“I’m winning,” Dorie told Christian. “They wanted to play-” She stopped talking at the look on his face and slowly rose to her feet, holding on to the wooden frame of the bed for balance. “What’s the matter?”
“We’re going to have to go up on deck.”
“Why is that?”
How to tell someone with eyes like a soulful river that she was in danger, more danger than she’d ever been in her life?
“Christian? You’re scaring me.”
Outside of being in bed with a woman, he’d never been much of a toucher. It seemed too personal, too… close. But he reached out now and squeezed her hand. Maybe he did it to see if there’d be that odd charge of current between them-there it was-maybe he did it to see if he could get her to look at him the way she sometimes did, with wonder and anticipation.
She did that, too.
Suddenly he wished he’d found a way to be alone with her, to strip them both down to skin and go for it, just to see if this crazy thing would go away. “I’ll explain on the way.” He moved forward and helped them all off the beds. They’d already put on their life vests, and were as ready as he could get them. “Let’s go.” He pushed Cadence and Brandy toward the door, then Andy.
Dorie pulled on his arm until he looked down at her. “The storm isn’t over yet.”
“No.”
“Then I can only think of one reason to go up on deck.” Her breath caught. “Do I need to be freaking out, Christian? Because I’m about an inch away from it right now.”
He looked into her eyes and thought about missed chances. Too damn many of them. “The object of heavy weather tactics is to avoid capsizing, and believe me, Denny is a master of heavy weather tactics.”
“But the waves are high.”
True enough. And he knew that if they were non-breaking waves, they couldn’t capsize a conventional boat with good stability, and the
But the waves in the wake of this storm were breaking, and therefore could capsize them if high enough. A skilled crew had to maneuver the boat under reduced sails or bare poles, which was good because they were down to bare poles. “It’s going to be okay. Denny’s up there, he’ll tell you what to do.”
“What about you?”
“I’m going to get Bobby.” He pushed her to the door. “We need all the hands we can get.”
“Where is he?”
“Not sure. He vanished a while back.”
Dorie paused, a look of concern coming over her face. “You haven’t seen him?”
“No.”
“What if he went overboard?” she whispered.
“He’s too experienced for that. He might be sick in his bunk.”
The others were already out the door and moving up to deck level, but Dorie held her ground. “Christian-”
“You’re going. I mean it.”
“Earlier, I thought I saw two men on deck, near the front of the boat, at the railing. They were hugging. Or fighting.”
“What were you doing on deck?”
“Getting food. It was so foggy and misty, I couldn’t be sure, and then when I blinked, they were gone, so I figured I imagined it.”
“You probably did.”
“Right.” But she didn’t sound convinced. “I’ll wait here while you go look for Bobby.”
“No.”
She’d dressed for an island adventure in a gauzy shirt and tank top, that ridiculous purse over her shoulder, her eyes just a little too shiny, and he thought,
She cupped his face. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and he felt a shock of anticipation churn through him to match the storm outside.
“There’s just one thing I have to do first,” she said.
Before he could ask what, she closed the gap in one jerky motion that had her purse banging into his side, and kissed him.
Definitely not what he’d have expected from her. What he expected was that after last night, she’d keep her distance. But he’d underestimated her, and he sure as hell underestimated what her kiss would do to him.
It made him forget. Made him forget he was unhappy, trapped. Made him forget the storm, that their lives were in danger, made him forget everything but her, this. Her lips on his felt like the simplest, sweetest, warmest, most moving kiss of his entire life. Because of it, he didn’t have a chance in hell of keeping his own distance, so he gave up and hauled her closer, sliding his tongue to hers, running his hands down her body and back up again, an event that created another first-an instant tidal wave of heat within him.
He could feel her heating up, but then, far before he was ready, she ended the kiss.
“I didn’t want to regret not doing that,” she whispered. “I don’t want to leave with any regrets at all.”
Her cheeks were red, her mouth still wet, and though he knew it wasn’t easy for her, she met his gaze straight on.
She was the bravest woman he’d ever met.
“No regrets then,” he agreed. His voice came out all low and rough and just a little bit hoarse, as if he were ill.
And he was, he had to be, given what he did next.
He yanked her back up against him, swallowing her little cry of surprise with his mouth. He figured the rough movement would either terrify her or piss her off, and he half waited for her to gut check him with that ridiculous purse, maybe drop him to the floor.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she let out the sexiest little murmur he’d ever heard, and shrink-wrapped herself to him. He heated up even more. If he got any hotter, their clothes were going to spontaneously combust and fall off. Her fingers were in his hair, her tongue in his mouth, and he lost himself in the sweet, hot, giving feel of her as she arched against him, panting for air as if maybe she hadn’t come in far too long and he was the only man on the planet who could get her there. Some half-baked idea began to take root, that he
Before he could, she once again pulled free and stared up at him, breathing like a wild woman, weaving slightly.
He wondered what she saw when she looked at him like that, as she slowly brought her fingers up to her swollen, still wet mouth, as if shocked to the core that she’d let him kiss her like that.
That she’d wanted it.
“Dorie.” He didn’t say anything else, just her name, because it occurred to him he really had absolutely no idea what to say.
Turned out, it didn’t matter, because she turned and walked away. She moved toward the stairs, her hair wild, her orange life vest not matching her pink tank top, her purse hitting her side with each step, her slight limp doing something to make his stomach hurt like hell.
Truth be told, it wasn’t his stomach, but his heart.
ELEVEN
Dorie sat with the others in the wind-ravaged salon, pretending that half the windows weren’t blown out along with all the loose furniture, and that they were all fine.
Dark had fallen hours ago, which didn’t lessen the sense of helplessness. But with the loss of sight, her other senses kicked in.
