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“Yes.” It was sometimes hard to manage one-handed, but she could be very creative when she had to be. Certainly, an architect could figure out how to prop up an e-reader when she needed to use both hands for something else.
“Do you make yourself come like that, or do you back off from the orgasm?”
“Sometimes I come.”
“Mm-hmm.” He rubbed his hand against her a little more firmly and slid it farther back between her legs. “Well, I don’t have any erotica on the boat, but if you want to read while I rest, there’s plenty of other material. I think I’ll pick something out for you.”
“I—” She cringed, wondering what kind of dry reading material a guy who built boats for a living kept in his drawers, but she nodded all the same. “Yes, Tim.”
“Good.” He eased himself off the bed and helped her to her feet.
“Should I…put on some pants, or—”
“Are you going somewhere?”
“No, but—”
“Actually, I think you should give me the shirt, too.”
Tim held out his hand and locked thattake-no-shitstare on her.
“You’re taking it back?” She didn’t even care if she sounded pouty. She’d started thinking of that shirt as her own. Even if it weren’t worth a little on the collector’s market, it was made of the softest, most comfortable cotton she’d ever put against her skin.
“You can have almost anything you want of mine, pretty girl, but right now, I want that shirt off you. I want you nude. It’s hot outside and I want you to be comfortable. Won’t you let me take care of you?”
“I see.” She smirked as she pulled it over her head.
Right. Take care of me, huh?
He tossed the shirt onto the dresser and pressed a hand to the small of her back to get her moving. “Books are in here.”
He pulled her into the second bedroom and nudged open a dresser drawer. He knelt in front it, clucking his tongue as he perused, and she clasped her hands in front of her belly, pondering what he’d said: “You can have almost anything you want of mine.”
What was he offering her? Obviously, not dick.
“This one, I think,” he said, holding up a paperback. “You’ll have to tell me if you like it.” He closed the drawer and took her hand.
On their way through the galley, he grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator along with some fruit and continued toward the front of the boat.
In front of the steering controls, he set everything he’d carried onto a table, had her sit on the comfortable leather captain’s seat, and patiently explained the controls to her. Watching the radar every so often for boats or checking the weather didn’t sound so hard, and if it turned out that she didn’t understand something, she could wake him. He made it sound like it’d be impossible for her to mess anything up.
He nudged the book toward her and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be up here by lunchtime. Maybe Clay will have responded by then. You should make good headway in that paperback in three or four hours, too. I expect that you will.”
That sounded like an order to Valerie.
Warily, she eyed the thick tome. Finally noticing the cover, she laughed. She hadn’t read that book before, but she’d actually heard of the title. The book was a light urban fantasy mystery series all her book nerd friends had said she should read, but she’d never found the time. Now, she had no excuse to scratch it off her reader’s bucket list.
“Yes, I think I’ll have made good headway by lunch,” she said. “Have you read this?”
“Mm-hmm.” He padded away without another word.
She just sat for a while passing the book from hand to hand and staring out the window at the sparkling blue ocean.
This is nice.
She hadn’t wanted to let herself think it—to put what she was feeling into a congealed sentiment, but there was no denying the setup was pretty sweet. She hadn’t wanted to admit it, because if she liked it, she’d want more of that luxury, and the experience wasn’t meant to last.
She’d made so many hard decisions in the past twelve years and was in the home stretch, working toward the culmination of all that sacrifice. She’d left her sickly grandmother to go to college three thousand miles from home. She’d taken an apprenticeship where she had to scrimp and penny-pinch just to afford the gas to get to work every day. All the long, grueling days had been worth the effort. She’d gotten to work under masters who breathed genius into modern architecture and city planning and helped her plant the seeds of own unique style.
