Before he could consider the consequence of the action, he reached out to grip one arm, lightly holding her still. “Wait, Mia.”
She pivoted to face him, her straight brown hair blowing in the breeze wafting down from the deck. “Hmm?”
Now that he had her attention, he had to scavenge for his thoughts. His mind kept flashing back to that moment on the helm seat when she’d lost herself in a world of sensation. The moment her head had tipped back and…
“Seth?”
Her eyes were sharply focused now as she stared into his, waiting for him to speak.
“We never got a chance to talk more after what happened on deck….”
She closed her eyes, and for a moment, Seth thought perhaps he’d embarrassed her by bringing it up. But then, she opened her eyes again and blurted, “The orgasm incident?”
“That’s the one.” The woman didn’t mince words. “But I thought maybe you’d be willing to talk to me now, maybe tell me why you won’t go back for the press interview tonight.”
“Why? Are you going to try to coerce me into going anyway?”
She not only didn’t mince words, she obviously didn’t pull punches either.
He shrugged. “I hear the bank shells out a lot of money to sponsor Gasparilla. Part of my job is to create good P.R., and to make sure you have a good time today. But it seems like I can’t possibly do both. You’re not going to have a good time if you have to give the bank any more publicity, right?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to give back to the bank.” She sighed, leaned a shoulder against the doorframe around the stairs. “I just have a family with very old-fashioned values who will promptly go into cardiac arrest if they see me on TV with a half-dressed pirate talking about my day in captivity.”
A wave rocked the boat, reminding Seth of undulating and other things he shouldn’t be thinking about right now. He tugged her by the hand toward the salon, hoping if they took a seat they wouldn’t feel the rocking of the damn boat quite so much.
“That probably sounds like the hang-up of some college kid,” she continued as she followed him, dutifully sinking into the curved, green leather sofa. “But honestly, my grandparents are getting up there in years and I swear my granddad’s ulcers get worse with every guy I date.”
Seth nodded, understanding all too well the need to put family first. He flicked the lights on the lowest setting and slid into the seat next to her, careful to leave a few feet between them. No sense tempting fate. “You’re close to your grandparents?”
“They pretty much raised me. My mom is single and she’s never really gotten it through her head that having a child requires some stability. I adore my mom, but we’re more like sisters than mother and daughter.” She toyed with the fringe on her skirt for a moment, lost in thought. Then, as if remembering he was there, she crossed her legs and flipped her hair over one shoulder. “But I did not jump into your arms today so we could discuss my family. I thought maybe you called me back here because you were ready to try out the bed now.”
“You’re concerned about your grandfather’s ulcers, yet you would sacrifice yourself to a pirate’s lust for the sake of adventure?” Sounded damn good to him, even if he didn’t want to admit it. He had to give her credit for openness and honesty. The woman didn’t know the meaning of the word coy. “Have you considered that maybe your granddad worries himself sick for a good reason?”
“Not a chance. Face it, Chandler. You’d be sacrificing yourself to my lust, and no one but us has to know.” She kicked her sandaled foot in a slow, circular rhythm. “So what do you say? Are you game?”
Was he game? Hell, maybe he should tear a page from her book and take things a little less seriously. He knew he couldn’t afford to try out the bed for real. But if he viewed this more in terms of a three-strikes-and-you’re-out sort of game, he ought to be able to kiss her one more time without losing control completely.
And he deserved that kiss after the day he’d been having. He’d had to fend off a costumer who’d tried to talk him into wearing a hook on his hand, and ended up submitting to a tricorn hat he later tossed overboard. He suffered an eye patch for half a day and had paraded into town bare-chested and yo-ho-hoing.
No wonder pirates demanded a little booty for their trouble.
“I don’t trust either of us near that bed, Mia, and with good reason.” He settled his hand on her knee, allowing the heat of his palm to penetrate the cool silk of her skin. “But I know another game you might enjoy.”
MIA WONDERED if it was possible to melt at a man’s touch. If so, she stood a very good chance of pooling at Seth’s feet any moment because his hand on her knee made her whole body turn warm and liquid.
She’d been so hell-bent determined to attract his attention, to make him waver from his honorable, “hands-off” course, that she had no idea what to do once her plan started working.
And judging by the heated challenge in his eyes, it was working very well.
“Another game?” she managed to push past dry lips.
He walked his fingers up the outside of her thigh until his hand landed on her hip. Then he scooted her closer to him in the dimly lit salon. “It’s called ‘let’s see if we can make lightning strike twice.’”
She was still processing what exactly that meant when he angled his lips over hers. Realization hit at the same time he cupped her cheek in his palm and tilted her mouth for a deeper taste.
The man planned to drug her with his aphrodisiac kisses and then coax her right into orgasmic heaven.
All of which sounded delightful, except…
“That’s not fair to you.” Mia broke off their kiss, much to her lips’ regret. Heat simmered between them, fogging the porthole windowpane behind them.
Seth flexed his fingers on her hip, caressed the curve of her waist with the broad expanse of his palm. “It’s perfectly fair,” he whispered, leaning forward to reclaim her mouth.
She shook her head, refusing him in spite of the persuasive press of his chest against hers. “No, I think you’d better let me pay you back first.”
He stared at her through lazy brown eyes. “Honey, I can’t think of anything I’d like more than to watch those waves roll right over you again, to see your mouth fall open and your head tip back when you—”
“No.” Sensing the need to take action before he had her talked into becoming erotically dependent on him, Mia walked her fingers down his chest to the waistband of his khaki shorts. “I can think of something you would definitely like more.”
His abs flexed under her touch. He tensed, his whole body going still as she continued a relentless path down his shorts toward the ridge she spied very clearly.
She didn’t know where she found the nerve. Maybe too many nights of longing for adventure, of promising herself she’d take advantage of this trip away from home, had conspired to mold her into this wild woman.
Gathering her courage, she smoothed her hand over that ridge and looked him in the eye.
“I bet I send you into orbit without ever hitting the sheets.”
4
A MAN COULD PASS OUT over that kind of invitation.
Seth knew this firsthand, because Mia’s erotic proposal sent every drop of his blood on a heated southbound tidal wave, leaving him damn near light-headed and too turned-on to think straight.
All he had to do was nod.
Instead, some dying part of his conscience rasped out a gravelly, “What?”
Mia’s hand