Chapter 6
Six
Reef
“She’s supervising me, as a matter of fact,” I say.
“I am?”
My quick look toward Quincy says, go with it.
“She is?” Hannah asks.
“Yeah…she came into the store one day and advised me on what to order and how to stock things. So I hired her as my professional organizer and purchaser for the summer.”
“Organizer?” one of the moms asks. I don’t know which one; I’m too busy avoiding Quincy’s horrified look at this whopper of a story.
“Absolutely,” I continue. "What, you thought she was actually working the dock like one of the teenagers who work for me? No, no. I’m just so busy that she has to follow me around the grounds with a clipboard and lists. It’s like she’s training me on how to manage things.”
One glance at Quincy tells me I need to stop. She looks like she might cry.
“Interesting,” I hear the ringleader say.
“I told Quincy she should open her own consulting business. Or, I don’t know, organizing business. I can see why she’s such a good teacher. She has a way of explaining things that even the most clueless people can understand. I imagine she sees a lot of those in her classroom.”
Why am I still talking?
Clearly, I needed to add that little dig at the end, implying their kids are dumb-dumbs. It’s most certainly not the case, I’m sure, but I don’t officially know that. I just want to poke at the women who have been poking at Quincy for the last ten minutes.
“What a trooper you are,” Patricia says condescendingly, though I don’t know if she’s saying it to Quincy or to me.
“Excuse me,” Quincy finally utters, a little watery, turning back to the group. “But are you done picking pineapples for your shindig? I need one for the private party at the dock tomorrow.”
The way she emphasizes the word pineapple, I know what she’s getting at.
Pineapples are rumored to be a symbol for swingers in this small town.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that if everyone involved is into it.
But it’s one of those open secrets. Everyone knows they exist, but nobody will say who.
But working at the marina, I see these same women and their husbands together a lot, and they act like they’re better than everyone, entitled to the dock closest to the Heron’s Nest when they haven’t made a reservation. That’s all I’m saying.
The way they blanch at the way Quincy says “pineapple”? My god. I could fall in love with her.
Quincy doesn’t need to explain that she means the afterparty that we’re hosting for the dockworkers and the boat race participants. She only needs them to think it’s an exclusive party that they’re not invited to.
My Grandma Barb could be that petty sometimes. Not truly evil. But just enough sharpness that a smart Southern woman knows exactly when she’s been told to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.
I think if Grandma Barb were still alive, she’d tell me to hang on to Quincy and never let go. They’d be two peas in a pod.
Quincy’s strangely quiet as I load the groceries into the trunk of my car as I’m explaining about the race tomorrow.
She doesn’t seem to be listening as I talk about all the moving parts.
How to flag the boats for identification.
Where to set up the registration table. How to connect my phone to the cameras at the finish line.
Which slips to reserve for the racers following the event.
I drone on and on, and her face is unreadable.
She’s either got something else on her mind, or she’s taking all this in with the severity of a soldier about to storm the beaches of Normandy.
Either way, she’s not acting like the Quincy I know.
I stand at the trunk, having finished putting the last bag of stuff in it, noticing her silence, and I decide it means she’s overwhelmed by the race information.
“Don’t worry,” I assure her with my attempt at a smile, but my gaze is steady. “I’ll be right there with you the whole time.”
Something shifts in the air between us. Like a sudden storm that no one predicted. I feel like I should wait to say more, because she looks like she’s about to get something heavy off her chest.
Shit. She’d better not be quitting on me.
I’m barely finishing that thought when Quincy rises onto her toes, and rests one hand on my neck. She’s pulling me down to her upturned face.
Quincy Travers, Songbird Ridge High School history teacher, kisses me flat on the mouth.
Her kiss catches me utterly off guard with its passion. It’s like she simply must do it in order to breathe. There’s a sweet, frustrated urgency about it that’s powerful but soft, and I find myself fixing my hands on her hips and pulling her closer for more.
I’ve been staring at those pretty lips and wondering for days how they would fit against mine. It’s perfect. She’s perfect. All this time I’ve been telling myself Quincy is too much. Too upbeat, too eager, too much fun and too chatty.
In reality, in this moment, all of it makes sense.
All the tightness I’ve been carrying around sort of heats and melts together like wax. All of my resistance to her charms is gone under the intensity of her kiss.
Off limits? Yes. But too good to push away.
She pulls back with a loud, smacking noise that makes me want to go in for more. My hands slide over to the small of her back, not letting her back away.
“Thank you,” she rasps. “Thank you, Reef.”
I’m genuinely confused. “For what?”
“For saving all your words for that moment back there. I never think of a good thing to say to those women until I’m driving down the road.”
My gaze is locked on her mouth as she talks. Those lips of hers, glistening from our kiss, need to be kissed again. Hard and thoroughly. “You handled yourself all right,” I say.
Her curves feel even better than they look, if that’s possible. My pulse roars. All the blood in my body rushes to my cock as everything in me demands that I pull her closer.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you like that,” Quincy says.
“You’re wrong.”
Quincy swallows.
“Did you say you were going to be on the boat with me tomorrow?”
I’m curious about this change of subject.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t trust anyone else out there with you.”
She lets a teasing smile slip in. “But can you trust me around you? That's the question.”
“As long as you obey all safety protocols, you can do whatever you want to me.”
“Or as long as you don’t distract me from judging the race, right?”
I can’t take this teasing anymore. “We could just go fuck now, and get it out of the way.”
Quincy’s eyes widen in shock, and a pink hue floods her cheeks. I wait what feels like an eternity for her to respond.
“Wh-what if it goes badly? Then you won’t be able to look at me tomorrow.”
“Trust me. It’s not going to go badly.”
“Cocky much.”
“It’s not about me being cocky. I just never let a woman walk away from me without having an absolute bone-cracking orgasm.”
She blinks rapidly. Her lips part as she blows out a sharp breath.
I don’t think it’s possible to shock her any further. Am I pushing too hard? She kissed me, and for some reason is already regretting it. I’ll be damned if she feels embarrassed about it. The least I can do is act like an arrogant asshole and embarrass myself more.
Unless…unless she’s as into this as I am.