Or at least it had been. Most people who went through that kind of ordeal were changed by it. Who wouldn’t be?
And with that ice-cold reminder, he found the courage to release her.
“Thank you.” His gaze locked with hers for a moment, the scent of her still in his nose.
“My pleasure.” She smiled up at him, holding her balloon. “You look kind of dashing in white.” She smoothed a hand over his chest, skimming his ribbons and kicking up his temperature. “And not at all like the laid-back rock ‘n’ roll dude I met five years ago.”
Did she have any idea what her abduction had done to him? She wasn’t the only one who’d changed.
“It’s been a long time,” he acknowledged, hoisting his bag onto one shoulder and using the other hand to steer her toward the pier’s exit. Yeah, it was dicey to touch her when he still wanted her. Had always wanted her. But his feelings for her were more complicated than that now. Stephanie wasn’t just some woman who’d knocked him for a loop with the best fling of his life.
She was … someone he respected for all that she’d been through. Someone who deserved to be protected.
“Only a handful of years,” she countered, sidestepping a couple of toddlers dressed in sailor suits. Her voice was throaty and sexy. He’d forgotten that about her. “The guy I knew could never leave his band behind for six months at a time.”
He could barely remember what he’d been like back then. It surprised him that she wanted to talk about the past. Talk about them. He didn’t know if he could handle a trip down memory lane. Tough enough just keeping a hand at the small of her back without pulling her against him.
A kid’s cry sounded behind them and she turned to look back at the stragglers still visiting on the pier. He turned, too, sticking right with her. One of the sailor-suit kids had lost his balloon, the spot of red floating higher and higher while the little boy’s lower lip curved into the fiercest frown Danny had ever seen. Stephanie rushed back to hand him her balloon, the magic of a replacement popping the kid’s mouth right back into a smile while the parents thanked her.
The action drew some attention from lingering sailors on the dock. Single frigging sailors from the way the guys looked her over. Danny wrapped an arm around her waist and shot them the evil eye, torqued off at them when he had no right to be.
If she was surprised by the sudden close contact, she didn’t show it. She fit against him just as perfectly as he remembered, her hip the ideal height for him to rest his hand on as they walked.
And in no time, he was thinking about how else they fit together. Memories bombarded him like rogue torpedo fire.
“So where are we going?” she asked as they left some of the crowd behind. “Is it far?”
“No.” He could see the Gran Torino already, parked in a private lot behind his favorite local restaurant. “There’s my ride. Looks like my buddy had it washed, too.”
She murmured appreciatively. “I remember you telling me about this vehicle. You were restoring it yourself.”
He swallowed hard, recalling that conversation. It had taken place in the huge claw-foot tub in her condo. Her on top of him. Naked. Sated. Covered in bubbles.
“Yeah. I don’t put many miles on it since I’m hardly ever home.” He’d kept it garaged at his folks’ place up until this past spring. Then he’d moved it to Norfolk so he could use it when he wasn’t at sea.
“Looks like you outdid yourself.” She hurried a step ahead of him to get a closer view. “Nice wheels.”
She eyeballed the 1972 classic while he popped the trunk and found a pair of shoes he kept in the back. He could deal with the dress whites, except for the damn shoes that went with them. He set his cap in the trunk, too, and then went for the buttons on the tunic.
Stephanie’s whistle stopped him cold. She stood there, at the back of the car now, her eyes roaming over him while her lips quirked in that wry smile he recalled from their first meeting long ago.
“Undressing already, Danny?” She cocked her hip and fanned herself with one hand. “This lunch is going to be more fun than I thought.”
2
AS SEDUCTIVE EFFORTS went, it wasn’t much. But Stephanie needed to get the ball rolling and she was mega rusty when it came to flirtation.
Still, she’d expected more reaction than the frozen stare Danny gave her now. Fingers stilled on the buttons of his white shirt, he didn’t move a muscle. His body was so tense he might as well have been carved from marble.
Damn it, this had been a bad idea. She was about to withdraw her comment and change the subject when his green eyes went a shade darker. His strong chest rose and fell, his jaw flexing. A handful of subtleties made her realize he felt the same heat as her. He was just a whole lot better at hiding it.
“Uh, that is, sorry,” she apologized hastily, stepping away from the trunk to admire the vintage Ford instead. She wasn’t sure why he’d want to suppress an attraction, but she hadn’t meant to put him on the spot by assuming any kind of connection still existed between them. “I didn’t mean to invade your space.”
She forced her gaze to the car’s burgundy-colored paint, admiring the way the metallic flecks caught the light and hoping she hadn’t overstepped too soon and too much. Her skin felt as hot as the sun-warmed metal looked, her pulse throbbing so fast she felt it vibrate right through her skin.
“I don’t have any sense of personal space after sharing a 500-foot ship with 300 people for 180 days,” he said slowly, the soft swish of fabric assuring her he’d started undressing again. “But if I did, you’d be more than welcome to it.”
Oh. Warmth smoked through her, chasing away the embarrassment with another kind of heat—the kind she never seemed to feel anymore. Yet Danny Murphy could call forth that delicious response in no time flat.
Apparently, she’d come to the right person to reawaken her libido. Now, if only she could convince him to sign on for the mission she had in mind.
“Thank you. I didn’t mean for that comment to slip out, but I guess for a minute it felt like old times.” She couldn’t help the smile that started in her heart and worked its way to the surface. And she couldn’t stop smiling, even as he came over to her side of the car and opened the passenger door. He wore a gray T-shirt and a pair of loafers with his white uniform trousers. “I think I’m probably putting the cart before the horse to flirt with you when I don’t know your official relationship status. Danny, are you seeing anyone?”
His mom hadn’t mentioned anyone special in his life in their brief phone conversation, but then again, it seemed as though Danny kept some distance from his family these days. A lot could happen in six months while the USS Brady stopped in ports all over the Atlantic.
He stood in the open door after she got in, his green eyes briefly skimming her legs while she adjusted her skirt around them.
“I’m unattached.” The way he said it lent the words a slightly ominous quality.
Or had she imagined that?
“Me, too,” she admitted, her voice failing her a little at the thought of how very unattached she’d become in the last handful of years. Some days, it seemed that she connected more with the pets she photographed than actual human beings.
Danny lowered himself so that he was eye-to-eye with her.
“Do you mind waiting a minute while I run inside and finish changing?” He held a pair of khakis in one hand. “The restaurant doesn’t open to the public until noon, but I know the owner and he’s got something for me.”
“Sure.”