Nobody But You(49)

He laughed. “Since when do we do awkward afters?”

She stared at him and remembered last time, in his bed, where he’d taken her to new heights. Over and over again.

No awkward after. “Fine. Whatever. I’m taking you home.”

His slow, sexy smile told her she’d just played right into his big hands, but at the moment she didn’t care. She took control of the boat and headed across the water at a fast clip.

The evening was truly gorgeous. The water was like a piece of glass, and she cut straight through it, loving the light spray off the front of the hull, the wind in her face…She was almost thankful that Lucas was such an *.

Almost.

When she got back to the north shore, she slowed down, passing the row of cabins. When she came to Jacob’s, she lined up with his dock the best she could, but she wasn’t good at coming in from this direction, and the wind and waves were not being her friends.

“Careful,” he said. “The corner—”

“I see it.” She whipped her head around, trying to eyeball the maneuver, still getting used to how differently a boat glided over water versus a car on the road.

Jacob stood up. “Sophie—”

“Sit down or jump into the water,” she said. “Because I can’t see around you.”

He stood on the very edge of the boat, one foot on the hull, the other reaching out to work as a buoy for the dock. “You’re coming in too hot,” he said. “You’ve got to—”

“I see it.” Shit. He was right. She’d overcorrected, and now she was stuck in the position of having to overcorrect an overcorrect—which never worked out.

“Sophie—”

“I got it!”

But she didn’t, and in the next second she heard the boat collide with the dock. And a big, huge chunk of the dock broke off and fell into the water.





Chapter 17



Jacob took over, leaping onto the dock, the rope from the bow of Sophie’s boat in his hand, which he used to tie it to the torn dock. “Got it, Andretti,” he said, turning back to Sophie with a smile that quickly died on his lips.

She hadn’t moved from the controls, though she’d turned off the engine. She was still white-knuckling the wheel, head bent.

Silent.

He reached for the rope at the stern to tie that as well. “You breathing over there?”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Finished with the boat, he crouched on the dock, as close as he could get to her with her still behind the wheel. “Hey.”

“I’ll get it fixed,” she said. “I promise.”

“Soph. Look at me.”

She lifted her head. She was pale, upset. And goddamn it all to hell, anxious. A stark difference to how she’d been looking at him fifteen minutes ago, when she’d been on her knees between his, eyes lit with erotic promise as she’d driven him wild with her mouth.

“It’s just a dock, Soph,” he said softly. “It won’t take much to fix it. I can do it myself.” He shifted closer, and she froze. Froze into a solid block of ice, every inch of her—except for her eyes, which flared with defiance, and her hands as they tightened into fists at her side.

The gesture was familiar. Jacob had seen it every time he and Hud had gone head-to-head, or with his unit when they’d bickered…She was braced for a fight. He stared at her, trying to figure out what the hell. How could she think he was going to yell at her over a mistake, or worse…Jesus…put his hands on her in anger?

Moving slowly, he continued with what he’d originally planned on doing. He touched her cheek, stroked his fingers over the curve of her jaw and let them sink into her hair, gently pulling her face up to his.

She closed her eyes, and he felt his heart press up too hard against his rib cage. “Sophie, please look at me.”

She opened her eyes and focused them on his face, specifically just above his own eyes, probably at the scar that bisected his eyebrow. It was a trick he knew all too well from having to stare at commanding officers who were yelling right in his face. He wouldn’t give them the respect of looking straight in their eyes, saying f*ck you by looking right through them. “I once fell out of a tree trying to beat Hud to the top,” he said.

Her startled gaze flew to his. “What?”

“The scar you’re looking at. I got it when I was a kid. The funny thing is that Hud has one exactly like it on the opposite eyebrow. He got his when I hit him with a bat.”

Her eyes widened and she gasped.

“Not on purpose,” he said. “He was catcher on our high school baseball team and got caught by a wide swing.”

She stared at him. “You’re trying to distract me.”

“If I were trying to distract you, we’d both be naked again.”

She blinked. “Awfully sure of yourself,” she said.

A challenge. He liked a good challenge. He also liked her pissed off instead of anxious. He got that she was afraid of getting emotionally attached and he’d thought that worked for him. He’d mistakenly assumed that her past, and her scars from that past, were none of his business. He’d been wrong. And if it was Lucas who’d taught her to fear confrontation, he’d be teaching him to drink through a straw.