Chapter Four
What in the hell was she thinking, letting him just move right in like that? She never jumped first and let later take care of itself. She certainly didn’t let the guy jump first either. In fact, she was so used to pushing men back a step, she had no real reason for why she hadn’t kneed Burke Morgan across the cabin by now. Just on principle alone. They’d known each other a grand total of an hour or less, and he thought she was going to allow him to take charge? Take her? Just like that?
So smooth with his lines about how serious he was, how dedicated. It was obvious he’d honed it down to a fine craft by now, because she’d admit it was damn effective. Jesus, with moves like that, he probably had a throng of panting women in every port. But surely she wasn’t about to become one of them. She saw right through him, after all.
He’d taken one look at her, or more likely one look at her tightly clad butt, and thought to himself, Well now, right there is six weeks of casual sex on a platter. And she couldn’t blame him. To a point.
But she certainly had no business leading him on for one second longer. Right this instant was the time to put him squarely in his place. And add a couple of shape-devouring muumuus to her shopping list.
So what in the world possessed her to slide her hands up those perfectly developed arms of his and allow him to tip her head to the side so he could angle that perfect mouth of his across hers, she had no earthly idea.
His lips were warm, his kiss sure. He held her just where he wanted her, and damn if she had even the tiniest inclination to thwart him. Because whatever spark there might have been between them earlier had now exploded into a shower of heat and sizzle so all encompassing that from the moment his mouth had claimed hers she wanted to do nothing more than let him take her just like this for as long as it was humanly possible to sustain it. Rational thought was highly overrated when you were staring primal lust incarnate in the face.
Her fingers dug into the hard muscle of his shoulders as a moan built in her throat. Her hunger was like a wave of pure carnality rolling over her senses as he continued his absolute seduction of her mouth. It felt wild and dangerous and all too tantalizing. Allowing a man she’d just met to take her like this, to accept him with absolute abandon for no other reason than it felt so damn good. And as the hunger built, layer upon layer, want upon want, her body alternately tightened with need and felt so boneless she was certain she’d sink to the floor in a pure puddle of pleasure.
He pulled her feverish, clamoring body against his rock-solid frame as he continued to plunder her mouth. Pirate, indeed. And she was his ill-gotten gain. But it was the throaty growl she got from him when their needs collided that sent her careening in a new direction. In that instant she could no longer simply be a willing recipient, though there was nothing remotely simple about the conflagration that this endless kiss had provoked. It was too tempting all of a sudden, the idea that she could participate, that she could—perhaps had—create a similar tidal wave of raw need and desire in him.
It didn’t require thought, only the guts to go with the instinct, to dive in. To challenge as he was challenging her, to meet confidence with confidence, demand with demand. She was fisting her fingers in his hair, turning his mouth so she could dominate, so she could tangle her tongue with his, before she even realized she’d taken that running leap.
And then the growl became a low, rumbling hum of pleasure, deep in his chest, and the next thing she knew his hands were on her hips, lifting her onto the narrow galley counter and pushing her back—or was she pulling him in—so fast, so needy, her head rapped against the cabinet door. She didn’t care. He didn’t stop. His mouth left hers and branded a hot trail along her chin before moving lower. His hands were already ahead of his mouth, his wide palms covering the tight shirt that was now causing excruciatingly exquisite friction against her tautly budded nipples.
He solved that problem in one yank, the flimsy front clasp of her bra going down in defeat an instant later. She arched into him with a shameless demanding cry, as his hot, wet mouth closed over one nipple, then the other. Her fingers were twisted tightly in the thick waves of his hair as she directed him back and forth, wishing for nothing more than that tongue of his could be in two places at one time. Or maybe three.
There was no ability to think, much less make even the feeblest attempt to rationalize what in the hell was going on here. Nor did she much care at the moment. She’d completely given herself over to the moment. She’d rationalize later. Or not. It simply wasn’t an issue right now. When his hands fumbled with the waistband of her shorts, her mind nimbly and fearlessly leapt ahead, already feverishly embracing the idea of the two of them doing the only thing possible to extinguish this out-of-control fire of need blazing between them.
She’d had a grand sum of five lovers in the past four years, and each one of them had gotten her naked only after careful consideration and full medical discussions. And yet, here she was, on a boat of all places, half naked and clamoring to be taken and taken hard by a virtual stranger who, for all she knew, could have banged half the female population in the Caribbean. And still she didn’t care. All that mattered at the moment was putting out that raging, rabid, all-consuming fire. Mother of God, why didn’t he hurry the hell up?
She was clawing at his shirt, ripping it up and over his head even as he jerked her shorts down her hips. Both were panting heavily, between grunts and groans, moans and gasps. Mouths never left hot skin; tongues left damp trails; fingers explored, caressed, slipped, and slid.
Just as he grabbed her thighs to yank them around his waist, the boat pitched violently, thudding hard up against the pier with a resounding smack. The sudden motion threw her from the counter onto Burke, who toppled back, slamming into the opposite counter before spinning both of them toward the navigation deck. His hip banged against the counter as she flung a hand out to keep them from hitting the instrument panel.
“What in the hell?” Burke said, continuing to swear as he righted both of them, keeping his hands on her hips to steady them both until they got their legs beneath them. The boat was still pitching hard, and the thud and scrape against the dock continued. “Wait right here,” he instructed her, jaw set, eyes blazing, but letting her go only when she gripped both counter and console board for balance.
He yanked his shorts on and took off, going out the back toward the cockpit in less than a few long-legged strides—apparently having no problems with balance despite the constant pitch and slant of the floor beneath their feet. Kam could only cling white-knuckled to the counter and console as the fever of desire abruptly abandoned her . . . and nausea from the matching pitch and roll of her stomach rolled in to take its place. She’d barely gotten her wits about her, fighting to recover from her totally uncustomary and complete loss of control under the onslaught that was the absolute temptation of one Burke Morgan, when she immediately realized she was not going to be able to steady her stomach as quickly as she had her heart rate.
She managed to get her shorts pulled up, then looked wildly around for the bathroom—head, she corrected herself, remembering that much from her book on yachting basics—desperate to do anything to take her mind off of what she’d just done with Burke . . . and what she was about to do as the contents of her stomach pitched viciously up against the back of her throat. Clutching her shirt and unclasped bra across her breasts, she dove through the narrow passageway to the cabins, flinging herself toward the narrow, sealed door just to her right, barely wrenching the handle open and dropping to her knees in front of the small toilet before her stomach gave up the battle with one violent wrench.
“Damn,” she swore under her breath, as soon as she was done. She felt a bit shaken, but better. Definitely better. Praying she stayed that way, she clambered up on still shaky legs and began cleaning up. Clutching the tiny sink, she splashed water on her face with one hand, then thankfully found some toothpaste and mouthwash in the medicine cabinet. After a quick brush and a rinse, she clasped her bra shut, and realizing the buttons on her shirt were no longer there, she gave up and tied it in a knot between her breasts. She began to feel marginally human, until she stared at her hollow-eyed expression in the tiny mirror. “Well,” she said dryly, “this is all working out great so far, don’t you think?”
With a wince and not a little disgust, she ripped the patch off from behind her ear and tossed it in the trash. Maybe the doctor had screwed up, and instead of a motion sickness patch he’d given her a sex stimulation patch or something instead. Because that was the only possible explanation for what had just happened between her and her new employer—excuse me, teammate—out there in the galley. “Jesus,” she swore again. She couldn’t believe she’d just gone at him like that. Or how desperate she’d been to have him touch her. Talk about being a team player.
The boat was still pitching, and her stomach twitched enough that she shifted back toward the small head. She was debating crouching again, just in case, when she heard Burke come below deck.
“It was just some idiot kid in his daddy’s new speedboat,” she heard him say, “trying to impress his girlfriend by doing doughnuts in the no wake zone. I hope his dad is impressed with the repair bills that might be coming his way. Fortunately, no damage to—Kamala?” He found her a moment later. “Kam, are you all right?”
Her mortification now complete, Kamala knew she should square her shoulders and do her best to appear as if she were perfectly fine, but the combination of the boat rocking and being caught dead to motion-sickness rights was too much to overcome. Her face flushed, and her stomach clutched, and all she could think was that she’d quit her job to come down here and make a fast paycheck, and inside an hour she’d already blown her last hope all to hell.
“I’m okay,” she muttered, forced to brace her hands on the wall and lean over the toilet, knowing she was moments away from being sick again. Angling her back to him, she fought the disappointment, the anger with herself for not being able to handle this better. “Just—why don’t you get under way,” she forced herself to say, a last ditch effort, though the mere thought of them moving at all was almost enough to tip her stomach back over the edge. “I’ll—I’ll be okay.” Which was such an obvious lie that even Burke had to see right through it.
He proved that to be true when, instead of leaving, he stepped into the tiny compartment and crouched behind her. She stiffened, already embarrassed beyond belief. If ever a first impression could go horrifically awry, this one had, and she had only herself to blame. First she’d admitted she couldn’t sail. Then she’d all but thrown herself at him, not that he’d been complaining, but still, that was not part of her game plan. And now this. How To Crush Your Dream In Three Easy Steps. She let her chin drop. “I’m sorry.” Any hope she might have had about brazening this out and somehow finding a way to salvage the situation vanished when her stomach decided it wasn’t done torturing her, and she once again lurched over the edge of the toilet.
To her stunned surprise, Burke merely stroked her hair back, holding it out of the way, steadying her balance by bracing his knees on either side of her.
“So sorry,” she managed, moments later. It had been a false alarm, or maybe there was simply nothing left to heave, but it didn’t really matter that she hadn’t actually puked in front of him; her pride was totally beyond redemption anyway.
“Don’t be,” he said, and she heard the underlying humor in his voice. “Admittedly, it’s a bit hard on the ego to discover that instead of getting you all hot and bothered, I actually made you violently ill.”
She snorted a laugh despite herself. “Trust me, this wasn’t your fault.”
He smoothed his wide palm up and down her back in slow, soothing strokes. “Well, that’s a relief, then.” He steadied her with his hands as he pushed to a stand behind her and reached in a latched cabinet for a small cotton hand towel. He got it wet and handed it to her. “Here.” She took it, wobbled a bit, making him grab at her elbows. Carefully, he helped her straighten up, but just enough so he could close the lid. “Why don’t you sit down. You still don’t look so hot.”
Gratefully, she sat, knowing whatever color might be in her face was from sheer embarrassment at this point. “Thanks.”
He took the towel from her and handed her a dry one, then crouched in front of her. When she averted her face, he tipped her chin back around, so she had to look at him. “What happened?” he asked gently. “Are you sick?”
“In the head maybe,” she said, before she could censor herself. Hell, at this point why bother anyway? He’d said he wanted straight talking. Well, he might change his mind after he heard what she had to say. She was well past the point of believing she could pull this off, so best to end the charade, what was left of it anyway, right now. She sighed a little, then looked at him. “I have another confession to make. I have a little problem with motion sickness. Okay, maybe not so little a problem.”
He’d been a champ all through her being sick, but that bit of news sat him literally back on his heels, his easy smile becoming an easier frown. “You took a six-week job on a sailboat and not only can’t you sail, but you get seasick?”
There was nothing to do but nod. “I get queasy watching Love Boat reruns.”
“Then what in the hell made you think—?” He broke off, shuffled back so he could stand up, then paced out of the small bathroom, bracing his hands on the narrow hallway wall. “What was Dorsey thinking?” he said, only she wasn’t sure if he was addressing her or if the question was rhetorical at this point.
“He doesn’t know,” she offered. “Well, he knew I didn’t know much about sailing, but he assured me that my cooking skills were the commodity you most required. I can cook, by the way. I didn’t lie.”
He turned, braced his legs, and folded his arms across his still bare chest. It shouldn’t have been turned on, not in the middle of her most shameful moment, but weak stomach notwithstanding, there was no denying the bump in her pulse rate. And to think she’d had that body, those hands, so close . . .
“No, you didn’t lie,” he said, apparently not as caught up in hormonal overload as she was. Not that she could blame him. “But you withheld some pretty serious information,” he added. “I know you said you needed the infusion of cash, but how did you think you’d pull it off?”
“I saw a doctor about it, and he prescribed this patch thing. He swore it would work. I thought it would, too.” She lifted a shoulder. “Maybe it was nerves. Or . . .” Her gaze shifted past the door, out toward the galley counter, where he’d pinned her against him. Visions of what they’d been doing to each other—what they’d been about to do with each other—flashed through her mind. She forced herself to meet his gaze again. “Honestly, I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I’ve worked so hard to get this far, I wouldn’t have risked everything on a gamble if I wasn’t pretty damn sure I could handle it. I certainly wouldn’t have quit my job, no matter how bad things had gotten there.”
“Bad how?” he demanded, surprising her.
Given how angry he likely was, she didn’t challenge his right to know; she just told him. “I was assistant head chef at Shoop, a celebrity hot spot in Santa Monica. My boss thought I’d welcome an increase in pay in exchange for putting in some overtime. Only, turns out most of that overtime was going to involve the two of us and very little clothing.” She raked her hands through her hair. “Given what we were just doing a little while ago, I can only imagine you think I’d given him good cause to believe exactly that. I assure you, I didn’t, but I don’t expect you to believe that. Nor do I expect you to believe that I’ve spent a large amount of my time playing down the physical attributes so my professional skills would be taken more seriously. But that obviously wasn’t working out too well, so when Dorsey offered me this job . . .”
She trailed off, looked away. Listening to herself, she was even more disgusted. “I guess I gave in. I figured if I couldn’t beat them at their own game, I’d join it.” She lifted her hands, let them fall in her lap. “No one is sorrier about that lame decision now than I am. But I swear I believed the damn patch would work, or I’d never have considered taking Dorsey’s offer. I suppose I should have tested it out, but this all happened rather suddenly. I was lucky to get the appointment before I had to fly out.”
When he still didn’t say anything, she looked at him again. He was studying her in that intent way of his, but she pushed on despite feeling more exposed and vulnerable now than she had when he’d been tearing her clothes off. “And though this likely doesn’t mean much to you at the moment, despite the fact that I very purposely dressed to distract, I had every intention of earning my keep here as a cook and hostess, and only as cook and hostess.”
He kept his arms folded, kept his gaze on her. “So, what happened in the galley, was that another calculated distraction?”
She knew she more than deserved his skepticism, or worse, but that he thought so little of her, despite knowing she’d earned nothing more, still stung. “No,” she said straightforwardly. “I honestly have no idea what came over me.” She waved a hand. “Maybe it was the nerves, my stomach still being twitchy despite the patch. Then finding out you weren’t twenty or thirty years older than me but instead a very attractive guy I was immediately attracted to, and that made me feel more than a little awkward about—” She stopped, motioned to the clothes, or lack thereof, she was wearing. She looked back to him. “I know how important this cruise is to you, how important you are to Dorsey. He’s very important to me, and I’d never intentionally embarrass him like this.”
When he still said nothing, she tossed her hands up. “Okay, so I have no good explanation for what happened out there, but I can promise you that I can and will be the consummate professional if you’ll just give me another chance to prove myself.”
“So,” he said, pushing away from the wall, “you still want to give this a go? What about . . .” He nodded toward the toilet she was sitting on.
She huffed out a sigh of defeat. “Right. That. I guess neither of us is going to want to rely on another patch.”
He walked over to her and pulled her to a stand, wrapping his arms around her when she wobbled a bit. She tried to stiffen and stand on her own two feet, but he continued to hold her.
“Burke, really, I meant what I said about not trading favors. Even for a second chance I wouldn’t—”
“I know that. And I believe you.” He stroked the hair back from her face. “I’m not looking to strike some kind of sexual bargain with you. But I’d also like to believe you were honest about what happened out there not being calculated.”
“It wasn’t,” she assured him. “I don’t know what that was.”
He pressed his fingers across her lips, then slowly drew them away, making her sigh just a little as her body instantly forgot all about being queasy and leapt right back to being jumpy, but for an entirely different and far more enjoyable reason. “Me neither. You might not believe it, but I generally keep business and pleasure completely separate. And I certainly didn’t intend to tangle myself up with someone who is related to a person I care a great deal about. And yet, it’s all I can do to keep my hands off of you.”
She couldn’t help it, she smiled. He made it very easy. “Which still seems to be a bit of a problem for you.” She shifted beneath his hands. Hands she was perfectly content to leave right where they were. Since he was being open about it, she was as well. “Not that I’m complaining.”
His smile grew. “You know,” he said, drawing her closer, “I’ve been a sailor for a long time. And I’ve had more than my fair share of seasick clients. I’ve got a few tried and true methods that I’ve picked up over the years.”
Skeptical, she arched a brow. “You really think you could cure me?”
“I think we should give it a try.”
She cocked her head. “And in return?”
“In return you’ll get your chance to prove to me just how great a chef you are. It’s what I hired you for, and as a captain with clients waiting, it behooves me to do whatever I can to make sure you can fulfill that obligation. But that’s all you owe me.”
“And this?” she asked, shifting slightly in his arms.
Now he smiled. “This part is all up to you.”
“So, are you giving me another chance just because you need a chef, or because you want to explore whatever this is we’re doing with each other?”
“Since we’re being blunt, I’ll have to say both.”
“And if I say I’ll cook, but no thanks to anything else?”
“Then I’ll spend the next couple of weeks taking a lot of cold showers.”
The open, guileless smile he was offering her made her laugh.
“I’m a big boy,” he said. “I can handle it.”
She snorted out a laugh, saying, “I bet you are, and I bet you can,” at the exact time he realized the double entendre and choked on a laugh of his own.
“Yes, well, that’s not what I meant, but—”
She cut him off by cupping his backside and jerking him up against her. What the hell, right? She was already wet and clenching again, which beat all to hell how she’d been feeling just a little while ago. If seduction was one of his miracle cures for motion sickness, she wasn’t exactly opposed to giving it a shot. God knew, it had been working pretty damn well so far. Careful planning hadn’t gotten her very far, so what the hell, why not just throw caution to the wind and go, as they say, with the flow. “But,” she finished for him, “you have yourself a chef. And . . . whatever else we decide goes with that.”
He immediately turned them both around, lifting her over the raised threshold and pressing into the narrow passageway. Her back against the wall, he nudged himself between her thighs, making her sigh and sob a little with need.
“One thing,” she croaked out. Dear God, the man was like human catnip or something. “If this interferes with our ability to do our jobs, or if for any other reason it’s just not working, we can say stop and we stop. No harm, no foul.”
“Agreed.” He slid his hands to her waist, then began sliding them upward.
“After all, a month or so from now,” she panted, dying for his fingers to just get a little closer to the throbbing tightness that was her nipples, “I go back to L.A., and you go wherever your next cruise takes you.”
“That is true.” He made a groaning sound in his throat when she pushed her hips against his.
“So . . . about that cure for seasickness,” she persevered, deciding there was something quite erotic about trying to carry on a civil conversation with someone who was doing some very uncivilized things to her person. “Maybe you should share one or two before we get under way.”
He paused with his fingertips a mere wisp away from where she needed them most, making her wish she’d just shut up and let him play. “Let me ask you something.”
“Okay.” She had only herself to blame for stopping him. She tried not to squirm.
“At the moment, how is your stomach?”
“Jumpy, but only because you stopped what you were doing.”
“And when we were in the galley earlier, were you feeling queasy in any way?”
Her lips twisted in a wry grin. “So, is this how you ‘help’ your clients get over their seasickness?”
His smile held no guile whatsoever. It was a large part of his charm. “I never mingle with the guests. Not that way. Besides, septuagenarians usually aren’t my type. But you had a point earlier, about the usefulness of distraction.”
“I’m admittedly intrigued by the premise. But glad,” she added with a wry smile, picturing the aging Dr. Wilson, “that my physician didn’t think to try something similar.”
Burke grinned, and slipped his fingertips just a bit higher. “Me, too.”
“However,” she managed, struggling not to just grab his hands and put them where she needed them, “using this method of distraction could become a problem when the guests are on board.”
“We can worry about that later,” he said, leaning down to drop a kiss on the side of her neck, making her gasp when he nipped her earlobe.
“Don’t we need to be getting—oh. Yes.” She moaned deeply when he finally slid her nipples between his fingers. She was officially all done with the civilized part of this exchange.
“We have some time,” he murmured against the damp skin of her neck. “I have another idea that might help speed up the recovery process.”
“I’ll bet you do.”