by Melody Anne
When they were both back on the dock, Ashton couldn’t help but admire Savannah’s long black hair and spitting dark brown eyes. This was no wet-T-shirt contest, but her clothes were plastered to her body anyway. Yep, he could see all she had to offer, and the view was well worth that splash in the ocean.
“Are you happy now?” she growled.
Ashton stopped what he’d been about to say and looked at her in surprise. “You’re going to blame me for what happened?”
“You’re the one who pushed me into the water. You’re obviously nothing more than a … a … a bully,” she said, and just then her entire body began to shake.
Even though it was an unusually warm June evening, the breeze blowing in off the ocean was very cold.
“I in no way pushed you,” he gasped, but he quickly tamped down his outrage. “However, and that’s a big however, I’ll be the better person here — the better man, dammit — and hit the Pause button on this part of the conversation. Let’s wait until we get inside to continue our little spat. You need to dry off before you catch a cold.” He was telling her that as he began moving up the dock. “Looks like you’ll be able to board one of the ships after all. Try not to take it for a test ride.”
“A cold is a virus, not something you catch from a dip in water.” The woman refused to budge. “Perhaps you mean hypothermia. And there’s no way I’m going anywhere with you.”
“Then leave. I don’t really give a damn,” he said. Granted, he was bluffing. His curiosity was piqued and he had to know what this woman’s story was.
“What?”
“I’m wet and I’m cold. I’m not standing out here arguing with you. If you want to warm up, come inside. If you want to pout like a child, take off.”
“Pout? Pout?” She rolled her eyes. “Fine! Just give me a towel. I’m sure you people have something like that here on these docks.”
“You’ll have to follow me to get it,” he called back to her, not slowing. But he could hear her footsteps as she trudged reluctantly behind him.
A smile transformed his face as he continued on his way. Something about this woman’s attitude intrigued him, and he was having fun. That hadn’t happened to him lately.
Striding up to the biggest boat he had in his fleet, the one with his offices on it, he held out his hand to assist her across the ramp.
“I’m fine,” she told him, brushing past him and sending a bolt of awareness right to his groin. This wasn’t good — not good at all. He was engaged to be married, dammit. But none of that seemed to matter to his lower regions, because he found himself leaning against her. And, heaven forgive him, he began whispering into her ear.
“Yes, you are.”
She paused, but only for a millisecond, before she continued moving aboard the exquisitely decorated vessel. He pressed forward past the main dining hall, where up to two hundred and fifty passengers could enjoy meals while socializing.
Top-notch paintings from countries around the world hung on the walls above pieces of antique furniture that Ashton had personally played a part in choosing. He wanted his passengers to have an unforgettable experience, and they always did, leaving his excursions feeling refreshed, pampered, and well-traveled.
Ashton hadn’t skimped on costs — the floors were constructed of blond woods from Europe. The ship boasted the finest fabrics, all in rich colors. The fixtures were antique gold, and not a single surface dared carry any grime or even a speck of dust.
“This wasn’t what I was expecting,” the woman said with a look of awe. “It’s stunning.”
Her comment actually made him smile, which surprised him. But he was proud of all he’d accomplished in four short years. He couldn’t brush off compliments on those hard-won achievements.
“This business caters to those who don’t want to be lost in a crowd of three thousand people. The passengers who sail with us are a very exclusive crowd. These ships top out at three hundred guests, but we normally carry fewer than that. There have yet to be any complaints.”
“I bet the customers are completely satisfied. Man, this would be a dream come true for me. A ship big enough not to get blown over on a dark and stormy night, yet small enough to get to ports the huge ships can’t. Oh, the places you could explore.”
“Is that why you want to work here?” he asked as he moved into his office, and he began to unbutton his shirt. He was done with being wet. So why wasn’t she watching the show?
“It’s why I am working here, at least according to Mr. Storm. And, yes, part of it all is that I love the ocean, everything about it, and all the treasures that are hidden beneath the surface,” she said before she seemed to realize she wasn’t snapping at him. Her shoulders tensed and she looked into his eyes, making him want to take a step back this time. Then she spoke again. “You’re probably the type to hold that against me?”
“Don’t tempt me, doll,” he said, thinking he wouldn’t mind holding himself against such a beautiful body. Shaking his head free of thoughts like that, he went through a private door that led to his bathroom. He grabbed two large towels and, moving back out to his office, handed one over to her.
She wrapped it around herself and stood rigidly in front of him. He set his down while he went back to work on the buttons of his shirt. He peeled it away and turned back to face her. Why did this strange woman grow more fascinating by the minute? Hell, by the second. The nanosecond.
“There’s a dryer in the next room. Why don’t you use the bathroom and get out of those clothes?” he told her. Damnation. Now he had a vivid mental image of her naked.
That wasn’t an image he needed in his mind. He was halfway out of his clothes, and what hung out below his waist hardened painfully. He just hoped that he could keep her from noticing what was happening down there.
“No, thanks. I’d rather stay clothed.”
“Oh, come on. I’m not going to attack you, woman. I have some restraint. There’s a robe hanging on the back of the door.”
Their eyes clashed, and hers rounded just a bit. Yeah, she wasn’t as haughty as she was trying to make him think she was. Hmm, she definitely appreciated what was now on display. She was watching, and he liked it — he was a man, after all. But he also admired her restraint. As he reached for the buttons on his pants, she quickly turned around.
“I … uh … yeah, I should get out of these clothes,” she stuttered.
He just wasn’t sure why she suddenly decided to escape. Was it because she was cold or because she was turned on? But without another word she made a dash toward the offered bathroom. And then the door slammed behind her … and now she was stripping off those sodden clothes and … This wasn’t at all good. But he had to admire the woman’s temper. As a matter of fact, he found it almost endearing. Whimpering females had never been his style.
Stepping into another adjoining room, he pulled on a dry pair of pants and a black T-shirt. It was safer for both of them if he had thick denim covering the part of his body still refusing to behave. Granted, the T-shirt was tight, but a man had to do what a man had to do.
A little later, she returned to his office in his oversized robe, and his mouth actually watered. He wondered if she had taken everything off. She was clutching her wet clothes, and water was dripping onto the floor. This was fancy wood, but who the hell cared?
He walked up to her, and he had to struggle a bit to wrest the clothes from her hands. He was a good guy, wasn’t he? And he took those clothes to his private laundry area, which wasn’t far away. When he came back, this woman wouldn’t have any more excuses to escape. For at least the next thirty minutes, it was just the two of them.
A lot could happen in such a short time. But that was yet another thought he really didn’t want crossing his mind. Dammit!
Once back in his office, he sat on the edge of his desk, hoping to regain at least a minuscule amount of his sanity back — and some control over his libido.
So why couldn’t he keep himself from baiting
this mystery woman?
“We haven’t had a proper introduction yet,” he finally said with a smile. And he held out his hand. “I’m Ashton Storm.”
She looked at him and then around the room.
“Storm?”
“Yep, Ashton, or Ash, as my friends like to call me.”
“Are you related to Richard Storm?”
“Most days I’ll admit to being his son,” he said. He was really enjoying himself now.
“Oh.” Her earlier starchy attitude seemed to vanish. “So you’re the boss’s kid.”
“Nope. Try again.”
This was beneath him. But why was he having so much fun? Hell, how could he resist? It had all become clear. She was obviously there because of his father, which would explain how she’d had the code to get onto the private docks. On the bright side, at least she wasn’t a thief.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“What’s your name?”
“Savannah Mills. Mr. Storm hired me to work down here this summer. I mean that your father hired me.”
“Ah, I see.” He smiled at her, noting the intake of her breath and the way her shoulders seemed to tense.
“What do you see?”
“My father is a practiced meddler. He’s an expert in the field.”
“Mr. Storm, I really don’t understand,” she said.
But he held up his hand and stopped her.
“First of all, it’s my father who’s Mr. Storm. I’m Ashton, or Ash. Secondly, I own this company, Savvy.”
“Savvy?”
“Your name is too long. If we’re going to be working together, I think I’ll call you Savvy. You seem somewhat smart.”
“You don’t know me nearly well enough to give me a nickname, Mr. Storm. I don’t appreciate it,” she told him firmly.
“Too bad. I don’t like wasting my breath,” he replied, his eyes narrowing just a bit at her refusal to listen to something as simple as what she should call him. Didn’t bode well for an employee of his. “What exactly did my father hire you to do?”
“He didn’t tell me my position. He just said that if I wanted a job down here, it was mine. He knew my qualifications. I told him I was happy to do anything.”
“Anything?” Oh, the possibilities that were drifting through his mind.
“Within reason, Mr. Storm,” she said, that fire back in her eyes.
“I like you, Savvy. You entertain me.”
“That’s not my purpose. I’m a hard worker, and I want to do my job, not worry about sucking up to the boss.”
She blushed immediately, and his pants tightened again, just when he’d about gotten his libido under control. Yep, he was a hard worker, too. And how he’d love to work her over. He wasn’t going to even think about the sucking comment.
“Well, we aren’t all that formal down here. We’re friendly. We work hard, play harder, and give the customers whatever they want,” he said with a wink before adding “within reason.”
“Then when do I start?”
“How about now?”
“I’m hardly ready to begin now,” she replied. “It’s late. My clothes are in the dryer. I haven’t filled out the proper forms, and I don’t know my job description.”
“You said you were willing to do anything,” he reminded her.
“Within reason!” she fired back.
He laughed, not wanting this meeting to end. But he could see she was more than done with wordplay.
“I’ll get the paperwork and you can fill it out while the clothes dry. Then be here tomorrow at eight on the dot. I can’t stand tardiness.”
She looked away before meeting his eyes again, and he could see there was something else. He could also see that she was reluctant to say what it was.
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Savvy. I don’t like fishing information out of people.”
“Um, well, it’s that Mr. Storm — I mean your father,” she said, just in case he might have forgotten that Mr. Storm was indeed his father. That made him smile again. “He, um, said that there was a place for me to stay here on the docks while I worked this summer.”
Ashton’s gut turned over at her words. Yes, he had a home away from the San Juan islands, a nice house near Seattle, but during the summer months he spent most of his nights on these docks. Having her that close didn’t seem like the brightest idea to him. Not when he was so damn sexually attracted to her. It didn’t fit into his plans at all, into the way he’d laid out his life. Laid …
“He did, huh?”
“Yes, he did.”
“And where are you currently staying?” Ashton asked.
“I just arrived in Washington earlier today, from California. I don’t have a place here yet. I came straight to the docks.”
Dang it all! She’d be living right here, then. That was a lot of temptation — especially at night. He wasn’t going to share those thoughts, though.
“Well, then, I’d better get you set up.”
He moved forward at the same time that she took a step to the side, and he suddenly found himself tangled with her. The two of them fell, but at the last second, Ashton managed to take the brunt of the fall.
But Savvy landed against him, her robe partially opening, giving him a very enticing view of her nicely formed breasts. Dammit. It appeared as if she had taken everything off. But he was able to rip his gaze up to her face. Self-control!
Screw it. One kiss couldn’t hurt anyone, so he grabbed the back of her head … Just then a loud bang sounded on his wall as his office door was thrust against it.
“What in the name of tarnation is going on?”
Both he and Savvy froze, and then they turned in sync to see the woman standing in his doorway.
Ashton recovered quickly. “Hello, Kalli. Perfect timing, as always,” he said. He sat up with Savvy in his arms, then scooted her off his lap none too gently and jumped to his feet.
The woman shot a death glare toward Savvy. “Apparently so,” she told Ashton in icy tones.
“This is my new employee. We bumped into each other and fell.” For some odd reason, he didn’t really give a damn that he’d just been caught completely compromised.
“Yes, of course. That’s what it looked like,” Kalli snapped. To his amazement, though, she quickly regained her composure.
Ashton wasn’t quite sure how to take Kalli’s reaction. She’d just busted him with another woman and yet she was sauntering toward him with a seductive smile on her outrageously plump lips. If the roles had been reversed, he’d have decked the guy she was with and then walked right out of the room and out of her life.
Dressed impeccably as always in a green Versace outfit that hugged her skin, she wrapped her long arms around his neck and planted a cold kiss on his mouth.
“I missed you, darling. Why don’t you introduce us?”
Ashton couldn’t seem to find his voice quickly enough, because Kalli turned from him and faced Savvy, who looked like a frightened mouse stuck in a trap.
“Since my fiancé seems to be a little flustered, I’ll go ahead and introduce myself. I’m Kallista Blanche Huntington-Hart. Ashton and I are engaged to be married.” She held up her hand to show off a gigantic diamond.
“It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Hart. I’m Savannah Mills, the newest grunt employee.”
There was just enough of a spark in Savvy’s eyes for Ashton to see that she wasn’t in the slightest bit intimidated by his fiancée. Hot damn if that wasn’t sexy too. Double dammit! He couldn’t help it, but his opinion of Savvy went up another notch as the three of them stood in his roomy office.
“Hmm. A grunt, huh? I figured.”
Instead of responding to that, Savvy turned toward her new boss. “If you can give me those papers, I’ll get them filled out and give you two some privacy.”
Privacy. Yeah, he looked forward to having some with Savvy. But that might be a bit difficult with his fiancée hanging around. What to do, what to do? Why did life have t
o be so effing difficult? Especially right after it had become so much better.
Well, then again, adversity only brought out the best in a man, didn’t it? What doesn’t kill me …
Chapter Three
He was doing the right thing.
This was his mantra, the one he kept repeating to himself as Kalli continued talking, her fingers waving in the air as she moved around the desk and talked about seating charts and who couldn’t be near who — sorry, near whom – and other boring-as-hell wedding details.
No. That wasn’t something he should be thinking. Kalli was perfect for him, perfect in every sense of the word. She was blue-blooded, sophisticated, beautiful, and respectable. She was the ideal mate for a successful man like himself. She’d keep up appearances and crank out genetically admirable heirs.
She was the sort of wife a man in his position was supposed to marry.
So if that was all true, why in the hell did he keep wandering to his office windows, the ones overlooking the docks, just so he could catch another glimpse of his newest employee. And where did she get off wearing such inappropriate attire?
Even as he thought that, he knew he was being a jerk, and he was also close to getting off. Yes, she was wearing shorts, but so were most of the men and women out there. It was just that he didn’t get a hard-on watching his male employees while they walked around in board shorts. Hell, not even when watching the other women.
There was a God after all, he thought, almost smiling.
But Savvy was wearing a pair of shorts that hugged her thighs and showcased the muscles in her calves as she stretched up to scrub the side of one of his boats. As she reached higher, her top crept up and he got an enticing view of her toned midsection.
Damn, one week on the docks and her creamy skin was already getting a nice golden glow to it. It looked good on her — really, really good.
“Are you listening to a thing I’m saying, Ashton?”
Kalli’s irritated voice pulled him away from those straying thoughts. Turning away from the view and focusing, or trying to, on the woman he was soon to marry, he plastered an unreadable expression onto his face. Yes, he was about to be married, and it would be best — and brightest — to remember that.
