Hearing the resignation in Tiro’s voice, Cyrus felt a stab of remorse for his son’s quandary. Unable to offer any comfort or another solution, they had to continue forward to restore Caspia, even if it meant his son’s temporary unhappiness. Cyrus walked around the table toward Tiro, placing his hand on his son’s shoulder, calmly accepting his reluctant acquiescence. “I know you will, son.”
Note from Michelle
I do hope you enjoyed this book, I’d so appreciate it if you’d help others enjoy it too.
Recommend it. Please help other readers find this book by recommending it.
Review it. Please tell other readers why you liked this book by reviewing it at online retailers or your blog. Reader reviews help my books continue to be valued by distributors/resellers. I adore each and every reader who takes the time to write one!
If you love the book or leave a review, please email [email protected] so I can thank you with a personal email. Your support means more than you’ll ever know! Thank you!
About Michelle
Author Michelle Hoppe first discovered a love for writing in a high school creative writing class, and has been creating romantic comedy, chic lit, paranormal, and contemporary stories even since. Michelle writes sexy stories with an edge, and humorous stories about life as a mother and grandmother. Michelle lives in a quiet little town in WA State, USA. With beautiful beaches, stately mountains, an active volcano, and an abundance of nature, it is an ideal location to write her novels, poetry, and stories.
Connect with Michelle online:
Follow Michelle on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michelle.hoppe.92
Follow Michelle on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MichelleHoppe
Join Michelle at Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/106901167421014645163
Visit Michelle’s website: http://www.michellehoppe.com/
eBooks by Michelle Hoppe
Visit Michelle’s website at http://www.michellehoppe.com for more info
Belle Tori, a Contemporary Erotic Romance series
1. Club Belle Tori
2. Return to Belle Tori
My Life … MOM?!, a comedy series about everyday family life
1. Because I Said So
Stand Alone Titles
Hart's Heart
Forever Caspia
The Diner
Tipping the Scales
Poetry
1. Hues of Dark and Light (Illustrated)
Michelle recommends … Lila Dubois
Sealed With a Kiss
Lila Dubois
Chapter 1
“Now stroke, good, and again, very good.” The wind carried his voice, letting it slip over the skin of her cheek, swirling in the whorls of her ears along with the cold, salted wind.
Focusing on her instructions, Helena placed the left side of her paddle in the water and pulled. The sleek orange kayak jumped over the slight wave in front of them. Thrilled by the rolling motion of moving perpendicularly over the wind-shaped waves, Helena stroked again.
The Pacific stretched out in front of her. At the horizon, still dark at this early hour, the water was grey blue, but directly against the kayak it was murky green. Behind her, Catalina Island, a busy little hub of boats and environmental research centers, crowned by the city of Avalon, sat triumphant.
When the muscles in her arms started to quiver, her biceps twitching inside the wetsuit jacket she wore, Helena turned to look over her shoulder. Behind her in the kayak’s rear seat sat her guide. Dark haired and tan with sapphire blue eyes—now hidden behind sunglasses—he appeared supremely confident, as if he were the master of the waves.
When Helena signed up for the kayak lessons and tour, she’d had two options. The first option allowed her to have her own kayak, with the guide in a separate vessel. While the freedom of that appealed to her, the idea of being alone atop the world’s largest ocean in a vessel that looked like shark food was terribly intimidating. Helena had opted for the double kayak, and was she ever glad she had.
“Getting tired?” Ocean asked.
Helena nodded.
“Rest your arms a minute and let me guide you.”
Nodding again, Helena turned to face front. Once she was sure he could not see her face, Helena rolled her eyes and grimaced at herself. Ocean O’Brian, her guide, was not only beautiful to look at, but kind, charming and easygoing. This meant that Helena had turned into a mute idiot around him. Hot guys intimidated her. She was much more comfortable with guys who were less-than-stellar looking and quiet. Men who let her be the confident one, a role she was more accustomed to playing and one that gave her control.
At this rate, she had no idea how she would make it through the week. She had to talk to him at some point. This was only her second kayaking lesson. The first was yesterday afternoon right after she brought her car over on the ferry. Today was the first full day of her ten-day vacation/mental-health break. Working as a financial planner had its perks, mostly in the salary area, but was incredibly stressful. It was easy for some of her associates to forget the money they moved around represented years of work and savings by their clients. In school, they were taught to see it as a game, but Helena never could. In every dollar she saw someone’s hopes and dreams, and took prudent care of their money. Her deliberate and cautious investment strategies pushed her up the corporate ladder. The series of promotions led to a job with fewer, more significant accounts. Increased dollar value, higher profile clients with impossible demands and an ulcer had come with the promotion.
After being treated for the ulcer, Helena had taken a stand with her boss. As a result, Helena now had a junior-level planner as her assistant and a nice ten-day vacation as a “please-don’t-leave” present.
The ten-day kayak training and exploration package was something she’d seen in an outdoor-vacation magazine years ago. She’d saved the article and when this vacation came up, she’d turned right around and booked her trip. With the temperature rising inside the concrete jungle of L.A., a peaceful week on an island had sounded blissful.
“Look. Three o’clock.”
Helena turned her head and scanned the ocean’s surface. There, bobbing just above the wave, was a seal, his head poking out from the rolling swells. They were close enough for Helena to see his long whiskers twitch before he disappeared beneath the water.
“Was that a seal?” It was much easier to talk to him when she wasn’t looking at him.
“Sure was.”
“Isn’t this a bit far for him to be out?” Woo-hoo! Two sentences in a row. By the time this was over, she might be able to actually have a conversation with the man.
“Not at all. He’s probably fishing for his breakfast. Seals come into shore to lie on the rocks or under the pier when they’re tired and want to rest, but they spend most of their life under the water.”
“Do they ever go up on the beach?”
“Only if they’re sick.”
Helena scanned the horizon for more bobbing heads.
“You want to try driving again?”
Helena nodded and lifted her paddle, digging into the water. With nothing but the Pacific in front of her, it was easy to forget that there was land behind her, that there was anything in the world but the wind, water and the sun chasing the night into the western horizon.
Lost in the moment, Helena laid her paddle across her thighs. Fingers spread wide, she reached into the cold water, shivering in pleasure at its salty touch on her flesh.
Raising her hands, Helena tilted her head back, letting drops fall on her face, thanking the world for this perfect moment in the only way she could.
Ocean put one paddle in the water, controlling the roll of the kayak. Luckily the motion was automatic, prompted by years of piloting light, sleek vessels over the waves.
He was distracted by the brunette in front of him who, until this moment, had been just another client, fit and pretty, but unremarkable.
He watched, stunned, as she dipped
her fingers into the water and then raised them to the sky in an offering, a prayer as primal as humanity and timeless as the ocean they sat on. She repeated the motion, her head falling farther back. The wind whipped wisps of her hair from her braid and lifted them so the sun could kiss them, turning brown to red and gold.
When she repeated the motion a ritual third time, a little ripple made its way over Ocean’s skin.
Was this a sign? For her to do this so soon after they saw the seal? Did she know what he was? Was she of the sea?
She lowered her arms and picked up her paddle. He could tell from the hunch in her shoulders that she was embarrassed by what she’d done. Ocean wanted to tell her not to be embarrassed, not to doubt what had been an unpracticed and heartfelt expression of joy and thanks.
She started paddling once more, the subtle muscles in her arms flexing as she propelled them over the water. Shaking himself out of the lingering astonishment, Ocean put his paddle in the water and helped her. Something magical had just happened, and when they reached land, he intended to investigate her most thoroughly.
* * * *
They paddled up beside the low floating dock a few hours later. Helena nervously held onto the edge of the cold aluminum as Ocean maneuvered himself out of the back opening and onto the dock. Once he was out, the kayak started to float away. Helena, with the paddle in one hand and the other desperately trying to hold onto the edge of the slippery dock, emitted a squeak of distress.
Ocean laughed. “Don’t worry, gorgeous, I’ve got you.” Gorgeous? Was he talking to the kayak?
He pulled the kayak up to the dock, looped a rope through the eyelet and helped Helena out. Three hours sitting in a kayak that had acquired half an inch of frigid ocean water in the bottom had atrophied the muscles in her legs and ass.
In a maneuver right out of a bad romantic comedy, the minute she tried to stand up on her own, Helena collapsed against Ocean.
“Oh no, I’m sorry. My legs are…broken or something.”
He laughed. “Not to worry, gorgeous, you’re just tired and a bit stiff.” After making sure she could stay upright, Ocean dipped to one knee. He wrapped his hands around her right calf, working at her leg, which was bare beneath the knee-length wetsuit pants she wore.
“What are you doing?”
“Warming you up.” His hands switched to her left calf, kneading and softening the muscle, before coming back to her right leg and thigh. One hand on the front, one hand on the back, he squeezed her flesh, manipulating the stiff muscles. “Feel any better?”
Helena, heart in her throat, staring dumbly at the top of his head, nodded. It took a moment for Ocean to look up, but when he did, he answered her dumbfounded expression with a quizzical one.
“Helena, if this makes you uncomfortable, please let me know.”
“Uncomfortable? No, not that…”
“Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“Who says anything is wrong?”
“You’re looking at me like I’m an ax murderer.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, it’s not that at all.” Helena could have smacked herself. Why couldn’t she say something intelligent instead of answering questions with questions or stuttering useless platitudes?
“Then what’s wrong?”
“I’m just nervous.”
“I’m making you nervous?”
“Yes.”
“Like, you’re nervous I’m going feed you to the sharks when we go out tomorrow morning, or you have a boyfriend named Bruno who would break both my legs if he saw me touching you?”
His head was down, focusing on working the kinks out of her legs, but his probing question made it clear that he wanted to know if she was in a relationship. Helena knotted her fingers together in nervous excitement, flattered and unnerved by his interest. She wasn’t so beautiful that every man she met wanted to sleep with her, and her painful self-doubt insisted that she’d read the signals wrong.
“I don’t have a Bruno, I mean boyfriend.” She wished she were a better flirt, able to whip out witty banter at a moment’s notice.
“Then you’re worried I’ll feed you to the sharks?”
“Well I wasn’t, but now I’m starting to.”
Ocean threw his head back and laughed, a full-bodied sound. He laughed as if he didn’t care who knew he was amused. Helena smiled, his mirth infectious, her chest and cheeks flushing with pleasure at having made him laugh.
“If I promise not to feed you to the sharks”—his eyes sparkled with amusement as he said it—”will you stop looking so worried?”
“I’ll try, I just get nervous talking to pretty guys.”
“Pretty?” He seemed disgusted with what she’d said, though she meant it as a compliment.
“I, um, meant handsome, not pretty.”
He gifted her with a tender smile, and Helena worried that she’d just changed attraction to fraternal caring with one careless comment. It wouldn’t be the first time, but she felt a deep pang of sadness at having lost his interest.
“I’m glad you think I’m handsome.”
“I bet girls tell you that all the time.”
“Maybe.” At least he had the grace to acknowledge it. “But it’s not other girls’ opinions that matter right now, just yours.”
There was a silky quality to his voice, a bedroom smooth that overrode her earlier conclusion that he’d lost interest in her. Ocean’s manipulation of her muscles changed along with his voice, from physical-therapist massage to lover’s caress. He pushed to his feet, hands circling her hips and thighs in a slow, deliberate touch.
“You smell like the sea, and all I can think about is making love to you. I want to lick the smell of salt off every”—Ocean pressed his lips to her right ear—”inch”—he moved his mouth to her other ear—”of you.”
Between the midday sun and him, she was more than warmed up. Protected from the wind by the raised pier, there was nothing to cool her. From above, the sun baked her inside the black wetsuit jacket and shorts she wore. Ocean’s hands on her thighs pressed her against his wetsuit-clad body.
She was on vacation, her first one in a long time. A man she found attractive, if intimidating, had just made it clear he was interested in having sex with her.
Helena had two options. She could push away from him, make it clear she didn’t find this behavior appropriate and continue her vacation. Or she could pretend to be someone else, a woman so confident that she had sexuality to burn and ate gorgeous men for breakfast. The second option terrified her, but the sun’s heat combined with his presence and his touch burned away her reservations, questions, worries and doubts.
Helena shook her hair back, imagining it was a rich, flowing mane of blonde locks rather than a bedraggled brown braid.
“I want to feel you. I want you to touch me, taste me. I want to feel your body above mine, in mine.” If her words were awkward and forced, her voice shaking in nerves, he had the grace to ignore it.
He pressed his lips against her cheek and smiled, letting her feel his pleasure. Those lips then traveled across her cheek. Helena started to turn her head into the kiss, but Ocean pulled away.
“No. I want to save that, save this kiss, until the perfect moment.” His voice promised things she couldn’t imagine, promised kisses that changed lives.
“Um, okay. I mean, yes, I want the perfect kiss too.” Denied his kiss, she suddenly wanted nothing more in the world than his lips on hers.
“Come on, gorgeous, let’s get you out of those clothes.”
Chapter 2
Helena leaned her sweaty forehead against the bathroom wall. This was crazy, but it felt right, felt good. She had never had a one-night stand, or even really had casual sex. Helena wasn’t a prude, but the idea had always made her feel dirty, as if the sex would be so tainted by the circumstances it wouldn’t be satisfying. She had never understood fantasies about meeting a stranger, having sex with him and then walking away. For her, it came down to trust. She had to t
rust her lover, and trust was not something that could be had with a casual-sex partner. But, despite all these personal rules and society’s warnings, she was willing and eager to sleep with Ocean because she trusted him. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that he was gorgeous.
Ruefully amused at her own prissy justifications, Helena stripped out of the wetsuit. She was in the ladies’ room in Ocean’s Tours headquarters for the business. Stripped down to the swimsuit she wore underneath, Helena pulled on the sweat pants she’d worn that morning. At four a.m. when she got dressed, the sweat suit had seemed like a good idea, protection against the morning chill, but now it was simply too hot.
Tying the sleeves of the hooded sweatshirt around her waist, Helena slipped her feet into flip-flops and opened the door.
Ocean stood behind the small counter, a binder open in front of him and the phone stuck between his shoulder and ear. He wore a pair of knee-length board shorts and a T-shirt with the company logo on the back.
“Now then, did you want the full Kayak Explorer tour or did you want daily lessons?”
As he listened to the response, Helena made her way around to the front of the counter, grinning when she saw the gold wire frame glasses perched on his nose. Smiling, she leaned across the counter and touched the tip of her finger to the thin piece of wire over the bridge of his nose, the glasses making him more approachable, giving her the courage to flirt. Ocean captured her hand and slid her finger into his mouth. Helena’s thigh muscles gave a quick tremble as he sucked the tip of her captured finger before turning his head and biting the pad of skin at the base of her thumb. He was clearly the better flirt.
He released her hand. “Absolutely. We can do that. I look forward to seeing you then.” Eyes on her, Ocean ended the call. “Are you ready to go?”
Helena nodded, her tingling hand and the reality of what she was about to do making her mute.
theprincessofisca_GEN Page 9
