him so happy. Maybe the agency had turned a corner, and that worry line between his eyebrows would disappear for good.
“I can get the rest of this, Max,” Sara said. “You should go home and get some sleep.”
Not if Jane could help it.
The brazenness of her thoughts surprised her, but Allie was right-she did need a grown-up night, away from kids, some place where she could forget budgets and deadlines, where she could stop worrying about the future and live in the now.
Max must have sensed something was up, because he stopped in the middle of tying the top of a garbage bag and looked straight at Jane. “Where’s Kaylee?”
“Asleep in the V-berth. Allie and Cooper have kidnapped her for the night.”
He nodded. “Ah. Ahh.” He leaned closer and whispered, “Do they know, too?”
Jane sighed. “Everybody knows, Max. And they all think it’s just so cute.” She rolled her eyes. Didn’t Allie and Cooper remember how complicated it was for them to get together? And Sara and Reece-he had to change his whole life to be with her. But, no, both of her best friends were in newlywed la-la land.
Just because two people “looked cute” together didn’t mean they could just live happily ever after.
“Stop obsessing,” he said firmly. “So they know. That means we don’t have to be secretive anymore.”
“It also means Kaylee knows, or she will shortly.”
“Kaylee? She’s just a baby.”
“A baby who picks up on everything. If everyone around us has sensed it, she has, too. Which might explain her attachment to you.”
The
“My purse is below deck,” Jane said. Then added cautiously, “See you in a few?”
He gave her a look that nearly ignited her on the spot. “Absolutely.”
Struggling for breath, she went below to grab her purse. Allie was straightening up the galley.
“Thanks again,” Jane said.
“My pleasure. But tomorrow I want details.”
“Allie…don’t say anything to Kaylee about me and Max. Okay?”
Allie smiled. “She already knows.”
That was what Jane was afraid of.
The evening had cooled off, and she shivered slightly as she made her way down Cooper and Allie’s dock to her own, wondering how long before Max returned to her. She could hear voices from the parking lot as people said their last good-nights.
As she turned the key to open the
“That’s not the reaction in you I’m looking for.” He pressed her shoulders against the still-closed hatch and claimed her mouth with his, after which nothing else seemed to matter. The keys dropped from Jane’s limp hand, and she wrapped her arms around Max’s firm body and gave in completely.
As Allie had said, Max was her man…for this night, anyway.
Max cupped her bottom with one hand while the other slid inside her shirt at her waist, caressing the bare skin on her back and sending delicious shivers reverberating through her body like ripples from a stone dropped into a still pond.
He tore his mouth from hers, breathing heavily. “Maybe we better take this inside.”
“I dropped the keys.” She almost sobbed.
“I’ll find them.” He lowered himself slowly to the deck, skimming her body with his hands as he went down, tracing his fingers down her bare legs and placing a soft kiss on her thigh before feeling around on the deck.
What if they’d bounced into the water?
“Got ’em.”
Relieved, she stood aside and let him open the hatch. She walked down the three steps, her legs shaking. The hatch had scarcely latched behind them when she was in his arms again.
They started toward her cabin, leaving a trail of clothing as they kissed and caressed one step at a time, but they never actually made it there. Jane found herself on the sofa in the salon, but that proved too small and they ended up on the carpet.
She couldn’t get enough of the feel of his skin and his hair, long enough that she could grab handfuls of it. He smelled like citrus and his skin tasted faintly of salt from being out on the ocean.
She tasted his ear, delighting in the way he squirmed. But when he kissed her breast, circling her sensitive nipple with his tongue until it peaked, she was the one driven nearly out of her mind with wanting.
“Birth control?” she managed to squeak.
“Got it.”
In the back of her mind she wondered why he was so well prepared when he’d had no idea they would be together tonight. Was he just optimistic that an opportunity would present itself? Or if things hadn’t worked out in their favor, would he right now be at Old Salt’s trying to seduce some other woman?
But she pushed those thoughts out of her mind. Tonight was about living in the moment, not worrying, and the moment was pretty darn good.
By the time Max entered her she was incapable of thinking about much else, anyway. She wanted to scream with passion and excitement and sheer exuberance, but because she didn’t want to alarm anyone who happened to be out for an evening stroll on the dock, she limited herself to heartfelt moans.
When her feelings threatened to overwhelm her self-control, she pressed her face against Max’s shoulder and cried out one last time as the intense pleasure reached its peak.
As she rode out the waves of sensation, reveling in the simple physical release, Max thrust inside her harder and faster until he, too, found release.
A few minutes later, the air conditioner kicking on brought Jane back to the real world, and the fact she was lying on the salon floor with a delicious man on top of her.
This was crazy. She laughed, because what else could she do when she realized they were complete lunatics?
Max rolled over and pulled her on top of him. “What’s so funny?”
“Us. We couldn’t even make it to the bedroom.”
“I don’t know about you, but I had a lot of suppressed lust built up. Watching you parading around in those little shorts-”
“I do not ‘parade.’”
“You can’t help it. Everything about you turns me on. Your smile, your knees, your collarbone. Even your fingernails.” His smile faded. “Jane, I think…I mean, I don’t know much about these things, but…”
“But what?”
“Oh, hell, nothing. I never used to worry about anything, and lately I’ve been one big tension knot.”
She wanted to know what he was worried about. But she sensed whatever it was, pressuring him wouldn’t get results. He would tell her if and when he really wanted her to know.
She pressed two fingers into each of his temples and gently swirled. “Tonight isn’t about worry, okay? I’ve been doing my best not to think about the future. Not even tomorrow morning.”
“I have to get up early.”
“Me, too. Allie will probably bring Kaylee home around 7:30.”
“I’ll be gone by then. But that gives us-” he raised his left arm and pressed a button on his watch. A cool blue- green light briefly illuminated his face “-nine hours.”
“Nine hours! That sounds like a lot.”
“Unless you factor in sleep.”
“Who needs to sleep?”
“Not me. But I wouldn’t mind a bed.”
Reluctantly, Jane eased her body off Max’s and got to her knees, then her feet. She offered a hand to Max. “Bedroom’s this way. But don’t expect much. Everything’s smaller on a boat.”
