“Hang on,” I told Toby sharply. I twisted the tiller to slow us a bit as the other vessel passed, but we still hit the trough of their wake at the worst possible angle. The boat dipped and rose like a roller coaster.
Toby hunched over and grabbed onto my right leg with both hands, throwing me off balance. In a panicked voice, he asked, “Would now be a good time to mention that I can’t swim?”
“Wait, what? Are you serious?”
“The murder cats and the yoga weren’t enough!” he wailed. “Now the sea will claim me!” He buried his face in my thigh.
I resisted the urge to laugh. Instead, I grabbed the back of his neck with my free hand and stroked the skin there gently, feeling way more protective than the moment called for.
“Hey, it’s alright. Look, Toby. Toby, it’s fine. They’re gone. We’re back on course. It was just a blip.” I tugged gently on the hair at the nape of his neck. “Shhh. We weren’t in any danger, okay? And I wouldn’t’ve let anything happen to you, even if we were. Your life jacket would’ve kept you afloat, and I’d’ve taken care of everything else,” I soothed. “If you’d told me you couldn’t swim, I’d’ve explained that before. It’s all good.”
“Just a blip?” Toby lifted his head enough to look around.
“Just a blip,” I confirmed. “It happens.”
He peered at the asshole boat speeding off into the distance, and my gaze followed his.
“Sea Me Beachin.” I read in disgust, my hand still stroking his neck. “That’s maybe the douchiest boat name I’ve ever heard. Don’t worry, Toby, I’m gonna talk to a guy I know at the Fish and Wildlife Commission as soon as we get back and make sure—mmmph!”
I broke off as Toby launched himself almost into my lap, whacking my forehead with the bill of his hat—my hat—as he pressed his mouth to mine. If my hand hadn’t been braced on the tiller, I might have toppled off the back of the boat out of sheer surprise… and then out of pure, unadulterated want.
Toby’s kiss was sweet, crystal perfection, more invigorating than cold water on a hot day. Without conscious thought, my hand slid up into his hair, knocking the hat off his head, his mouth opened over mine, and every one of my brain cells powered down in a chain reaction, like a video I once saw of a power outage rolling through a city.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. Toby scrambled backward into his seat and grabbed his hair with two hands.
“Sorry! Fuck. Sorry. I specifically told you I wasn’t going to jump you and I did, and just fuck. But that was so… and you were so… and I’m really not cut out for adventure.” He stared at me and panted for a second. “Which is not an excuse, I know it’s not an excuse, but it’s an explanation. Because I have a low tolerance for adrenaline?” He stared down at his fingers, which he knit together and pulled apart. “And now I’m babbling when I never babble. I blame Florida. At least partly. I’m really not at my best here.”
He peered up at me, gauging my reaction. Trouble was, I had no idea how to react. I knew what I should feel, but I couldn’t deny the deep coil of need that unfurled in my belly, stronger than anything I’d felt last night, or this morning, or ever before.
“Say something,” Toby insisted worriedly. “Call me out or throw me overboard. I mean, don’t actually throw me overboard, please, just—”
I grabbed him by his T-shirt and hauled him toward me to kiss him again.
Our lips slotted together perfectly, and Toby groaned. Those smooth, soft hands kneaded the muscles of my thighs over my shorts, and I gasped against his mouth. I cradled his jaw in both palms so I could hold him still and settle in to savor the shocking rightness of our tongues gliding together.
Toby made a breathless, encouraging noise and fit himself against me as much as possible while balancing his ass on his seat. One of his cool hands reached up to cover mine on his face, and the other reached under my shirt to splay against my lower back. For once I was enjoying myself too much to care about what came next or worry about what I ought to be doing. I was all in.
Which of course was when we hit something in the water that launched the tender half a foot in the air. I grabbed Toby around the waist and pulled him down to the bottom of the boat, covering him with my body and pulling the safety key from the motor. The engine stalled.
We lay there for a second, staring at each other in the sudden quiet, legs tangled as the boat rode the swells. Toby looked every bit as stunned as I felt, and I couldn’t tell if it was adrenaline, or the kiss, or both, but my cock was suddenly hard as a rock, and if either of us moved an inch, Toby would know it.
I immediately rolled off him and sat up, bracing myself on the stern of the boat and looking out into the turquoise water to see if I could spot what we’d hit. It looked like a giant piece of driftwood bobbing nearby.
“Was it another boat?” Toby croaked, crowding in beside me. “Or a giant fish?”
I couldn’t meet his eyes as I reattached the safety chain and restarted the motor. “Fish are smart enough to get out of the way. It was debris in the water. Pieces of shipwrecks and old docks get shaken loose by storms and tides and float to the surface. Which is why you have to be watching for it.”
And I hadn’t been.
I sucked in a huge lungful of air and blew it out, forcing my muscles to loosen. In my entire life, I’d never not paid attention while I was manning the tiller of the boat. That was Safety 101. Inviolable. The very thing I’d just cursed at the people on the party boat for doing. But then, I’d also never, ever had a kiss that took me apart and left me craving more the way this one had.
It seemed a little bit like a cosmic joke that the guy who made me feel so uninhibited, so comfortable, was the last guy on earth I should want. He was so wrong for me in every possible way.
I ran a hand over my wrist, over the place where my bracelet should have been and wasn’t. Everything had started going so wrong the minute I’d lost it.
“Is your wrist okay?”
“It’s fine.”
“Should we talk about—?”
“You should hold on,” I instructed. “Maybe grab the hat again. Sun’s a killer today.”
“But what—”
“We’ll need to check the boat for leaks when we get there,” I continued, and only felt a little guilty when Toby gave a gasp and hurried to take his seat. “Better safe than sorry.”
Which applied to so much more than boating, and I really needed to remember that.
7
Toby
Help Me Hagatha (Issue #2427)
Dear Aunt Hagatha:
My boyfriend Tom is gorgeous, funny, hardworking, and kind. He’s twenty-five, I’m twenty-eight, and we’ve been in love nearly four years, so we’ve recently begun talking about marriage, but his family have never liked me much and I can tell their lack of enthusiasm is giving Tom doubts. How can I convince Tom and his folks that I’m the right one for him?
Above Rubies in Aberdeen
Dear Ruby,
Lord, honey, why would you? You say he loves you, and that’s a beautiful thing, but love is a lot like the Loch Ness Monster—everyone describes it a little differently, and it’s tough to know when you’ve found it, even if you squint. I think it looks a lot like someone who’ll stand up for you and your relationship, someone you’ll be able to count on in sickness and health for as long as you both shall live.