by Skye Jordan
“Are you going to let me take care of them when you’re at work so neither of us has to worry?”
He sighs. “This is complicated, isn’t it?”
I certainly can’t deny that. “The girls should come first. If you and I need to end what’s happening between us to put the girls’ needs first, then that’s what we’ll do. Like I said in the beginning, I’ll always treat the girls the same.”
He pulls a strand of hair behind my ear. “What’s happening between us, Kat?”
I smile. “Walked right into that, didn’t I?”
“God, you’re amazing. I have never met anyone like you. You’re so up-front, so honest, and so unapologetic about the whole thing.”
“I’m not going to apologize for being me.”
“And that confidence. It’s so uncommon. So outstanding.”
“I’m not confident about everything.”
“But you’re confident in saying you’re not confident.”
“Now you’re just making my head spin.”
He snuggles his face against my neck and gently nips at my jaw, letting out a quiet moan. “I want you so bad, I can’t think about anything else.”
“In case you didn’t notice,” I say, “I’m right here, naked under this towel.”
“Oh, I noticed.”
“That purr in your voice makes me wet.”
He moans. I’m impatient. I want him just as badly, but I get the impression he needs to talk.
“Ben, just say what’s on your mind.”
“I don’t fully understand it, and I don’t want to scare you.”
I glance back at him. “Scare me? Nothing could scare me like the sight of Jazz on that dock alone. And I survived.”
“I really care about you, Kat,” he says. “I know things are happening fast, but I feel like I know what you’re made of. I feel like I know you better than people I’ve known for a long time, because you don’t hide things. And I’ve been working through these complex feelings because I don’t feel the same way about you that I felt for Jana, but that’s not better or worse, it’s just different. I’m a different man now. In so many ways, I think of Jana as a warm memory. You… God, you stir my blood. You put fire in my veins. You make me want things I never thought I’d want again.”
“Like what?”
“Like a partner. A best friend. A lover. Someone to share my life with. Someone to love my kids like they’re her own.”
That’s not what I expected him to say. “Jeez, no pressure.”
He laughs. “I warned you.”
“That’s a tall order. I don’t know if I can live up to your expectations.”
“You’ve exceeded them all so far.” He kisses my temple. “Am I just one of many for you, Kat? Just someone to play with while you’re here? Someone you’ll forget as soon as you’re gone?”
I don’t like the way he’s portraying me, but I can’t argue with it either. “I’ll admit, this is a gray area for me, and I’m not entirely sure why, but I know you’re different. You’re the first man who’s ever made me want more.”
“How is that possible when you’ve got one foot out of town? In six months, you’ll be gone, and I’m pretty damn sure you’re going to take my heart with you.”
I think about the risk of showing him what I was working on before he came in. But I test things out first. I look over my shoulder at him. “Have you ever been sailing?”
“A couple of times. A friend of mine during residency borrowed his parents’ sailboat once in a while. I went out, but I didn’t do anything but sit on the edge and watch. Violet asked for sailing lessons for her birthday after you left today. I think you might have spread your bug.”
“When’s her birthday?”
“May.”
“I can take her out. Rent a sailboat in Santa Barbara and teach her. I might even be able to mine my contacts and trade some mechanical work for time with the boat. None of these owners get their boats out of their slips often enough. Poppy’s old enough to learn too. Jazz is a bit too little, but we could find ways to make her feel involved.”
“We?” he asks.
“I’m hoping you’ll want to come. I thought I might spread my bug to you too.”
He snuggles close again. “Yeah?”
I hold my breath and open the laptop.
“Baby, I don’t need porn to get revved up for you.” He rocks his erection against my ass.
“It’s not porn,” I say with an eye roll in my voice.
He looks at the screen over my shoulder. I roll fully onto my stomach to control the keyboard, and Ben slides right into place, his hips between my thighs, weight on his forearms.
“What’s this?” he asks even as his hand sneaks beneath my towel to stroke my thigh, hip, ass. He moans and gently closes his teeth against my neck. “Never mind, I don’t care what that is.”
He moves both hands up my sides, under my belly, over my breasts, and pushes his hips against mine. I’m thoroughly distracted, but I’m afraid if I don’t tell him now, I’ll lose the nerve.
“It’s the girls’ school schedule for next year.”
He lifts his head. “What?”
“I marked off their holidays.” I click through the calendar. “I was thinking that if we wanted to, you know, try this you-and-me thing, that you could bring the girls to wherever I am on their school breaks, and I could fly or sail back here to see you in between.”
When he doesn’t say anything, I push on, suddenly nervous. “I didn’t realize how much I wanted to share my experience growing up until I thought about having you all join me.
“I really think the girls would not only have fun, but they could learn so much. Sailing teaches you all about navigation and wind and current and control and finesse. You’re surrounded by marine biology, geology, astronomy. And there’s nothing like that kind of silence and solitude to give you room to think and get to know yourself on a deeper level than they’d learn surrounded by all the noise of the internet and friends.
“I could teach them to dive, make sure they all know the most advanced water safety. And if I move to different ports, they could learn about whatever culture we’re visiting, some basics of the language. I could even let each girl pick where we go next.”
Half of what I’m saying is just flowing out of my mouth. I didn’t even consciously think about these additional things until right this second. And the idea feels so right, it just spills out.
I draw a breath to say more, but Ben reaches around, turns my head, and kisses me, long and deep. And if he wants to end the conversation here, I’ll be disappointed, but I’ll accept it and just take what he’s willing to offer.
When he pulls back, I search his eyes. They’re dazed, his expression serious. “I’m not sure my mind is running on all cylinders at the moment because most of my blood is well south of my brain, but that’s an amazing idea I want to talk about more when my blood is back in my head. My big head.”
He reaches past me, closes the lid on the laptop, and pushes it away, then tosses my towel to the floor, and his hands are everywhere. His mouth traveling down my spine, over my ass, between my legs.
“Jesus—” My breath stalls in my lungs. His lips and tongue and teeth are traveling over every intimate millimeter of me, and I can’t get enough.
Then he’s back, jeans loose, pushing into me from behind, stretching me until my breath catches. Carefully working his way deep until my hands are fisted in the comforter, until all I can do is moan.
Then he pulls off his T-shirt, and his hot chest is pressed against my back, his quick breath on my neck, his hands in my hair. “I love this feeling.”
Oh my God, so do I, but I can’t find my voice.
“Right now, in this instant, you’re all mine.”
The raspy edge of ownership thickens his voice. I love a man who can match my passion, my desire to control and lead. Too many men let me do anything I want. Hell, half of them don’t even try, they just let me fuc
k them.
I love the way Ben deftly plays the control card. Sometimes giving it, sometimes taking it away. He feels like my equal in bed. Something I sure did not see coming when we met in the ER. There’s definitely some alpha hidden in this man.
He uses his knees to spread mine and thrusts deep and strong. And when he slides a hand under my belly and down between my legs, I explode, a kaleidoscope of light filling my head, the comforter muffling my cries.
Before I get my brain working again, Ben slides down my body, lifts my hips from the bed, then he flips over, faceup, and pulls me to his mouth.
He murmurs against me, licking and sucking. His arms spread my legs, his hands cover my ass, and he holds me tight against his insatiable mouth. The man wipes every thought from my mind and floods me with ecstasy, bringing a series of hot, intense orgasms that singe the edges of my brain.
I’m still shivering when I push back from his mouth to get my head together, then I roll him to his back to regift that pleasure. I love watching him watch me, propped up on his elbows to get the best view. Love the way his abdominal muscles tense when I hit a sensitive spot. Then the way his jaw tightens, the way his eyes close, the way his head drops back when I exploit that spot. He loves it when I take him deep, and I love the way his hands fist in my hair. I especially love teasing him to the brink where he can’t take anymore and holds me steady as he lifts into my mouth until he comes with deep, satisfied growls.
Like now.
When the climax fades, he drops back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as he mutters, “Fuck, you’ve got a mouth.”
I gently stroke his still half-hard erection, turning him rock hard again before I climb onto the bed, straddle him, and ease onto his cock.
His fingers are digging into my hips as I bend over him, hair spilling into his face. I use my quads and hamstrings to ride him in deep lusty thrusts while staring into his fiery, dark-blue eyes.
“You’re going to give me a heart attack,” he says. “I’m way too old to be fucked like this.”
That makes me laugh. “If you couldn’t take it, you wouldn’t give as good as you get.”
He lifts into me, meeting me stroke for stroke, his muscles rolling beneath his skin. He cups a hand at the back of my neck and pulls me down to kiss me. Not a wet kiss like I expect, but tender, with his eyes open, on mine.
We climb together, come together, and lie in a boneless heap for long, quiet moments when the only thing filling the cabin is the sound of our breath and the gentle lap of the water.
16
Ben
I am utterly content. No, beyond content. I’m happy. I’m actually happy. Not the giddy, excited, tense kind of happy, but the soul-deep happy. I honestly never believed that would happen again. I figured I’d eventually find someone who would fill the hole left from Jana’s loss, but I never thought that person would flood into the spaces I didn’t even realize were empty.
“Tell me I don’t have to go home.” I lazily stroke Kat’s back. Her weight feels luxurious on top of me.
“How long is your sister staying?” she asks.
“Couple of hours.” I look at my watch and close my eyes as my hand drops back to the bed. “I should get back soon.” I muster the strength to sit up, then roll onto my stomach beside Kat and pull her computer forward and open the top. “Okay, talk to me about this whole sailing thing.”
She shimmies up so we’re even and swings her hair over her far shoulder, then enters her password to unlock the screen and scrolls back to June of this year. “We’re planning on finalizing the sale sometime in June or July. The better booked Chloe and Laiyla can get the facilities, the more the property will be worth, because the solid business makes it more valuable.”
“Makes sense,” I say.
“Once everything is done and we open Memorial Day weekend, we’re going to get another appraisal. Then Laiyla and Levi will decide how they’re going to buy it—whether that is to start a business just for the lake and have Laiyla and Levi own it, or if he’s going to buy it under his contracting business and share that ownership with his partner, Mitch. Either way, we should cash out in July, which gives you and me July and August to plan our first trip.
Plan our first trip. A bubbly sensation bursts in my gut, part excitement, part fear. That’s only six months away. But that also means Kat and I will have been together eight months, and I’d feel good about this plan with that kind of foundation.
“If you could get vacation from work, we would have a good chunk of time to give it a try,” she says. “I mean, we won’t be sailing across any oceans, but we can get pretty far sailing every day, stopping at different ports close to wherever I buy the boat.
“Once summer is over and the girls are back in school, there are a couple of three-day weekends you could make into four or five days if your work schedule allows—Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day. That doesn’t give us much time to be together, so between the end of summer and the first holiday we meet, I would sail toward the West Coast so you could catch a short flight to wherever we wanted to be. That time of year, we could stay anywhere in the south, and it would be warm. Mexico is a quick flight from LAX, which would be fun for the kids. Cabo San Lucas or Puerto Vallarta. Both have islands off the coasts that are perfect for snorkeling. If they’re ready, I could introduce Violet and Poppy to diving.”
By the time she finishes talking, I’ve got a smile stretched across my face. “I’m shocked at how much I love that idea.”
She clicks through the months. “Then we hit Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year, and you’ll have been at the hospital over a year. You could combine your leave with your normal days off, and we could probably get a good three-week window in there to head somewhere warm. That would allow the girls to still spend some of the holiday with your family.” She looks at me. “This is all up to you. I don’t want to interfere with your normal routine or take you away from your family.”
“We could work it out.”
She grins. Her eyes sparkle with excitement, and she leans in and kisses me. I’m fucking floating when she returns her attention to the screen. She moves through the months, pointing out there is a three-day weekend in January and February, then comes spring break, Memorial Day and summer’s here again.
“Wow,” I say. “We could see each other almost every month.”
“Yeah.” Her voice is breathless with excitement, and her eyes search mine. “What do you think?”
“I think it sounds like paradise.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“What would you do in between?”
She shrugs, “Make my way toward our next destination. Pick up mechanical work along the way to stay busy. Dive. If I stay anywhere for more than a week, I’d pick up diving lessons or tours. I know people everywhere. As soon as I show up, I’ll have work.”
A sliver of my excitement dims. I think about all those friends, some of which are likely previous lovers. I’m not sure how I feel about that. My initial reaction is no fucking way. The thought of another man touching her flares inside me like fire. Especially in this dreamy setting she’s portrayed.
“What’s wrong?” She turns my head toward her. “Talk to me.”
“It’s just a lot of time apart,” I say, embarrassed to express my juvenile jealousy. Especially to someone as worldly as Kat, who clearly has a different take on the role of sex in life. But I feel like she needs to know. “I need to tell you something.”
“Okay.”
“Jana cheated on me.”
Kat’s eyes round in surprise, and her lips part.
“It was only once,” I say, “and we got over it, repaired our marriage, and went on. I thought it was in my past because I haven’t felt jealous since. But with you… Yeah, the thought of you returning to your old life makes me more than a little crazy.”
“I’m so sorry that happened to you.” She cups my jaw. “We’ve still got a lot of time together. Let’s not worry about some
thing that’s so far away. You’re going to be so busy with work and the girls, the time between visits will go by fast.”
That wasn’t the response I was hoping for. I roll to my back and pull her close, tucking her hair behind her ear. “What about you?”
She kisses me, and there is so much affection in her eyes, I could almost make myself believe we share the same feelings. But I’d been blindsided by Jana’s affair, so I don’t trust my assessment.
“I can always keep myself busy,” she says.
My confidence dims.
“Wanna look at boats?” she asks.
I laugh. “You say that with the same enthusiasm you have for sex.”
She scooches to the side, and I return to my belly and glance at my watch. Kat navigates to a used-boat website and scrolls through the listings. “This is the boat I was going to get before I had this idea.”
She taps through the pictures while describing the various attributes I don’t fully understand. The boat is what I think of when someone says sailboat. It’s sleek and sexy, but still holds just the right amount of charm, with teak finishes and custom sails.
I look at the price tag. “Holy shit. I didn’t realize they were that expensive.”
“Oh, this isn’t expensive. This is a well-kept ten-year-old boat.”
“Damn, that’s small. I mean, I knew they weren’t big, but, yeah, there’s really only room for one person.”
She laughs. “It’s only small to someone living in a thirty-eight-hundred-square-foot house. Spacewise, it’s really only a little smaller than this.”
She indicates the boat we’re on, and for the first time I really take a look around. Everything has a place. All kinds of compartments are tucked everywhere. Regular items double as something else—the living room futon turns into a bed, the stovetop turns into a cutting board.
“Thinking about you and me on something that size,” I say, indicating the sailboat, “is heaven. Thinking about you, me, and three girls on something that size is just this side of hell.”
