Celia turns to me, startled by the sudden noise. “I think I lost my bait.”
I grab a fresh beer from the cooler. “Reel it in, let’s see.”
She reels it in, her eyes on the line and her mouth pursed in concentration. “I felt a tug, but then nothing, and that was a long time ago.”
I snag her line from the water and, sure enough, it’s an empty hook. “Yep, you’re fishing naked.” I pass her the hook. “You know the drill.”
I watch in fascination as she swings her leg over to slide off the fighting chair and moves to the bait tank. She doesn’t ask for help, and after a few tries she snags a sardine and hooks it.
“I did it!” Her bright smile is almost blinding as she holds the baited hook up with pride.
“Good job.”
“I’m the master!”
I shrug. “Eh . . . you have a great teacher.”
She hands me the pole to cast. “Admit it, you didn’t think I could do it.”
“I had my doubts.” It’s too much to look right at her when she’s dropped all the stuffy formal crap so I keep my eyes on the water. “You proved me wrong.”
“So . . . you’re saying I am the master.”
“Fine.” I settle back into my seat. “You’re the master. Feel better?”
“I’m the master!” She yells it loud and out to no one.
“Baiter.” I bite my lip to keep from laughing.
“I’m the master baiter!”
“Say it again, freckles.” I can’t stop laughing. “A little louder.”
“Oh my gosh!” She’s smiling so big and seeing it makes something uncoil in my chest. It’s a weird feeling. I don’t question it, but I’m grateful nonetheless.
“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me girls don’t do it, I know they do.”
She brings her beer to her lips and mumbles, “Maybe the girls you date.”
“I’ll give you that.” I turn away from her grinning face because looking at her smile makes me smile and then we’re just smiling at each other, which makes me want to kiss her and I can’t kiss her.
She clears her throat. “Where’d you learn to fish?”
“Grew up on the water.”
“Here in San Diego?”
“North of Santa Barbara. My parents still live in the same house I was born in, my sister lives twenty minutes from there.” I take a swig of my beer wondering why I’m giving away information she didn’t ask for.
“You didn’t want to stay close to your family?”
I tried. But being around my family only served as a reminder of how far I’d fallen. The pitying looks would only lead me to outbursts and I couldn’t stand the way they’d look at me as if I were a stranger. I knew if I stayed I’d kill what little relationship we had left. “I’m only a four-hour drive away.”
We stare ahead at the water as Jack Johnson’s voice fills the space between us until I see her move out of the corner of my eye. She’s pressing on the bright pink skin of her shoulder.
“Shit . . . you’re burning.” I shove off my chair and grab a bottle of sunscreen from inside the cabin.
She presses a delicate fingertip against her forearm. “I guess I am. It feels so nice, it kinda crept up on me.”
I grunt and squirt a liberal amount of lotion into my palms, then push the thick life vest aside to expose the cap of her shoulder. She stiffens and I take advantage of the fact that she’s locked in the fighting chair.
“I got it.” I run my hands over her skin and—fuck me—it really is as soft as it looks. Warm, and like silk beneath my palms. Sliding my thumbs beneath the vest, I press into the tight muscles of her shoulder blades. Awfully tense for a woman who spends most of her life traveling. I could get lost in a moment like this, forget who she is, what she means to my uncle, and seduce the fuck out of her.
Get your head out of her pants!
I hurry to thoroughly cover her shoulders with sunscreen, then work my way to the tops of her arms.
She tenses again. “You don’t have to do that. I can get my arms.”
I’m sure she can, but I’m incapable of taking my hands off her.
“One of us needs our hands free in case we get a bite. Unless you want to trade—”
“No. I’m good.”
I run my thumbs down the lean muscle of her forearm as the seconds tick by and she slowly relaxes under my hands. Her body falls limply forward as I move back up to her shoulders and massage there. Walk away. Right fucking now.
She hums low in her throat, a sweet and sultry signal to continue. If that’s the noise she makes when she’s being touched innocently, what kind of sounds would she make if I were touching her with purely sexual intentions? Who am I kidding? My thoughts regarding Celia are far from innocent.
Don’t go there, Colt. I blame the beer, and the sun, and the quiet solitude of the sea. “What do you do for a living?” It’s the first thing I think of as my hands refuse to release her.
“Accountant.” Her spine goes upright as if she’s holding her breath. “I mean . . .” She slips out from under my hands. “I think I’m good now. Thank you.”
Hidden at her back, I adjust myself in my shorts before I move around to my chair. My dick may not care about social politeness, but I do. “So between your bucket list jaunts around the world, you’re a number cruncher.” I guess I could see that. Living the straight life in the city has to be boring as hell. I’d need to skydive on the weekends too just to remind myself I was still alive.
“Mm-hm.” She peers over at me and not for the first time I regret giving her the sunglasses and wish I could see her eyes. “How about you? What branch of the military were you in?”
I hear nails on a chalkboard in the back of my brain, but I’ve learned how to talk about my military experience without giving everything away. “Army.”
“Huh . . .” She turns to stare back out at the ocean. “Listen, I know I said it earlier but . . .” She seems to try to avoid looking at me. “I’m really sorry about what I said this morning. I’m sure you were a very honorable soldier.”
If she only knew.
“I tend to . . . lash out when I feel threatened.”
And doesn’t that make me feel like an asshole. “You felt threatened by me?”
“Not you, but about what you were implying.”
Now it’s me who’s avoiding her eyes. She’s right, I practically called her a gold-digging slut to her face. “I’m sorry about that. I find I usually say the first thing that comes to mind without giving it much thought.”
“It’s okay.” The boat rocks steadily. “You were mostly right about what you picked up from those pictures.”
“Nah . . . I don’t believe that.” Because nothing about this girl screams money-hungry leech.
She laughs, but it lacks humor. “It’s true. She . . . the girl in those pictures had a lot of growing up to do.” There’s sadness in her voice now.