Dahlia sighed loudly and tapped her fingers on the bottom of the boat. “You have three distinct thought patterns. Violence, food, and sex. Not necessarily in that order. And why your sexual energy would be a million times greater than violent energy, only a therapist could tell you.”
There was more than a little humor in her voice, allowing some of the tension to ease out of him. “Don’t you think that’s a good thing?”
“I think you’re seriously disturbed. Don’t you ever just want to curl up in bed and go to sleep?”
“I thought you were action oriented,” he teased.
“I thought you were sane.”
But she was looking at him. He could feel her gaze moving over his body, a silken sweep that left him as hard as a rock. The boat chugged lazily through the canals, carrying them through a grove of trees. The branches swept the surface, long dangling arms of green to brush across his shoulders. Moonlight spilled onto the water, a silver ball shimmering in the depths.
“I love it out here. Does that make me sane?”
“Yes.” There was pleasure in her voice. Warmth. She yawned. “I wish I had more clothes. I’m tired of being wet and muddy.”
“I was trying to get you to the point you didn’t think clothes were strictly necessary.”
She laughed softly and drew her knees up to her chin. “Really? And how long have you been planning on getting me naked?”
“Since I caught a glimpse of your bare bottom. The image is there, Dahlia, forever in my mind, and weak man that I am, it isn’t going away. You didn’t help matters when you unbuttoned your blouse either.”
“How very reassuring. Are you about to start fixating on my breasts again?”
He closed his eyes and savored the memory of the sun shining through her wet shirt. “You’re incredibly beautiful, Dahlia.”
She was silent, watching him closely. Feeling for his emotions. Checking to see if he was sincere. “Thank you. That’s a nice thing for you to say.” She rubbed her chin on top of her knees. “Mostly I’ve been told I look like a witch. Too-big eyes, too much hair. Too small, too everything. No one ever used the word beautiful before.”
“Incredibly beautiful,” he qualified. “Get it right Dahlia.” He consulted his map again and turned without hesitation into another branch of the waterway. “We’re almost there. And I love your eyes.” He was particularly smitten with the small expanse of skin around her midriff and her intriguing belly button.
Dahlia wasn’t about to tell him what she found attractive about him. He was already far too arrogant and sure of himself. He didn’t need to be told she could barely contain her own sexual energy. She loved the way he felt around her. She’d never had anyone want her the way he did. She could feel the energy pouring off of him, reaching out to swamp her, to raise her own temperature several degrees.
She rubbed her chin back and forth across her knees, her body feeling too full and heavy and tight in her skin. It shocked her how sensitive her breasts were, rubbing against the material of her shirt and aching with need.
“You feel it too, don’t you?” he asked.
“I feel what you’re fantasizing,” she admitted.
“Other men must have had sexual fantasies when they were around you. What about Calhoun? Come on, Dahlia, is this really a first?”
“Yes. And I don’t like it. It makes me moody and uncomfortable and edgy. I feel like scratching your eyes out for making me feel this way. And that sets up violent energy and that sets up heat and eventually something—or someone—gets burned.”
She did sound edgy. He shouldn’t have been pleased, but he was. He could make her feel all those things when no one else had. “Well, at least life with me isn’t boring.”
She smiled just like he knew she would. She didn’t want to, and she hid it against her knees, but he caught the brief flash of her teeth and the curve of her mouth. “I should have told you I love your mouth. Every time I look at your mouth I want to kiss you.”