A challenge. He liked a good challenge. He also liked her pissed off instead of anxious. He got that she was afraid of getting emotionally attached and he’d thought that worked for him. He’d mistakenly assumed that her past, and her scars from that past, were none of his business. He’d been wrong. And if it was Lucas who’d taught her to fear confrontation, he’d be teaching him to drink through a straw.
“I don’t care about the dock,” he said. “Or the damage. What I care about is you.”
She was very busy studying her feet.
She didn’t fully believe him, and he did his best to not be insulted by that. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s try this instead.” And then he pulled her face to his and kissed her. He went in quick and easy, or meant to. But even with their awkward angle, with her in the boat and him on the dock leaning over her, there was absolutely nothing quick or easy about the way their mouths clung greedily.
She pulled back first, shaking her head like she needed to clear it. She tried to speak, but either she couldn’t find the words or she was still as dazed as he was, because she ended up just staring at him.
He nodded. “I’ll take that as ‘Why, Jacob, I care about you too.’” He rose and offered her a hand out of the boat, which she took.
“I stand corrected,” she said. “You were able to distract me.”
He smiled, but she pointed at him. “But I’m onto you now, so that won’t work again.” And with that, she headed belowdecks.
Another challenge, he thought, and he was absolutely up to the task.
Sophie went belowdecks and pressed her hands to her racing heart. God. God, what had she done?
You let him in…
And then you destroyed his dock. She plopped down on the bed and closed her eyes. Damn, her body was still trembling. From good sex, adrenaline.
Anxiety.
She’d crunched his dock, and just like that, she’d been back in her bad marriage…nervous, jumping. Upset.
The truth was, Lucas hadn’t always been a coldhearted dick. Once upon a time he’d been fun. Happy.
Then he’d been hired by a cutthroat law firm, and she’d rarely seen him. He’d felt a lot of stress and pressure on himself and he’d…changed.
Suddenly everything she did irritated him, annoyed him, pissed him off. He’d lost his patience and grown a nasty temper, and she’d…hated it. She’d also allowed herself to feel responsible. Just like she had with her dad, she’d rushed to please him.
An impossible task.
But eventually she’d gotten used to always being wrong, and worse, she’d gotten used to the yelling. It shamed her just how much. She’d withdrawn, retreated inside herself, and she was only now coming back into her own. It was way too soon to think about having feelings for anyone, and yet that’s exactly what she’d done—even though she’d told Jacob she couldn’t have feelings, that she absolutely wouldn’t.
Ever.
It wasn’t too much later that there came a knock on the door. And then… “Soph.”
She closed her eyes. What was it about his voice that always reached her, even when she was mad, hurt?
And that was the problem, she knew. Not that she was mad or hurt. But afraid, of her own heart, no less.
“Let me in, Soph.”
You’re already in…Not that she planned on admitting any such thing. She stared at the ceiling. “The door’s unlocked.”
“Let me in,” he repeated quietly.
Sophie turned her head and stared at the door. Damn him. He didn’t want to bulldoze his way in. He wanted her to let him in.
If he only knew.
She stood up and went to the door but didn’t open it. “Are you wearing a shirt?” she asked cautiously. She didn’t trust herself if he wasn’t.
There was a beat of silence. “Do you want me to be?”
She banged her head against the wood a few times, sighed, and opened the door.
He’d changed his T-shirt. This one said BOMB SQUAD…IF YOU SEE US RUNNING, YOU’D BEST KEEP UP, and she laughed.
His mouth quirked, like he enjoyed the sound of her laugh. “Come up on deck?” he asked, and without waiting for her, turned and vanished.
She followed, as he knew damn well she would.
Night had fully fallen, but that wasn’t what surprised her. No, it was the candles lit on the hull, shimmering in the dark. The blanket spread out on the floor of the boat.
In the center was a picnic. A bottle of wine, cheese, crackers, salami, grapes.
“My version of cooking,” Jacob said. “Sophie, about before.”
“I’d rather not talk about it.” She kept her back to him as she took in the spread he’d put out for her, needing a moment, needing space, because whenever she got too close to him, their mouths gravitated toward each other like magnets.
“Not that,” he said, voice low. “Before that. I honestly didn’t realize you thought I was lake patrol. I should have, but I’m…”
When he trailed off, she turned to face him.
“I’m people rusty,” he explained, and then grimaced. “Specifically, women rusty.”
She stared at him as that sank in. He’d spent the past nine long years as a soldier, doing and saying God knew what. Of course he was rusty.
Anyone would have been, and she should’ve seen that. She smiled and hoped it conveyed her apology as well. “So your plan was to what, give me orgasms until my brain cells blew so I wouldn’t notice?” she teased.
He flashed a grin. “I blew your brain cells?”