Free Breeze off the Ocean by Joan Hohl

the marina I’ll come back to bed.” His lips touched hers again, lingered, then he was moving across the cabin, out the door.
    Micki closed her eyes tightly, but it was no good; she couldn’t sleep with him gone. Slipping out of the bed, and a moment later out of the cabin, she hurried into the tiny bathroom. She was stepping under the shower spray when she heard the boat’s engine flare into life. Bracing herself with one hand, she washed her body with the other while Wolf backed the boat away from the pier and swung it around. When the craft was relatively steady, she stepped out of the shower stall, grabbed for the towel, probably Wolfs, that hung on a small fitted bar, and rubbed herself down briskly.
    Back in the cabin, she stretched languorously. The tautening of her breasts brought the remembered feel of Wolf’s hands, and her nipples set into diamond-hard points. Oh, Wolf. Just to think his name sent her blood racing through her veins, set her pulses hammering out of control. She couldn’t wait until he’d docked the boat.  She had to see him now.
    Glancing around, she grimaced as her eyes settled on her bikini and beach wrap, lying in an untidy heap where Wolf had tossed them. Shaking her head in rejection of the beachwear, she went to the cabin’s one small closet and rummaged through shirts and jackets— obviously too short to cover the bare necessities—until her hand clutched and withdrew a bright yellow rain slicker. Pulling it on hastily, uncaring how incongruous she looked, she left the cabin, fastening the buckle closings as she went.
    Not once did she pause to ask herself why she was where she was, with a man she knew practically nothing about. Not once did she wonder about how suddenly it had happened. She was there. It had happened. Never before had she felt so tinglingly alive, so totally happy. But she didn’t even pause to think of that. The only thought that filled her mind was that she had to be near him, see him. The whys and how of it would torment her later.
    When she stepped onto the deck she came to an abrupt halt, her hand groping for something solid to steady herself with. An off-white mist lay over everything, muffling sound, obscuring visibility. The deck was beaded and slick with moisture. Placing her bare feet carefully, Micki moved cautiously toward the canopied section that housed the wheel, and the man who stood at that wheel, alert tenseness in every line of his tall, muscular frame.
    She thought her progress was silent, yet the moment she stepped under the canopy, his left arm was extended backward.
    “Come stand by me.” Wolf’s hushed tone blended with the cotton blanket that surrounded the boat.
    Without a word Micki moved to his side, sighed with contentment when his arm closed around her, drew her close to his hard strength.
    “Why didn’t you go back to sleep?” Still the same hushed tone, not scolding, a simple question. He did not look at her, and her eyes following the direction of his intent gaze, she answered as simply.
    “I wanted to be with you.”
    She saw his hand tighten on the wheel at the same instant the muscles in his arm tautened. He slanted her a quick glance and an amused smile curved his firmly etched mouth.
    “I see you’ve made free with my shower and bath soap.” The smile deepened. “Bedecked yourself with the latest yachting creations from Paris also.”
    “But of course,” Micki teased back. “This particular number was labeled MORNING SUNLIGHT THROUGH HEAVY GAUZE CURTAINS. Does my lord approve?”
    Wolf’s soft laughter was an exciting, provocative attack on her senses.
    “But of course,” he mimicked her seriously. “Still, I think I prefer the, er, more basic ensemble you were wearing earlier.”
    Flushed with pleasure, Micki rubbed her warm cheek against his cool, mist-dampened sweat shirt. Misunderstanding her action and the pink glow on her face, he chided her softly.
    “You’re a beautiful woman, babe.” Wolf’s