Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
AIDAN
Idon’t know what I regret most: letting her walk away or sleeping with her in the first place. Why does the first person I’m truly attracted to in years have to be my fucking stepsister?
I sit at the table for a few minutes after she turns to make sure I’m not following her.
I don’t want to be a creep about it, and with my fast stride and our rooms being only a few doors away, I would easily catch up to her if I didn’t wait it out.
I have no idea if she’d want that or not, but it’s better for both of us if I don’t find out.
When I finally leave the restaurant to return to my room ten minutes later, I realize that no one ever mentioned to Morgan when the boat is leaving in the morning.
I know that Max knows, so I’m not worried about him and Anne getting there on time.
But does Morgan even have any idea where to meet us, or when?
Her mom will probably tell her, I assure myself as I approach her room.
And as much as I feel like it’s none of my business, I’ve gotten a good sense of who Anne is and what her priorities are over the past few hours.
And for some reason, Morgan is not on that list. With cell service still out on the island, it’s not like her mom can text her about it.
The mental image of Morgan waking up to an annoyed knock on her door, only to find out she’s supposed to be on the boat already, has me passing my room and coming to a stop outside hers.
She pulls the door open with confusion on her face, and a thin tank top and a tiny pair of shorts hugging her curves.
Fuck. Everything about her body is a turn-on for me.
The way every inch of her soft skin practically glows, the deep crease between her tits, her wide hips expanding from her narrower waist, and the way her thighs are thick and smooth.
I try not to let the memory of them wrapped around my head last night totally cloud my judgment, but seeing her braless and in barely any clothes has me forgetting what I’m doing here. All my brain can think about right now is how much my body wants hers.
“Yes?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest to hide the fact that her nipples are hard and fairly visible through the thin fabric. Unfortunately, all that does is emphasize her cleavage.
And now, my dick is hard just from the sight of her standing here, wearing her pajamas.
I try to remember the last time I felt this way about anyone—not just the physical attraction, but the desire to be in her presence—but I come up empty-handed.
There hasn’t been a single person since my college relationship fell apart.
“Did you really knock on my door just so you could stand here scowling at me?”
God, I love that annoyed tone. Flirting with her at the bar last night was fun, but I bet fighting with her would be even better.
I shove my hands in my pockets, hoping that pushing the fabric forward will hide the tent in my pants. “I didn’t know if you knew when and where we’re meeting tomorrow morning?”
“Morning?” she says with a heavy sigh.
“Yeah, the marina said they usually get thunderstorms in the afternoon since it’s summer, so I booked the boat starting in the morning.”
She tilts her head as she studies me. “You booked it?”
“Yeah. Sort of as a wedding gift. Thought it would be something nice to do that wasn’t just sitting at the pool or the beach all day, listening to our parents yap. I’ve . . . done this a few times.”
I don’t know what makes me offer that up, since I have no idea if she knows this is my stepdad’s third marriage since my mom died.
She huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, I’ve done this a few times, too. Three, to be exact.”
She leans against the doorframe, one eyebrow lifted like she’s waiting for me to tell her how many times Max has been married. This feels like something we should have known about our new stepparents before the day of the wedding.
“Also three.”
Her eyebrows shoot up into high arches on her forehead and she clears her throat. “Okay, so what time does the boat leave tomorrow?”
“We’re pulling out from the dock at nine.”
“Why so early?” The question is practically a groan.
I chuckle at that. I got so used to being up by five every morning for hockey practices when I was a teenager and in college that, even as an adult, I have a hard time sleeping much later, unless I’m up really late, like last night. “Not a morning person?”
“With enough caffeine, I can be. Otherwise, no.”
“I’ll make sure we’re stocked with caffeine,” I say.
I should turn and leave, but for some reason, I can’t make my feet move.
Even with this borderline hostility that’s rolling off her right now, I just want to spend more time with her.
So, I lift my hand and rest it against the top frame of the door, leaning into her space.
I don’t miss the shiver that shakes her shoulders or the way goose bumps prickle the skin across her chest and her upper arms. “Want to invite me in?”
“You’re my stepbrother,” she says, the last word leaving her mouth in disgust.
“All the more reason we should get to know each other better.” I give her a wink, and now she looks even more pissed off. Why do I like that so much? I just want to keep annoying her to see what her reaction will be. It’s juvenile, but I don’t care.
“I think we did plenty of getting to know each other last night,” she says, and reaches for the door but I stop it with my free hand.
“I disagree. Why are you so hostile right now?” I say it as if I can’t tell she’s deeply uncomfortable with the turn things have taken here, as if I’m not intentionally trying to push her just to see how she responds.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is there some sort of how to act after you accidentally fuck your stepbrother playbook I should be following?”
“It’s not like our parents will be married for long,” I say. “He’ll drop your mom in a few months when he realizes she’s not a suitable replacement for my mom.”
I hear how wrong that sounds the minute it’s out of my mouth, and the horrified look on her face confirms that it was not the right thing to say. No matter how much Morgan doesn’t seem to like her mom, and even though it seems like her mom puts her dead last, Anne’s still her mom.
So when she reaches out, plants her hand on my chest, and pushes me backward while muttering “Goodnight, Danny,” I don’t fight her on it. Instead, I head to my room, trying to work out whether I should say something to make it right when I see her tomorrow.
The way Morgan storms down the limestone steps built into the hillside above the marina has me pressing my lips together to hide a smile.
She’s pissed off and not hiding it well.
At least she’s not late. In fact, she’s made it here before our parents, which is saying something since Max’s default mode is “on time is late.”
Her strawberry blonde hair is back in a clip like it was that night at the bar, and she’s wearing oversized sunglasses.
Her white knit cover-up is made up of loosely linked stitches that hide nothing beneath, and the tie at the center leaves a deep V from her collarbone to her waist completely open, exposing the yellow string bikini beneath.
Every step she takes down those stairs has her tits bouncing and, glancing around, I see that I’m not the only guy who’s noticed.
In fact, almost everyone is staring at her, which makes me feel unreasonably territorial.
I want to call out and tell them all to put their tongues back in their mouths, but instead, I turn away to adjust myself. I need to get my shit together before she or our parents notice me sporting a semi every time I so much as look at her.
But fuck, did she really have to show up here looking so gorgeous? And why didn’t I anticipate how difficult it would be to see her in a bathing suit, knowing what she looks like naked?
I turn back toward her as she walks down the dock, but instead of taking the small step from the wooden platform onto the boat deck, she stops.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She takes a deep breath, exhaling as she pushes her sunglasses on top of her head and squints against the bright sunlight that shimmers off the turquoise water. She crosses her arms over her chest as she says, “Both our parents have food poisoning.”
A laugh bursts out of me, and her shoulders shake as she tries to hold hers in. “Think it was the raw oysters?”
“Probably. And the smell that was coming from their room when I stopped by on my way here . . . ” She makes a gagging noise. “So anyway, I just wanted to tell you they aren’t coming. So I’m going back up there,” she nods toward the cliffs, “and taking a nap by the pool.”
I reach out before she can turn, circling her wrist. “No fucking way. This island is far too beautiful to sit by a pool when you could be out exploring.”
“Danny.” She lets out a deep sigh. “I just want to relax at the pool.”
Without thinking, I step up onto the dock, bend and throw her over my shoulder, then turn back toward the boat. She squeals and struggles against me, demanding that I put her down.
“Stop squirming or you’re going to fall in,” I say as I step back onto the boat, but our combined weight all at once has it rocking violently.
She gasps and freezes, and I step to the center of the boat to balance the weight. Once we stop rocking, I set her on her feet and push her backward into one of the white seats.
“Asshole,” she mutters.
“Brat,” I spit right back, but the word has no bite. Why do I like this side of her so much?
“You didn’t have to manhandle me. I could have easily gotten on this boat myself.”
“Yeah, when you turned to walk away, it really seemed like you were getting on the boat,” I say, turning away to untie the rope from the cleat at the edge of the dock. I push off, then head to the helm and sit in the seat behind her so I can start the motor.
“Where are the life jackets?” she asks right before the engine roars to life.
“Every seat has one under it, just lift the part you’re sitting on,” I say, remembering how the guy who rented me the boat showed me that along with some other features before she arrived. “Wait,” I say as the boat slowly moves away from the dock. “Why do you need a life vest? Can you not swim?”
“I can swim. I just hate boats.”
“Oh, so that was sarcasm I heard in your voice last night?” I feel a bit bad about throwing her over my shoulder and bringing her onto the boat if she’s scared.
At the same time, I’m selfishly not willing to let her get off.
Instead, I’ll help her stay comfortable so she realizes that boats are not, in fact, scary.
“I guess.” Her cheeks get a little pink, like she’s embarrassed she wasn’t better at hiding it, or that her mom didn’t pick up on her hints.
Does Anne actually know anything about her daughter?
I think about how close Max and I are, and wonder how I’m closer to my stepdad than she is to her own mother.
“So, let me help you get over that fear.”
“I didn’t say I was afraid of boats, I said that I don’t like them.”
“Okay,” I say, wondering if there’s actually any difference. I keep the boat at a slow pace as we head toward the channel that will take us over to St. George’s, the small town that was the site of the first permanent British settlement in Bermuda. “Tell me what you don’t like about them.”
“I don’t like that when I get off a boat, it feels like I’m still on it and then I feel seasick.”
“That happens to me too,” I admit. “I’ve got Dramamine in my bag. It helps a ton. What else?”
She looks away and then says, “I don’t like being too far from land. I want to know that if something happened, I could swim back to shore.”
“Okay, we’ll stay close to the shore.”
“No.” The shake of her head has some of her hair falling loose from her clip and hanging to frame her face. “I don’t want to ruin the experience.”
“This is a twenty-foot Boston Whaler with a single engine. It’s not like we’re taking this thing out on the open ocean.
We’re just going to take it up the channel to St. George’s Harbour, walk around the town a bit, then come back to Castle Harbour.
There’s a beach out on Frick’s Point that’s only accessible by boat unless you own one of the mansions on the cliffs above it.
And there’s a shipwreck not too far from there, if you’re feeling adventurous.
We’ll never be more than swimming distance from shore, and we’re in a protected bay the whole time. You’re safe. I promise.”
She glances over at me, her eyebrows dipping as she likely tries to work out why I threw her over my shoulder and made her come with me, and why I’m now trying to reassure her.
I don’t really want her to know that it’s because getting to spend the whole day, just with her, has already made the second half of this trip so much better than I expected it to be.
She shrugs out of the cover-up she’s wearing, and clips the life vest around her chest. “All right. Since you promised.”
“Hey, you want to hold this steady for me,” I say, nodding down to the wheel, “so I can put the Bimini up?”
“What the hell is a Bimini?” she says with a laugh, as she grabs the silver support pole to balance herself while moving from the front of the boat to the helm, while I explain about the fabric cover that will give us some shade from the intense sun.
I nod toward the two to-go cups of coffee sitting in the cupholders near the steering wheel. “You said you weren’t a morning person, so I got you coffee. How do you take it?”
“That’s . . . unexpected. Thank you,” she says. “Milk and sugar.”
I don’t want to think too much about why she sounds genuinely surprised at this small gesture, so I tell her to take the cup on the right. Then I rush to explain a bit about the different parts of this particular boat, while snapping the Bimini in place.
“You seem to know a lot about boats.”
“I grew up in a beach town,” I tell her. “My best friend’s family owns the local marina, so I spent a lot of time on boats growing up. Don’t worry, I have my boating license.”
“Didn’t know that was a thing,” she says. “And you have a pilot’s license too? Or was that all bullshit the other night?”
I huff out a laugh as I watch her sip her coffee. “No bullshit. I’m a man of many talents.”