When we parted, he was beaming at me. "I"d throw you in again if it meant I"d get another kiss like that."
"Oh, shush!" I leaped at him, threw my palms flat on either side of his collarbone, and pushed with all my might.
His grin was the last thing I saw before we sank beneath the surface of the sea, and all I could think about was how happy I was.
I was living.
Damien settled his hands on the steering wheel of the boat and glanced over his shoulder at me. "You ready?" he shouted, loud enough for me to hear.
I made sure my death grip on the plastic handles of the large blue inner tube were good and tight. The tube surrounding me felt solid and well made. Damien had strapped me tightly into a life vest.
Those all had to be good signs, so I looked up at Damien and yelled, "As I"ll ever be!" I gave him a false smile. If my heartbeat went any faster, I was going to burst like a rocket.
He gave me a thumbs-up and then turned around. The boat started to move slowly, tugging me forward. I squeezed the plastic handles harder, and my knuckles turned white.
"I"m so gonna land on my a.s.s," I muttered to myself, accepting my doomed fate.
The inner tube began to coast through the water. I held on and kept my body steady. I got a feel for the waves as I went up and down over each ripple. It wasn"t so bad. I can do this.
Damien kept checking back on me as we cruised a straight path. After a few minutes, he turned the wheel and made a loop. Once he was going straight again, he increased his speed just a tiny bit. I braced myself to accommodate the change of pace.
As the clock ticked by, I found myself smiling and relaxing beneath the clear sunny skies while I continued to hold on. It was such an enthralling experience. The wind blew across my face as the salty water crashed against my body.
Damien was right. Out here in the ocean, I could unwind. There were no worries. I had the power to set my mind free, so I could laugh and smile and just have fun.
After teaching me the basics of how to drive a speedboat, Damien took his turn out on the water. At first, I thought it would be easy to steer. But I repeatedly found myself turning around to catch a quick glance at the sight of Damien and the way his body moved on the floating device. His arms bulged as he rode the waves. His soaked swim shirt clung to the expansion of his broad chest, giving me an impeccable view of his upper torso. He was so graceful and strong and beautiful.
Making my fifth figure eight, I recalled Damien tossing me into the ocean earlier against my will. I bit my lip in deliberation as my hand hovered over the throttle, itching to push it up a notch.
Damien had used his strength to overpower me when he decided to throw me over his shoulder, and I"d been a helpless woman, thrashing in his arms when he"d sent me airborne into the water.
Right now, I held the power. He was the impotent one.
I slowly amplified our speed with a mischievous grin plastered on my face. I glanced backward to see that he was still holding on without showing any signs of strain, so I increased our speed a little more.
I looked over my shoulder and yelled loud enough for him to hear me over the engine, "You okay?"
"Yes!" He even let go of one of the handles to give me a thumbs-up.
I did a quick scan in front of me to make sure the coast was still clear before glancing at him once again to bellow out, "Can you swim?" My delighted expression was still firmly in place. This was going to be awesome.
I saw when realization dawned on his face, and I whipped back around and cranked the wheel to the left.
"Raelyn!" he roared my name in warning.
I was slammed into the steering column from the rapid gravity of the boat as it became slightly angled. Pain reverberated through my chest.
"Whoa!" I screeched as I overcorrected my actions with a harsh right, unable to regain my balance. It went too far, so I gradually spun the wheel to the left again, positive I was going to have whiplash by the time this was over.
I yanked the throttle all the way down, brought the boat to a halt, and ran to the end of it. "Damien!" I cried, staring in horror at the empty blue inner tube. It was flipped upside down, bobbing in the water.
Without delay, I jumped in and swam toward the inner tube, thankful I was still wearing my life vest.
"Damien, where are you?" I repeated.
I was on the verge of a panic attack until he came into view from the other side of the inner tube.
"Damien," I exhaled in relief.
I pushed the floating device out of my way to get to him. My eyes darted from his head to his shoulders to his arms. I even glanced down in the water to look at his legs. He was swimming, so they couldn"t have been broken. But he did appear rather disheveled.
"Are you okay?" I queried with great worry.
"Yeah, I"m fine." Damien breathed heavily, sounding exerted. He gestured toward the way I"d come. "Let"s get back on the boat."
I did as he"d said and pushed my arms and legs through the water. Damien treaded alongside me. Then, he helped me up the ladder where he climbed up after me.
I collapsed on shaky limbs and tucked them beneath me. Damien lay on the floor right beside me, still showing signs of exertion. The eerie silence was eating me alive from the inside out.
I chewed on my bottom lip. s.h.i.t, he"s probably so mad at me.
I scooted closer to him without making a sound. Water seeped out of his swim shirt and trunks and puddled around us. Once my knees b.u.mped into the side of his stomach, I peered down at him and set my hand on his sternum, softly stroking his shirt. I needed to feel his chest rising and falling beneath my palm to believe that he was really okay.
I repeated my concern aloud, "Are you sure you"re all right?"
"I"m okay, Raelyn." He reached for my arm and gently tugged me onto his chest until our faces were inches apart. "But you, on the other hand, are in a s.h.i.tstorm of trouble with me." He was glaring at me, but his eyes said something different. He was definitely laughing at me.
A s.h.i.tstorm? I scrunched up my forehead and asked, "What does that mean?"
"It means that payback is a beautiful thing, Raelyn," he drawled. He grasped my nape to pull my forehead to his, and then he nipped at my lower lip. "And you, my gorgeous girl, have it coming to you tenfold."
My eyes widened with worry, and I pulled back from him. "That doesn"t sound good."
"Not for you, it doesn"t." He chuckled throatily, sitting up with me. "But I might cut you a little bit of slack since you didn"t leave me to the sharks after all."
"If it makes you feel any better, I didn"t get to watch you face-plant into the water." I frowned. "I was too busy making sure I wouldn"t flip over your boat."
"It wasn"t that bad." He smiled and reached forward to push my soaking wet hair off my face. "You just don"t have much experience driving it."
"Well, you don"t have to worry about me repeating that stunt next time. It was a terrifying experience."
"Next time?" he joked, failing to stifle the amus.e.m.e.nt in his facial expression. "Not a chance. I will never put my life at stake ever again by giving you control of a seven-hundred-and-sixty horsepower motor."
"You just said, "It wasn"t that bad," so I think you"re being a bit dramatic." I rolled my eyes. "And if anyone"s life was at stake, it was mine. Your boat could have flipped over and flattened me like a pancake."
"I wouldn"t have let that happen." He rotated his hand and brushed his knuckles down my left cheek. "The sun suits you well. However, I think you"ve had enough for one day." He tenderly kissed me. "Let"s get back to the house."
"Okay," I agreed, feeling my body beginning to ache from this afternoon"s events.
I couldn"t remember a single time in my life where I"d had more fun than today-even if I"d almost flipped a boat.
After we stopped for an early dinner at a cute little Mexican restaurant, we returned to Damien"s house. Damien pulled up the driveway and made a big loop in front of the house before backing up the boat and trailer to the side of the garage.
"Why are you parking over here?" I asked.
Damien slipped the Sierra into park and shut it off. We both hopped out of the truck.
He came around to my side of the vehicle and pointed at the hose. "So that I can wash my boat."
"It needs washing?" I asked with amus.e.m.e.nt in my voice, glancing between him and his black-and-white speedboat. It didn"t look dirty to me.
"Yes." He picked up the hose and turned it on. "I take care of my possessions." His tone was full of pride.
I couldn"t help but respect his answer. "Where are the soap and sponge?"
"Upper side cabinet in the last stall of the garage." He gestured behind him. "The key code to open the door is one, two, one, five."
I was shocked that he"d just told me his private key code, but I didn"t let it stop me from going to the garage door where I punched in the numbers to open it. I followed his directions and went to the cabinet. Sure enough, there was a large jug of Meguiar"s premium boat wash and a five pack of Meguiar"s premium boat sponges along with a ton of other boat cleaning supplies. Damien definitely loved his speedboat.
"Clean freak." I fondly giggled to myself as I reached for the wash, two sponges, and a bucket that I found on the concrete floor before returning to Damien.
I noticed he"d already wet the boat with the hose, presoaking it, no doubt.
He extended his hand out to me while scanning the items I"d brought. "Out of all the cleaning supplies in that cabinet, you only came back with two?" he teased.
I pa.s.sed him the boat wash and the black bucket. He opened the bottle and squirted some soap into the pail. "You said we were washing it, not giving it a premium detail job."
While filling the container with water, Damien let the yellow hose slip, and he sprayed my feet, causing me to jump.
"Hey, that"s cold!" I screeched.
"Don"t be sa.s.sy." He smirked devilishly and grabbed the second sponge from my hand. "Thank you."
I bent forward at the waist and dunked my sponge into the water, thankful that I was still wearing my pink tank top and jean shorts over my swimsuit, not my spare set of clean clothes.
I stood to my feet and walked to the front of the boat. I began to rub it in circular motions. Damien came up next to me and got busy. The first few minutes, we worked in silence, and then I was surprised to see we"d already completed half of one side.
I noted that he was moving with me around the boat, which meant that he was practically rewashing what I"d already scrubbed. He really was a perfectionist. It was an annoying but adorable trait.
"So, do you have any brothers or sisters?" Damien asked out of the blue as we made our way from the front end of the boat to the other side.
"No, it"s just me."
I"d already told him that I had no family, but he wasn"t the only person to ask me more than once. To most people, it seemed unfathomable. Damien had told me he didn"t have any family either, but it was a choice that he"d made a long time ago.
I returned his inquiry, "Do you have any siblings?"
"A stepbrother." His answer was swift and indifferent.
I could have sworn his strokes on the boat had become more forceful. I guessed he and his stepbrother weren"t close.
"Do you speak to him?"
"No."
"How long?" I kept moving forward, cleaning with long strokes.
"Almost fourteen years."
The sponge fell out of my hand. Okay, that was much longer than I had expected him to say. Damien couldn"t have more than a few years on me, so that would mean he and his stepbrother hadn"t spoken since they were very young-or he was much older than I thought. Either way, it was still an extremely long time to not speak with a family member.
"Fourteen years?" I wondered aloud.
Damien reached for the hose to begin washing off the boat.
"How old are you?"
He shot me a sideways glance. Mischief swept across his face, and his brow rose in amus.e.m.e.nt. "How old do you think I am?"
I guessed that he couldn"t be more than a few years older than me, and I was twenty-five. "Twenty-seven?"
He turned the hose at me and sprayed my legs, grinning. "Wrong. Try again."
I yelped and backed up. "Twenty-eight?"
"Nope." He pointed the hose at my shorts.
"Stop getting me wet!" I laughed, retreating.
Damien followed.
"Am I getting warmer or colder?" I had to be getting closer to his age.
He bit his lower lip to prevent a smile and shook his head. "I can"t tell you. Keep guessing."
I was going to be drenched by the time I figured out his correct age. Surely, he couldn"t be over thirty. I gave him a hopeful expression and said, "Twenty-nine?"
"Wrong again." This time, he aimed the hose at my chest, effectively soaking me.
"Damien!" I squealed, feeling my nipples go taut and press against my clothing. I was freezing. "Look what you did!" I accused playfully, pulling at my shirt. "I"m all wet!"
His gaze traveled up and down the length of my body, leisurely and appreciatively. "I like you wet."
He dropped the hose and stalked closer to me. His arms came to my waist where he drew me against his body and then glided his hands up my sides before grasping my nape. My curiosity of his age was completely forgotten as my body instantly flared to life under his touch. I shivered at the intensity of his hypnotic stare sizzling into the depths of me.
"Stay with me tonight, Raelyn," he demanded gruffly before pulling my mouth to his.
He wasn"t asking, yet I couldn"t seem to deny him. I wanted him too badly. I needed him to put out the fire that was spreading throughout every part of me. I yearned to feel his hands on me. I wanted his touch to bring me to life again.