Half-Hitched (The Wrong Bed) by Isabel Sharpe

Author:Isabel Sharpe
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-07-01T21:00:00+00:00

10

“ARE YOU HUNGRY? For food this time?” Derek drew his hand down Addie’s firm stomach, over her pelvis, fingers brushing lightly through her curls. He could touch this woman all day long. In fact, he intended to.

“Actually, yes.” She turned to him, face rosy and bright. “I’ve been in denial, though, because I’m enjoying this so much I don’t want to go back up to the house.”

“What would you say if you found out I have a cooler up in the woods packed with lunch?”

“Hmm.” She bunched her mouth, thinking it over. “I guess I’d have to say you’re the world’s most perfect man.”

Derek laughed and got to his feet. “That’ll do.”

He climbed the small rise into the woods, heading toward the spot where he’d left the cooler. Around Addie he felt more natural and relaxed than any woman he could remember being with. Something about her made him feel he didn’t have to hide any part of himself. He’d been playing a role so often on board Joie de Vivre that he’d apparently made it a habit to turn his real self off, turn on the charm and say only safe and appropriate things, acting with professional decorum at all times—even onshore to a certain extent—so that his clean and sober reputation stayed intact.

Something else was surfacing now, too, from deep in his subconscious, rising slowly, about to break through. He’d noticed it first around Paul and Ellen, who were constantly connecting with a look, a touch, a murmured word or two. They had a future of that special linkage ahead of them, years and years, for the rest of their lives. Watching them had made Derek aware of how much time he spent alone, even among people.

He couldn’t say he’d bonded deeply with anyone in his family, though of course he loved them all. At his first jobs at sea, he’d contented himself with “buddy” relationships with crew members, and there was always distance from his superiors—the same distance he kept now as captain. Paul had probably been his first substantive friendship. He’d had relationships now and then with women, but they’d always been secondary to his career, and never very consuming. With Addie, he felt truly connected.

He grabbed the cooler and jumped back down onto the warm sand, brought it over to her, feeling like a commoner proffering gifts to a queen.

No, that wasn’t right. She never made him feel common. She made him feel like a man worth loving.

It would be easy to qualify his feelings for Addie, saying they must only be superficial, that he and she had only known each other such a short time, yadda yadda, all the common sense stuff. But deep in his soul, where there existed only truth, he was getting the beginnings of a message so huge he was afraid of hearing it, afraid of dwelling on it, not sure if he was afraid it was true or afraid that it wasn’t.

Addie was The One.

Crazy talk. He was way, way ahead of himself.

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