her boat—and Sea Wolf Charters was still her business. She would not get involved with a client. She would never do anything so supremely stupid.
She couldn’t, she told herself comfortably, confidently. Such idiocy—delicious, tempting idiocy—was far too spontaneous for Jordan. It wasn’t in her character to act on these meaningless impulses.
She latched onto the words Davis had spoken, clinging as if they were a life ring in a rough sea. “You’re not paying for this trip, Mr. Steen. Your record label is paying. And your manager told me what he expects: peace and quiet for you. That’s what I’m being paid for—not to sail you around and do your bidding, but to see that you relax. And by God, I’m going to do it.”
Davis turned to Storm and Emily for backup, but Storm only shrugged. “Jordan’s the boss-lady. What she says, goes.”
“All right.” Davis slid one hand into his pocket and gazed up at Jordan.
She couldn’t help but stare at the motion—at the smooth sliding of his hand, at what rested beside it in his jeans. Oh my god, she told herself. Get your mind out of the gutter.
“I’ll stay here with you, Jordan. If that’s what you want. Just you and me.”
..*
Jordan sat on the deck with her back braced against the mast, watching Storm and Emily motor off toward the shore. The tender seemed to shrink in her vision more rapidly than she expected, emphasizing how very alone she now was with Davis Steen.
What the hell had she just done? She asked herself that question again and again until the tender finally vanished into the last weak shrouds of mist that clung to shoreline of Fisherman Bay. It wasn’t that she was worried about Davis’s behavior—he was a prick, not a creep—but she was concerned about her own. Those few moments before Storm and Emily had climbed into the boat and departed, while she stood face to face with Davis, challenging him—it was as if her mind had finally given in to her body’s mutinous desire. Davis was hot as hell. She’d been thinking it ever since she first met him. There was no denying now just how badly she wanted him, and the force of her desire frightened her. She wasn’t used to feeling so… out of control. To having anything surprise her so completely, and take over her carefully planned, well-ordered existence.
It’s just because I haven’t been with a guy in so long, she told herself stoutly. I’m just horny. And why shouldn’t I be? It’s been six years since I fooled around with anybody!
Six years of dedication to her career. Six years of planning, saving, working… six years of total predictability, absolute unspontaneity.
Now that she laid it all out in her head, it did seem kind of crazy to deny herself that kind of fun for so long. But she hadn’t noticed anything lacking in her life. Not once during all that time had she cried or moped over her celibacy. She had always been too occupied with thoughts of the future to care.
But in Davis’s presence, it seemed her body hungered for everything she’d put off since she was eighteen. The depth and force of the craving astonished her. And her inability to control it—to shut it off and return to her usual, detached, businesslike self—was scary.
Davis climbed up from the cockpit and sank down slowly to sit at Jordan’s side. He was very close—not close enough to touch, but so near that she could feel the warmth from his leg intruding against her knee. All her senses seemed focused on that one small tingle of warmth, the invisible brush of not-quite-contact.
“Well, here we are,” Davis said. “Alone.”
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He was smirking, of course—pleased with the way he flustered her, fully aware of his effect. What an ass.
Jordan remembered how the silence that morning had unsettled him. If he could put her off guard, then she could play the same game. She smiled coolly at him—or at least, she hoped she looked unflustered—and said, “Yep. Alone. Just you and me and the silence. Just us, alone with our thoughts.”
“What are you thinking about right now?” The question was low and gravelly; the sound of his voice seemed to throb along Jordan’s veins. She suppressed a shiver of greedy desire—but she said nothing. She just continued to smile at him, holding his eyes with her own.
Davis made another attempt to knock her off balance. “You know, this morning… when I made you laugh… when you smiled. You have a really nice smile.”
Jordan gave one quick lift of her eyebrows, an acknowledgment of his praise—and held her tongue.
“What do you think of me?” Davis asked. “What do you think… about me?”
Still Jordan made no reply. She turned her face away from him and sighed, gazing out at the island, as if perfectly content with her own thoughts—with the gentle quiet of the misty morning.
Davis held himself rigidly still for a long moment. Then he jumped up so suddenly that Jordan nearly gasped.
“I’m going to get my speakers,” he said.
Jordan sprang to her feet, too. “No way, buddy. You’re not going to ruin this peace. This is the first quiet moment I’ve had since you set foot on my boat, and I’m going to enjoy it.”
He stepped to one side, then the other, trying to dodge past her toward the cabin’s ladder. But Jordan blocked him, and couldn’t stop herself from giggling at how absurd they would look if anybody were around to see them.
“Seriously,” he said, almost pleading. “Let’s have some music. I’ll keep it really low if you want. Nice and quiet.”
Jordan laid a hand on his chest. She couldn’t believe she did it, but she did—the evidence of her audacity was right there under her palm. She could feel the warmth of Davis’s skin burning through the thin fabric of his shirt, into her fingertips. “Wait a minute,” she said earnestly. “Tell me, Davis—honestly—why won’t you just sit and enjoy the silence?”
He stepped back slowly, breaking the contact of her touch. She could still feel her hand tingling with the sensation of his firm chest. “What do you mean?”
Jordan sat on the deck again. Davis hesitated, shifting from one foot to the other, clearly tempted to run to the solace of his music. But finally he sat, too, his body angled slightly toward Jordan’s.
“I mean,” she said, “it seems like you’re… running from something.”
“What, like I’m a criminal?” He laughed comfortably. “Like I’m on the lam?”
She shook her head, smiling. “No, that’s not what I mean. Silence seems unbearable to you—like you really can’t tolerate it. It’s almost as if it causes you some kind of pain.”
Davis shrugged and flashed that uncaring half-smile. “Well, I’m a musician. I play rock. I like loud noises.”
“I don’t think it’s that. Not at all. I saw the way you looked on our first night—when you played your guitar for us all. That wasn’t loud—it was soft. And beautiful.”
Davis stared out at the shore, watching in thoughtful silence while the fog parted, revealing more of the tree-fringed island, then came together again to obscure it from view. Finally he said, “Maybe it’s just that I find quiet isolating.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged again. “Music connects people. When I listen to somebody else�
��s music, or when I play with my band, it’s like I’m hearing their thoughts, experiencing their feelings. That’s a powerful connection, you know? It’s nice to know I’m not alone in the world… that I don’t have to face the bad stuff on my own.”
Jordan tilted her head, smiling playfully. “Do you really face a lot of bad stuff? You?”
He gave her a quizzical look, his dark brows coming together, his mouth curved in amused confusion.
“I mean, you’re so well-known…”
“Famous.”
“Basically, yeah.” Jordan blushed, but she didn’t know why.
“That doesn’t make life any easier, you know—being famous.”
The sudden gravity of Davis’s mood struck her. “I guess it really wouldn’t make things easier. But hey, at least you get your vacations paid for.” She gestured grandly down the length of her boat. “I mean, even you, the cabin-dweller, must admit this is pretty cool.”
His low, dark chuckle stirred the heat inside her again. “It’s nice. I’m enjoying myself, in spite of my determination not to.”
“You were determined not to have fun?”
“This just isn’t the way I normally have fun,” he said with a hint of apology. “This sailing thing was all Tyler’s idea, not mine. I had no choice in the matter. If I’d wanted to unwind, forget my troubles, and have a good time, I would have headed off to London or Dubai or Sydney for a week. Hit up the clubs, do a little dancing, take in the local music scene. And have a few drinks, too.”
Jordan snorted. “Come on—there’s no way that’s relaxing.”
“Relaxing? Maybe not. But it is a lot of fun.”
She laughed and shook her head again. “I have such a hard time believing that.”
Warming to the conversation, he leaned toward her, and Jordan felt her heart buck in her chest. “Have you ever gotten away from your islands Jordan?”
Her name on his lips sent a warm thrill racing from her scalp to her toes. “Of course I have! I’m not as podunk as you think. And okay, I will grant you that it would be a lot of fun to get out and go to shows, and go dancing, and experience a big city for more than a day or two… which is all the time I’ve spent in a city so far.”
Davis’s condescending chuckle annoyed her, and somehow the annoyance only seemed to stoke the heat of her attraction.
“But,” she said a little defensively, “your manager didn’t send you to me so you could party.”
“I know,” he said drily. “You’ve already reminded me of that fact, several times.”
She rolled her eyes—more at the throbbing sensation between her legs than at Davis’s words. “There’s having fun, and then there’s chilling out—slowing down—spending a little time with your own thoughts, figuring yourself out.”
Somehow she’d said the wrong thing. Davis drew back almost as if Jordan had struck at him, and for the briefest moment a look of hurt flickered across his features. Then it was gone again, replaced by a mask of unshakable, arrogant aloofness like he’d never worn before.
“What do you know about chilling out, Jordan?”
She gaped at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You are the least-relaxed person I’ve ever met in my life. And I include Tyler in that assessment.”
“That’s not true!” Her face burned with fury, even while her longing to touch him, to taste his warm-scented skin, leaped up like a blaze inside her.
“Oh, it absolutely is true. How old are you? Twenty-five?”
“Twenty-four, not that it’s any of your business.”
“How many people your age run a business? Especially one like this, catering to really demanding clients?”
“You don’t know anything about my clients.”
“I am your client. Yeah, I know Tyler paid for this little escapade, but I’m the one who’s here on your boat, not him. I know what rich assholes are like. I know it takes some incredible self-control to deal with people like me.”
“So you admit you’re an asshole.”
Davis ignored the jab. “Nobody rises to your level of success—and at such a young age—unless she’s a total stick in the mud.”
“I am not!”
“A total killjoy,” he went on mercilessly, curving his damnable half-smile.
Jordan wrestled down the urge to bite the smile right off his lips.
“You never let your guard down, do you?” He leaned a little closer. The rough shag of his unshaven face was so close now she could practically feel it already, scratching against the soft, sensitive skin of her neck. “You don’t even know how to cut loose and have a good time, Captain. I’d bet money that you’ve never taken a real risk in your life—never done a single spontaneous, selfish thing.”
She swallowed and croaked, “Selfish?”
“Something just for you,” he purred. “Something you want—not because it’s smart or sensible or a good business move. Just because you want it.”
“Yes I have,” she said, breathless.
“Oh yeah?” Davis held her stare, taunting, daring. “Prove it.”
“Fine,” Jordan said.
And with one abrupt, spontaneous movement, she closed the small space between them and kissed him.
.9.
The moment Jordan’s lips met Davis’s, a voice shouted in her head, What are you doing?! She knew it was the height of stupidity, to kiss this infuriating man—now his cockiness would only increase, and he’d lord his sexiness over her all the harder. Now he’d make himself even more impossible to ignore… to resist.
But somehow it felt unbelievably right to kiss him, too. Nobody could accuse her now of lacking spontaneity—not Emily, not Davis. No one. She couldn’t even consider herself the same staid, predictable Jordan. The loss of that predictability frightened her, made her heart pound in her ears.
Or was it Davis’s kiss that filled her head with thunder? It had been so long since she’d kissed anybody—not since her last high-school boyfriend—and never in her life had Jordan been kissed this way. His mouth was soft and warm, yet insistent. Taking. The gentle slide of his lips against her own compelled her to open her mouth wider; the stroking of his tongue against her lower lip, then the roof of her mouth, forced the faintest of moans from her throat.
That sound seemed to be exactly what Davis was after. He pulled back, smirking, and Jordan felt helpless to break his gaze, caught by his self-congratulatory expression.
Screw you, she told him silently. Screw you and your big, rock star ego.
But even as she blazed with fury at him for pushing her this far, for making her see how badly she wanted to give in… she craved more of that intense, probing, breath-stealing kiss. She leaned in to take more from his lips, but Davis held her back gently with a hand on her shoulder.
“Wait. Are you sure you want to do this?”
With her nose inches from his own, she lowered her brows, scowling at him.
“I mean,” he went on, “I kind of… teased you into it. That’s not really playing fair.”
Jordan sat back and tossed her ponytail with an impatient hand. “What do you mean, that’s not playing fair? You think you’re so hot I can’t resist you?”
It’s true, she admitted to herself. He is so hot I can’t resist him. Better if Davis never heard her say those words.
“Listen,” she said, “I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. You don’t control me, Davis.”
His slow, crooked smile sent a throb of heat down between her legs. “We’ll see about that.”
His voice was so low, so rich and caressing, that Jordan found herself unable to speak. She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him into another kiss—long and melting, their tongues making a leisurely exploration of one another’s mouths. His hands found her wrists and held her; she released her grip on his clothes, but he didn’t release his grip on her. Somehow the light restraint made the moment all the hotter. Could Jordan, the perfectionist, the captain of h
er own ship, trust someone else to be in control? She wasn’t certain she could. And for the first time in her life, not knowing what would happen next didn’t upset her. It only made her eager to find out.
Davis broke from their kiss. Jordan panted, feeling the wetness of his mouth cooling on her lips.
“If you’re sure you want to do this,” he said softly, “let’s go below.”
Jordan’s shaky legs could barely carry her down the ladder. She followed Davis to the door of his cabin, the largest one on the boat. He swung the door open and she hesitated, biting her lip.
“It’s all right if you don’t want to,” he said. “Really, it’s—”
“I do want to.”
She wanted to kick off the shackles of her inhibitions as much as she’d ever wanted anything—as much as she’d wanted the Coriolis and the future she’d carved out for herself. Desperately, with a gnawing hunger, she longed to reach out and grab life’s treasures as they were laid before her—and not spend her whole life planning everything to the detail, worrying about what might happen if she failed to live up to her own dreams.
More than that, she wanted Davis—wanted to run her hands over his strong, hard body, wanted to feel his commanding embrace. She wanted to leave her past encounters with the boyfriends of her younger day behind—to know just how good sex could be now that she was a grown woman. Maybe his cocky attitude had just fooled her into believing it, but she had a definite feeling Davis was the kind of man who could show her exactly how good sex could be.
She brushed past him into the interior of the cabin. Walled and floored in polished teak, it glowed softly from the mist-filtered light that streamed in through the port hole. The berth with its bright-white bedspread and down-stuffed pillows was ample for boat accommodations, but still narrow for two people who were about to use it for something more than sleeping. Jordan backed up so Davis could enter the close quarters and shut the door. With her butt resting on the bed, she began to peel off her shirt—but Davis stopped her.
Rock the Boat: A Griffin Bay Novel Page 7