Towel wrapped around her body, she combed through her hair as he rushed to dress.
He slipped into his loafers and snagged his briefcase on his way across the room toward her. “Sorry I have to work on Saturday, but I’ll be home by six. I have plans for the evening, so don’t bother with supper. I’ll be thinking about you.”
He kissed her again, longer this time, lingeringly—lovingly?—his tongue bold and possessive. The fresh taste of his mouthwash, the tangy scent of his aftershave, all sent her senses into overload. The man did know how to kiss and kiss well. And somehow the kiss meant all the more right now, because it obviously wasn’t going to lead to sex. They were both wrung out and he had to leave for work. The tender attention he gave to her lips, the time to just connect, spoke of something somehow as intimate as when he’d been buried deep inside her.
Her eyelashes were just fluttering open as the door closed behind him on his way out.
She sank onto the edge of the whirlpool tub. Even if she found the resolve to return to New York, she would come back here for visits with the baby. He would have to travel East, too.
How could she be in the same room with him in the future and not want him? Want this. Want more and more. For how long? Surely a fire this hot had to burn out.
And if it didn’t?
She’d had a front-row seat to the way her parents’ high-intensity emotions had consumed each other. She would be damned if she would relive it in her own marriage.
Ten
H e was making headway. He could feel it as surely as the sting of salt spray off the Bay.
Jason slid his arm around Lauren’s shoulders as they walked along the pier outside the yacht club where they’d consumed one helluva big dinner. He winced with guilt over making a pregnant woman wait an extra hour for supper.Damn, he hated running late, but this afternoon he hadn’t been able to avoid it. Prentice suddenly changed his mind about signing a teen pop star to endorse a line of beachwear. Not to mention Jason was juggling four other new accounts that needed settling in. At least they’d gotten to go out together on a Saturday night for an official date. And he intended to make the most of every minute to show her the many ways San Francisco living rocked.
How better to show her a number of sights at once than from…
“You have a boat?” Lauren exclaimed, her feet slowing along the dock. Waterfowl flapped overhead, local marshes rich and teeming with migrating birdlife during the winter months.
“Did I forget to mention that?”
“Uh, yeah, you did overlook it, because I’m sure I wouldn’t have zoned out this.” She swept her hand toward his Beneteau fifty-foot, performance/racing sailboat.
“I got a good deal on it from a guy whose business went belly-up. The custom-made boat had only just been delivered and in the water for a couple of months before he realized he would have to consolidate to avoid bankruptcy court.”
“It’s new, then?”
“Less than six months off the truck.” Zipping up his windbreaker, Jason could already feel the lulling give-and-take of the deck beneath his feet. He hoped she wasn’t the type to get seasick. It wasn’t a deal breaker, but it sure would suck, given this was his only real form of recreation. “Would you like to go out for a spin?”
“Uh, sure. Why not?” She blinked at his surprise shift in the evening plans.
Did she have a problem with being impulsive? He wouldn’t have thought that from the way they made love when and wherever the mood struck. On the way to supper, he’d had to pull off onto a deserted road or risk a wreck. She been frenetic and demanding and he’d enjoyed the hell out of every minute of it.
Come to think of it, that could have also played into why they were late for dinner.
He helped her aboard, nodding his thanks to the club employee who’d prepped the sails so he could head straight out with Lauren. So far, she seemed at ease on the boat. Her feet steady, she settled into a seat and tipped her face into the wind. The slap and ping of sails and lines soothed him after a tense day at work.
Lauren seemed content with silence—something he appreciated since most people he knew felt the need to fill up quiet spaces. He guided the boat out into the Bay. The moon overhead and lights along the shore showcased a top-notch view of the shopping at Fisherman’s Wharf and historic Alcatraz.
After an hour of cruising, he set the anchor and joined her on the bow of the boat. The boat’s running lights sparked off the crest of waves, the shoreline lit with nightlife.
Jason draped a blanket over her shoulders and sat behind her. “Are you cold?”
She shook her head against him. “I’m fine. Lots of layers, just like you instructed before we headed out.” She burrowed more deeply into the quilted folds. “But leave the quilt. It’s getting colder.”
He pulled her closer, enjoying the feel of her body tucked against his even through the blanket. “Did you have a productive afternoon working?”
“Not particularly creative, but busy. I’m taking care of creditors since your infusion of cash came through.” She rested her hand on his bent knee. “Thank you again. My company means a lot to me.”
“No thanks necessary.” And he meant it. “You’re paying me back, remember?”
She chuckled. “At an absurdly low interest rate.”
He hoped they could just write off that whole damn debt soon. He’d meant to help her, and now he hated the way she seemed hung up on not taking anything from him. With luck, the private detective he’d hired to hunt down her accountant would turn up something soon. If she got her money back, then she would have stability in her company, which afforded flexibility.
He knew there wasn’t a chance in hell she would accept more money from him, but perhaps he could persuade her to keep the original loan for their kid, expand her business with a San Francisco base. Best for the baby, right?
And damn great for him.
She glanced back at him, wind whipping her long auburn ponytail over her face. “I’m glad you suggested this. I imagine it’s no surprise I’ve been a little stressed out lately.”
“The water has a calming effect.” Waves lapped the side of the boat, fish plopping a few feet away. Lights from a couple of other crafts glittered in the distance, but no one close enough for him to see details in the night.
“You could live here. The boat has more furniture than your house.”
He decided the time had come to press her for more. According to her preset deadline, he only had a week left before she returned to New York. “Maybe Sunday we can wander around Fisherman’s Wharf, do some furniture shopping.”
“Jason, you’re pushing.” She traced the outline of his kneecap, her eyes still set on the horizon. “What made you decide to get out of the Navy? Prentice mentioned something over dinner about you being a hero during a pirate incident. You went really quiet.”
He tensed at her surprise charge into his past. Then decided to let her subject change go unnoted, since she hadn’t left his arms. “I was just doing my job. I only mentioned it to Prentice because he has a nephew in the service.”
“What happened?”
His Navy time seemed such a world away now, but it was a part of him, giving him a discipline, drive and focus his old man had always insisted he needed, but was never around to teach or model. Jason felt his baby roll lightly under his hands and vowed to do better, to be present. “It was a hostage situation off the coast of Malaysia. We were called in to help.”
“We?”
“I was a dive officer attached to a SEAL team, working EOD.”
“EOD?” she prodded.
“Explosive ordinance disposal.”
She shuddered against him. “Sounds scary.”
Scary? In the early days, but in later years, the shakes usually didn’t set in until after a mission. “There were some tense times, sure, but you train hard, then go on autopilot for the mission.”
“Your job must seem tame now.”
“Just different. Sometimes I miss it, but for the most part I’m content with what I offered my country. I’m ready to move on. This is what I studied to do in college. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I was just so determined to be different from my old man that I chased other dreams for a while before coming back to what’s in my blood.”
“You’ve certainly stepped well out of your dad’s shadow, here and back in New York, too. You’re your own man.”
He appreciated that she saw that. He’d sure as hell tried. “I took a Navy ROTC scholarship to college since my inheritance from my grandparents wouldn’t come through until I was twenty-five. After I graduated, I owed years of service in return. I like to think I would have joined even if I hadn’t needed the money.”
“Your parents wouldn’t pay for you to go to college?”
“Oh, they would have paid, but there were too many strings attached.”
“Like what?”
“Go to my father’s alma mater, join the family firm. I appreciate the advantages my family provided while I was growing up, but I couldn’t be a spoiled trust-fund kid.”
“You definitely proved yourself.”
“It’s an ongoing process.” Lifelong, in fact. He thought about her mother who’d so devalued Lauren’s art because it wasn’t the same as hers. Maybe Lauren understood his problems with his parents better than he would have realized before. “Overall, I’m happy here, with the locale and the job.”