It took him a moment to find his balance. To remember how the hell to sail a boat.
She was obviously the same because she caught the wheel to steady herself and then looked at him, her eyes dazed, strands of hair over her eyes. “What are you doing? Why the hell did you just do that?”
It was a good question.
It took all his effort to produce an answer that wasn’t going to scare her senseless. “I thought I’d remind you how I kiss so that next time they ask you, you’ll be able to answer.”
Yeah, right.
“I didn’t need you to do that! It wasn’t fair of you to do that.” She touched her fingers to her mouth, as if she could still feel his kiss.
He could feel it, too. He felt it on his lips, in his bones and in his heart.
“Maybe I don’t always play fair.” He held her gaze for a moment and then turned his attention back to the harbor in the distance. “Maybe I’m not the good boy you always thought I was.”
“What are you saying? That you want to have another wild affair? Another hot, sizzling summer in the Hamptons, is that it? Live in the present.”
He adjusted the heading of the boat. “No. That’s not what I want.” This time he wanted more than the present. He wanted a future. “Sex changes everything. It’s what we did last time. I don’t want this to be like last time.”
“This? There isn’t a ‘this,’ Seth. There is no ‘this.’”
“No?” Keeping one hand on the wheel, he used the other to tug her close. He held her there for a moment, eye to eye, mouth to mouth. “Let’s be clear about one thing. I didn’t stop because I was afraid of being hurt again. I stopped because this time around I don’t want sex to be the focus.” He released her quickly and turned his attention back to the boat, careful to stay within the deep-water channel passing west of Cedar Point.
Sag Harbor was crowded, and he needed all his concentration to navigate back to the yacht club.
He wished he hadn’t started a conversation he couldn’t finish.
His timing, as always, was less than perfect.
Or maybe with Fliss there was never going to be a perfect time. And maybe if he waited for that moment, he might miss it altogether and lose.
He’d lost her once. He had no intention of losing her again.
Mindful of wind and tide, he sailed into the yacht club, rigged the lines and fenders for docking and backed into a slip.
Fliss still hadn’t spoken a word.
Lulu, tail wagging, sprang onto the pontoon and waited expectantly.
Still Fliss didn’t move.
“What did you mean—” her voice sounded croaky, as if she was recovering from the flu “—you don’t want sex to be the focus?”
“I still have feelings for you, Fliss. I want to find out what those feelings are.” He hadn’t intended to say it. The yacht club was busy, and not only were they in public but it was too soon, much too soon, to say what he wanted to say. But now the words were out and there was no taking them back.
She opened her mouth and closed it again, so he figured he might as well keep talking.
“The sex was always the good part, but it clouded everything else. It stopped us being close.”
“We were—”
“I don’t mean close in that way. I mean close in other ways. The ways that glue a couple together and hold them there when something tries to pull them apart. An important part of that is talking. Confiding. You never did much of that. On a good day you gave me access to maybe ten percent of what was going on in your head. This time around I’d like the ninety, and you can hang on to the ten.”
He saw her throat move as she swallowed.
“This is crazy. Us getting involved again after everything that happened? Crazy.”
And not being involved was driving him crazy.