Chapter 2
Weaver Tripp
A man who just captured an intruder.
A very beautiful, intriguing intruder…
Wakingup to a man trying to kill me in my sleep in New York, would have been shocking, but not completely out of the realm of possibility. New York is a big, bad city, after all, not a sleepy hamlet like Sea Breeze.
Sea Breeze is one of the safest small towns in the country, a fact proudly proclaimed on its website, and one of the reasons I went out of my way to avoid coming back here, once I finally got out.
I couldn’t stomach the hypocrisy or the disconnect between the propaganda and reality.
This town wasn’t safe for me or my mother, not by a long shot, and hearing everyone from the mayor to the principal talk about how lucky we all were to live in such a sheltered haven, made my blood boil. I couldn’t get out of here fast enough. The second my diploma was in hand, I was on a plane to New York City, bound for a high-profile internship before starting business school at Columbia.
But that was fine. No one was sad to see me go.
Rodger, my much older brother and Dad’s favorite, was champing at the bit to take over the family business. By the time I graduated with my MBA and a job waiting for me at one of the biggest banks in the world, Rodger had the seafood empire well in hand.
He also had several dirty politicians in his pocket, men and women who, in exchange for large campaign donations, were happy to overlook the fact that the Tripps were violating Maine law. According to the state fishing code, professional lobster harvesting must be done by small, independently-owned operations.
Our operation is independently owned, but there’s nothing small about it, and nothing legal about the way my father and brother organized the business. For two generations now, they’ve forced members of our own family to pay a percentage of their profits to them in exchange for “help” with boat maintenance. Once my brother took over, he added another fee for shitty group health insurance that leaves everyone paying for most services out of pocket.
If I were a better man, I would have stepped in and called my brother on what he was doing. I would have protected the younger, more vulnerable members of the family. I would have been the hero our mother believed me to be before she died just six months after my abusive father, proving there’s no justice or mercy in the world.
But I’m not a hero.
And I’m not a good man, a fact I prove by remaining on top of my intruder once I realize he is actually a she, and that she’s probably one of Mark’s chaotic group of friends.
Or one of the many girls he’s fucking…
She looks like his type.
As I roll her onto the mattress beneath me, her long, wavy blond hair spills across the sheets. The moonlight reveals plush lips parted in an “O” of surprise, cheekbones a princess would kill for, and big eyes I’m guessing are blue, though I can’t make out their color in the darkness.
Mark’s conquests are always blondes with blue eyes, girls who look like they could use a sandwich and an intervention with whatever they use to dissolve the filler dermatologists pack into women’s lips these days.
But this woman’s lips aren’t artificially plumped, they’re too soft-looking for that, and she isn’t his usual waif. When she shifts beneath me, trying to wiggle free, I can feel the strength in her long frame. She’s in amazing shape, but not strong enough to buck me off when I grasp her wrists and pin her to the mattress.
I’m not like the other Wall Street lifers at my investment firm. I don’t rely on my power or money to make me attractive to the opposite sex. I wake up every morning and hit the gym at five a.m., exorcising my demons and honing my body into a loaded weapon in the process.
I’m obviously not going to hurt this woman with my superior strength—I’m not my father—but I’m not above pressing an advantage.
“Who are you?” I demand.
“P-please, I’m sorry,” she says, her breath coming in swift, shallow pants. “I thought you were Mark.”
The words disappoint me for some reason. I guess a part of me was hoping this girl was different in other ways, too, that maybe she was intelligent enough to realize my nephew is a self-centered idiot, unworthy of her time and attention.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Unless, of course, she’s lying…
She looks like she’s lying, her eyes darting around the room before returning to mine. “Please.” She gulps. “Just let me go? I’ll leave and never come back. I promise.”
“Do you always sneak in to join Mark in bed dressed all in black?”
She gulps again, and her voice is wobbly when she says, “I like black. There’s nothing illegal about black.”
“But there is something illegal about trespassing.” Higher education gave me tools I’ve used to make myself rich, but at the end of the day, my gut calls the shots.
Right now, my gut is screaming that this woman has something to hide.
Something big.
“What do you say?” I nod toward the bedside table, where my phone sits next to the darkened lamp. “Should I call Mark? Ask him if you have permission to board The Merry Way?”
She chews her bottom lip for a moment. “Please…”
I arch a brow, not saying a word or moving a muscle.
She sighs, searching my face for weakness she isn’t going to find.
When she apparently realizes neither of us is going anywhere until she gives me an answer, she whispers, “Please…don’t call Mark. I don’t have permission to board, but I can explain why I’m here. I’m not trying to hurt anyone or take anything, I promise.”
“Then explain.” I ignore her pointed glance up to her wrists, still pinned in place by my much larger hands. I’m not letting this woman up until I get some straight answers.
After a beat, she sighs again. “I texted Mark a picture earlier tonight, after I’d had a few drinks with a friend. It was a…suggestive picture.”
“A sext,” I supply, wondering how old this girl thinks I am. I may be a decade or more her senior, but I’ve received my share of racy texts. I have a few on my phone right now, in fact. An ass shot from Raya, my hook-up in the city, and an artistic nude from Angeline, my fuck buddy in Paris.
But it isn’t Raya or Angeline I’m thinking about as my captive shifts beneath me again, making me even more aware of her strong thighs and the full breasts beneath her hoodie.
“Right, a sext,” she says, and I swear I can see her blush even in the dim moonlight. “As soon as I sobered up, I was mortified and texted him again, begging him to delete the photo, but he didn’t answer. Then, I realized his number was still traceable on my ‘track my friends’ app. I saw he was spending the night here. On the boat. I thought if I could just sneak in and delete the texts myself, while Mark was sleeping…”
I hold her gaze, trying to decide if I believe her.
Her tongue slips across her lips, making them look even more plush and kissable. If she weren’t one of my nephew’s lovers, I would definitely consider it. Her shyness over sending a sext is cute, and her body is built for the kind of athletic fucking I haven’t enjoyed in a while.
Raya and Angeline are both model thin and too delicate to do more than wrap their arms around me and hold on for the ride.
But this woman could keep up with me, I’m sure of it, and the more I study her plush lips, the more I want to see them open in an “O” of pleasure while she comes on my cock.
“So…can I get up?” she asks after a beat, her voice a sexy rasp in the darkness. “I can find Mark’s phone, delete my embarrassment, and be out of your hair before you can say ‘I’m a big, scary man who likes to bully people half his size.’”
Her words send ice water rushing through my veins.
I don’t mind being called big or scary, but I’m no bully. I’m not my father and she’s not some innocent waif I pounced on while she was lost in the woods.
“You’re trespassing,” I say, my voice a low, ominous rumble. “In Maine, that gives me every right to defend myself. With force.” I curl my fingers tighter around her wrists, until I can feel her pulse racing beneath her skin. “That’s something you should have thought about before you walked into someone’s bedroom in the middle of the night without an invitation.”
“How do I know you’re not trespassing? This is Mark’s dad’s boat,” she says, proving she’s as brave as she is uninformed. “And you’re not Mark’s dad. Not unless you had a hair transplant and grew six inches.”
“No, I’m not Rodger,” I say, my jaw tight. “Rodger’s dead. Now, like it or not, everything that was his, is mine.”
Her jaw drops. “He’s dead? What? When?”
“Yesterday. Late afternoon.”
She blinks and shakes her head. “But no one said anything down on the docks. Not a word. And no offense, but that would be big news around here.”
“Because people hated Rodger?”
She has the decency to blush again, but she doesn’t hedge. “Yeah. We did. He was an asshole.”
My lips twist in a hard smile. “Guess you won’t be speaking at the funeral Sunday morning.”
“Guess not,” she says, her eyes narrowing on my face. “What about you? You don’t seem too broken up about the news.”
“Are you always this blunt?” I ask, returning her glare.
“Are you always this determined to stay on top of women who don’t want you on top of them?”
I smile again, a more lethal grin this time. I may not know how to make a relationship last more than a few months or have any idea what love feels like, but I know when a woman wants me. And this girl isn’t backing up her words with nearly enough struggle for me to believe she wants to be anywhere but where she is right now.
Dropping my lips closer to hers, I whisper, “Didn’t your parents teach you not to lie?”
“I’m not lying,” she says, even as her back arches slightly, causing her breasts to press against my chest. “I don’t even know your name.”
“Is that all it would take?” I smooth one hand down her forearm, over her elbow, to curl around her bicep, impressed again by the muscled flesh beneath my fingers. “A name?”
“I don’t want to sleep with you.”
“Are you sure about that?” I slide my palm lower, over the hollow beneath her arm until I’m cupping the side of her breast.
I tell myself that I don’t want to fuck a girl who’s already fucked a relative, but in a town the size of Sea Breeze, a girl like that might be hard to find. I’m stuck here for at least the next few weeks, until I can get my family’s affairs in order. I don’t want to spend those weeks alone. The past haunts me in this town, but the ghosts are quieter when there’s a warm, eager woman in my bed.
And this girl is eager, whether she wants to admit it or not. When I skim my thumb lightly over the swell of her breast, teasing closer to her nipple, a soft, hungry sound escapes from the back of her throat.
Her voice is breathy as she says, “I’ve never had a one-night stand.”
“Who said anything about one night? I want you in this bed, coming on my cock every night until I leave town in a few weeks.”
“You don’t even know me,” she says, her chest rising and falling faster. I drag the zipper down on her hoodie, revealing a tight, shiny black tank top that holds her full breasts close together, creating a creamy valley I’m dying to explore with my tongue.
“I know you’re beautiful, brave, and seem relatively intelligent despite having fucked Mark.” I curl my fingers into the fabric at the top of her shirt. “What else do I need to know?”
“I didn’t fuck Mark,” she says, her lips parting as I tug on the satin, guiding it beneath her breast. She gulps, her throat working as I mold my hand to her soft, hot skin. But she doesn’t look away. She holds my gaze as she says, “I’ve actually never fucked anyone.”
I hesitate, genuinely surprised.
Surprised, but not put off…
I’ve been with my share of virgins. They tend to get more attached, making the end of the relationship messier than usual, but most of my liaisons end badly, sooner or later. When it comes to women, I don’t think too far into the future. I enjoy the heat and connection for what is—pleasure, pure and simple.
There’s only one thing I’m concerned about at this point.
Well, maybe two…
I move my hand from her breast, bracing it on the mattress beside her ribs.
“How old are you, Cat Burglar?” I ask, studying her face again. She doesn’t look like a teenager, but Mark’s a douchebag, just like his father. Rodger was still fucking high school girls when he was married with a baby on the way, and I fear the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
I don’t mind an age gap, but I want a woman in my bed, not a child.
“I’m twenty-four,” she says, her chin hitching higher. “And I’m not a prude or a hopeless romantic, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m just not into being the subject of small-town gossip and almost everyone I work with is a man. I know how they talk. Lobstermen are worse than desperate housewives, and I don’t want a bunch of horny, chatty dudes speculating about my sex life.”
I grunt, surprised again. “You’re a lobsterwoman?” I’ve known a few in my life, but it’s still an overwhelming male profession.
And none of the ladies I saw coming off the boats as a kid looked anything like this woman. She’s a Viking shield maiden, strong and beautiful and living proof that women can doing anything men can do, while remembering to wear sunscreen so their skin doesn’t dry into a windburned husk by their mid-twenties.
“Harvester is the gender-neutral term,” she shoots back. “And yeah, I am. Sixth generation. I have half a dozen ancestors out there at the bottom of the ocean and another couple dozen in the cemetery on the hill. Fishing is in my blood. I couldn’t leave this town if I tried.”
“And you don’t want to try,” I say, reading her correctly if the pride firming her features is anything to judge by.
“No, I don’t,” she says. Her tongue slips out to dampen her lips as she adds in a less certain voice, “But I don’t want to be a twenty-five-year-old virgin, either, and my birthday is in November, so…”
“Happy early birthday,” I murmur, my gaze flicking down to her tight nipple, my fingers aching to capture it between my fingers. But I need one more question answered first… “What’s your name?”
“Gertrude,” she says, in a tone that dares me to comment on the old-fashioned name.
I smile, liking her more with every passing minute. She’ll be the perfect distraction while I’m here, a way to blow off steam when the stress of dealing with my dysfunctional family gets to be too much.
“Well, Gertrude?—”
“Call me Sully,” she says. “All my guy friends do.”
Guy friends…
I’m not sure if I’m going to be one of those, but, “I’m happy to give you a sexual education you won’t forget, Sully,” I say. “But I’m going to need something from you in exchange.”
Her brows shoot up. “Wow. You think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”
I don’t dignify the question with a response. I do think a lot of myself and so will she, once I’m done making her come hard enough to banish her little sexting problem from her mind.
Aloud, I say, “I’m a private person, too, and the people of Sea Breeze haven’t earned the right to know anything about my life. If we decide to fuck, we keep it a secret. If our paths cross in town, you don’t say hello. You don’t so much as look my way. You don’t call me or text me or disturb me when I’m dealing with business during work hours. And when I tell you I want you, you come down here just like this, quickly and quietly, dressed all in black so no one sees you, and you leave before the first fisherman arrives on the docks in the morning.”
Her jaw drops as she shakes her head. “Bastard.”
“Indeed,” I agree.
“And proud of it. Awesome.” She huffs. “Well, you can fuck right off, Mr. Whatever Your Name Is. I don’t need your bullshit or your ‘education’ or your ego the size of?—”
I cut her off with a kiss, crushing my lips to hers.
At first her mouth is hard and unyielding beneath mine, but when I cup her breast, dragging my thumb across her tight pink nipple, her lips part on a gasp of pleasure. A moment later, my tongue is sparring with hers, stroking and teasing, demanding her submission as I jerk her top lower, baring both her breasts.
“I need your promise, Cat Burglar,” I say, plucking both of her nipples now as I knee her thighs apart. “We pretend we don’t know each other and you come when I call, or no orgasms for you tonight.”
“I have a condition, too,” she says against my mouth, her fingers clawing into the bare skin on my back. “You never tell anyone about this. Ever. I don’t want it getting out that I’m a Tripp fucker. I may not know your name, but you have to be a Tripp, and your family is the worst.”
I kiss her harder and smile, my teeth pressing against hers through our lips. “Agreed. You have my word, Sully. Now lift your arms. I need your clothes off. Now.”
To my surprise, she obeys without another word, returning her arms to their place on the mattress above her head. I grip the bottom of her hoodie and tank top, ripping them both off at the same time, revealing a body that would launch a thousand ships. Her breasts are large, but firm and high on her chest, with pale nipples only a shade darker than her skin. Her stomach is taut and flat, with muscles visible on either side of her torso.
She’s fucking perfect, and I can’t wait to see the rest of her.
I grip the top of her sweatpants and cotton panties, dragging them down slowly, inch by inch, revealing more firm flesh, sexy hip bones, and finally, a thatch of dark blond hair. It isn’t neatly trimmed or tamed in any way. She’s a natural girl, just like her Viking forebearers must have been, and even though I haven’t been with a woman who doesn’t shave since I was a teenager, I find her untamed beauty completely sexy.
Suddenly, I can’t wait another second to taste her. I need her pussy on my mouth, her taste on my tongue. I need this bold girl helpless and writhing beneath me, proving I still have some control over my destiny.
Sea Breeze has pulled me back into its web for now, but it can’t keep me here. I’ll bury my brother, clean up his mess, pass the hideous mansion on the hill on to whatever relative wants to live in that house of horrors, and get back to my real life.
But in the meantime, I’ll distract myself by giving this girl a first fuck she’ll never forget.