'Oh, don't get excited,' he tossed back irritably. Naked except for his briefs, he turned from her, bronzed and supple and so pleasantly muscled. He opened a drawer, pulled out a pair of worn denim cutoffs and climbed into them, smiling at her sudden speechlessness. 'Eat your heart out, Ms. Jordan,' he told her. And then he was gone, slamming the slatted door in his wake.
Alexi, numb, stared after him for several seconds. A moment later, she heard the rev of a motor and felt movement.
The cabin was lined with little windows. Alexi bolted to the left to look out and saw that the dock was fast slipping away from them.
'Why, that...SOB!' she muttered. They were passing the channel markers to the right and left and heading for the open sea. She was off with him for the duration--with or without her agreement.
She threw a pillow across the room in a sudden spate of raw fury. He couldn't do this. He really couldn't--she had said no. But he was doing it anyway. He deserved to be boiled in oil. Someone needed to tell him quickly that this was the modern world. That he couldn't do things like this.
It wouldn't matter, she decided grudgingly. Rex would do what he wanted to do anyway.
After a moment, Alexi realized that the hum of the motor had stopped. She could hear footsteps above her.
And she could hear Rex swearing.
She smiled after a moment, realizing that he had turned off the motor to catch the wind with the sails. And he was having a few problems. She kicked off her shoes and lay back on the bunk, smiling. He'd planned on her giving him a hand with the sails, she realized. And now, of course, he was presuming that she wouldn't move a muscle on his behalf.
'Right on, Mr. Morrow,' she murmured.
But then her smile faded, because she was remembering how cute he had looked, stripping out of his jeans to don his cutoffs--then indignantly denying her suppositions about him. Maybe 'cute' wasn't the right word. Not for Rex. He was too deadly dark, too striking, too mature, too dynamic.
No... at that moment, 'cute'' had been exactly the right word.
Maybe she had been acting like a schoolgirl, and, at the end, maybe she had balked and refused the trip because of pure and simple jealousy. No--there was definitely nothing pure and simple about it. Painful and complex. She didn't know where she stood with him. And she was afraid to make any attempt to find out.
Something dropped with a bang. She could clearly hear Rex muttering out a few choice swear words.
Alexi sat up and smiled slowly and wistfully. They were far from shore; they were together, and alone with the elements. Maybe she wouldn't exactly offer a white flag, but...
Alexi hopped off the bed and hurried through the door. The boat pitched to the right, and she had to grab the wall to keep from falling. 'I hope I don't get seasick,' she muttered to herself. She steadied herself and hurried down the hallway, past the head, past the neat-as-a-pin little dining room and living room and on through the galley to the short flight of ladder steps that led to the topside deck.
'Watch it!' Rex snapped, annoyed, as her head appeared.
Standing on the top step of the little ladder, she ducked as the boom of the mainsail went sweeping past her. “Grab the damn thing. Help out here!' Rex called to her.
He was at the tiller, leaning left, trying to control the wayward sail at the same time.
'What do you want me to do?'
'Trim the sail.'
'What?'
'The sail!'
'I don't know what you're talking about.'
He paused. The wind ripped around them, pulling his hair from his forehead, then casting it back down again. 'Come on, Alexi--'
'I don't know what you're talking about. I've never been out on a sailboat in my life.' 'You were born a rich kid!'
'And I play tennis and golf, and I've even been on a polo field or two, but I've never been on a sailboat!'
Rex stared at her for a long moment. 'Damn!' he murmured. Then he ordered curtly, 'Come over here.' She shook her head. 'I don't know how to steer, either.' 'Just keep both your hands on her and don't move!' he bellowed. 'Alexi--'
There was something so dangerous about the way he growled her name that she decided to comply. She slid next to him on the hollowed-out seat and set her hands on the long tiller. 'Don't move it!' he warned her.
He jumped up, leaving her to watch as he nimbly maneuvered around the boat. Barefoot, in cutoffs, he seemed every inch the bronzed seaman. He quickly brought the sail under control. Red-white-and-black canvas filled with wind. Alexi had to admit that it was beautiful. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sun and stared out at the horizon. It seemed endless. If she looked to her right, though, she could see the coast, not so very far away.
Rex jumped down beside her. He slipped his brown hands over hers. 'Thank you,' he said curtly.
'Aye, aye, sir!' she said mockingly. She stood, glad she'd left her sandals below so that she could present a facsimile of coordination when she climbed forward, holding on to the mainmast, to look out at the day. With her fingers tightly clenched around the mast, she closed her eyes and inhaled and decided that the air was wonderful. The wind, alive and brisk, felt so good against her face. If only she weren't at such odds with the captain at the moment.
She decided that for the time being, no action was her best action. She went back below, and for almost an hour she immersed herself in Eugenia's diary. She was amazed to discover that Eugenia's plight could actually make her forget her own.
But she hadn't really forgotten. She set the book down pensively. She would finish it later, maybe that night. Rex hadn't tried to talk to her. Alexi realized ruefully that she was more concerned with her own life than Eugenia's.
Alexi went back topside. She pretended to ignore Rex and sat on the fiberglass decking and leaned her head against the mast. The sun beat down upon her while the breeze, salty and fresh, swept around her. Talk to me, Rex, she thought. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the warmth.
She must have dozed there, for when she opened her eyes again, the sails were down and the boat was still except for a slight rocking motion. Twisting around, she could see that the anchor had been thrown and that they were just about twenty or thirty feet off a little tree-shrouded island.
Rex was sitting at the bow, a can of beer in his hand, wearing mirrored sunglasses, his skin and hair wet from an apparent dive into the sea.
Alexi stood and stretched and hopped down to the scooped-out tiller area and then down to the ladder. She was sure he heard her, but he didn't turn. She went on into the galley and opened the pint-sized refrigerator to find a can of beer. She smiled, popped the top and crawled up the ladder again.
Perching just a few feet behind Rex, she watched his back. He turned around, arching a brow to her, but she couldn't begin to read his thoughts in the reflections of herself mirrored in his sunglasses.
She smiled sweetly and raised her beer can to him. 'Cheers.'
'Cheers.' Solemnly he lifted his own. He looked out to sea again, then stood and took a long swallow of the beer. Alexi set her can down and rose, too, slowly coming up behind him. She pressed her lips against the flesh at his nape, then followed along his spine... slowly. She slipped her arms around his waist and grazed her teeth against his shoulders. He tasted of salt and sun and everything wonderfully male.
'I thought you were angry,' he said gruffly. 'I am. Furious.' She got up on tiptoe to catch his ear-lobe between her teeth. 'Alexi--'
'You had no right to drag me out here. None at all.' 'I had every right! You don't use your common sense. You're a little fool. You need protection now, and I'm it.' 'I am not a fool!' She nipped his shoulder lightly, then laved the spot with her tongue. 'Alexi--'
'Will you please shut up?'
'Alexi--' He tried to turn and take her into his arms. Alexi pushed away from him, smiling.
She reached for the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head, then neatly shimmied out of her shorts. 'Want to go skinny-dipping?' she asked him, casually slipping from her bra and panties. She offered him one sweet
