She stepped off the deck and dropped into the sea with a splash. Cold water rushed over her face, making her panic for a second. She clawed her way to the surface and took a breath of the salty night air. The sea was cold but invigorating. Maddy splashed about, feeling like a little girl who had done something naughty and was taking pleasure in breaking the rules.
She wasn’t even sure what rule she was breaking; if there were any rules, they were inside her own mind and totally of her own making. Breaking those self-imposed rules felt even naughtier than breaking a set of external rules.
Alex appeared with a glass of wine in each hand. He looked down at Maddy and grinned. “Hey, I thought you didn’t want to go for a swim.”
“I changed my mind.”
He set the wine glasses down and unbuttoned his shirt, revealing big broad shoulders and muscular arms. As he tossed the shirt away, the muscles of his flat stomach rippled. Maddy swallowed. She had seen him shirtless before in the movies but now he was right in front of her in real life and that made his physicality more immediate.
Alex removed his pants, shoes and socks and stood on the edge of the Swan in his shorts. He put his arms above his head and launched himself from the boat with his powerful leg muscles, arcing gracefully into the water and sliding beneath the waves headfirst.
He reappeared, shaking droplets of water from his head. “Woohoo! The water feels great!”
Maddy laughed. Alex seemed to be feeling the same sense of childish wonder as she was.
He swam over to her and said, “Aren’t you glad you decided to take the plunge now?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Want to go over to the island?”
She looked over at the dark rocks and the distance between them and the boat. Now that she was in the sea and no longer standing safely on the deck of the Swan, it looked like a long way to swim. “Maybe we should stay by the boat.”
“Come on, it’s not that far.” He set off toward the rocks, pulling himself through the water with strong sweeps of his arms.
Maddy followed, her own breaststroke a lot slower. As she made for the island, she wondered if she had ever swum this distance before in her life. Maybe when she was younger and used to go swimming every weekend but that was in a pool, not the open sea. She wondered how deep it was here and felt a sudden panic grip her.
What if she got cramp in her legs and couldn’t swim? Alex was too far ahead to notice if she suddenly went under. She stopped. She couldn’t do this. It was too far, too much.
“I’m going back,” she shouted to Alex.
He looked over his shoulder then turned around and swam toward her. He looked disappointed.
“It’s too far for me,” she said, turning around and swimming for the boat. Her strokes were panicked, erratic. She reached the diving platform and pulled her self up and out of the water. By the time Alex got there, she was sat on the edge with her feet dangling in the sea. She no longer cared that she was sitting here in her bra and panties. She felt tired and scared. She seemed unable to catch her breath. The sea seemed suddenly dark, deep and deadly.
She even took her feet out of the water and scooted her butt back along the platform so she was away from the edge.
Alex climbed out of the water, droplets running down over the hard slopes of his muscular body. “What’s wrong, Maddy?”
“I’m fine. I just lost my nerve. I haven’t been... swimming in a long while.”
He stood above her with his hands on his hips, looking like a statue of Adonis. “Come on, let’s get you inside and warm you up.”
She reached for her dress but he said, “I’ll get that. You get inside. There’s a shower and dry towels in the bathroom.”
Maddy did feel suddenly cold. The night breeze felt chilly against her wet skin. Her teeth started chattering and her face felt numb. A hot shower might just save her life right now. She climbed up the metal ladder and onto the deck of the Swan. Alex told her where to find the bathroom and she walked through a plushly-furnished living room and past the kitchen to the room he indicated.
The bathroom was large enough to hold a shower behind glass doors, a toilet, a sink and a mirrored wall cabinet. The floor tiles were cold beneath Maddy’s feet. She figured out how to turn on the shower and set the temperature to hot. She removed her wet bra and panties while the steam fogged up the mirror.
Stepping beneath the spray, she gasped as the hot needles of water touched her cold skin. As she got used to the heat, she closed her eyes and put her head beneath the water, letting it soak her hair and run over her face. She felt like she could stand here forever in this luxurious warmth.
She could hardly believe she had stripped down to her underwear and jumped into the sea. It was so unlike her. A long time ago she had been carefree but over the years she had become more and more withdrawn until she was known as dependable Maddy who wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Got a complicated magazine layout that nobody else wants to do because it’s going to mean long hours at the office and extra work at home? Give it to Maddy, she doesn’t mind. Need someone in the office to help you with your project even if it means they’ll have to put in extra hours to catch up with their own project because of all the time they spent helping you? Maddy will do that, she’s a good, dependable girl.
She had fallen into the ‘good, dependable girl’ role easily. She never did anything exciting and certainly never spontaneously. Her relationship with Eric had been boring but she hadn’t wanted it to be anything else.
So what had come over her tonight?
She had acted the way she wanted rather than the way she thought she should.
That wasn’t like her at all.
She turned off the shower and stepped out in front of the mirror. She smeared her hand across the glass, wiping away the condensation. Looking at her reflection, she whispered, “Maddy what are you doing?”
Her reflection seemed warped by the water on the glass and the mist which crept over the cleared area and obscured it.
Maddy felt suddenly afraid. She was out here on a boat at night with a man she barely knew.
Not only that, her underwear was soaking wet and Alex had her dress.
She felt as if she had stepped off the edge of a cliff and was hurtling to her death. Why had she taken that step?
Wrapping a towel around herself, she opened the door a crack and shouted Alex.
He appeared outside the door. “What is it?”
“Can I have my dress, please?”
He handed it to her.
“And I want to go home,” she added.
“Of course, I’ll get us back to the marina and drive you to your hotel. The paparazzi should have given up for the night.”
“Thanks.” She closed the door. Her bra and panties were too wet to wear so stuffed them into her purse and put the dress on over her naked body. At least it reached down to her knees. She rubbed her hair with the towel and brushed it with a hairbrush she carried in her purse. Taking a small perfume bottle from the purse, she applied a single spray to her neck. Now she felt more human.
As she walked back through the living room, the Swan’s engines started up and the boat started moving.
Feeling warm and refreshed, Maddy stood on the deck and watched Stone Island recede into the distance behind them.
She wished she had gone all the way to the island; she would have liked to see the cave Alex and his brother discovered.
But her set of internal rules were firmly in place now, locking her into her usual pattern of behavior. Stick to the safer path, even if it’s boring.
She sighed and watched the island get smaller and smaller in the distance.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Alex felt frustrated. Not because he was going to spend the night alone - although that was a part of it - but because Maddy seemed to have withdrawn into herself again. Her unexpected swim in the sea had shown Alex a flash of a different side of her; a free, wild side. He had loved her easy laugh and the sp
arkle he saw in her blue eyes. Now that was gone and replaced with the straight-laced stiffness of the girl he had seen on the beach pulling down her t-shirt to hide her body.
He was sure the real Maddy was the one who had dived into the water in her underwear, not caring what anybody thought. Experiencing the moment.
He was able to communicate with that Maddy, have a laugh with her. This stiff-backed woman standing on the deck of the Swan now was a stranger to him. He knew women were complex creatures but how could Maddy change so much in the space of a few minutes? He sat back in his chair in the cabin and killed the engine. They were still a quarter of a mile from the marina but he wanted to spend more time with this intriguing woman, see if he could tease out that exciting other side of her.
He slid down the ladder and stood before her as she turned to face him. She looked good with her tousled hair and pretty face. He could tell she hadn’t put her underwear back on and the only thing covering that sexy curvy body was the fabric of the gray dress.
He was glad he had changed and put on jeans. If he was still in his shorts, his desire would be plain to see and that would scare her. In her current frame of mind it would frighten her away but he was sure the other inner Maddy would not be frightened at all. He had seen the wicked glint in her eyes when she was in the sea. Maddy might repress it but she was a sexual creature inside just like all women.
“Why have we stopped?” she asked.
“I thought we might have those drinks.” He pointed at the two wine glasses on the table.
She looked at them and frowned. He could almost see the two sides of her nature warring with each other. “I suppose so,” she said. That was good. He had been allowed one step forward toward the veil she had put up between them.
Alex indicated the padded bench and Maddy sat down. He grabbed the glasses and sat next to her, handing her one.
She took it and went to take a sip.
“Hold on,” he said, “let’s make a toast.”
“To us, I suppose,” she said sarcastically. One step back. The veil was closing again.
“No, a serious toast. What should we drink to?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“What are your dreams? What do you want to achieve?”
She thought for a moment then said, “I want to be a journalist.”
That surprised him. “Really?”
She nodded. “I’m tired of being the girl in the office everyone dumps their work on all the time. Dependable, boring Maddy. I want to be a journalist like my friend Kim. Get out and about. Report the stories instead of just arranging them into pretty layouts.”
“To journalism,” Alex said raising his glass. He swallowed a mouthful of wine and added, “I never thought I’d be drinking to that.”
She smiled and took a sip of her own drink.
“And for the record,” he said, “I don’t think you’re boring.”
She looked at him earnestly. “That... back there... that really wasn’t like me at all. I’m not the type of person who does stuff like that.”
“Yes you are. You just did it. Therefore you are the type of person who does stuff like that.”
“Not usually. I don’t know what came over me.”
“It was good. You had fun, right?”
A smile crept across her face. “Yes.”
He was standing at the veil now, ready to part it and push through. He leaned in closer. He could feel her breath on his cheek and smell her sweet perfume. Her eyes looked into his. She knew what was going to happen next; there was no way she could not know.
His mouth met hers and he felt her lips part slightly, tasted the wine on her tongue as she returned the kiss. Alex put his free hand up to her waist and stroked his fingers over the fabric of the dress. The softness he felt beneath that fabric promised so much to his excited mind.
Maddy’s own hand touched his stomach, traced the muscles through his t-shirt. Her touch sent him crazy. He needed her, needed to feel that soft yielding flesh beneath him. Needed to part the veil completely and push inside.
She pulled away. “Alex, no, I can’t...”
“What’s wrong?”
“I just... I can’t.” She stood up and straightened her dress as if she thought doing so could hide the twin points of her nipples pressing against the gray fabric. Alex felt like groaning with pleasure at the sight of Maddy’s curves but he resisted the urge. No need to frighten her further. Somewhere during that kiss, the straight-laced Maddy - the Maddy she said she didn’t want to be anymore − had resurfaced and was now in control again.
He knew the only thing he could do now was take her home.
“I’ll get the engine started,” he said, realizing the irony of that comment as he climbed up into the cabin. He turned the key and the Swan’s engines rumbled into life. If only he could fire up Maddy so easily.
Trying to take his mind off the rising ardor he felt burning in his body, he took the wheel and headed for the lights of the marina.
He was sure he would never see Maddy again after this and that stung him more than he expected. He was used to women coming and going in his life on an endless conveyor belt of short-lived passion and carnal desire. He could have almost any woman he wanted.
Except one.
The one he wanted most of all.
He checked himself. Did he really just think that? Did he really want Maddy so much? She was pretty and she intrigued him but she was nothing like the glamor girls he usually went for.
So maybe it was time for a change.
If she had been the usual type of woman Alex went for - the model looking for more fame, the actress wanting a celebrity relationship because it meant more media attention - then this night would have been concluded with sex and an empty dull afterglow of regret and remorse.
With Maddy, it was different. She wasn’t about to go jumping into bed with Alex no matter how much he wanted her to. Maybe that was for the best. After having sex with his endless supply of models he had to spend time and energy getting rid of them. He wouldn’t have to do that with Maddy; she was going to walk right out of his life of her own accord.
Why did that make him feel so depressed?
He guided the Swan into the slip and cut the engines. Taking the lines, he jumped onto the dock and tied her in place.
Maddy stood with her arms folded waiting to leave. She said nothing.
Hell, it takes two to tango, Alex thought. Don’t go giving me the evil eye. You wanted it as much as I did.
“I’ll drive you home,” he said.
“I’ll call a taxi,” she replied, stalking away down the dock and fishing her phone out of her purse.
“Please,” he said, following her, “let me drive you.”
She looked at her phone and frowned. Putting it away, she said, “OK.” Cold as ice.
Alex took her to the car and she got in without a word.
As he pulled away from the marina and headed toward town, he said, “I don’t know who you’re mad at... is it me or yourself?”
She turned to him, her eyes shining like burning sapphires. “What do you mean by that?”
“Are you mad at me for kissing you at yourself for responding to it?”
“I never responded.”
He raised an eyebrow. “It felt like a response to me. Or were those someone else’s fingers on my abs?”
She folded her arms and seemed to sink into her seat in a sulky storm.
“I’m just being honest,” Alex said. “You enjoyed that kiss as much as I did until you remembered yourself.”
“Liar.”
He laughed. “The Maddy I like is the one who forgets herself. The one who jumps into the sea without a care. The one who kisses me with all the passion of a woman. The one you keep locked away for some goddamn reason.”
“Well you won’t have to worry about her anymore,” Maddy said in a low voice, “because once you drop me at my hotel you won’t be seeing her or me again.”
>
“That’s a shame,” he said.
She looked over at him as if she were about to question him on that remark then faced front again and kept quiet.
“Can’t we be friends, Maddy? I did save your life.”
“Don’t remind me. I wish you hadn’t bothered.”
“That’s not true. You’ve got dreams, goals.”
“No I haven’t.”
“Yes, you have. You want to be a journalist, stop being the girl everyone dumps on.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
He pulled over outside the Seagull Inn and turned to her before she flounced out of the car. “I can help you.”
“I’m sure you can,” she said sarcastically.
“Stop it with the sarcastic remark, OK? If you want me to help your career, I can do it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “And what would you want in return? Oh, don’t answer that, I can already guess.”
“I don’t want anything,” he said. At least he would get a chance to see her again. “Look, here’s my cell number.” He pulled down the sun visor and removed one of the business cards he kept up there. Maddy took it but didn’t look at it. Her eyes were on him as if she were afraid he was suddenly going to pounce on her.
He sighed. “Just think about it OK? I’d still like to show you the cave on Stone Island.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Well no actually. I never told any other girl about it. It was a secret between me and Tony. I’ve never been there with anyone else.”
That seemed to give her pause. In fact, it made Alex wonder why he had been so open with this girl right from the start. Even California didn’t know about Stone Island or the cave there. Something about Maddy made him reveal more of himself than he had to any other woman.
She pursed her lips, seeming to come to a decision. “I don’t think so, Alex. I should have realized all those magazine articles are right. You’re only after one thing.” She got out of the car and ran through the door into the Seagull Inn.
Crazy About Curves: 10 Luscious Reads Page 75