He was tall, and lean, and dressed like he just walked off the shoot for People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” issue. The charcoal gray suit he wore was fitted and tapered to perfection, his Armani dress shoes making an expensive clicking sound each time they tapped down on the teak. I could imagine the muscles lining that broad chest of his, the narrow waist, the legs that carried him effortlessly across the main deck.
The way he walked, shoulders held back and down, head high, each step calculated and sharp told me long before anything else that he was the owner of the yacht. It was in the way the crew practically bowed as he passed them, moving out of the way so as not to be seen, not to be in his way. It was in the way his lips pressed into a flat line, in the way his dark sunglasses shielded his eyes, in the way he held a briefcase with one hand as the other swung confidently at his side.
His sturdy, square jaw was dusted with a light stubble that seemed at odds with how he was dressed, but somehow worked. If anything, it only added to the power radiating off him — as if he wanted everyone to know he was rich enough to wear a tailored suit on a casual day with a five-o-clock shadow he forgot to shave.
I felt each step he took like an anvil vibration through the deck, and it seemed all the manners I’d learned in my twenty-two years had evaporated the moment he walked onto the boat, because I still stared at him through my camera lens without a care in the world if he saw me.
His dark blond hair caught a ray of sun as it slipped through the clouds above, and my finger pushed down automatically — without thought, without the good sense to pause and decide if it was a good idea or not. The clicking shutter sound of my camera sounded more like an echoing gunshot in a cave, and as soon as the picture was taken, the man’s head snapped my direction.
He stopped walking, brows furrowed above his sunglasses for a moment before they relaxed. His lips turned up, just at one side, and then he started walking again.
This time, toward me.
“Oh, God,” I murmured to myself, flushing so furiously it felt like a sunburn as I turned to face the front of the boat again. I had my camera pulled into my stomach, eyes on the screen, pretending like I was studying the shots I’d taken yesterday when Joel and I had explored La Sagrada Familia. I didn’t dare take my eyes off that screen, not when I heard those Armani shoes approach behind me, not even when the man stopped a few feet away, clearing his throat.
“Hello,” he said simply, and a wave of chills ran down my spine at the sound of his voice — thick and smooth, like maple syrup.
I swallowed, pressing my eyes closed with one last internal curse at myself before I turned to face him.
I wished I had sunglasses on. I wished I was wearing something more impressive than ripped-up jean shorts and an old University of Colorado t-shirt. I wished on every star there was that I wouldn’t have taken that damn photo.
I rolled my lips together, trying my best to smile. “Hello.”
His lips tilted up more at the greeting, and he slipped his free hand into what I imagined was a satin-lined pocket of his dress pants.
“I don’t remember hiring a photographer for this trip.”
Another wave of heat flushed my cheeks, and I tore my eyes away from him, looking down at where I still held my camera in my hands as my dark hair fell around my face like a curtain. “I… I’m sorry about that. I’m just, I didn’t mean—”
“May I see it?”
I glanced up at him through my lashes, confused.
“The picture you took,” he clarified, and his hand came out of his pocket, reaching toward me, instead. He took a step forward that had me inching back without even thinking to. “May I see it?”
“Oh,” I babbled out, shaking my head and tucking my long hair behind one ear. “It’s not… it wasn’t anything special. I was just taking a few shots of the marina and then I…”
My next words were cut short because his warm, strong hand covered mine where it held my camera. It wasn’t even a full second, his skin on mine, but it shocked me still and silent, and I released my grip on my camera like it was never really mine to begin with.
It all happened so fast, me submitting to him. I stripped the strap from around my neck, surrendering the camera and standing there by his side like he was my professor and I was turning in my final assignment of the year.
I watched his thumb slowly tick the dial, the photos I’d taken of the dock and the boats flashing on the screen. He smiled a little more with each turn, and then the screen lit up with the picture of him, and his smile faded, his hands gripping my camera a little tighter.
I held my breath as he stared at himself, and I found myself leaning closer to him subconsciously. I wondered what he was thinking, what he saw when he looked at that photograph.
I wanted his approval, I realized idly. I wanted this powerful man to tell me he loved what he saw.
Something of a laugh came from his nose, and then his smirk was back in place, and he handed me my camera as I took a heady step back from where I’d been entirely too close to him.
The man moved slowly
