Men On Fire. Susan Lyons

his tone was teasing, not accusatory, I felt guilty. “I’m sorry. I was wrong about that. Wrong about a lot of things.”

      “Got that right. But it’s okay. I don’t hold a grudge.”

      “So, was this afternoon worse than the opera or salsa lessons with a foot-stomper?”

      “Nope. Meeting Timothy was good. The other folks were mostly nice. Interesting. The only bad part was being with you.”

      “What?” I glared at him.

      “Wanting you, and not being able to have you. Drove me crazy.” He squeezed my thigh.

      The heat in his voice gave me sexy shivers. “Me too.”

      He pointed ahead. “Turn left at the next light.” We took a left, a right, another left, heading into the False Creek area and closer to the ocean. Did he own or rent? Would his place be tidy or a mess? Comfortable or a black leather “bachelor pad,” to use one of Mom’s old-fashioned expressions? I imagined all the possibilities.

      Or at least, I thought I had. What I hadn’t imagined was walking toward the locked gate of a marina. I remembered Quinn saying he liked to sail. “You have a boat?” When he’d invited me to his place, he’d meant his sailboat, not his home. Foolishly, I felt a little hurt.

      Holding my hand, he guided me down a steep nonskid ramp and along wooden fingers of dock. We passed sailboats and power boats of all description, some hardly more than ten feet long, others large enough to live on comfortably.

      He paused beside one of the latter, an immaculate sailboat with gleaming white paint, glossy wood trim, and navy sail covers. Then I saw the name on the side: Padraig O’Malley. “Quinn! This is yours?” He’d named the boat after his brother.

      “Used to belong to my gramps, the surgeon. I lived with him after the fire. He had a house in Kerrisdale and this boat. Patrick and I had done a lot of sailing with him, and Gramps and I decided to change the boat’s name so, you know…”

      So in a sense Patrick would still be with them. I nodded.

      “When Gramps hit seventy-five, he sold me the boat. He’s in his eighties now and we still go out sailing together regularly.”

      I thought about the 15-year-old boy who’d lost his parents and brother going to live with his grandfather. An old man and a young man. It must’ve been a challenge for both of them. How wonderful that they were still close.

      This was so strange. We’d come here because we were both lust driven, aching for sex. Yet, the drive, the walk along the docks, the thoughts of his family had changed my perspective. It wasn’t that I wanted him any less—God, maybe more—but it wasn’t so much that “take me” need as something…Less immediate? More complex?

      “Come aboard.” With a flourish, Quinn offered me an arm and I stepped up to the deck.

      He unlocked the wooden door to the cabin and I saw narrow ladderlike steps. When I started down, he said, “Go backward. Let me guess. You don’t spend much time on boats.”

      “Only the BC ferries to Victoria or Nanaimo. I’ve never known anyone who had a boat.”

      At the bottom of the ladder, I turned and gazed in wonder at the little kitchen, dinette, comfortable couch, TV and sound system. “Oh my gosh, this is amazing.” It was an adult dollhouse, though big tough Quinn probably wouldn’t appreciate me saying so. The place was neat and clean, but with a lived-in look: a thriller open and facedown on the table, a CD case by the player, a jar of peanuts on the kitchen counter.

      “Thanks. I like sailing, so I figure, why not have a comfortable boat and live on her. And being on the ocean’s good for getting the scent of fire out of my nostrils.”

      My gosh, he lived here. He really had taken me to his home. “That makes sense.” I wondered, too, if having his family’s home burn down had made him wary of owning another. “But don’t you get claustrophobic?” Though the boat must be forty feet long, that was nowhere near as spacious as an apartment, and Quinn was a big man.

      “Nah. When I’m inside, it’s cozy. Or I’ll be out sailing, or working on something on deck. On a boat, especially a wooden one, there’s always work to do. Or I go biking, windsurfing, hiking.” He opened the small fridge. “You’ve been a teetotaler all afternoon. Want a glass of wine? Beer?”

      “White wine if you have it.” Half an hour ago, all I’d had on my mind was sex. Now, he’d given me so much more to intrigue me. I knew, from the still-present simmer of sexual awareness between us, that we’d end up in bed, but right now, getting to know him and his home was a kind of seductive foreplay. “Can I explore?”

      “Help yourself.”

      I accepted his invitation, aware of the boat moving gently, a reminder that below us, around us, was water, not dry land. It wasn’t unpleasant, just different. I discovered a cute little bathroom with a shower, and a V-shaped front cabin that was mostly bed. A bed big enough for the two of us, though there wasn’t much head room. “Is this where you sleep?”

      “No, I’m in the aft cabin.”

      “Aft?”

      “Back. The master cabin. Though I use the V-berth when Gramps is on the boat. If things work out with Timothy, he’ll get the V-berth when we go out.”

      “You’d take that boy sailing? Quinn, it’s too dangerous.”

      “I’ll make sure he wears a life vest, learns the rules. Jade, I grew up on this boat.”

      “Be sure you check with his mom first.”

      “’Course I will. I’ll take her out, too, so she sees what’s involved.”

      A twinge of jealousy made me hope Timothy’s mom was plain and boring, and wouldn’t be staying overnight on the Padraig O’Malley.

      I walked from the front cabin to the aft one, fewer than ten steps, and opened the door. The room consisted mostly of a queen-size bed, along with built-in wooden cupboards and drawers. The ceiling was low but higher than Quinn’s head.

      The whole boat was adorable yet somehow very masculine. I grinned at him as he handed me a chunky, blue-banded wineglass that looked Mexican. “Your boat is gorgeous. And suspiciously tidy. You knew I’d come back with you.”

      “Let’s say hoped.” His dimple winked. “But it’s always pretty tidy. Small space like this, you have to keep things shipshape.” He raised a can of Coke and tapped it against my glass. “Glad you’re here.”

      “Me too.” I took a sip of crisp white wine. “Aren’t you drinking?”

      “I’m on shift tonight at eight.”

      A couple hours from now. We wouldn’t spend the evening together. Just as well. This interlude was threatening to slip the confines of box number three, the sexy box, and I really should refocus on my priorities. Later. After we had sex.

      His dark eyes smoldered as he studied my face, igniting sparks of arousal. He stroked my hair, then tugged out the pins that secured it. “Great hair. I wanted to do this all afternoon.”

      I shook my head so my hair tumbled over my shoulders. “It was hard to focus on business. All I wanted was to touch you. And feel you touch me.”

      “Then let’s get naked. Now.”

      “Naked would be very good.”

      He ushered me into the back bedroom. “Not as big as yours, but it’ll serve the purpose.” Small windows let in bright drifts of sunshine that fell across the navy duvet, and one was open to a soft sea breeze. He pulled a cord and mini-blinds clattered down over the window on the dock side of the boat.

      Without further ado, he unbuttoned my top, unzipped my pants, and stripped both garments off me. Today’s undies were white, a lacy thong and demi-bra. His lips curved. “Hmm,