It Happened One Summer (It Happened One Summer 1)

“Can we put that one part off?” She pressed her nose to the collar of his shirt and inhaled his centering scent. “Just for now?”

He sighed, but she felt him nod. “Yeah. For now.”

They stayed like that for a little while, Piper locked in the safety of his embrace while the boat carried high and low on the ocean, sunbeams warming her back.

He’d given her a lot to think about. Maybe it was time to examine herself. Or, more importantly, how she viewed herself. But one thing she didn’t have to overthink was making these moments with Brendan count.

She kissed his chin and eased back, lacing their fingers together and enjoying the way his gaze meandered down the front of her body. “Do I get the rest of the tour?”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat and pulled her back in the direction of the wheelhouse. “Come on.”

Piper tilted her head while staring at Brendan’s rippling back, wondering if he realized how hard he was about to get laid.

He’d woken up with a plan to try to slay her dragons . . . and he’d executed it. Nothing stood in his way. He’d even passed on sex so they could dig to the root of their issues, and God, that wasn’t just commendable. It was hot.

Captain Brendan Taggart was a man. A real one.

Her first.

And she could admit now that staying with him would mean giving up Los Angeles and the life she knew. But there was one root he hadn’t found despite all his digging: Who the hell would Piper Bellinger be if she stayed in Westport?

That was a problem for another time, though.

Hold her calls. Right now, she was one hundred percent sex brained.

First, Brendan showed her the engine room, and she nodded prettily while he explained what a thruster was for, commending herself for not giggling once. Then they went back upstairs to the crew room, the galley where they ate while on the water, and finally the bunk room. “Wow,” she murmured, observing the narrow beds tucked in tight against the walls. “Close quarters.” There were nine total, the majority of them stacked two beds high. Kind of like the bunk she shared with Hannah, but the boat’s beds were attached to the wall. Most of them had snapshots taped up beside them. Kids, women, smiling men holding giant fish in their hands. One had a slightly inappropriate calendar that made her snort.

“Sorry about that,” Brendan grumbled, rubbing at the back of his neck. “It’s not mine.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Duh.” She tapped her lips with a finger and did a revolution around the small room, stopping in front of a bunk along the far wall, as separate from the others as one could get in such tight quarters. It was the only one that didn’t have a bed above it. “No, yours is this one. The bed without any pictures, isn’t it?”

He grunted in the affirmative.

“Do you . . . want a picture of m—”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Was she blushing? “Okay. That can be arranged.”

“Thank you.”

Piper approached her new boyfriend slowly, letting him see the intent in her eyes, and the green of his own deepened drastically, a muscle sliding vertically in his strong throat. She let just the tips of her breasts meet his chest. “Do you ever get alone time on the boat?”

“If I need time alone, I make it,” he rasped. “I’ve needed a lot of it lately.”

Which was as good as an admission that he’d masturbated on board while thinking of her. Feminine pleasure turned to slickness between her thighs. “Then, what about private pictures? Just for you.” She rubbed her breasts side to side, and his breath stuttered. “Would you like some of those?”

His eyelids went to half-mast. “God, yes.”

She bit her lip, stepped back. “Take out your phone.”

Brendan reached back and removed his cell from his back pocket, not taking his eyes off Piper once while opening his camera. Then he nodded once to let her know he was ready.

She’d always liked being the center of attention, but having this man’s undivided focus was thrilling in an entirely new way. Because her heart was involved.

Heavily, apparently.

It knocked impatiently against her ribs, echoing in her ears as she shrugged off the jacket she’d worn and hung it neatly on one corner of Brendan’s bed. The boat groaned and sighed beneath their feet as she skimmed her palms up the front of her body, over her breasts, squeezing, then coasting back down to collect the hem, slowly easing the garment up and off, leaving her clad in just a red denim skirt and ballet flats. She stacked her hands behind her head, dropped a hip, dragged her lower lip through her teeth. Let it go with a pop.

He exhaled a pained laugh, shook his head. “Fuck.”