Bidding on Brooks: The Winslow Brothers #1 (10 page)

“You make him sound very controlling.”

“He is,” said Alex. He glanced down at Skye thoughtfully. “He must trust you. A lot.”

Trust again. That seemed to be a theme this morning—one that Skye had an issue with, especially in light of Patrick’s recent betrayal.

“Maybe he was just desperate,” said Skye, softening the words with a small grin.

“Or maybe he thinks you’re an amazing sailor.”

She scoffed in her head, thinking about Pat’s painful summation of her skills:
decent
crew, but
not
a racer.

“I doubt it.” She looked up at Alex, shrugging nonchalantly. “I know how to sail. He needed someone to go with him. He sweetened the deal by letting me skip, and I couldn’t pass up the chance. That’s all there is to it.”

Alex looked like he was about to say something else when suddenly her father’s head reappeared from below decks and he stepped over the bow, onto the dock, approaching Skye.

“Frig generator is all charged up. Engine looks good. Gave her a touch more oil. Remember that Marconi main sail is canvas, Skye. She’s going to luff and fill differently.”

“I know, Pop,” she said gently.

He wiped his hands on his overalls, looking back at the boat. “You only had a thousand liters of fresh water, so I topped you off earlier. Didn’t like the looks of their VHF radio, so I added another portable. You’ll find it in the overhead compartment. Chart room.”

“Pop,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “It’s a good boat. It’s going to be a good trip.”

“Oh, I know that,” said Jack, clearing his throat, finally meeting her eyes. “You be careful, huh, Skye?”

“Who sails better than me?” she asked.

Jack opened his arms and she leaned into her father’s comforting warmth, as he answered, “The guy behind you ain’t half bad.”

Skye released her father and stepped back, her body hitting a wall of muscle. Brooks. He reached his hand around her and offered it to Jack, sandwiching Skye between them in a way that felt incredibly intimate and yet surprisingly nice.

“Don’t worry, Jack. I’ll get her home in one piece.”

“All of her,” warned Jack, taking Brooks’ hand.

“All of her,” agreed Brooks, pumping the older man’s hand before releasing it. “You ready?”

Skye twisted her neck to look up at him. “As I’ll ever be.”

Brooks leaned down for his duffel and hoisted it over his shoulder, stepping on board the
Zephyr
and Skye followed behind.

He shrugged the shoulder that held his bag. “Should I take this below?”

“Um, yeah, that’s fine. Just put it anywhere. We’ll work out the arrangements later.” His eyes widened a touch and her cheeks felt instantly hot as she looked away, heading for the ship’s wheel. She looked back at him once there was several feet between them. “After your bag’s below, untie us, huh?”

His lips spread into an unbelievably beautiful smile as he nodded slowly at her. “Aye, aye, skip.”

***

We’ll work out the arrangements later?

What did
that
mean?
he wondered as he uncleated the bow and stern lines before pulling in the buoys as Skye started the engine and backed them out of the slip, giving his siblings, Alex and Jack a wave goodbye.

As per maritime convention, Brooks hadn’t argued with her. He’d placed his duffel bag on a table in the Chart Room, awaiting further instruction from her, and then came back upstairs to get to work. He assumed her plan was to motor out of the harbor, then raise and tighten the sails once they were in the open water of the bay. That’s what he would do, though it wasn’t his call. In fact, just about nothing was his call, which made a woosh of excitement sluice through his veins, making him feel a little hot and bothered. She was totally and completely in charge of him for the next seven days. She all but owned him, and he’d orchestrated it.

Having raced large sailboats competitively for most of his life, Brooks knew that a vital component of sailing was to maintain a positive and supportive relationship between skipper and crew, but he was also a traditionalist in that he respected the ultimate authority of the skipper. And for the first time since he’d turned over the
Zephyr
to Skye, it occurred to him that he was, literally, at her mercy. If she wanted to motor all the way down to Charleston, he wouldn’t raise a complaint. If she told him to sleep above-deck, he’d lay out a bedroll under the stars. If she told him to take the wheel, he’d take it without question and steer where she commanded. If she said, “Jump” Brooks would ask, “How high?” 

So where exactly was he going to be sleeping tonight?

He had no idea, but the wait was going to be strangely, yet deeply, exciting.

“Looks like it’s going to be a little choppy out here today,” commented Brooks, walking up from the bow to mid-ship where Skye stood behind the skip’s wheel, strands of her blonde hair escaping from her braid as the wind whipped up.

She looked at the sky where the sun was trying to break free from cloud cover. “Could go either way.”

“How far do you want to motor out?” he asked.

She gave him a sidelong glance.

“I’m not questioning your plan,” he said quickly, leaning against the main sail boom, watching the intense concentration in her eyes as she steered them out of the harbor. “You’re the skipper. Whatever you say, goes. I’m just wondering.”

“Is it hard for you?”

“What?” he asked, the adolescent part of him distracted by the way she said “hard.”

“Letting someone else be in charge? You skippered your boat in the Olympics.”

“Yes, but only to third place,” he reminded her with a dry grin.

She chuckled softly, shaking her head. “It’s pretty amazing, you know.”

He shrugged modestly.

“I’d like to hear more about it at some point,” she said.

“Just tell me when.”

She stared at him for a moment, seemingly lost in thought, before blinking twice and licking her lips.

“Um…what? What did you ask me?”

“Are we motoring out?” he asked again, forcing himself not to grin, but enjoying the way she’d gotten a little flustered.
Why? Because of the Olympics? Because he’d said, “Just tell me when”?

Her cheeks were pink when she answered him. “I thought we’d motor past Elk Neck point, into the channel, then tighten the sails. The wind’s strong today. We should go pretty fast.”

Motoring that distance meant they had a little time to relax as the boat put-putted farther and farther away from the marina. Brooks leaned against the railing to her left, out of her direct line of sight, which meant she’d have to turn her head to look at him head-on.

But it gave him a great view of her profile: her braided blonde hair, straight nose, and pouty lips. Her breasts were full and lush under her light blue polo shirt, but her stomach was flat as a board and the rest of her body was incredibly toned and athletic. She wore white denim cut-off shorts, which emphasized the tan on her long legs, and her feet were covered by new-looking navy, leather topsiders with white laces and white soles. She was also wearing that incredibly distracting anklet, which just about taunted him, reminding him of his Wednesday afternoon fantasies. She was casual. And gorgeous. And it vaguely registered that he was ogling her, but he couldn’t help it.

“You’re staring at me,” she said without facing him.

“Yes, I am.”

Her little pink tongue darted out to lick her lips again. Was it a nervous tick? Or did it mean more? He tried to remember if he’d ever noticed her doing it before, but up until a week ago, he hadn’t thought of Skye as anything but a friend, so it probably wouldn’t have tripped his radar.

“It’s distracting,” she said. “Can you stop?”

For a moment, he considered arguing with her, teasing her that no, he wouldn’t stop staring at her because there wasn’t anything else worth staring at when she was in view. But her word was law for the duration of the sail, so he turned his glance forward instead, checking out a white cruiser that motored by.

Suddenly it bothered him that he didn’t know her better. Of course he’d been frequenting her marina for years. He knew her father. He knew her boyfriend. He knew she could handle a boat like a pro. They’d sailed together a few times and shared a beer together afterward. She’d worked on his boats for hours at a time while he tinkered or relaxed, and they’d engaged in long conversation. They’d traded teasing brother-sister style banter over the years as well, but he didn’t
know
her. What did she eat for breakfast? What was her favorite movie? What music did she listen to? Did she shower in the morning or the evening? What did her body look like when she got out of the shower naked and dripping? Did droplets of water fall from her puckered nipples? And if he was there with her, would she—

“Any more questions?” she asked.

Uh, yeah. Lots.

“We’re about to spend a week together and I’ve known you for years, but suddenly I don’t feel like I
know
you all that well,” he blurted out, still staring straight ahead.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “That doesn’t make sense. I’ve known you since I was ten.”

“Yeah, that’s true. We’ve sailed together, and we bump into each other at the marina, but I don’t really
know
you. What you like, what you don’t like, your favorite food, your dreams…”
…what it means when your tongue wets your lips when you’re staring at me…because you’ve made it clear you’re with Pat and off-limits to me, but every time you do that, I have to restrain myself from grabbing you and kissing you senseless.

He felt the heat of her eyes on his face for a long moment.

“Do you
want
to get to know me?”

Although it was completely against Brooks’ strict set of rules to allow himself the intimacy of getting to know a woman personally, he couldn’t help it—the answer was unequivocally…

“Yes.”

“Well,” she said, glancing at him briefly before relaxing her stance a little, “Ask me something. I’ll answer.”

“Anything off limits?”

“I reserve the right not to answer, but…no. You can ask me anything.”

“Okay. Umm—”

“But I get to ask too, okay? We’ll go back and forth.”

“Aye, aye, skip,” he said, glad she was still facing forward.

He was also glad that she couldn’t see exactly how wide his smile was when she said that. He didn’t even know why it mattered, but for some reason it did. It mattered that she wanted to get to know him better, too.

***

Peripherally, Skye noticed the way his perfect lips tilted up in a smile, his cheeks tightening, his eyes lifting. Her tummy, which had been filled with butterflies since Guy Hunter had made her kiss Brooks’ cheek at the dock, fluttered.

For no good reason, but probably from the mere fact that he was Brooks Winslow and he’d kissed her last weekend like the world was ending, she shivered, feeling exhilarated by the sudden rush of power the nickname “Skip” implied. And no, it shouldn’t have—in any way—felt sexual, but he was so incredibly good looking, it did. And even more? She liked it. She liked being in charge of him. God, how she liked it.

On the ruse of checking out a passing sailboat, her gaze darted to the side for a moment, then slipped to his strong thighs, lingering on the tan muscles she found there. His body was just as athletic as hers, bronze, hard, and toned. It made her breathing hitch and she looked away from him quickly, back out at the water, wondering what he wanted to ask her.

“You can go first,” she said.

“Okay…” He stared down at the planking before looking up at her. “We’ll start small…What do you eat for breakfast?”

“Oatmeal, usually. With berries and almonds. Sometimes cereal. You?” It felt safer to volley back the same question for now.

“Scrambled egg white omelet with vegetables,” he said. “And sometimes toast."

“White bread?”

“Multi-grain,” he answered. “Umm…how old were you when you got your first kiss?”

Her eyebrows shot up as she cut her eyes to his.

“Too personal?” he asked, a challenge in his eyes.

She shook her head. “Sixteen. You?”

“Twelve.”

“Guy should have asked if
you
were as fast as a zephyr,” she quipped.

He chuckled at her, nodding, his lips quirked up in an adorable combination of embarrassment and sass. “Okay…fair enough.”

“Next question?” she asked.

He shrugged. “You go.”

“Hmm. Oh! Here’s one I’ve always wondered…Why don’t any of your brothers or sister sail?”

He grinned at her, a relaxed, reflexive reaction, and for a moment Skye felt a spike of jealousy that the mention of his siblings should garner such a loving expression.

“They weren’t encouraged, I guess. I mean…well…” His smile faded a touch and he shrugged. “My father was a sailor. He loved getting out on the water, and he often took me and Preston along with him…but he passed away when I was seventeen. Pres was fifteen. Jessie wasn’t even six yet. My younger brothers were thirteen and eleven—too young to really have any appreciation for the sport. Preston actually has the skills, but he sort of turned his back on it after my dad died. I think—I don’t know for sure—but I think it hurts him to sail…like my dad couldn’t sail anymore, so Pres didn’t want to either. Me? I felt the exact opposite. I wanted to be the best. I imagined my dad watching me sail, and it… I guess it made me feel closer to him, if that makes sense.”