The Naked Fisherman (Fisherman 1)

“Do you need a formal apology?”

Fisher opened the door to his truck then rubbed the pads of his fingers over his mouth like he was trying to wipe off his smile before I saw it.

“Say it.” Everything I didn’t want to hear or see three weeks earlier had become my obsession, my new education, my real-world path to enlightenment. Fisher thought something, but he didn’t want to say it. He didn’t think I could handle it.

“Nothing.”

I took the four long strides to get from my driver’s door to his. With my hands on my hips, feeling way more confident than I should have been, I tipped my chin up. “Say. It.”

“It’s not for your ears.” He eyed me, pushing back with as much confidence—probably more.

“That’s code for it’s inappropriate. Since when has that stopped you before?”

On a small, controlled chuckle, he shook his head and focused on something over my shoulder, avoiding eye contact with me. “You offered an apology. I was going to say apologies were just lip service. Then I thought …” He dragged his teeth over his lower lip and met my gaze.

“You thought?”

“I thought lip service wouldn’t be the worst thing for my problem.”

It took me a few seconds … then I got it. My eyes widened, brows sliding up my forehead.

Fisher was a little extra that day.

If someone wouldn’t have coined the term oral sex, oral sex, I would have been able to make a better case for it. Why couldn’t it have just been oral or something else like … tonguing? I needed a line, a line I wouldn’t cross. And I was okay with moving the line a smidge if I could rationalize something. I couldn’t go there … not yet.

Oh the hypocrisy …

“Nothing that ends in the word sex. I just can’t.”

His eyebrows jumped, one slightly higher than the other. Fisher’s expressions were so sexy. How did I expect to not perform any act ending in the word “sex” when the man before me was the definition of sex?

“So … everything else is on the table?”

What was I missing? I knew it would come back to bite me in the backside. Still, I nodded while chewing on the corner of my bottom lip and wringing my hands together.

“Meet you at home.” He turned and climbed into his truck.

“Wait … you’re done for the day? It’s only one?”

“I am now.” He shut his door and started his truck.

Chapter Fourteen

Regret multiplied the closer I got to home.

Home …

Was that my home? Was my grandparents’ house my home? Did I truly have a home? I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt so emotionally and physically displaced in my life. Saying I was at a crossroad was an understatement. “Finding myself” was not right either.

Fisher was getting his mail as I slowed to a stop. How could he so casually get his mail and thumb through it? I barely made it home without wrecking Rory’s car because my hands were shaking so much. I climbed out and heaved my bag onto my shoulder, taking cautious steps toward the house.

Fisher kept his head bowed at his mail. “I can hear your teeth chattering. Are you cold?”

I clenched my jaw to stop the chattering. “No.”

“Having second thoughts about your offer?”

That felt like a direct challenge to my age, my maturity, and my sexual experience. Did he want me to back out? Was this another lesson?

“No.” I infused as much confidence as I could muster, which was very little.

“You know …” He continued into his garage, and I followed, leaving a good ten feet between us. “When you’ve had sex, things aren’t so awkward and scary. I’m not implying you should abandon your morals.” He held open the door for me, and I removed my boots and set my bag next to them. “I’m just saying it becomes a little more thrilling and less scary. You know what to expect. You know the end game and why you should want to experience it.”

“I take it…” I padded my feet into his kitchen and slowly walked around the island, dragging my fingertips along the countertop “…you’ve had a lot of sex?”

He tossed one piece of mail onto the counter and discarded the rest in the pullout recycling bin. “I’m twenty-eight and single. Yes. I’ve had a lot of sex.”

His words formed a tight knot in my stomach. It wasn’t that I didn’t expect that to be his truth; I just didn’t expect him to be so forthcoming about it.

“How old were you when you first had it?”

“Sixteen.”

I nodded, staring at my fingers tracing the lines in the granite instead of him eyeing me from the opposite side.

“What…” he laughed a little “…do you see happening? Do you think I’m going to tie you to my bed and do weird things to you?”