At that, she outright laughed. Flynn had a wicked sense of humor, but she liked it. Probably a little too much. “No, no, I really have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Perfect, no time like the present to learn.” He stepped onto the lip of the boat, looking more like a stevedore than a movie star in a pair of dark slacks, a tight white T-shirt that accentuated his generous biceps, and a matching white captain’s hat. It worked for him though. He looked roguish and windblown and absurdly handsome.
He extended his hand and Livvy took it, feeling the calluses of his palm close around her fingers as he helped her step up. She placed one foot on the edge of the boat and paused as it swayed underneath her. The noisy click of the cameras whirred in the distance.
He chuckled. “Come on, I’ve got you. I promise.”
She gingerly lifted her other foot from the dock and stepped aboard, losing her balance and tumbling straight into the solid wall of his chest. She let out a muffledoofbefore he placed his hands on her waist, lifted her up, and deposited her on the deck. Someone, she was certain it was Mr. Gray Fedora, crowed suggestively.
But Flynn didn’t react. Nor did he remove his hands immediately, instead letting them linger, making sure she had steady footing. He was looking at her earnestly, one of his eyebrows raised. “You all right?” Livvy could tell that he wasn’t asking so that he could elongate this picture-worthy moment. He genuinely wanted to know.
She met his gaze and something passed between them, an electric current of want that was gone as quickly as it came. It was just that he looked so very much like the hero of one of his films right now—the sun hitting his face, turning his hair to burnished gold. The sight of it made her feel like a teenager again, longing for a man who wasn’t real.
Flynn cleared his throat and swiftly dropped his hands. She found herself mourning the loss of them, missing the sensation of the rough edges of his fingers digging into her sides and the safe feeling it filled her with.
He had asked her a question, she realized. “Oh, I’m fine,” she chirped, her voice unnatural to her ears.
“Don’t you worry. You’ll have your sea legs in no time.” He went back to the rope he had been working with, tying it into a fancy knot. She sat down on what appeared to be an upturned bucket, trying to peer into the depths of the boat’s cabin to see who else might be on board. Someone was moving about in the shadows, but she couldn’t make out their face.
Flynn followed the direction of her gaze. “Oh, that’s Rex. He’s repairing some rigging. He takes care of the boat for me.”
She nodded, still unsure what to say. On set, it had been so easy to hold her own against him, but here she was out of her depths. She was afraid to put a toe out of place, lest she fall overboard or signal something was off between them to the press.
“Sorry to disappoint you, if you thought you were going to have me all to yourself.”
She snorted. “Why on earth would I think that?” But a rush of heat flared between her legs, and she cursed the effect he had on her.
He grinned, and she was glad she was already sitting down—because God help her, it was enough to make her swoon. Theboys on shore would’ve loved that. She suddenly resented Rex, whoever he was. Because maybe, if it was just the two of them, he would take her down into that cabin and ravish her. She had never been ravished. But she would quite like to be. It was something she’d never admitted to herself before. At least not outside the confines of her bedroom in the dead of the night. But Flynn brought out something wild in her. Made her crave things that her mother would’ve said did not befit a lady.
Things that she knew should make her blush at the mere thought of them. But why would she be ashamed of such feelings? Eventually, she would make love to a man. That was the natural course of things. And she supposed there were few men with as much experience as Flynn had. He would know exactly how to touch her, how much pressure to use, where to kiss her… Her jaw went slack envisioning it.
He chuckled and she knew he had read her like a book. “You wouldn’t be the first lady to dream of getting me alone.” His English accent, sometimes clipped and straightforward, had melted into something softer and sexier. Like butter spread over a roll. Or, she supposed, in his case, clotted cream over a scone.
She scoffed, desperate to hide that she had been imagining exactly that. She’d been listening to Judy’s flights of fancy too much. “That’s not a dream, that’s a nightmare.” Livvy realized a moment too late how loud she’d been, and her head snapped back to the shore to make sure the reporters hadn’t heard her.
He chuckled. “Don’t worry, they didn’t hear you. But I can kiss you passionately if you think it will help.” She turned bright red at his suggestion, embarrassed not so much by her fantasy as by being caught out. This was exactly what she had to avoid. The man in her daydreams was a white knight. The flesh-and-blood figure before her was a cad. She reminded herself of RhondaPowers, the poor girl he’d jilted. That would be her fate too if she didn’t pull herself together.
“Tell me about your boat,” she said. Anything to change the subject.
He gave her a look, making it clear he knew exactly what she was up to, but he answered her question. “I’ve had her about two years. Bought her by accident.”
She stared at him. “How on earth do you buy a boat by accident?”
“I was drunk.” He said it so matter-of-factly.
“That is the answer to almost any story involving you, isn’t it?”
He flashed her a smile, baring his teeth in a predatory manner that made a little shiver run down her spine. “That’d be a safe bet.” She giggled in spite of herself. “Dash told me the next morning that I had insisted it was such a brilliant party I required a souvenir, so I wrote the host a check for his fifty-seven-foot yawl.”
“Dash, as in Dash Howard?”
“Yes. He’s my best friend. Used to sail with me. Before he fell in love.” Livvy could tell just what Flynn Banks thought of love from his tone of voice. He’d spat out the word like he was swearing.
But beneath that, she sensed a loneliness. It was more the faraway look in his eyes than anything else, so subtle people would miss it unless they knew what it was to feel alone in this world. A look she was sure Flynn would deny. It was clear he missed his pal.
“Anyway, I tried to get out of it. But the wily bastard had cashed the check first thing. Worked out okay though. This boat’s the only girl I’d want to tie myself to.” He patted the strong wood beam of her mast lovingly. Flynn looked at the boat the way Livvy looked at her sister—with devotion and deep-seated care.
“And where’d you get the name?” Livvy was fairly certain she knew the answer, but she was afraid once they stopped talking about the boat, they would have exhausted all topics of conversation besides Flynn’s tireless flirting. This relationship was as phony as the stuffed parrot perched on top of the boat’s cabin—and it needed to stay that way.
