Slow Hands

however, was the real problem. She couldn’t let him walk into such a situation unprepared and unaware. “I wasn’t buying you for myself.”
    He closed his eyes slowly, his lips moving as he mumbled under his breath.
    “What was that?”
    “I was counting to ten.”
    “Why?”
    “Never mind.” His tone weary, he asked, “Who were you buying me for?”
    Maddy twisted her hands, leaning against the back of the captain’s chair and gazed around. Her father used to love this boat—but his new wife didn’t like to sail. And Deborah had made it clear that she also didn’t like her husband going out on the water in a vessel named for another woman, even one who had died years and years ago.
    “Let me guess. It was your sister’s idea.”
    “How did you know that?”
    “Intuition. So how come she didn’t do it herself?”
    “She didn’t want to cheat on her fiancé.”
    The eyes closed again. The mouth moved. She’d swear she could make out the words eleven and twelve before he looked at her once more. “How noble of her.”
    She was going about this all wrong, nervousness making her skip around the point instead of getting right to it. So she bit the bullet. She told him—just enough to make him understand how important this was, important enough to make her take chances she’d never have chosen to take.
    When she’d finished telling him about her father, his new wife, as well as Bitsy Wellington and her crowd, she concluded, “So there was no intention by either me, or by Tabby, to do anything other than make sure your services were not engaged by our father’s wife.” A bit grudgingly, she added, “Only Tabby didn’t trust herself not to remain entirely selfless about the whole thing. And I did.”
    Jake didn’t close his eyes this time. He didn’t mumble, he didn’t count. And he stopped doing that clenching thing with his jaw. The broad shoulders relaxed just a bit, and, if she looked hard, she thought she might see the edges of his mouth twitch up in the tiniest smile.
    “I see. And everything that happened afterward—you and me—was because you couldn’t trust yourself after all?”
    Ah. Now she knew why he was looking so relaxed. Because he’d figured her out. He’d seen through all the rest and come to the most important point.
    “Yes.” She lifted a hand and placed it on his chest, right above his strongly beating heart. “Everything we shared afterward happened because I was attracted to you. I wanted you. And I still do.”
    He moved closer, until their bodies brushed lightly, the warm summer air only an inch wide between them. Laughing softly, he reached up and stroked her hair. “Oh, Maddy, you crazy woman. How can you be so smart and yet so totally nuts? ”
    She remained stiff, not melting into him as her instincts were telling her to. Was he saying yes? Or no?
    “I’m not taking your money.”
    “Oh, yes, you are. You must. I absolutely insist, or it’s no deal.”
    His hand hovered in the air, close to her hair, no longer touching her. “You don’t mean that.”
    “Yes, I do. I brought my checkbook and I intend to pay you up front the minute you agree.”
    “You’re telling me that if I don’t say yes, you won’t ever see me again? You’ll buy me…but you won’t date me? Do you have any idea how insane that sounds?”
    She did. It was insane and so far out of character for her, she hardly even recognized herself.
    But that didn’t change her mind. Maddy needed to set the boundaries, the protective ground rules that would let her get out of this in thirty days with her heart and her pride intact if things didn’t work out. As, she already suspected given her history, they would not.
    “It’s this way or no way, Jake,” she said, her tone firm, her back ramrod stiff. He was now talking to the tough negotiator. The ice queen.
    She kind of ruined the moment by adding, “I’m not looking for a…a boyfriend.”
    He gave her a gesturing look.
    “Or even a real lover.”
    “We’re lovers, babe.”
    “Business associates with benefits.”
    He threw his head back and laughed, which made the thick muscles in his neck quiver and brought Maddy’s attention to the beads of sweat gathering in the hollow of his throat. Oh, how she wanted to sample it. And then sample everything else.
    But she still didn’t have his answer.
    “Well?”
    “I couldn’t be at your beck and call 24-7,” he warned. “I have other obligations. Quite a full schedule.”