PROLOGUE
Five years ago
THIS WAS IT. Tanja Melha was a modern woman and she would go after what she wanted.
Which happened to be a man, leaving her to wonder exactly how modern she really was, but she was also human. Leon Petrakis was sexy and single, and she was headed back to university in a few weeks. This was her only shot at a summer fling that might cure her of a crush she couldn’t seem to shake.
She sauntered down the ramp to the wharf, watching her step around the coiled ropes and other tripping hazards. The August evening was a few degrees cooler down here on the water, and laden with the scent of seaweed and tidal flats. Home, she thought, breathing it in.
Her childhood friends hadn’t been able to leave the island fast enough, heading to Vancouver or Calgary or Toronto. Tanja went to the University of Victoria, and sometimes even that felt too far from Tofino, the small town on Vancouver Island’s west coast where she’d grown up.
Which was another reason she had to carpe this man on this diem. Leon was Greek, but a citizen of the world, living off his sailboat. He was intending to stay the rest of the summer to help her brother expand her father’s marina, but he was the type of rootless bachelor who could easily slip over the horizon at any moment.
As she came up to his slip, she saw him stowing something in the hold of the cockpit in the stern. He wore frayed denim cutoffs and nothing else but a tan.
Lord, he was perfectly made. She drank in his broad shoulders and the twist of his spine, the light layer of dark hair on his thighs, and the absent way he planted his feet and rode the movement of the boat when a rippling wave came in.
“Hey, sailor.” It was supposed to be a casual greeting but came out throaty with the lust that was overtaking her.
He straightened and turned, unhurried and even more magnetically beautiful when his slow smile appeared.
“Hello, Books.” She had a feeling he deliberately used her brother’s nickname for her, trying to push her into the pigeonhole of “best friend’s little sister.” His black hair was long enough to show its natural curl, his eyes dark and brimming with masculine appreciation as he slid his gaze down her blue minidress with its spaghetti straps.
She did the same to him, noting the way the hair on his chest flowed out from his sternum to dance like flames toward the brown discs of his nipples. Another darker line drew her eye from his navel to the brass button that barely held his shorts on his hips.
“I’m all paid up on my moorage fees. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
She dragged her eyes back to his knowing grin. He’d seen where her attention had strayed and liked it, which made butterflies take flight inside her.
“I wondered if you wanted company for happy hour?” She held up the bottle of wine she’d brought. It was a crisp, dry white coated in condensation from the short walk from her car.
After the briefest of pauses, he tilted his head and said, “How could I say no? Come aboard.” He took the bottle in one hand and held out his other to assist her.
He didn’t move back to give her room. When she stepped down into the cockpit beside him, they were toe to toe, practically mashed up against each other. He kept her hand in his and looked down his nose at her.
“I’m too old for you, you know.”
“At twenty-nine? Please. I’m twenty-two. I didn’t come here to lose my virginity.” But she had come here for lovemaking. She couldn’t pretend otherwise. Not when her breath was hitching so unevenly that her breasts grazed his muscled chest.
The corners of his mouth slowly curled. “Should I open this now or later?”
Oh, he was smooth. She told herself that was why he appealed to her. She wanted to know what it was like to be with a man who knew his way around every piece of coastline on a woman’s body.
“Later.” The word was a husk in the back of her throat. She couldn’t peel her eyes off his mouth.
“Come below,” he invited.
She ought to be nervous. In some ways she was. She didn’t do random hookups. She’d had a few boyfriends and had dated since being at university, but her two relationships that had been serious enough for lovemaking had been hard cases of puppy love, intense enough to dent her heart when they fell apart. Sex with the first had been many frustrating experiments in figuring things out, the second a much more successful and satisfying pairing, but they ultimately wanted different things.
The bottom line was, she was hardly an expert in the arts of seduction and eroticism.
“This is nice,” she said of the interior. It was tidier than she’d expected, given how devil-may-care his personality seemed. The windows were surprisingly big and bright, showcasing the gleam of the polished wood and stainless steel. The upholstery was maroon, the curtains smoky gray, the accent cushions sage green and rusty orange.
“Thanks.” He stowed the wine in the refrigerator and rinsed his hands, then dried them on a tea towel, hip leaned beside the sink. “I keep it this way. I wasn’t expecting company.”
“Weren’t you?” She dipped her chin in a small challenge. She’d been flirting unabashedly since returning in June. He had finally, this morning, given her a low whistle and said, “Lookin’ good, Books.”
Now he didn’t bother pretending to be sheepish. “I’m a sucker for a miniskirt. What can I say?” His gaze went down to her low-heeled sandals. “And long legs. Freckles.” His gaze struck the ones on her chest, then her face. “Red hair.”
“Why didn’t you say? I’d have been here sooner.”
“You know why.” He opened his feet, slouching a little lower as he invited her with a roll of his wrist to come closer.
“I don’t,” she assured him, trying to act blasé as she moved into the space he’d made. “We’re consenting adults.”
A fine tremble of anticipation accosted her, belying the maturity she was claiming to possess. Her hands hesitated when she felt the heat off his skin hit her palms, then she gently let them rest on the firm muscles of his upper chest.
His wide hands came to her waist. He didn’t kiss her. He looked deeply into her eyes.
“Mixing business with pleasure gets messy. As you see, I prefer tidy.”
“Your business is with my brother.”
“Mmm.” His mouth pursed as though he wasn’t convinced. His fingers dug a little more intently into her hips, as though he was undergoing some small struggle within himself. “And you’re here for pleasure?” His gaze was incinerating her mouth.
“Hope springs eternal,” she teased in a breathy voice, leaning a little closer. “So far it seems like you want to talk my ear off.”