She was still coiling the last line as Craig slowly maneuvered the cruiser out of the crowded marina and into open waters. Waving one final time at the distant form of Mr. Bartholomew, Sonia turned toward the sun, and then exuberantly bolted up the five steps to Craig at the wheel.
He didn’t much look like a yacht owner, dressed in cutoffs and sneakers. Sonia perched on the matching captain’s chair next to him, tossing him a happy grin as she slipped her sunglasses down from the top of her head and onto her nose again. From behind that cover she was free to feast on his sun-browned skin and half-naked torso…in between checking out a sky that looked burned-on blue, a grape-winged gull soaring overhead and the endless waters of the Gulf foaming behind them.
“What’d that dirty old man say to you?” Craig demanded.
She chuckled. “That you had more experience on the water than half the people who rent boats around here.”
“That man talks more drivel than a stand-up comedian.” The shore waters by the marina were peppered with sailboats and weekend cruisers. Craig risked only a single glance at his wife.
She could feel the assessment in his eyes as he took in her nautical white short-shorts and T-shirt with anchors. The anchors were strategically placed, to rise and fall with every breath. “You know…” She tried to make her voice mild, which wasn’t that easy over the roar of the engines. “I thought I had everything so perfectly arranged that you wouldn’t have to do a thing. The plane tickets, transportation to the marina, food ordered ahead, insurance, the boat rental…”
“You did.” Craig spared her another quick glance.
“But somehow it never occurred to me that there was a little more involved. Licensing, navigation laws, setting courses, docking facilities.” It hadn’t occurred to her because all she’d had in mind was leaving a dock, throwing out an anchor in the middle of the Gulf somewhere, and having her husband alone at her mercy for four days. She did not, for the moment, mention that. “Engine rooms, fuel tanks, electrical backups,” she droned on. “Amazing how fast you picked it all up.”
Craig shot her an unholy grin. “I listened to Bartholomew for three hours last night.”
“Bull,” Sonia said sweetly. “Who was she?”
“Pardon?”
“I said, Mr. Hamilton-of-landlocked-Wyoming, who was she?”
“Who was who?”
“You didn’t come by all that boat expertise honestly, buster. Now, I always like to think of them as poor substitutes. Not rich yacht owners.”
“Who?” Craig’s brow flexed in a quizzical frown.
“Your former girlfriends.” Sonia slid off the leather seat, peering at him severely over the rims of her sunglasses, and announced, “I’m going below to get a soda. For me. You’re in hot water. So you’re a big fan of rowboats, are you? Isn’t that what you told me at dinner the other night?”
His arm snaked around her ribs before she could take the first step down. Even as his hand again touched the wheel and stayed firmly there, he managed to haul her tight to his chest and take a quick teasing nip out of her neck before he released her again. “I’ve told you a thousand times, I was a virgin when I met you,” he reminded her.
“Send that one to Ripley’s,” Sonia said flatly. “Not once-not once-have you ever told me one good sordid story about your past lovers.”
“Because I didn’t have any.”
Sonia sighed. “The very least you could do is tell me she was ugly,” she insisted.
“Who?”
“The girl who taught you more than you needed to know about boats.”
“She was ugly,” Craig obliged.
“Pockmarked.”
“Pockmarked,” he agreed gravely.
“Buck teeth.”
“No orthodontist could have helped her.”
“Dull.”
“Dull,” he said, choking with laughter.
“And it was definitely a platonic relationship.”
“You bet.”
“All right,” Sonia said grudgingly. “You’ve earned your soda. Only because I know you would never lie to me.” She headed for the steps.
“Sonia,” he called after her. “They were all poor substitutes.”
Chuckling, she climbed down to the salon, and paused for a moment in sheer appreciation. The powder-blue couch and chairs had navy piping and pillows, a color scheme accented by hand-rubbed teak bulkheads. The furniture fabric was velvet, dreadfully impractical and delightfully luxurious. Her sneakers bounced on the spongy carpet, definitely a carpet that called for bare feet. The cruiser was everything she’d been promised on the phone, and more.
The forward cabin was set up like a study, with couches and bookshelves. Toward the back of the boat-aft, she reminded herself for the ninth time-was their master stateroom. Centered therein was a queen-sized bed. The pillows were down-filled, the sheets were satin and the comforter was a cloud-soft pale blue. Diverted from her search for cold drinks, Sonia leaned thoughtfully in the doorway, staring at that bed.
She had rather dangerous plans for that bed. Dangerous because there was no guarantee they would work. There didn’t seem to be any convenient rule books on how to turn one very unselfish lover into a selfish one. The only thing Sonia was absolutely sure of was that there would be no more one-sided satisfaction. One very stubborn, enigmatic, extremely well-loved man was about to get his due, or there would be no more encounters of any kind, on that bed or any other.
Her game plan was very simple. All she had in mind was giving her husband an intensive course in total sexual frustration.
And if that doesn’t work? Darn it, if he really doesn’t want to make love with you… Taking another glance at the bed and plump, stuffed pillows, she sighed worriedly, lifted her chin and headed back through the salon.
A teak railing and three steps up separated the kitchen from the main salon. Sonia removed two cans of cola from the refrigerator and then randomly opened cupboards and drawers. The diminutive galley delighted her, from the microwave to the grill to the itsy-bitsy dishwasher. More important, it was stocked with every goodie Craig had ever expressed a liking for, from steak and baby crab to cooling bottles of Orvieto and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Everything was there. Snatching up the Cokes, she raced pell-mell up to Craig again.
He’d missed her, he thought fleetingly, in those short ten minutes. Exactly how long had it been since he’d been totally alone with his wife for a few stolen days? And a most puzzling mood had been stealing up on him from the moment they’d arrived near the Gulf Coast of Texas. A contrary, inexplicable mood.
It had something to do with endless sun and ocean smells and lazy, lazy winds. Relaxation had slowly been creeping up on him like a drug; he’d almost forgotten what it was like to feel…easy. Not just with Sonia, but with himself.
His right to touch his wife, his sense of failure about himself as a man…these feelings hadn’t disappeared, but for the moment seemed involuntarily shifted into another part of his being. Increasingly, all Sonia had to do was slip out of sight and he was impatient for her to come back. He craved, desired, wanted, needed her, and he was becoming rather obsessed by the wanton urge to take Sonia, to love her, to make love to her, to feel her sheathed softness around him.
His soul was beginning to feel as if it had been spun in a blender.
It didn’t help when Sonia bolted up the steps with the cans of cola in her hands, laughing as if just the breeze alone delighted her, the sun dancing in her hair and her limbs blithely displayed in front of him as she leaned against the opposite chair.