Page 26 of Falling Overboard

I wasn’t alone in this. She felt it, too.

Lucky is off-limits,I reminded my body.

My hands were still on her waist and I reluctantly pulled them away. I had balloons to blow up. Although it seemed like a poor substitute for what my lips wanted to be doing.

After a moment she went back to decorating but something had shifted between us. The air was charged and there was a heated heaviness there that pressed into me, urging me to stop being a coward and kiss her.

When she finished she asked me, “Do you think they’ll like it?”

I had been busy imagining the kinds of sounds she’d make when I sucked on the pulse point I’d seen rapidly beating at the base of her neck, so I didn’t respond the way I should have. “It’s very pink.”

Then I saw my screwup. She looked disappointed. She had wanted me to tell her she’d done a good job.

Before I could correct my mistake, she ran her hands over her thighs to smooth her skirt, making me wish I were the one doing it. “It’s what Mrs. Carmine asked for. Which is why I’m wearing something you’d drink when you’re nauseous.”

“I think you look ...” I racked my brain for a word that wouldn’t scare her.Sexy. Delectable. Good enough to eat.I settled on, “Cute.”

She looked so offended that I almost laughed. “You should be glad that we didn’t have to put you in a Speedo to serve the guests.”

“You’ve done that?” I would not imagine her in a bikini.

“I haven’t. Have the men in the crew? Absolutely.” Her eyes lingered on my chest when she said that. I got the sense that she would have liked to see me in a Speedo. She hadn’t been able to keep her eyes off me earlier, when I’d been shirtless. It had made her flush a soft pink. And it had made me wonder what I could do to keep her skin that color.

And how far her blush went.

One of the stews came in with silverware and handed everything to Lucky. I understood that she was doing her job but I was annoyed by the interruption.

She all but batted her eyelashes at me and said flirtatiously, “Hi, Hunter.”

What was her name? I took a shot. “Hi, Emma.”

Her face fell. “It’s Emilie.”

I felt bad. “I’m sorry. I meant Emilie.”

But my poor memory came in handy as it caused her to leave, clearly pissed.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “I think I screwed up.”

“She’ll be okay,” Lucky said as she started placing silverware. “Emilie we can afford to make angry. It’s the guests we have to worry about.”

“Yes, we wouldn’t want to aggravate the Carbombs.”

Her lips twitched like she wanted to laugh. She held up a butter knife and thrust it toward me and I imagined her as a sexy pirate, threatening me with her cutlass. I would easily walk the plank for her.

“You really don’t want to do anything to annoy any elderly people,” she said, pulling me out of my fantasy. “The older they get, the less a life sentence in prison is a deterrent. So you better behave and use the right name, especially since our tip could be on the line.”

I laughed and pointed at the knife. “Lucky, are you threatening me with a deadly weapon?”

“Do you know how hard it would be to kill you with a dessert knife?” she said as she set it down.

“You seem the persistent type. I think you could do it.”

“Probably true, and then I’d have the room to myself, with no one to comment on whether or not I was a slob.”

“You are a slob,” I said. And then betraying where my mind had gone, I added, “But if I wasn’t there, who would fight off the peg-legged and eye-patched pirates when they storm the ship?”

I was grateful that she didn’t ask why I was suddenly talking about pirates. There wouldn’t have been a way to explain.

---