Half-Hitched (The Wrong Bed)
“It is beautiful.” He sat down next to her, turned off his light. Addie held still, every cell in her body screaming at her not to be sensible. Hadn’t she just told herself her deep reaction and emotional tumult around this man had faded?
Yeah, uh, never mind.
And hadn’t she just told herself that those feelings weren’t to be trusted anyway?
Uh-huh.
“You okay?”
“Sure.” She stared out at the water, annoyed at herself for avoiding a meaningful answer, but what was the point? She wasn’t okay, and wouldn’t be until she was back home in New York among all her familiar people, places and things and thoughts of Derek had finally left her alone.
He took her hand, lazily stroking up and down her fingers. “We need to talk, Addie.”
Nerves burned through her in spite of her being sure there was nothing to say except hey, that was fun, seeya later. She should tell herself instead that it was nice of him at least to want to do that. Many men wouldn’t bother. “Okay.”
“I don’t want to talk here.”
“Why not? What’s wrong with here? It’s beautiful, it’s private and it’s got a great long drop onto jagged rocks in case I need to push you off.”
He laughed and her heart soared with pleasure. Stop it, Addie.
“I want to talk to you out on the water in a rowboat under the moonlight.” He glanced up at the toenail clipping of a moon. “What there is of it.”
“What?” She turned to gape at his dim shadow. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, why?”
She couldn’t believe he had to ask. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“Yeah...?”
“As in dark.”
“Dark, yes.”
She gestured toward the water. “Very dark.”
“It sure is.” He squeezed her hand. “Want to go?”
“But...” A giggle was trying to come up her throat. He had the perfect amount of patient amusement in his voice, which had made her listen to herself to find out why he was amused, and to discover that she sounded like a dork. He didn’t have to say a word and he got his message across.
Addie didn’t want to be a dork.
“It’s dead calm. We’ll stay close to shore.” He got to his feet and held out his hand, his palm a pale invitation in the black night. “Yes?”
She put her hand in his, and let him help pull her to her feet where he held her inches from him for a few charged seconds that had her heart beating up a storm. “Okay.”
“Good.” Keeping her hand, he turned the flashlight back on and pointed it toward their feet, guiding her safely into the woods and back down to the beach, where Lucky’s skiff was waiting.
Ten minutes later, Addie couldn’t imagine what she thought might have been remotely bad about this idea. The air was cool and fresh, the stillness mesmerizing, the creak and splash of oars a wonderful atmospheric addition. Hard to imagine the vastness of the water they were part of when the darkness made the space feel so intimate. And being with Derek made her so agitated and worked up, but also, very strangely, content. If you could be content while filled with a violent longing for wild sex.
“So.” Bumping sounds of wood on wood as Derek stowed the oars. “Let’s talk.”
“Okay.” She sighed. How much better just to keep drifting, away from land, away from troubles and issues and everything that had seemed so important?
“We probably should have had this talk at the beach this afternoon. But we were too busy...being active.”
Addie smiled. “Is that what we were doing?”
“And, in my case anyway, being waylaid by emotions I didn’t expect or, frankly, want to have. Which made it hard to sort them out.”
Addie held her breath until it occurred to her it would be pretty hard to have a conversation if she wasn’t breathing. “What emotions?”
She didn’t expect him to answer right away. Or at all, really. It was unfair to ask him to be so vulnerable by exposing his feelings when she hadn’t been planning to let out any of what she’d been—
“I feel very strongly about you.” He spoke easily, in a steady voice, as if he was telling her he liked her outfit. But the effect on her...thank goodness she was sitting down or she’d have pitched off the boat. I feel very strongly about you.