to Nick’s. “That wasn’t a pleasant moment back there.”
“No, and there’s not going to be another one like it again.”
She covered Jamie’s face with kisses until she got a smile out of him. “You’re so worn-out, you’ll probably sleep all the way.”
Reese didn’t realize how prophetic her words would be. He slept through the fabulous helicopter flight that took them to the famous little island off Cape Cod. They were set down at Katama Airpark only a few miles from Edgartown.
Nick took them to one of the harbor restaurants where they ate a delicious shrimp lunch. Afterward they walked around the historic part of the town and visited some of the shops. It wasn’t until they reached the boat dock on the Wainwright’s property that the baby’s eyes fluttered open. He’d missed everything.
Reese found it so funny, she started to laugh. Nick joined in. He was still smiling when he transferred his son from the ramp onto the end of the immaculate, twenty-three-foot sailboat called the Aeolus.
“What does it mean?” she asked him.
“In Greek mythology, Aeolus was the god of the winds.”
“That’s beautiful.” The white keel had a blue stripe. She thought of the little boat she’d bought for Nick and couldn’t wait for him to open his present, but she’d put it off until after they’d finished sailing.
Excitement mounted in Reese to see all the boats out on the water. This was a day out of time, one to treasure before they went back to the city. But having Jamie with them was the reminder she needed to remember she was his nanny, nothing else.
Nick brought out two adult life vests and an infant life jacket. While he went about getting the boat ready and undoing ropes, she laid Jamie down on one of the benches and changed his diaper. He loved being bare and kicked his strong legs as if he was doing exercises. She laughed with pure pleasure before putting a fresh diaper on him.
With him propped against her shoulder, she went down to the galley. There was a microwave so she could warm his bottle. By the time she climbed the stairs with him, Nick had everything ready to go. She put the bottle down. Together they helped put Jamie’s infant vest on, but she was unbearably aware of Nick and his potent masculinity. Their hands brushed, sending rivulets of yearning through her.
He kissed his boy’s tummy before snapping everything in place. “I know you don’t like it, sport, but that’s the rule.” He fastened him back in his carryall. “You’ll get used to it.”
With a speed that took her breath, Nick’s gaze unexpectedly flicked to hers. “Now it’s your turn.” The message in his dark brown eyes was unmistakable. They traveled over her features and down her body, melting her from the inside out. She got this heavy sensation in her legs. Her hands felt pains that traveled up her arms.
His male mouth was like a vortex drawing her in. Thrilled and terrified because her desire for him was so palpable he had to know it, she put out her hands to take the vest from him so he wouldn’t touch her. Instead his hands closed over hers, pulling her against him, sending a paralyzing warmth through her body.
“I’m going to kiss you, and I very much hope that you won’t fight me.”
She couldn’t have if she’d wanted to. From the moment she’d climbed in the back of the limo and had discovered a man who surpassed her every notion of the ultimate male, she’d wanted him. It was that simple, and that impossible, but right now she couldn’t remember the reason why and didn’t want to.
In the next breath he found her softly parted mouth. Incapable of doing anything else, she melted against him and let herself go, craving the taste of him as he took their kiss long and deep. Oh… She’d never felt sensations like this in her life. He drew her closer in a quick compulsive movement. The vest fell to her feet, but she was barely cognizant.
It came as a shock to realize his hunger matched hers, sending fire licking through her veins. Reese felt the low groan way down in his throat before it permeated her body. As it reached her inner core, her helpless cry drew a response of refined savagery from him.
“You couldn’t possibly know how beautiful you are.” A fever of ecstasy consumed her with each insistent caress of his lips on her face, her hair, her throat. “I want to take you below,” he whispered against her lips, swollen from the passion they shared. “If I’ve shocked you, I’ve shocked myself more.”
She took an unsteady breath and eased herself out of arms that were slow to relinquish her. The slight rocking of the boat didn’t help her equilibrium. “What’s really shocking is that I’d like to go downstairs with you,” she admitted because total gut honesty was required right now.
“But after I broke off with Jeremy, I made a promise I wouldn’t let anything get in the way of my goals. A man can make you lose focus. Who knows what could happen to me after a glorious day on the ocean in your arms. I—I know it would be wonderful,” she stammered, “because I’ve just had a taste of you and crave more.”
Nick’s eyes narrowed on her mouth. He might as well have started kissing her again. She had to look away or she’d fling herself back into his arms.
“Your honesty is another quality about you I admire.” Out of the periphery she watched his hard body lounge against the side of the boat. “What happened between you and Jeremy?”
“Probably the kind of thing that went wrong with you and Erica.” She’d reached the tipping point and needed distance from this man who’d caused her world to reel.
Jamie wasn’t fussing yet, but she knew his hunger had been building. She pulled him out of his carryall, then sat down and settled him in her arms to feed him.
“You mean you allowed yourself to drift into your engagement?” he asked in a benign tone.
Her head flew back. “Is that what happened to you?” she asked before she realized how revealing that question must have sounded. All along she’d been thinking Erica had to have been his grand passion because he could have had any woman he wanted.
“Why don’t we concentrate on you and Jeremy first.”
“He’s not in my life anymore.”
“Humor me anyway,” he insisted.
“Well, we met at the bank where my father does business. That was the summer before I started at Wharton. We fell in love and dated until I went away, then we relied on emails and phone calls until we could be together. I went home at every vacation opportunity. He came to see me twice.
“Last fall he asked me to marry him and gave me an engagement ring. He knew I didn’t want to get married before graduation, but when I went home at Christmas, he wanted to be married right away. No more waiting.
“I told him I would, but that we’d have to live apart while I was still away at school. That’s when he gave me an ultimatum. Either I marry him before the end of the month and stay in Lincoln, or we break up.”
The baby had finished his bottle. She pulled a receiving blanket out of the diaper bag and put it over her shoulder to burp him.
“I thought I knew him, but I didn’t. It finally came out that he didn’t want a working wife. He made enough money
