Page 77 of Falling Overboard

“A massage training video.”

“Why?”

“When you’re a stew it’s good to learn new skills. Lots of owners want to have a massage therapist on board. It might even lead to a pay bump. I’m taking an online massage course for stews. And after this season is over, I’ll use my vacation time to do my five days of practical training in order to get my certification.”

He kicked his boat shoes off and wriggled his toes. “You would spend your vacation getting certified in massage?”

“I already travel the world as my job. I don’t mind spending my vacation time doing something practical. And I need to learn.”

“If you ever want to practice on someone, let me know.”

“I do!” I blurted it out quickly. Way too quickly. “I mean, I do need to practice.” And I tried to tell myself that this was just about working on my techniques and not about getting to run my hands over those magnificent muscles in his back.

This was for ... science. Yeah, science.

“But I don’t have a massage table,” I added.

“We’ll just do it on your bunk.”

Then he took off his shirt and I had to stifle a gasp. He climbed onto the bed and lay face down, waiting.

Gorgeous. Those lines and curves and hard planes all over his back ... I might have slightly salivated.

Apparently I was just going to ignore the fact that I’d basically picked up a stick doused in gasoline and held it above an open flame.

There was only one way this was going to end—with me being burned.

This was a bad, bad, bad idea.

Just because it’s a bad idea doesn’t mean it won’t be a good time,a voice that sounded remarkably like Georgia’s said inside my head.

The good-time part was the problem.

“Lucky?”

I realized that I’d been quietly sitting there contemplating what I was about to do for an uncomfortable amount of time. “This is a weird angle,” I finally said. “I’d probably need to ...”Straddle youdid not sound appropriate, so I went with, “Sit on you.”

“Okay.” He said it like I had made a reasonable request. Did he not understand the magnitude of what I had said?

“I don’t want to squish you.” That wasn’t the reason I was afraid to climb up on top of this man. I was far more worried that I wouldn’t be able to remove myself later.

He turned to look at me over his shoulder with an expression that said “be serious.” “You won’t.”

I knew he was right. I wouldn’t. I could have put an actual armored tank on his back and he would have been just fine. I had been desperate for an excuse. So before I could reason my way out of it, I moved over and then sat at the base of his lower back. I was allowed to touch him. My fingers tingled.

But that might have been due to how badly my hands were shaking at the prospect.

Be a professional,I told myself. And I tried. I really did. Unfortunately, the second my hands made contact with his warm skin, I was lost.

I attempted to focus on the different muscle groups and pressure points that I’d learned about, but all I could think about was how firm he was, wanting to outline the light brown freckles on his shoulders with my fingers, making constellations.

It didn’t help matters that he seemed to be enjoying what I was doing. There were soft sighs, happy murmurs, little imperceptible half groans as he relaxed into the mattress.

His sounds did not help with my situation.

“Is that okay?” I asked in a slightly strangled voice.

“What?”

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