Page 54 of Blow Me Down
I rubbed my freed knee along his hip, and gave his butt a friendly little squeeze.
“Women are capable of having sex and talking at the same time. We’re masters of multitasking that way.”
He frowned down at me.
“What?” I asked, trying to smooth out his frown with my fingers. “We’re not masters of multitasking?”
“You said we were having sex. Is that all this is to you? Just sex? Is all that we are together? Just a way to scratch an itch?”
His eyes were dark with anger. He tried to pull out of me, but I grabbed his hips and held him in place. “I’m sorry, that was unfeeling and rude of me. I don’t just have sex, Corbin. I told you that before—I have to have some emotional commitment before I take this step. I like you, Corbin. I like you a lot. I like to talk with you, and be with you, and you make me laugh, which I’ve always thought is important in a relationship. But if you’re asking me if I’m madly in love with you… I don’t do madly in love. I’ve never been the fall-in-love-at-first-sight kind of girl.”
“I’m in love with you,” he said, his eyes watchful.
I kissed the tip of his nose. “I’m not sure that’s very wise of you, but I’m flattered nonetheless.”
“Flattered?” His eyes went blank.
“I’m very fond of you, Corbin,” I said, willing him to see the truth in my face.
“I wouldn’t be here now if I wasn’t. But I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve been in love exactly once in my life, and that lasted a whole year before I realized my husband was more in love with himself than he was with me. It’s been so long since I felt that emotion for a man, I’m not sure I know how to do it.”
He said nothing but rolled off me, untying my still-bound ankle before turning onto his back, pulling me tight up against his side. I spread my fingers on his chest, looking at the whiteness of them against his tanned skin and the dark curls, torn between the need to ease the pain he obviously felt by me admitting the truth, and a reluctance to delude him.
“I will teach you,” he said softly into my hair as I drifted off to sleep, lulled by both the warmth of his body and the rhythmic creaks of the ship as she sailed through the night.
Chapter 14
Away, away! my heart’s on fire;
I bum, this base deception to repay.
—Ibid, Act II
“There you are. We have to talk.”
“I have better uses for my tongue than mere words,” Corbin said, illustrating his point by skirting the portable tub I’d recently been using, and kissing me.
“Yes, you do, but we really have to talk,” I said as soon as I regathered my scattered wits. Corbin’s kisses had the tendency to leave me utterly bemused, a fact that I simultaneously resented—I hated being out of control—and loved.
Who could complain about a man who kissed so well it drove all other thoughts from your mind? I peeled myself off him and grabbed my brown leather bodice. “I have a lot of things to say before Bas and I have to leave.”
“Why leave?” Corbin asked. “Everything that is mine is now yours, as well. I have sixteen ships here. If you don’t like theSamurai Squirrel, we can move to another ship, although none are so comfortable.”
“I don’t have a problem at all with living on a ship,” I answered, glancing around the cabin. Despite the odd name, theSquirrelwas a very elegant ship, outfitted with gleaming brass, rosewood, and mother-of-pearl accents. The captain’s quarters were particularly luxurious, even running to the large copper tub in which I’d taken a bath.
Corbin looked around the cabin with pride. “Aye, she’s a sweet ship.” His eyebrows rose as he saw what I’d secured with a rope clip on the lip of the porthole. “Is that what I think it is?”
“It’s my underwear. I didn’t have time to rinse them out last night, what with all the mad, passionate lovemaking going on.”
Corbin was on me in a heartbeat, his hands skimming beneath my skirt, up my thighs. “Oooh. You’re going commando.”
“I have no choice in the matter. I washed them in the bath with me. Thank you for that, by the way. I appreciate all the men hauling that water in here.
Corbin!”
His leer turned up a notch as his hands slid around the curve of my behind, heading for my fun zone. “My pleasure. And I mean that literally, although I would have preferred the ship not having docked right at the moment you were bathing. I wanted to help wash your back. And front. And legs, and breasts, and right here—”
I yipped, melting against him as his fingers found still sensitive flesh. “Corbin, talk! Talk, we must talk! About many things, such as stepping up our investigations regarding Paul.”
