Undressed

by Heather MacAllister

  Ford started at the top, his fingers brushing her bare skin. Gina’s bare skin. He swallowed against a really, really unwanted urge to turn her around and kiss her.

  The loops were tight and the buttons didn’t want to slip through easily. This was going to take a long time and unless he distracted himself, he didn’t have a long time before he did something stupid. “Where’s Monica?”

  “Nashville.”

  Actually, he found he didn’t care where Monica was. He barely remembered what she looked like.

  The first button was free. The next was easier. By the third, he was getting the hang of it, but not getting the hang of seeing more of Gina’s back. To distract himself, he said, “This boat belongs to Mark, the guy who’s building Green River Homes. His son was one of the boys who—”

  “Kidnapped me out of a bridal salon?”

  “That wasn’t kidnapping, that was ‘whisking,’ as in ‘whisking away for a romantic weekend.’”

  “Oh, well, that makes it all better, then.”

  Ford had never heard Gina angry and sarcastic before. “Okay, look, I know you’re angry. I’m sorry. But what are you doing in Monica’s wedding dress?”

  “Don’t you try to make this my fault!”

  What? “I only asked! It’s a reasonable question.”

  “Well, obviously, I’m getting it fitted because we wear the same size and Monica couldn’t break another appointment. Of course, thanks to you, the dress is going to take a lot of work before anybody gets married in it. It’s ripped, beads are missing, the bottom is dirty and there’s a lovely black oil streak from the car door.”

  Somewhere in his mind, a voice whispered that it would be an excuse to postpone the wedding. “The boys shouldn’t have taken you while you were wearing the dress. Next time, they’ll know better.”

  “Next time?” Gina turned her head and glared at him.

  He hadn’t seen her glare before, either. “I messed up,” he told her. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t sound sorry.” She turned back around.

  Because he wasn’t. He was here, undressing her, having wildly inappropriate thoughts and urges. Ford continued working the buttons and encountered a stiff lace shell. “What is this thing?”

  “A corset. As soon as you can, undo the hooks and the laces. It’s killing me.”

  Ford worked faster until he got to the corset. The knots were tight and the lacing was wet because Gina had sweated. Far from being repelled, he wanted to bury his nose in her back.

  Finally, he got the knots and laces loose and tugged at the hooks until the thing fell open, revealing Gina’s naked back.

  Unwanted desire coursed through him. Equally unwanted was the realization that another woman’s naked back wouldn’t do the same. Ford tried to imagine Monica’s naked back. The surprise wasn’t that he had trouble; it was that he didn’t want to. He wanted the naked back in front of him to belong to Gina and Gina only.

  Holding up the front of the corset, Gina gasped a lungful of air. “I am not wearing anything like this on my wedding day. I don’t care how small it makes my waist looks.”

  Her waist was just fine. As she stood there breathing, Ford gazed at her smooth back, all the way down to her panties, which he saw through a circular cage. There were more buttons to unbutton, but Ford didn’t trust himself to touch her.

  “I think I can get out of this thing now. Can you lift it over my head?”

  “Sure.” Remarkably, his voice sounded normal. Ford pulled the heavy dress upward and dragged it sideways until Gina’s head appeared.

  “Thank you.” She stood there in a see-through cage, clutching the open corset to her chest. “Can you untie the hoops now?”

  He did so and she stepped out of them. They stayed standing.

  Ford nearly didn’t. She was off-the-charts sexy, like an old-fashioned pinup girl.

  “You’re staring at me,” she said.

  “Yes. You’re beautiful.”

  “I’m not Monica.”

  “I know.”

  She stepped closer to him and he felt certain vital functions nearing a meltdown. He wanted to reach for her. He was dizzy with wanting to touch her and hold her and drag the corset out of her hands.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You do not get to look at me that way while you are engaged to be married to another woman.”

  She was right. He knew she was right. “You’re beautiful whether or not I’m engaged.”

  Her expression didn’t change. “It’s time to call Monica. I’ll get dressed and join you in the other room.” She looked around. “I assume you packed a bag for her. Where is it?”

  Clothes. Ford winced. Clothes weren’t going to be important in his plans for the weekend.

  “You didn’t bring any clothes for her?” Gina asked incredulously.

  “I bought a swimsuit. It’s hanging in the bathroom,” he told her.

  Gina whipped around and stepped into the bathroom. Moments later, she stood in the doorway and dangled the suit from her finger. “So my choices are a wedding dress or a bikini?”

  “Or nothing.” He shouldn’t have said that.

  Gina pointed to the door.

  “I’ll go call Monica,” Ford said hastily.

  FORD WAS ON ONE of the sofas talking quietly to Monica when Gina entered the salon. She’d found a short cotton robe and had put it on over the navy and white bikini.

  He was relieved, because for a few moments back there, he was having a damn-the-torpedoes-full-steam-ahead moment.

  “Ford, what if I’d had people waiting on me and I just didn’t show up? Did you think of that?” Monica said.

  “You mean the way you don’t show up for our meetings?”

  “That’s different.”

  “Not really.”

  “I have never stood you up!” she insisted. “I either leave you a message—”

  “Or send Gina to placate me.”

  There was a significant silence. “Is she there?”

  “Yes, she’s here.” Ford handed Gina the cell phone.

  She refused. “Put it on speaker. I want to talk to both of you.”

  Ford did so and propped the phone in the cup holder on the little table.

  “Monica?”

  “Gina, are you okay?”

  “Of course. But you two aren’t,” she declared. “You don’t even know each other.”

  Ford was beginning to wonder if he knew himself.

  “Gina, that’s not—” Monica started.

  “My business?” She started pacing, gesturing with her arms. “You both made it my business by using me as a go-between. I scheduled your dates. I canceled your dates. And I apologized to you on each other’s behalf. You both used me as your confidant. I sent little mushy texts. One weird day, I sent and answered my own e-mails.”

  Ford stared at her. “You read my e-mails to Monica?”

  “When she asked me to respond.”

  Monica’s voice sounded over the phone. “Ford, Gina answers my routine e-mail.”

  Routine. She considered his e-mails routine? He glanced at Gina, but she kept her gaze fixed on the floor.

  “You mean that sometimes when I thought I was texting Monica, I was texting you?” he asked her.

  She looked up at him. “Don’t sound so surprised. ‘Gina, tell her I’m sorry and make it nice. You know what I mean.’”

  Those were his words. He remembered tossing them off. They sounded so cold and uncaring now.

  “Ford!” That was Monica. Like she was in any position to object.

  He felt…many things. Appalled that he’d so casually involved Gina. Ashamed. And sad, because he’d shared his dreams and thoughts and…his personal stuff with her when he thought he’d been sharing with Monica.

  But it got worse.

  “You know that great bamboo desk set with the pens with environmentally friendly ink and the special pencils, Ford?” Gina asked. “I bought that for you. Monica, the black pearl earrings? I
bought those. And I bought your birthday presents to each other, too.”

  “Gina!”

  “All right. We get the idea,” Ford said. He needed time to process everything.

  “I’m not finished.” Gina challenged him to interrupt her.

  He didn’t.

  “You think you two know each other? Then tell me where you’re going to live.”

  “That’s part of what this weekend was about,” Ford said. “I wanted Monica to choose a lot with me.”

  “What lot?” Monica asked.

  “If you were ever around, you’d know,” he snapped.

  “Right,” Gina said. “Talk about that in a minute. I’ve got one more thing to say and then I’ll leave you both alone. Monica, going green isn’t a fad Ford will outgrow. Ford, this isn’t just a busy time Monica’s going through. This is the way it always is. Her schedule and commitments aren’t going to ease off. She’ll never be a cozy homebody.”

  He’d already known that, hadn’t he? From Monica’s silence, he guessed she’d known it, too.

  “Monica, from now on, your love life is no longer part of my duties. You’ll have to handle it yourself.” Gina walked toward the stairs. “I’m going topside to get some sun.”

  “Wait.” There was something Ford had to know.

  She looked back at him warily. This must have been hell for her.

  “I’ll call you back,” he said to Monica and tossed the phone aside. “The conversations about movies—you or Monica?”

  “Me.”

  “High school.”

  “Me.”

  “The size of our wedding?” He walked toward her.

  “Me—but Monica told me what to say.”

  “About becoming vegan?”

  “Me.”

  “The, uh, meat recipes?”

  Gina smiled for the first time. “Oh, definitely me.”

  Ford reached the bottom of the stairs where she stood. “The green legislation?”

  “Uh…” She shook her head. “That must have been Monica.”

  There had been no green-legislation conversation. Gina was telling the truth, not that he doubted her. It was just that Ford loved the woman with whom he’d exchanged thoughts and feelings. He thought it had been Monica, but it had been Gina.

  So, how did Gina feel? She knew him so well and it seemed he knew her, but he hadn’t known it was her, and this was all doing a number on his head.

  They looked at each other as Ford tried to sort out his feelings. They hadn’t gone away. They were just redirected. But it was a lot more complicated than switching numbers in his speed dial.

  And he still didn’t know if Gina felt anything for him at all, other than disgust and pity. Just because he was in love didn’t mean she was. How could she be? How could he explain his monumental mistake? “Oops. I meant all those things I said to your boss for you. My bad.” Ford couldn’t believe this had happened to him.

  But all those exchanges with her…there had to be something there for him to fall in love with.

  “What about the funny quotes that would randomly appear on my phone?” He hoped that those were from her. He’d loved getting them. Please let them be from Gina.

  She looked away. “I sent those.”

  “Because Monica told you to?”

  She shook her head. “My idea.”

  He looked down at her, into brown eyes that held sadness and something else. Something that gave Ford hope. “One more thing I have to know.”

  He moved until he stood in her personal space, waiting to see if she moved back. She didn’t.

  Tilting her chin upward, he kissed her gently, feeling her lips quiver. A whole earthquake was going on inside him. He pulled back an inch, his heart thudding. “I think I’m engaged to the wrong woman. What do you think?”

  Gina’s arms encircled his neck and she pulled him to her, opening her mouth beneath his. “That’s what I think, too.”

  GINA WAS SHAKING as she unfolded the lounge chair, tossed the robe aside and lay down. She was so fired.

  And kissing Ford like that? “He started it” was not a good enough reason. It was wrong and she knew it. He was still her boss’s fiancé. Even knowing that, she’d pressed up against him, deepening the kiss when his hands had caressed her bare back. She’d sucked on his tongue, she’d dragged her fingers through his hair, she’d nibbled on his lower lip and she’d shamelessly ground her pelvis against his groin.

  So much for hiding her feelings.

  When she’d let him go, the man had looked shell-shocked.

  And turned on.

  Gina closed her eyes. She’d always known she’d get hurt, but she hadn’t meant to hurt Ford and Monica, too.

  She heard him open the door. That was quick. Gina had no idea what to say to him, or what he’d say to her.

  “Want to help me throw calla lilies overboard?”

  That was unexpected. Gina sat up. Ford climbed the steps with the calla lilies from the vase below.

  “What are you doing?”

  “We are de-Monica-izing our weekend getaway.” He threw a lily overboard. “It’s symbolic.”

  “You and Monica broke up.”

  “Oh, yes.” Ford handed her half the flowers.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not. You should have kissed me like that a long time ago. It really clarified things for me.”

  He thought she’d deliberately set out to sabotage their relationship. Gina didn’t know whether it was worth it to explain. It would be easier if she let him blame her. “But I’m sorry you and Monica went through a broken engagement.”

  “It’s our own fault.” Ford sat on the lounger next to her. “We had a summer romance that couldn’t last when we got back to our real lives. If it hadn’t been for you, we would have broken up long before this.” He flung another lily into the lake. “You did your job too well. And Monica said to tell you that you aren’t fired and that she’s hurt you’d even think so.”

  Gina threw a lily. “Now you’re doing what I did. She didn’t say that last part.”

  “Words to that effect.”

  Gina laughed and threw another calla lily.

  Ford dumped the rest of his flowers. “I do have a problem.” He leaned back against the lounge chair. “I’m in love with the person who wrote those texts and e-mails and sent me the funny quotes.”

  A lily dropped to the deck. Ford picked it up and tossed it over the side. “I thought it was Monica. But it’s you.”

  Gina stared at him as she unconsciously crushed the remaining flower stems. He loved her? That was what he was saying, right?

  When she didn’t respond, he gathered the mangled callas from her paralyzed hands and dropped the last of Monica’s favorite flower over the side.

  “So why is that a problem, you wonder? Because I think you might like me a little.”

  “I might like you a lot.”

  His eyes crinkled. “So here’s the situation. We’re on this wonderfully romantic weekend that I planned for another woman. A woman who I was engaged to not that long ago. Less than ten minutes ago, actually. But now I find I’m here with the woman I love. Which I did not know until I saw her sitting on the bed, also not that long ago.”

  “Why then?”

  “Because I was glad it was you sitting on that bed and not Monica.”

  “Oh.”

  “My reaction was a little different.” He raised his eyebrows and rubbed the space between them.

  She smiled and her smile grew the longer she thought about it. “About your problem?”

  He drew his knuckles down her cheek. “I don’t know the correct amount of time to allow between ending an engagement to one woman and making love to another.”

  “I don’t think there are any strict rules about the time. The ending is the important part.”

  “See, I think the beginning is the important part. I don’t want to come off like an opportunistic jerk. This—” he gestured around them �
��—was another woman’s weekend.”

  “No.” Gina stood and held out her hand. “You planned it for the woman you love. That makes it my weekend.”

  5

  TAKING HER HAND, Ford stood and led her toward the pilothouse. “I want to show you this.”

  They walked along the edge of the boat and then climbed a metal ladder to the top.

  “You can access the pilothouse from the back way up here, or the front below.” Ford opened a hatch and stepped down, turning to help Gina.

  Two club chairs sat in front of the boat’s controls. “Directly behind us is an extra sleeping alcove.” The bed looked large enough, but the ceiling was only two feet above it. Not exactly the love nest she’d been hoping for.

  “Watch.” Ford flipped a lever and the ceiling retracted, leaving a clear window above the alcove.

  “That’s kind of cool.”

  “Not done yet.” He pressed a control somewhere and the window slid open.

  “It’s a moon roof!” Okay. She saw where he was going with this.

  “Climb on up.”

  Gina did so and stretched out on her back, looking up at the evening sky. How like him to want to be connected to nature while making love.

  She heard Ford toe off his deck shoes and when he climbed up, he’d removed his shirt.

  He sat with his head and shoulders through the open ceiling. “It’s a pretty view. Want to take a look?”

  Gina smiled at his naked torso. “I think my line is ‘I’m already looking at a pretty view.’”

  He grinned down at her, but stayed seated.

  Gina got up on her knees and hugged his back. Looking over his shoulder, she saw the green shores of the narrow, twisted lake. She knew there were houses dotting the hills, but they were part of the landscape and not fighting with it.

  Ford needed to live in an area like this. If he had to live in the center of a hip, urban area, he wouldn’t be Ford anymore.

  He ran his hands along her arms. “I don’t want to rush you or pressure you into doing something you don’t really want to do.”

  So sensitive and thoughtful.

  But there was such a thing as overthinking.