Chapter 5
Five
The small sailboat had a tiny cabin and even tinier bathroom. Dash hopped aboard and made herself comfortable on the V-berth in the cabin.
“Have you sailed before?” Travis asked as he prepared the sails.
Liana ran a sunscreen stick over her ivory complexion. “Not in years.”
“It’s just like riding a bike. It’ll come back to you.
” As she took a good look at the North Point property in the daylight, Travis took advantage of the opportunity to study her when she wasn’t paying attention.
She had worn a sleeveless top in a buttery tone that complemented her natural glow.
Her endless legs were on full display under a denim mini-skirt.
He noticed a bathing suit tied in a bow at her neck and couldn’t wait to see if it was a bikini.
Travis had never met a more beautiful woman.
He supposed it would be easy to get so caught up in the stunning face that discovering the woman inside became secondary.
Perhaps all the other men in her life had made that mistake.
The more time he spent with her, the more he wanted to know who she was behind the flawless facade.
He wanted her to trust him with her dreams, her hopes, her desires, and the passion that lurked just below the surface of her carefully cultivated disdain.
He yearned to know it all, and that frightened him more than anything had in a long time.
“Do you approve?” he asked, gesturing to the sprawling country club, marina, golf course, condo tower, and the luxury homes under construction on the south end of the property.
“It’s amazing. You’ve really created something special here.”
He was more pleased by her approval than he cared to admit. “I’m trying. We’re finally starting to get some legs under us after a lot of years of planning, building, promoting, and fighting.”
“Fighting?”
He cast off the last of the lines and sailed the boat out of the slip into the bay.
Just a smattering of boats dotted the water between Portsmouth and the north end of Prudence Island.
“I’ve had a few issues with some of the locals who’ve been less than welcoming to an out-of-towner with grand plans. ”
“You’d think the town would appreciate the tax revenue a place like yours will generate.”
Impressed by her astute assessment, he nodded.
“You would think so, but it’s been quite the opposite.
I had to take them to court to clear the zoning board, had to repave the access road—which the town owns—had to pay a hundred phantom fees and taxes, and have had to fend off vandals who decided to take the law into their own hands when their legal avenues were exhausted. ”
“What kind of vandals?”
“Oh, mostly harmless stuff that’s just really annoying. Sprinklers redirected toward golfers, windows broken in the new construction area, tires flattened in the parking lot. That kind of stuff.”
“That’s terrible! What do the police say?”
“They’ve ramped up patrols in the area, but they haven’t caught anyone.” He shrugged. “I’m here to stay, so I’m counting on them to lose interest after a while. I’ll admit, though, I was relieved when the wedding went off smoothly last night.”
“I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with that, Travis. This is enough of an undertaking without having your property damaged.”
“Thanks.” He appreciated that she understood the magnitude of what he’d tried to do at North Point. Living his dream hadn’t been without its challenges.
She tipped her face into the sun. “This is so peaceful. I don’t think I’ve been on a boat for pleasure since I left here ten years ago.”
“What do you do for pleasure?”
Her eyes came down from the sky to give him a measuring look. “I read.”
He snorted. “You’re kidding.”
The subtle lift of her eyebrow told him she wasn’t kidding.
“You read. How… interesting.”
“How relaxing,” she corrected. “It’s what I enjoy.”
“How do you, you know . . .”
“What?”
“Let off steam.”
“I don’t have any steam to let off.”
He laughed. “Please, Liana. Try telling that to someone who hasn’t kissed you. I know better.”
She blushed, which he found completely disarming.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked.
“Am I staring?”
“You know you are. Stop it. Right now.”
The more flustered she got, the rosier her cheeks became. “Is that no touching clause still in effect?”
She swallowed. Hard. “Why?” she asked in little more than a whisper.
“If I were allowed to touch, I’d want to brush a finger very lightly over that sweet blush on your cheeks.”
“I don’t blush,” she said with indignation, exacerbating the color.
“Oh, sweetheart, trust me. You do.”
Her violet eyes were full of vulnerability as she worked over her bottom lip. “I want to trust you.”
Travis felt a curious twist in his belly that was all new to him. “You can trust me, Liana.” He kept his right hand on the tiller to steer the boat and lifted his left arm to invite her to move closer to him.
After mulling it over for an endless second, she scooted across the bench to sit next to him and managed not to flinch when his hand landed on her shoulder.
“I love how you do that thing with your lip when you’re considering something.”
“What thing?”
“This,” he said, demonstrating it for her.
“I do?”
“Uh huh. I’ve never been so jealous of someone else’s teeth.”
Shocked, she turned to him and found his face a mere inch from hers. “Travis,” she sighed.
He let go of the tiller to caress her face as he’d longed to since the blush first appeared.
Without his guiding hand the boat soon floundered.
The sails whipped in the breeze, but Travis did nothing about it.
“I want you, Liana,” he whispered. “And not just because you’re the loveliest creature I’ve ever seen.
I want to know you. I want to be with you.
I want to talk with you. I want to make love with you, but not until you want to.
” He almost stopped breathing when she reached up to drag a finger over his unshaven jaw.
“I can’t decide whether I like you better with the stubble or without.”
“Let me know when you make up your mind, and I’ll either shave every hour on the hour or every three days.”
She smiled, and Travis felt himself falling. To where he didn’t know, but the sensation of falling was unmistakable.
He closed the small distance between them. “I’m going to break the truce.”
“I wish you would.”
He kept the kiss easy and light, and it would have stayed that way if she hadn’t sent her tongue to look for his. His mind went blank with lust as he hauled her even closer to him so he could explore her sweet warmth while his hands moved over her back.
Dash began to bark, and Travis reluctantly pulled back from Liana.
“She doesn’t like it when I let the sails flap in the breeze,” he said with a quick kiss before he reached across the boat for the main sheet to bring the sails under control.
As the boat began to move through the water again, Travis put his arm around Liana and leaned in for another kiss. “Are you hungry?”
“Kind of.”
“We can drop the anchor and take lunch into the beach.”
She raised a surprised eyebrow. “You brought lunch?”
“Sure. You can’t be out here all day without food.”
“You were pretty confident I would come.”
He shrugged. “Dash and I were going anyway. We’re glad you decided to join us.”
She looked up at him. “So am I. This is fun.”
He steered the boat toward a sandy stretch on the north end of Prudence Island. When they got close to the shore, he dropped the sails and tossed the anchor overboard.
Feeling the boat come to a stop, Dash came up from the cabin to see where they were.
“Stay,” Travis said with a look of warning.
Dash appeared to smile at him before she leapt over the side and began swimming to shore.
“Goddamned disobedient bitch,” he muttered.
Liana laughed. “I can see who wears the pants in this family.”
Travis shot her a dirty look. “I could’ve made her stay if I’d really wanted to.”
“Yeah, okay. If you say so.”
When he went below to retrieve the cooler he had brought, Travis pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it onto the bunk. “Ready?”
“How do we get to the beach?”
“We swim.” He lowered a ladder over the side of the boat.
“And how do we get the cooler there?”
“Don’t you worry about that. Dash and I have a routine.”
She glanced at the beach where Dash frolicked in the sand. “Apparently.” Standing up, she pulled her shirt over her head and dropped her mini-skirt.
Travis went dumb when he saw she was, in fact, wearing a bikini, and it was every bit as spectacular a sight as he had hoped it would be. Reminding himself that he was trying not to be predictable, he kept his eyes on her face rather than her breasts as he offered her a hand over the side.
Once she was down the ladder and in the water, Travis followed her and reached back for the cooler. Propping it on his head, he used one arm to swim to shore.
“Very clever,” she said, watching him as she floated on her back.
“I think I would’ve made a good refugee,” he joked.
She laughed and swam the short distance to shore.
Travis landed a minute behind her and carried the cooler as Dash danced around his feet. “All right, girl. Just a minute.”
“What does she think you have in there?”
“She knows I always have something for her.”
Liana put her hands on the dog’s pretty face and kissed her head. “You’re a very spoiled girl. Do you know that?”
Dash barked in agreement.
“Oh, she’s so cute!”
“She’s a terror,” Travis said.
“Where was she last night?” Liana asked, blushing at the memory of being in his apartment.
Travis ran his finger over her rosy cheek. “With Beck, my security chief. I didn’t want her causing any mischief during the wedding.” He reached into the cooler and withdrew something wrapped in foil.
Dash went nuts.
Travis unwrapped a meaty bone and gave it to the dog. “Now scram.”
Dash galloped off with the bone.