You’re such a bullshit coward, Nikki. Just tell him you have a baby girl you can’t leave.
“Anywhere you are sounds perfect to me, Bud. If you want to stay here, we stay here.”
“I’ll go home tomorrow and take a day to get things squared away and then I’ll explain everything. Then we can spend some of the break at the farm after.”
“Explain everything?” His brow furrows in confusion.
“You know. Talk more about…everything.”
I need a day to talk things over with my mom and then try to explain to a twenty-month-old she has a daddy who will hopefully be a big part of her life from now on.
“Oh right. Everything.” Dalt waggles his brow. Apparently, his idea of ‘everything’ involves a bit more than talking. “We have the rest of today to get busy doing some of those things and I was thinking…” He slants his lips to one side and tilts his head.
“Yes, you were thinking?” I’m pretty sure I know exactly what he’s thinking because I am too.
“It’s perfect weather for sailing. You into it?”
“Sailing? Like in a boat?” Nope. Totally not what I was thinking.
“Exactly like in a boat. You up for it?”
“Sure, but I’m not exactly dressed for sailing.” I glance down at my vintage dress.
“We can run by your house and you can change. It’s still early. We have all day.”
I should be finishing my course work and getting back to the farm to be with Chloe and help my mom, but I can’t drag myself away from Dalt yet.
He misinterprets my hesitance. “Oh, don’t worry, soccer girl. I’m still looking forward to those lessons you promised me. But like I said, we have all day and night.” His sexy half grin causes butterflies to flit around in the tossing pancakes in my stomach.
Just one more day.
I’ll tell him about Chloe first thing tomorrow morning.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dalt
“Wow. Whose is this?” Nikki stands on the dock gaping up at my sailboat.
“It’s mine. Did you think we were hijacking a boat?” Laughing, I climb aboard my thirty-foot Oceanis.
“Yours? Are you kidding me?”
She’s too damn cute standing there in those tiny gym shorts I love, black Tom and Jerry tank top, with the army surplus backpack she bought in a thrift store two years ago when we were together slung over one shoulder. Her hair is pulled up in a ponytail and the excited expression lighting up her face makes me want to skip the sailing, take her below, and shimmy her out of those shorts to show her how exciting the interior of this boat can be.
“Nope. Not kidding. She’s all mine. Can you hand me the cooler with the food?” When I brought Nikki back to her house to change her clothes, I remembered Dak still had a set of keys to my house on his keychain on a table next to Nikki’s front door. I used it to get into my house, change into swim trunks, and fill a cooler with some food for us. The refrigerator on the boat is already stocked with drinks.
“Food? Are we running away?” She hoists the cooler and her backpack up to me.
“Not exactly. I just thought we could take that camping trip out to the island we never got to take.”
“Camping trip?” She shades her eyes from the sun with the palm of her hand. “I told you I have to go back to the farm tomorrow. Remember?”
“I remember. But it still gives us all night tonight. Right? Or we can just have a picnic on the island and head back before it gets dark. Whatever you want. So, you coming aboard or you afraid Captain Jack here is going to pirate you away?”
She’s still standing on the dock, shielding her eyes from the sun and staring at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“You own a sailboat? I don’t think I can be with you after all, pretty boy. First a Maserati, then I find out you’re richer than Croesus, and now this.” She laughs as she climbs on board.
“I’ll give it all away to charity if you promise to stay in my life, soccer girl.” I turn on the engine to warm it up before we cast off.
“Maybe you can just keep the boat…for now.” She smiles. “When did you get this beauty?”
“Um…right after you left me. It was my refuge. Someplace to get away and think about everything, or not think about everything. It’s peaceful out here. It quiets the mind.”
Nikki walks around and explores the boat. She takes a few steps below deck to drop her backpack.
“You sailed her alone?” she asks, coming back up on deck but keeping her eyes pinned to the cabin below. I know by the tone of her voice exactly what she’s thinking when she sees the elaborate layout of the cabin, especially the plump, cushy white sofa benches. Wait till she gets a load of the bedrooms.
I know it’s a dick thing to do but I can’t resist stringing her along just a little. I mean, come on. As much as I love her, this girl had me strung out for two years. A minute of innocent retaliation can’t hurt.
“No. Not always,” I answer in a slow, taunting tone.
“Oh…right. You obviously have all the comforts of home down there. You could probably stay out here for days. Secluded, lots of privacy, no one to bother you and…whoever.” She’s still staring down below deck when I come up behind her and wrap my arms around her waist, causing her to jump in surprise.
“It is well stocked with provisions to spend days out here.” I kiss the soft skin behind her ear. “And it is very secluded, private and…”—I trail kisses down the length of her neck—“…the beds are pretty comfortable.”
She trembles in my arms. I love how I can make her respond like this.
“Hmmph. Your own floating lair of sin. How nice for you,” she jeers and twists around to face me. “On second thought, it’s probably better if I leave today to go home. I have a lot to do.” She tries to push out of my arms.
“Nik, baby. Stop.” I can’t hold back the chuckle, which I can see is getting her even angrier.
“Let go of me and don’t call me baby.” She punches my shoulder.
I close my hand over her fist. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. I’m just messing with you. I have never had another girl out here, just the guys.”
“You haven’t?”
“Nope.”
“Not ever?” she asks in a relieved tone while running her hands down my chest. If they move down one more inch my cock has decreed there will be no sailing today.
“Not ever.” I tilt my head to kiss her.
“You’re such an asshole!” She punches me again.
“Ow.” It doesn’t hurt but I pretend it does and try to hold back the grin, because I can’t deny I like that she’s feeling territorial and jealous. “Sorry, babe.” I continue to place kisses all over her face and neck. “Please forgive me. Just couldn’t resist teasing you a little.”
“That was mean.” She pouts, but I feel her melting into my arms.
“We better get on the water or I’m going to have to give you a personal tour of my sleeping quarters and then this boat won’t be leaving dock today.”
“Sailing first, then surfing,” she draws out the word and grinds her hips into my obvious erection, making my cock twitch in anticipation.
I let out a hungry growl and she giggles. I suppose I deserve her reciprocal teasing in payback for what I just did to her. Whose stupid idea was it to go sailing when I could have her underneath me right now?
“Come on. You take the helm. I’ll get the bow and stern lines,” she directs and pushes out of my arms.
It takes me a minute to get my thoughts back up to the head on my shoulders.
“Wait, you know how to sail?”
“Duh. I grew up in Maine, hockey boy,” she mocks, one hand placed on her hip, her lips pursed and quirked to one side. “Learning to sail is like learning to walk.” She gives me a slight grin.
Why is it every expression this girl makes is like a work of art for my eyes and a catalyst for my dick?
“Uh. Helllooo, Walker. You in there? You goi
ng to take the helm or you want me to?”
“Huh? No, I got it.”
I wait for Nikki to release the lines and I move the boat forward away from the dock and out into the harbor. I keep it under engine power until we get out into open water. Nikki is sitting on the bench seat to the left of me and the whole time we’re cruising out into Frenchman Bay I can’t take my eyes off her. I’ve dreamt of this scenario so many times in the past few months, I can’t wrap my head around it now. She’s real and she’s here.
Damn. She’s beautiful. If the manufacturer of this boat could see what I see right now, they’d want to use this scene of an angel sailing on one of their boats for an advertising campaign. Watching her face beaming with happiness fills me with an inner peace I haven’t felt since we were together. I’ll never let anything take the joy out of her eyes or the happiness out of our lives again.
“You’re staring at me, hockey boy.” She tilts her head and the corners of her mouth tip up slightly.
“Just thinking how beautiful it is out here and what a perfect day it is.”
She knows I’m totally bullshitting about the thoughts running through my head. She can read the longing in my eyes like a book. But besides being with the only person in the world I want to be with right now, it is a perfect day for sailing around the lush green islands off the coast.
It’s unusually warm for this time of year. April weather in Maine can change in a blink of an eye. One minute a chilly forty degrees, and eighty the next, which is about where it is today. The cool wind coming across the ocean is keeping it a comfortable temperature.
“I thought we could sail around the bay before we dock at Stave Island. You good with that?”
“I’m more than good with that. This is amazing. I haven’t been sailing since high school. One of my friends’ fathers had a boat. I’m remembering how much I miss it.”
“You’re too good to be true, Nik. A girl who likes hockey, sailing, could probably nutmeg Ronaldo on the soccer field, and has an ass and tits like yours. I knew you were my soul mate the minute I saw you.”
“Right. I know exactly what you mean,” she says indifferently. “Remember the time you stripped out of your hockey uniform and stood in front of me naked except for your hockey pads?”
“Hey, that was on your request. I don’t do a hockey strip for just anyone, you know.” I laugh at the ridiculous memory. I have to admit though, it got Nikki so hot and bothered she dropped to her knees right in front of me and gave me a blow job which, on a scale of one to ten had to be about a ten thousand. Hmmm. Maybe I should get my gear out when we get back home.
“No. It was totally hot. I’m just sayin’, when I saw you like that I said to myself, ‘O-M-G I’m gonna marry this cock. He’s totally my soul mate,’” she says in her best Valley Girl imitation and then slants her pursed lips to one side.
“Har har. Very funny, Bud.”
“What? You’re not the only one who can find their soul mate based upon the objectification of the person’s body.”
“I’m not complaining. Objectify away. If you want to stay with me based solely on the size of my cock I’m completely down with that. Just as long as you stay with me.” I give her a devilish wink.
“Ugh,” she groans. “You’re a complete cave man.”
“Yeah, but I’m your complete cave man.” I laugh. “You ready to hoist the sails, soccer girl?”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n.” Nikki salutes and moves to the halyard to pull up the main sail, cinches it with the winch, and then cleats it off. Then she does the same with the jib. The way she maneuvers the sails it’s like she was born on a sailboat.
We tack around the harbor, me at the helm, Nikki at the sails. As I take in the sight of her working the sails and the environment around us I heave a sigh of relief. The hell I’ve been living the past months without her is gone. Everything about her and this day is heaven.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Nikki
When we get to Stave Island, we bring down and secure the sails, and Dalt anchors the boat just off the sandy beachside of the island. The island is beautiful, tranquil. It’s like Dalt and I are the only two people in the world. Except I still haven’t told him about the tiny human we made together and the guilt keeps jolting me out of the blissful peace the environment is providing. The most important thing to Dalt is honesty and trust. I can’t think of anything that would be more of a breach in trust than this. I have to find the right words.
“You okay?” Dalt’s arms wrapping around my waist from behind me startles me out of my thoughts. “Wow. Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t scare me.” I drop my head back onto his chest. “I was just thinking.”
“Thinking about what?” He keeps his arms wrapped around me and gently rocks us, matching the lulling movements of the anchored boat.
‘How beautiful all of this is.”
“The island?”
“The island, the ocean, the day, you. Everything’s so beautiful, perfect.”
“It is,” he whispers in my ear.
“But I was also thinking about something your father said.”
“Dammit, Nik!” He spins me around in his arms so we’re face to face. “Forget everything that asshole said. It’s not important. It was all lies.”
I cup his cheek with my hand. “I know everything he said about the engagement and the money was lies but some of what he said is true.”
“No!” He grabs my hand, holding it onto his cheek and squeezes, like he’s trying to press the condemnation of his father into my fingers. “Everything that comes out of his mouth is bullshit lies.”
“Except the part about our lives having been different.”
“No, our lives—”
“Dalt.” I cup his face between both of my hands to force him to look straight into my eyes. “Our lives were very different. You had everything, and like I said, I had nothing. There were times after my dad died I was lucky if I had a decent pair of shoes to wear to school.”
“Those things mean nothing, Nik. Hear me. Feel me.” He places my hand on his chest. “This is me, babe. I’m just me. We have each other now. It’s all we need, all we’ll ever need.” If I ever had any doubt of loving this man, the beseeching expression in his eyes right now has crushed all uncertainty.
“I know.” I wrap my arms around his neck and feather a kiss across his lips. “But all this has me realizing things I never thought about before. Even though we were poor, my life wasn’t deprived. Except for the awful blip in our lives known as Bert, I believe we were rich in the most important sense. We lived a beautiful, clean, simple life and we loved each other. Growing up with my little family on the farm was an amazing experience.”
“I get that, Nik. Except for the crap you had to go through with Bert, I never thought your life was anything but beautiful. And when I meet your mom I’m going to wrap her in a big hug and thank her for throwing that scumbag out and raising the perfect woman for me to fall desperately in love with.” Dalt places a quick kiss on the tip of my nose. “Why are we talking about this? I told you, the money means nothing except for the things I can give you if you want them. Whatever you want, baby.”
He’s so earnest when promising me the moon and the stars. And when he gives me his lopsided grin, there’s way more than butterflies taking flight inside me. It feels like a whole zoo of animals is doing acrobatics in my stomach. But even with all his heartfelt sincerity, I stop myself from being honest in return, from telling him the real reason I’ve been thinking about the discrepancies in our lives.
I still don’t know how to tell him we have a little girl who is happy and loved and has been living a wonderful life despite the fact I kept her daddy away from her for her entire little life. How is he going to deal with that? Especially when I think about his past, surrounded by every material desire, but devoid of love after his mom died. My heart breaks for him and the guilty weight of having kept his daughter’s love from h
im for this long sits like a triceratops on my chest. If the tables were turned, if he had kept Chloe from me, would I be able to forgive him?
I sigh. “I’ll settle for a picnic lunch and a cold bottle of water for now.”
“Water? No cold beer?”
“No thanks. I’m trying to turn over a new leaf, clean up my diet a little.”
I want this one perfect afternoon with him before I tell him the reason for my new leaf, before I reveal just how much of a fool I’ve been for the past two years and shatter his perfect illusion of me.
***
We pull the small raft we used to get from the boat to the beach onto the sandy shore. Dalt hoists out the cooler full of food and drinks we took out of the boat’s fridge and carries it up to a shady spot under some trees. After spreading the plaid blanket I took from one of the storage benches on deck over the mossy grass, I plop down onto it.
Sitting with my knees pulled up to my chest, I wrap my arms around my legs and inhale, spending a moment to take in the beauty of the scenery all around us. Dalt lays down next to me and stretches, exposing a glimpse of chiseled abs, before tucking his arms under his head to use as a headrest. The only scenery I’m interested in now is the gorgeous manscape of humanity lying next to me.
“This is perfect, isn’t it?” Dalt tilts his head up to view the ocean and the crystal blue horizon. “Just you and me, together, finally, in this beautiful world.”
The hefty triceratops does a jumping jack on my chest.
I follow his gaze out over the horizon. “Um…yes…but it’s…”
“Hey, Bud. Come here. What are you doing all the way over there?” Dalt stretches his arm out across the blanket. I slide down, curling up next to him. With a quick flex of his arm, he rolls me over on top of him so we’re nose to nose. He holds me there for a moment, pressing my breasts into his hard chest. The intensity in his silver blue eyes makes me feel like I’m being pulled even further into him, drowning in their liquid power.
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