Page 15 of Gideon
Don’t spank her. Don’t bend her over your knee and spank her right this very second.
I tried like hell to school my thoughts away from the dominance that threatened to spill over at any given moment with this woman. She made it difficult. So fucking difficult.
I dropped the rope, letting the sail fully unfurl as I turned to face her with my arms crossed over my chest. If she wanted to be a brat, so be it. I could be just as much of a brat, if not more. Game fucking on.
“I’m not going to take you out on this boat without a life jacket on, Naomi. End of discussion.” There. I’d thrown down the gauntlet. Now to see what she did with it. I would pick her cute ass up and carry her back into the damn house if she was that determined to be obstinate. No issue here. None at all.
“And if I want to keep on discussing?” she argued, crossing her arms over her own chest and mirroring my stance. I tried to keep my eyes away from the way her breasts pushed up with her movement. She had small breasts, but when she got like this, with her arms crossed over her chest, they pushed up just enough to create a beautiful curve of cleavage that I wanted to kiss and lick and bite.
“Then I’ll take your ass back into the house. I’ve told you my rules. What are you going to do? The decision is yours, darling.” I tossed her my best grin, waiting for her to decide.
After a long pause, she rolled her eyes.
“Fine,” she scoffed, standing and taking the life jacket from where she had tossed it haphazardly between us. She threw it on, but did not buckle it.
I tsked at her, standing and grabbing the buckle, pulling her towards me.
“Put it on properly, or we are done here,” I scolded, securing the buckles properly around her until I had it secured as intended.
“You can be a real stickler for the rules, can’t you?” she scoffed.
“Only where it counts, darling,” I teased, throwing her a wink. Definitely where it counted, if she only knew the truth. “Now, let’s sail!” I said excitedly, wagging my eyebrows at her. I secured the mainsail and swung the boom to starboard, warning Naomi to duck as it sailed over our heads. At just the right moment, I released the last mooring line, freeing the small boat from its shackles, and breathed a satisfied sigh as I felt the wind catch the canvas, rippling the fabric and propelling us away from the dock and out onto the open water. It wasn’t often I took her out at night, and I was excited to take her for a spin. I was loath to admit that I was even more excited to share this bit of myself with Naomi.
We set off at a slow pace; the waves lapped at the hull melodically as the boat sliced through the water easily, the brisk wind filling the sail until it was taut, causing the boat to keel slightly to one side.
“Why does your big boat have a name, and this one doesn’t?” she asked, her voice piercing the beautiful silence of the night.
“I don’t know, honestly. Never got around to naming this one, I guess,” I answered honestly.
“Where did you come up with the name?” she continued.
“The name of the boat?” I asked, clarifying her question.
“Mmhmm,” she murmured, her eyes focused on the horizon.
“The Ataraxia,” I sighed happily, eager to tell the story. “It took me a long time to come up with the perfect name for her. I read it in a book, actually. It means a place of tranquility. The state of freedom from emotional disturbance and anxiety. Quite fitting, if you ask me.”
“Ataraxia. It’s weird,” she commented, and I pouted. Yes, I pouted.
“I don’t think it’s weird,” I shrugged.
“But I guess it makes sense,” she admitted, somewhat reluctantly. That perked my mood up again. She was just difficult. But I didn’t mind. This was my happy place, sailing along the water where it was calm and serene and the difficulties of life couldn’t bother me.
We sailed along in silence, each of us enjoying the quiet in our own way for a long while. If I thought about it for very long, now would be the perfect time to talk to her. I needed to talk to her. But how to begin such a conversation? Originally, I was just going to lay it all out there, but knowing her as I did now, I felt that could be a recipe for disaster.
“So,” I began awkwardly, “How do you like life here in Zion?” What a lame question. But it was the best I could come up with.
“Can we not talk about Zion?” she sighed dejectedly. I couldn’t blame her. Out of all the topics in the world to choose from, Zion was close to the last option I would willingly choose.
“Okay…” I trailed off, trying to decide how to continue. “What would you like to talk about, then?”
“How did you end up with a boat?” she asked.
“What do you mean? I bought it.” I shrugged her question off.
“Well, it just seems like an odd thing for someone here, in Zion, especially.”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about Zion,” I teased her playfully.
