Free Rock the Boat: A Griffin Bay Novel by Lib Starling Page B

shackle himself to the bar’s front door until it finally opened. The brief moment of silence they’d shared just before breakfast seemed unbearable to him—he was jittery and shaken up now, bouncing on the balls of his feet and absent-mindedly butting both his fists together in a way that made the well-defined muscles in his arms jump—and held Jordan’s attention in an uncomfortable way.
    Davis gave her a look of open disbelief.
    “Not enough room in the tender, once they get the bag of laundry in there,” Jordan said casually.
    Davis eyed the little motor boat with a cynical frown. “There’s plenty of room. There would have to be, anyway. The Coriolis is huge—it can carry a lot more than just the four of us. Isn’t there some kind of law that you have to fit all your passengers into…” he made a helpless, juggling gesture as he searched for the right word. “Emergency backup boats?”
    Davis had her there. The tender was certainly big enough to carry him to shore. She tried another tack. “Well, I’m the captain and that means I’m the boss of the ship. I say who stays and who goes.”
    Davis tried another tack. He stepped close to Jordan, smiling. He folded his arms tight across his muscular chest as he stared down into her eyes. His grin infuriated her with its smugness. “Well, I’m the paying customer. It’s my money that’s funding this trip.”
    Jordan swallowed hard, and this time she didn’t even try to hide it from Davis. He was going to notice anyway, no matter what she did. The man was hyper-attuned to the effect of his own sex appeal. And he loved the way he put Jordan off balance—she could tell that from his smile.
    Why did she want him to stay? It had to be more than just the threat of the bar. Jordan told herself it was the mystery of that brief flash of vulnerability she’d seen in his eyes. She wanted a chance to figure him out—that was all. If she could piece together his puzzle, find out what made him tick, what made him such an oblivious, self-absorbed prick… then she could get through the next six days without going crazy.
    But as Davis stepped closer to her, her skin began to tingle, and the tingle settled to a hot, throbbing glow in her chest. The heat of it spread downward until she was pulsing with excitement low in her stomach, and then lower still…
    Just how much had Davis noticed Jordan checking him out? Despite her efforts to conceal it, he seemed to read her attraction to him as easily as Jordan read a nautical chart. Did he see anything else, besides her improbable, infuriating desire?
    Did he know already that she’d never had great sex—that her singular, early focus on her career had kept her landlocked well away from the dating pool? Could he tell that she compared him in her imagination to what little experience she’d already had? …Or that she wondered what he’d look like naked, what it would feel like if he held her close to his strong, bare chest and reached down to part her legs with his hand, and pressed his…
    No! She turned away from him in a fury and climbed out of the cockpit, up to the rear mast. With some distance between them she could breathe again, command her thoughts, focus. This was her boat—and Sea Wolf Charters was still her business. She would not get involved with a client. She would never do anything so supremely stupid.
    She couldn’t , she told herself comfortably, confidently. Such idiocy— delicious, tempting idiocy —was far too spontaneous for Jordan. It wasn’t in her character to act on these meaningless impulses.
    She latched onto the words Davis had spoken, clinging as if they were a life ring in a rough sea. “You’re not paying for this trip, Mr. Steen. Your record label is paying. And your manager told me what he expects: peace and quiet for you. That’s what I’m being paid for—not to sail you around and do your bidding, but to see that you relax . And by God, I’m going to do it.”
    Davis turned