by Peggy Bird
She grabbed the tube from him and in a raspy voice said, “Good. We’re both safe now.”
Like hell they were. Only an idiot would think either one of them was safe after that. And neither one of them was an idiot.
When they resumed sailing, it was awkward at first. He could see she was deliberately giving him a wide berth as she moved from one part of the boat to another. It was just as well. He hadn’t recovered from the sunscreen episode, either. He’d risk cancer rather than repeat that little experience.
But within a half hour, they were back to working easily as a team. She didn’t seem uncomfortable when, giving her a feel for the tiller, he put his arms around her, his hand over hers. He was grateful. At least for a few minutes, he was touching her, inhaling her peachy-sunscreen scent, feeling the tendrils of her hair whip across his chest.
They sailed for another couple of hours then headed for the marina at Deer Harbor where they were to spend the night. To celebrate their first night out, Marius had made reservations at a restaurant in town. Their table was on an outside deck where they could enjoy the long, lovely evening. The restaurant had fresh seafood and a passable wine. The place was full, so the service was slow, but that gave them more time to talk.
When the server had poured wine for both of them, Marius touched his glass to hers in a toast. “You were a great crew today. I didn’t need to bring out the whips and chains once.”
“Oh,” she said with a devilish gleam in her eyes, “you keep whips and chains on your boat?”
“Yeah, in case I have a naughty passenger. Not that I’ve ever had one on board. But you never know.”
“So all your passengers are well-behaved?”
“That’s not it. I’ve always sailed alone. Except for the few times when Enrique and I have gone out together.”
That seemed to stun her. “You’re kidding. I’m the first?”
“The boat’s called Soledad for a reason. I wanted it for privacy, solitude. On this trip, though, I didn’t want to be alone.”
“Why me? You could have asked any woman in Seattle and gotten a yes.”
“Just in Seattle? I thought maybe my range might be a little wider than that.”
“Marius, be serious. Why me?”
“Do you really need to ask? Isn’t it obvious how attracted I am to you? Can’t you feel … ?”
“Now you’re making me embarrassed.” She played with her fork and avoided his eyes.
He watched her for a few moments. “And I don’t want to make you any more uneasy than you already are. So, we’ll change the subject. You said you sailed when you were a kid. I’ve forgotten where you said you grew up. You house must have been on the water.”
“It still is. I grew up in Port Townsend. My parents moved to Bellingham a few years ago but none of us could bear to sell the house, so we rent it out. My sister talks about moving back there but she and her husband both have tenure at Wazoo, so they’ll be in Pullman forever, I think.”
He shook his head. “You know, that tripped me up for about a year. I got it pretty quickly that UDub was the University of Washington, but it took me a lot longer to realize that Wazoo was Washington State University and not something considerably less educational. Thank God I did okay with Huskies and Cougars.”
“Which any Washingtonian will tell you are far superior mascots to those wimpy Ducks and Beavers in Oregon. And don’t get me started on Trojans.”
“Obviously, you didn’t go to school in California or Oregon. Husky or Cougar?”
“Neither. I did go to college in Oregon — Reed College in Portland. That’s how I know Amanda. We met there.”
“And what is Reed College’s mascot, may I ask?”
“Well, there’s no official mascot. The unofficial mascot is a griffin. Reed’s not your usual college. No griffin mascot prancing around while the Ultimate Frisbee Team competes.”
“A griffin and an Ultimate Frisbee team. No wonder they turn out artists.”
She laughed and started telling him stories about her years at Reed with Amanda.
Seeing the light return to those blue eyes as she talked about her college years and her friend, hearing her easy laugh made whatever discomfort he’d had on the boat through the rest of the day worthwhile. He settled back into his chair and enjoyed the perfect end to the day.
Chapter 7
After the whole sunscreen thing, Cynthia had been very careful about where she was in relation to where Marius was on the boat. He’d seemed more observant, too, at least for a while. Eventually, they got back into their rhythm of working together. Even the lesson on handling the tiller had gone well.
She hadn’t yet solved the problem of what to do about the sleeping arrangements on the boat that night, but at least they were comfortable around each other as they sailed. More than comfortable, actually, at least on her part. She loved being with him.
Especially after the adorable thing he’d done at the marina in Deer Harbor. After they’d tied up, he’d helped her onto the dock from the boat and then casually took her hand, holding it lightly, almost shyly as they walked up the dock to get a ride to the restaurant where they were having dinner. It was sweet — puppy love sweet. Not something she would have thought he’d do.
God, this man could turn her to mush without even trying.
After dinner, they returned to the boat in the dusky evening. She wanted to sit on the deck and watch it get dark. One of the things she liked best about being away from the city was seeing the night sky with all its stars arrive without the distraction of huge amounts of artificial light. Marius brought out a bottle of wine and they sat in companionable silence. But before she could have more than a couple sips of what he poured for her, she started yawning.
“Tired?” he asked.
“Apparently I am. Guess I’m not used to all that physical work.” She handed him her glass of wine. “I better go below and get some sleep if I’m going to be any use to you tomorrow.”
“I think I’ll stay up on deck for awhile,” he said. He stood, leaned toward her, and gave her a gentle goodnight kiss. “Get a good night’s sleep. I’ll see you in the morning. I’m sorry if I worked you too hard.”
“No apology. It was the best day I’ve had in years. Thank you for it.” She went up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek before heading below.
• • •
He drained the last of the wine from his glass then knocked back the rest of hers. Unfortunately, the buzz from the wine didn’t muffle the sounds of her rustling around, getting ready for bed. Nor did it stop his mind from asking questions he shouldn’t be thinking about. Was she naked between the sheets? She’d slept nude at his house but then, she didn’t have anything with her to wear to bed. Did she brush out her hair so it was smooth and tangle-free? The thought of her in bed, those blue eyes lit with desire, her hair spread around her like silken honey, made him hard, well, harder. He’d walked around trying to hide an erection most of the day.
When he’d invited her to join him on this trip, he’d had visions of spending every day exploring the San Juan Islands with her and every night exploring each other in the master cabin. The day part was working out just fine but the rest not so much. At least it didn’t look that way right now.
If things didn’t change, it was going to take a hell of a lot of wine to get him through this week. Maybe wine wasn’t strong enough. Maybe he’d better hunt down something stronger the next time they hit town. Bourbon. Rum. Heavy-duty drugs. Of course, he didn’t do drugs and, since he had to stay sober enough to sail the damn boat, excessive drinking wasn’t a good idea, either. He sighed. Better resign himself to enjoying the days and gritting it out through the nights. Alone.
He went below, ready to toss and turn in the bed in the main cabin. But as he headed for the sink to get rid of the two wine glasses, he thought he heard her say something. Or was he imagining she had called him because he wanted her to? He stopped listening to the noises in his frustrated brai
n and concentrated instead on what he thought he heard from the master cabin. Which was nothing.
He took a chance. “Did you call me, Cynthia?”
“Yes, I have a problem. Can you come in and help me?”
“Hold on. Let me get rid of these glasses.” He dumped them in the sink then returned to the master cabin door. Slowly he opened it, hoping he’d find what he wanted.
But she wasn’t lying naked, her hair spread out around her. She was kneeling in the middle of the bed, her back to the door, shaking her head so her braid moved from side to side. He deliberately didn’t look at anything other than the moving braid.
“My hair band is so tangled in my hair I can’t get it out. It must have been all that wind today. Would you see if you could get it out, please?”
He picked up the braid, careful not to touch any part of her body, knowing if he did, he might not be able to stop. The elastic holding the braid together was, indeed, badly tangled in her hair. It took him a few minutes to get it all unwound without pulling out too much of her hair but he finally did.
“There. It’s out.” He tossed the band onto the bed beside her.
She shook her head and the braid began to slowly come undone, slipping in waves across her back. She reached over with one hand, pulled some of the hair across her shoulder then turned to face him. “Thank you,” she said, looking up at him with uncertainty in her eyes.
Only then did it register that she wasn’t wearing anything but her panties. Her long hair covered one breast leaving the other one bare. The pale pink nipple drew his eyes — and almost his hand.
But he couldn’t move. All he could do was stand and stare. Finally, in a hoarse voice, he said, “Holy Mother of God, Cynthia.”
Crossing her arms over her breasts, a panicked look on her face, she scooted back on the bed, away from him. “Oh, no, this is so embarrassing. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She was waiting for him to do what he’d wanted to do all day, and he couldn’t seem to move. He hadn’t had that much to drink had he? Jesus, if he didn’t do something in the next few seconds she looked like she might cry. Kneeling on the bed, he put out his hand to her. “No, don’t back away. There’s nothing to be sorry about. I was just surprised.”
She inched a bit closer, near enough that he could reach her to brush the hair off her breast and away from her face. He could see the tension in the set of her shoulders.
“You looked so scared this morning when you first saw the cabin. I didn’t want to make you more uncomfortable. I didn’t know what you wanted.” He shook his head. “Oh, hell, why am I wasting time. Come here.” He brought her the rest of the way to him and kissed her, tenderly at first but with more intensity as he felt her begin to relax against him. He took her lower lip between his teeth and nibbled as his hands skimmed down her bare sides. “I’ve wanted you back in my bed since the afternoon you walked out of my house. But I didn’t want you to think that was the price you had to pay for being on the boat. You had to want to be here with me.”
He tried to slide off the bed, eager to get his clothes off, to join her but she held on to him as if she never wanted to let go. And she started talking. Babbling, really.
“I didn’t know what to do, whether I was supposed to ask you or wait for you to ask me or what. I hoped this was the right thing. I couldn’t imagine ten days of sleeping in here alone. Not when I wanted to touch you, to hold you. Not after the night at your house. And today, with the sunscreen and all this chemistry, this whatever-it-is between us, I was so confused. I wasn’t sure. But I thought I’d try … ”
He put his fingers across her lips. “Right now I’m less interested in your decision-making process than I am in knowing if sometime in the next two minutes we’ll be naked in bed together.”
“Yes, but … ”
He groaned. “But what, querida?”
“But do you have protection?”
His groan turned into a grin. “I’ll be back in a minute.” He got to the main cabin in about two strides and, when he couldn’t find what he wanted by rummaging around, he dumped the contents of his Dopp kit onto the bed where he wouldn’t be sleeping that night. He grabbed a box, pulled a foil-wrapped packet out of it and returned to her, both the box and the packet in his hand.
This time, she was waiting in bed as he’d imagined her, hair spread out on the pillow, sapphire eyes in the darkening night now bright with desire, clad only in panties cut high enough to show off her legs and low enough to show her navel, but plain white cotton, which said more than anything about exactly who she was.
He put the box in the drawer next to the bed and the condom on the pillow next to her. “I came prepared.”
• • •
It had taken all the courage she could dig out of herself to make the first move. She’d never been the aggressor before. Josh had hated that. And the few other lovers she’d had weren’t serious enough for her to try out anything other than responding to their moves. So, when Marius had looked stunned at seeing her barely dressed, she’d been horrified, sure she’d done something wrong. But now as she watched him shuck his polo shirt, cut-offs, boxers, and deck shoes with a speed that matched what he could achieve in his car, she knew she hadn’t.
Moving to the center of the bed she made room for him to join her. “Dear God, you’re beautiful,” he said as he touched her. “Your breasts … ” He never finished the sentence, groaning as he took a nipple in his mouth, twirling his tongue around it, sucking gently, bringing it to a hard point. “I could spend the rest of my life just kissing your breasts,” he said. “But I have other things I want to do, too.”
She could feel the hard length of him against her thigh, wanted more than anything to feel it inside her, knew she was already wet and waiting for him to enter her. But as long as she was being courageous tonight, she was going to be all in.
“Let me tonight.” She pushed at his shoulder urging him to fall back onto the bed. “It’s my turn to find out what you like,” she said, stripping off her panties then straddling him. Keeping her breasts just out of reach of his mouth, she leaned over him, resting on the palms of her hands, her hair falling onto his chest, tickling, teasing.
He was strong enough to flip her over any time he wanted, she knew, but she was sure he wouldn’t. He looked as if he was enjoying her success at surprising him, both in the invitation and the sudden change of position. And she was certainly enjoying it, rubbing her sex against his penis, the contact between his rock hard member and her clitoris just what she wanted, what she needed.
But he wasn’t about to give up total control to her apparently. With a sinful grin he touched her, moved against her, bringing her along with the pressure of his cock and with his fingers until she could feel the climax coming, sweeping over her, like a storm of water over the side of the boat.
When she came down from the edge, she whispered, “Not fair. It was supposed to be your turn.” Still grinding her hips against him, she dipped her head to pull at his nipples with her lips, then kissed and nibbled at his jaw. Worked up to his earlobe, the curl of his ear, kissing, nipping, then licking softly as if to soothe what her teeth might have done.
“Cynthia,” he ground out. “Jesus, woman, you’re driving me crazy.”
“I want to. I want you to want me more than you’ve ever wanted anyone.”
She leaned over him, her hair and her breasts taunting, teasing him, as she reached for the condom. Ripping open the packet, she sheathed him then straddled him again, intending to lower herself onto him slowly, inch by inch.
But just as she touched his penis, he sat up and she was astride his lap, her breasts crushed against his chest and he’d inserted himself into her so quickly and so deep she couldn’t feel anything but him inside her. He straightened her legs and she curled them around his back. In a voice husky with desire he said, “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you. All I thought about all day was being here, just the two of us, having you all to mys
elf, loving you like this. It’s all I’ve wanted.” He captured her mouth with his and plundered it, exploring every inch, taking every molecule of oxygen from her lungs. He moved inside her with such urgency that she knew they would both soon climax. She felt his cock grow harder and bigger as they moved in unison toward the inevitable.
“I need you with me, mi amour. Come with me now.”
Calling his name, she did.
Just before they drifted off to sleep entwined in each other’s arms, he whispered, “How long did it take you to get your hair band tangled in your braid like that?”
She laughed. “Longer than I expected. I’ve been so good at not tangling it all these years that I had to work at doing it wrong.”
“Any longer and I might have been too drunk to respond.”
“Seriously?”
“Pretty close. You might want to keep that mind, if you ever want to try that approach again.”
“Will I need to?”
“No, querida, you won’t.”
Chapter 8
“So, captain, where’re we going today?” Cynthia asked as she gathered up the remains of their breakfast the next morning.
“Change of plans,” Marius said. “Instead of sailing this morning and coming back here for the afternoon, I thought we’d spend the whole day exploring Orcas. You can show me the artist studios and galleries you like. How’s that sound?”
Although she’d enjoyed the sailing the day before, a day of looking at art made her heart sing. “It sounds perfect. And relaxing.”
“You’ve looked relaxed since we left Anacortes. I’ve been envying you. It takes me a long time to unwind when I go away. By the time I’ve finally gotten there, it always seems it’s time to go home.”
“You need more down time. You should get out on the water more. If I had a boat like this, I’d be out every chance I could. Like the shoe guys say, just do it.”
“Yes, ma’am. Whatever you say, ma’am.” He threw her a mock salute.
“Sorry. Did that sound as bossy as I think it did?”