Lola Carlyle Reveals All

port?”

“Girlfriend?”

Baby jumped up onto the seat and curled up beside Lola. “Was there more than one?”

“You really want to know?”

Did she? Lola had traveled to just about every country in the world, and she’d seen a lot. Experienced some of it, too, but she’d bet she hadn’t seen or experienced anything like what Max had seen and experienced. “Why not?”

“Okay, but just remember you asked.” He leaned forward and placed his forearms on the table. “If you’re a young guy and are deprived of pu-” he stopped, seemed to reform his thoughts, then continued, “deprived of ass for months on end, pretty soon that’s all you think about. Once you reach port, you tend to go a bit crazy and hump anything with a pair of tits.” Once again he paused before he said, “Sorry about that, I meant breasts.”

Lola bit the inside of her lip to keep from laughing. She had to give him credit for at least trying to clean up his language for her, but if he thought he’d shocked her, he hadn’t. She’d been around too many bad-mouthed photographers, sleazy agents, and groping playboys to be shocked by what he’d said. Just because she didn’t use that sort of language herself didn’t mean she hadn’t heard it all before. Or that she hadn’t heard worse from men who thought that because they’d seen her in an underwear ad, she’d enjoy nasty bedroom talk whispered in her ear. “What about old guys?” she asked. “Do old guys tend to go crazy?”

He sat back. “Yes, but we know how to pace ourselves.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “Do you want the juicy details?”

Her lips parted on a breath, and a vision of him popped into her head. A vision of his wide muscular chest, the short black hair that grew across his defined pecs and abdomen, and the dark treasure trove trailing down his flat belly and disappearing beneath the waistband of his wet boxer briefs. The gray cotton clinging to him and outlining his impressive goods. I could prove you wrong, he’d assured her earlier when they’d been discussing size. At the moment, she believed him.

He raised his gaze to hers, and sexual awareness charged the humid air, hot and vibrant and zipping through her bloodstream along with the wine. Vibrant and totally her fault. She’d been playing with fire.

One brow rose up his forehead, silently asking if she’d like to continue to play. She knew without a doubt that with a guy like Max, she’d definitely lose. He’d burn her alive. He was a win-at-all-costs kind of guy. All or nothing. And while Lola was by no means a prude, neither did she have sex with men she’d just met.

At the age of seventeen, she’d lost her virginity to a guy named Rusty, and she’d never been sorry. Unlike other women she knew, she’d never had a truly bad sexual experience, just different degrees of fair to fabulous. She had a feeling Max would fall in the latter category, but she’d only laid eyes on him two nights ago, and for most of the time, she hadn’t even liked him. She really didn’t want to like him now, although she couldn’t seem to help herself.

It was time to pull back. Time to change the subject. “So, where did you say you live?” she asked.

A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “Alexandria, Virginia,” he answered, and the subject changed to the two-hundred-year-old town-house he was in the process of renovating.

She told him about starting her business, and about how she’d decided to base it in North Carolina because it was her home. He told her about his security company and how he’d started it because he needed a real job. The awareness between them cooled, fought back to a proper distance. But not completely gone. Once let out, it was there. Hanging between them, and like the humidity, she could almost touch it.

The air in the engine room was thick as tar and just as black. Max shone his flashlight on the four-hundred- and-forty-horsepower engine, then cut the power. Sweat trickled down his chest, and he grabbed a fistful of the front of the denim shirt and wiped his face. He swung the beam of light past the generators and freshwater tank, to the rudder and steering cylinder.

Maybe there was something he’d missed. Some way to navigate from the engine room. Another bead of sweat ran down his nose, and he moved to the hatch door. The sound of Baby’s yipping and Lola’s smooth reply to her dog reached his ears as he climbed from the belly of the yacht.

After lunch, she’d informed Max that she was going to bathe, and it was understood without her saying a word that he should busy himself elsewhere. She’d gathered up shampoo and soap and had taken her toothbrush from the glass of rum he’d placed it in earlier to soak. She hadn’t asked how it had gotten there, and he hadn’t enlightened her.

Max shut the hatch after him and couldn’t help but notice Lola’s red shawl and white shirt thrown in the fishing chair on deck. The ocean had calmed within the past hour, and Lola and her dog sat on the swimming platform below. Her bare legs dangled over the side. She’d washed her hair and it lay down her back in four big hunks. A pair of silky pink panties covered her butt, and she wore a pink lacy bra. With her back to him, he could just see the side of one of her breasts, but he didn’t need to see all of her to feel the impact like a kick to the groin. He’d tried to ignore the insistent ache since he’d almost kissed her that morning, but it had gotten much worse over the course of the day. Especially during lunch.

Turning on his heels, Max walked into the yacht. He pulled in a breath and let it out slowly. He was trapped. Yesterday he’d been content to ride the current for a few days and slowly drift toward Bimini. Now he wasn’t so sure he shouldn’t send up a signal and take his chances with the Cosellas. Lola was driving him crazy. He almost wished she’d go back to calling him names and looking at him as if he were going to assault her, not looking at him through her big brown eyes and asking about his sex life. Making him think about how long it had been since he’d been with a woman. Making him wonder what she’d do if he tossed up the red shawl she wore as a skirt and got busy, right there on top of the dinette. Just looking at her had him thinking about running his hands up her long legs and wrapping them around his waist.

Lola Carlyle was a threat to his sanity. A relentless attack on his senses, and there was no where he could go to get away from her. Nowhere to get away from the sight of her looking at him over the top of her sunglasses, or bathing in the ocean. Nowhere that the breeze didn’t carry the sound of her voice or the scent of her hair. And with each passing hour, it was getting more difficult to keep his hands to himself. More difficult to remember exactly why he should try.

Grabbing the binoculars, Max left the cabin and headed for the bridge, dragging the fishing chair with him. Lola had yet to return from the swimming platform, but Baby joined him. The little dog sat by Max’s foot as he looked through the binoculars, out at the vast rolling Atlantic, and saw nothing. Baby leaned into Max’s ankle and he lowered the binoculars and looked down at the little dog.

“What do you need?” he asked, but Baby seemed content just to sit beside him. To the left of the dog’s stubby tail lay the partially melted flare gun that had started the whole mess. Max picked it up and turned it over in his hands.

No, he wouldn’t use it to signal another vessel, no matter how insane Lola was making him. But it might come in handy when they drifted close to Bimini.

Stockholm syndrome. Baby had Stockholm syndrome, Lola decided. Ever since Max had pulled the dog from the ocean, he’d developed some sort of hero worship. He’d bonded with Max whether Max wanted to be bonded or not. And from where Lola sat on the sofa in the salon, it didn’t appear to be totally one-sided.

She peeked over the top of the Saltwater Fishing magazine she was trying to read without success, and into the galley. Max had spread maps out across the table, and he had to constantly scoot Baby out of his way.

“Get off that, B. D.,” he said as he drew a line on the map. He fiddled with the sextant a bit, then drew another line. The sun had set about an hour ago, and he’d once again started the engines. Overhead light poured over him and Baby, catching in his hair and the tips of Baby’s ears.

Lola didn’t know what to feel about Baby’s new attachment to Max. She’d never had to share him before, and she admitted feeling a bit jealous. But at the same time, she was glad her dog had finally found male companionship, no matter how temporary. Baby needed male influence in his life, and she was glad Max wasn’t threatening to throw him overboard or eat him any longer.

Lola rose and moved to the galley. “Have you figured out where we are?” she asked as she came to stand by the table.

He glanced up briefly. “Here,” was all he said, and pointed to the map.

She couldn’t believe she was back to pulling simple information out of him. “Where’s here?”

“About sixty miles southeast of Bimini.”