Because Of Love

Rafe sat at the yacht’s bow sofa, a glass of whiskey in one hand and his head filled with thoughts of Talia.

She must have gotten the email by now, he thought to himself, flooded with a mix of guilt and shame.

For the first time in his life, Rafe had run from a fight. Knowing Talia’s reaction and refusing to face it had chased him out of the office early. He had also for the first time in his life knocked off work early and, making it worse, not for the most honorable of reasons. He had taken the cowards way out and scheduled the email to go out an hour after he had left the office, all to avoid the confrontation that was sure to come. The shame, also due to another cowardly act, had him reject her project proposal without even opening the cover page to read it.

He sighed heavily, rubbing his free hand over his face. She haunted him, in his sleep and in his waking hours. He closed his eyes and sighed. He couldn’t count with both hands how many times he’d made love to her in his dreams, and soon he’d be counting over his toes. He swallowed hard, ran the tip of his tongue over his lower lip, pulling it into his mouth and pushing it wetly out with his teeth. The crazy part was, he could taste her on his lips, on his tongue. He could feel her soft heated skin on the palms of his hands. The memory of her body pressed against him made his blood boil with need. Talia McKenna brought out emotions inside him that he had never experienced before. He wanted her – no, needed her like a bad habit he didn’t want to quit, and yet he hadn’t even tasted her. Yet, he hadn’t tasted her yet, and his resistance was beginning to fail like a badly constructed wall, falling one brick at a time in rapid succession.

She was a temptation he just couldn’t afford. He needed to keep a huge distance between them and since the project was the only thing keeping her near him, he decided to cut off that string. Now the management had nothing to force her to spy on him anymore. She had no reason to be around him anymore. On a more personal note, he thought, as downed a large gulp from his whiskey glass, he’d gotten rid of any chance of the two of them getting entwined. He was putting crazy glue between those bricks, the question was, would it hold?

If she hated him, the attraction between them would soon fade. At least on her part he believed. As for him, he would have to leave. He scoffed, run again, from a different woman in a different situation. Unlike Gabriella, Rafe wanted to run to Talia so badly, that want was bound to make him lose control if the situation wasn’t handled. And nothing got a woman more bat shit mad than denying her the one thing she wanted. Now to just let her give up on her own, completely. It wouldn’t be easy, but she was bound to.

He snorted at that. Even he didn’t believe that. Talia didn’t appear to him as the giving up kind. She didn’t retreat if she found the door locked, on the contrary, she would just look for a slightly ajar window. Case and point: the project he’d just killed, the management was using it to get her to do their bidding, and she brought it to his attention with such a subtle, suggestive manner. Smart. He’d asked Enzo to find him a copy. He’d planned to go through it when he’d had the time, but after that wired moment in his office, his curiosity turned into a desperation for sanity. But maybe, he’d only made things worse.

He was willing to bet his entire yacht collection that the moment she finished reading the email, she went in search of him. In fact, she was probably on her way to the yacht to rip him a new one. That made him smile, but it also set him on his feet. He needed to get going before she arrived, guns blazing. It was Friday so he had an entire weekend reprieve; hopefully by the time he returned she would have calmed down some.

Why did her feelings even matter? He wasn’t a heartless bastard, but he never invested much in other people’s feelings. She wasn’t exactly the first woman he’d held such an attraction to, but, unlike the others, it was like being taken hostage by his desires, and quite frankly, he didn’t like the distracting hold it had on him.

Rafe froze when he heard a noise coming from the stern of the yacht. Someone was on the yacht. Surely it couldn’t be her already. His heart banged hard against his ribcage and his feet moved quicker under him, half running down the walkway to get to the stern with veiled excitement.

Once at the stern, his feet stopped moving and his heart dropped. “You’re not her,” he said, disappointment heavy in his voice.

“Sir?” the man in a delivery uniform said, his brows pinched with confusion.

Right, he wasn’t meant to be thinking of her, let alone expecting her. It was the whole point of knocking off work early in his great escape.

What’s wrong with you Rafe! You rejected her project proposal to keep her away from you, remember?

Yes, he did remember, but he wasn’t going to lie and say he wasn’t disappointed. He wanted to see her, he wanted to touch her. He missed her alluring scent, that inviting look in her eyes that she’d had the last time they had been alone together, both fighting and losing to their mutual attraction. He wanted her… he was also half drunk and needed to take a step back from those thoughts.

He bit down hard on his back teeth and said, “What do you want?”

The man jumped back a bit, his face pulling down with surprise. He quickly held up the two bags in his hand and said, “Your delivery.”

Right. He’d ordered food for the weekend.

“Thanks. Put it on the table.” Rafe reached into his cargo shorts pocket and pulled out a hundred dollar bill and handed it over to him. “Keep the change.”

Excited, the delivery man reached for the money. “Thanks sir.”

Before he let go of the money, Rafe said, “Next time, don’t get onto someone’s vessel without their permission. Understood?”

The man nodded vigorously. “Understood.”

Rafe let go of the cash and the delivery man rushed to disembark.

Pissed at himself and his irresolute behavior, Rafe followed him onto the pier, released the mooring rope, got back onto the yacht and ran up the steps to the fly bridge. He needed some air. He needed to get away. The open ocean was what he needed at that very moment.

An hour later, once he was far enough to see nothing but water, Rafe stopped and headed down to the stern to release the mooring buoys. He’d barely got it cast off when a dragging sound caught his attention. A low painful moan followed then quiet indistinct mumbling. Someone was on the yacht!

Alert, he quietly and quickly walked to where the sound came from, the left side walkway. How had someone got on the yacht without him noticing? When had they gotten on?Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

He saw a figure hang over the railing making retching noises. The stowaway was sea sick. The figure slumped even further, but towards the wrong direction. Quickly, Rafe rushed to it and pulled it back before it went overboard. As he held the jelly legged person close to him, he realized then it was a woman. A low moan then a painful groan followed; the heat of her breath burning his chest where her face was pressed against. His heart beat a little faster in hopeful anticipation. Gently, with his arm band around her waist to hold her up against him, his hand at her neck, he pulled her back to look at her face.

Perspiring forehead, eyes tightly clenched shut in discomfort with lips twisted in disgust, he looked down at Talia’s beautiful face and his lips pulled up in unchecked excitement and joy. He’d never been so ecstatic to hold a vomit smelling human being before. An alien feeling of fluttering filled his chest as he watched her struggle in her distressed limbo, completely exhausted from losing the day’s meals. He knew he should be more worried. She was probably dehydrated and in need of some medical attention, but he couldn’t deny that he was happy that she was here with him, in his most favorite spot, doing the one thing he loved most in the world. It was kicking her ass, but she was here, sailing with him.

Careful not to shake her up more than the yacht already had, he lifted her up in his arms and made his way below deck. As he looked at her sickly small figure curled up in his arms, her face burrowing into his shoulder, her hands fisted at his chest, he realized then, the problem wasn’t just his attraction to her. Sleeping with her was an easy fix for that. If he could, he would, and be done with it once and for all. The problem was, he wasn’t sure once would be enough. He wasn’t sure once he took that step, he could ever let go of her at all.