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“It kinda is.” Her smile had me fighting to regain my breath.
“What’s your name?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Marina.”
“Fitting,” I told her.
“You have no idea,” she shot back.
“Oh?”
“I grew up here. Love the ocean. It…” She shook her head. Her hair was drying into long beachy waves, thanks to the heat that was blasting over us, and I wanted to gather it up in my fists while I fucked her.
Shifting in my seat to hide the erection I was suddenly sporting, I tried to get my mind off her body.
“It what?”
“Nothing,” she insisted.
She didn’t trust me. No surprise really. She had no reason to…yet.
CHAPTER TWO
Marina
Trip didn’t insist that I finish my sentence, which I appreciated. Most people didn’t fully understand my love of the sea. It went far beyond what was normal. If I could live underwater, I would.
It was so peaceful, the sound of the world muffled and distorted by the pressing water. To me, the ocean was home. The sea life that lived within the salty waters was beautiful and mysterious.
Trip shifted and I peeked over at him from the corner of my eye. He was gorgeous…and half naked. If I’d known I’d end up rescuing a hot, tatted up biker from the ocean this morning, I’d have prepped myself a bit better. Not that I knew how to prepare for that. My dash into the sea wouldn’t have been kind to any make-up I might have put on.
I was a simple girl. I wore shorts and tanks during the summer, no make-up—what was the point when you’d be on or under the water all day—and my hair was usually a mess thanks to the salt water. My job kind of required me to be pretty ‘go with the flow’ and I wouldn’t want any other career than the one I had.
Trip shifted again and my eyes widened as his hand landed on my leg just above my knee. Both his arms were tatted from the back of his hands up past his shoulders and connected on his chest. It was hard not to drool. The man had the kind of six pack abs you saw on TV or in magazines, not in real life. His hand was warm on my leg, the heat melting through my leggings to my skin.
This is the part where I should have said ‘what are you doing?’ Or ‘don’t touch me’. Instead, I was fighting the sudden urge to place my hand on top of his.
It wasn’t typical of me to be so trusting. I let him in my car because I was attracted to him. Never the best move. Glancing over, I met his laughing blue eyes. They were the exact color of the water in my favorite cove. That perfect mix of green and blue. It was a place I never took anyone. It was my escape from everything when I needed it. I’d never seen another person there, a miracle really, given how many people called San Francisco home.
I’d only known Trip for about thirty minutes, but laughing seemed to be his permanent state. What kind of man was so jovial after falling off a cliff into the ocean?
He took my silence and inaction as permission and squeezed my leg. Reluctantly, I patted the top of his hand and moved it back over to his own thigh. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to touch me. I did, I just wasn’t usually the kind of girl given to spontaneously sleeping with handsome devils. And boy was he a charmer.
If I hadn’t grown up in a family who enjoyed extreme sports, I’d be a very different person. It was in my nature to be risk aversive. But growing up with four brothers and parents who enjoyed scuba diving, surfing, rock climbing, bungee jumping, and pretty much any activity that was guaranteed to get your heart racing, meant you either learned to let go of that fear, or you were left behind. My family was extremely tight-knit and getting left at home while they played would have been torture. What it had produced was an odd mixture of an introverted adrenaline junkie.
When it came to hobbies, if it was dangerous, I loved it. That didn’t mean I went wild in the rest of my life. In fact, it was the opposite. Jumping out of planes meant I was overly cautious in every other area—especially dating. I didn’t sleep around and had only had a few long-term boyfriends. The last guy I’d dated hadn’t been fond of my hobbies. He’d dumped me because we didn’t have anything in common. He’d been a straight-laced corporate type. The man before him had been too wild in every area of his life. We had fun on the weekends, but when he started trying to bring more women into the bedroom that’d been the end for me.
I wasn’t a woman who liked to share. There were needs that I had, like any other, but that didn’t include some of the hardcore kinks he’d had in mind. We’d mutually agreed to go our separate ways. I hadn’t been touched by a man since my last boyfriend and that was just depressing. My battery operated boyfriend wasn’t cutting it anymore. Especially not when I had a red-blooded, drop dead sexy guy sitting in my car in only a pair of soaked jeans. I had never been this turned on by a man, and his impromptu strip show was making it worse.
My nipples were straining against my shirt. I couldn’t bear to look down, because I hadn’t put a bra on this morning. I’d thought it was going to be a solitary drive from the campground at Big Sur back home to San Francisco. How was I supposed to know I’d end up with a sexy co-pilot?
Live a little.
I frowned because that little voice in my head sounded an awful lot like my best friend Katya. Kat was a wild child. That’s why we got along so well. I was down to earth and dependable—and kept her out of trouble—while she put a little fun into my life. She was always down for some rock climbing, but also forced me to get out of my pajamas at night and go out to a club every so often. In turn, I convinced her to stay in and pick up a book. It was all about balance.
She would absolutely be telling me to take a walk on the wild side and take this biker up on the invitation that was there in his heated gaze.
Was this real life? Because in my version of life, hot, heavily muscled, tattooed guys didn’t look twice at me. At least not that I’d ever noticed. Then again, I hadn’t been around many hot, heavily muscled, tattooed guys. They didn’t tend to run in my circles.
