Her Baby's Father. Katherine Garbera

An attractive woman in his arms, the sea beneath his bare feet, the sun all around him. Another fantasy come to life, thanks to this woman.

      “This is great,” she said after a few minutes.

      He smiled to himself. Finally, the tension eased out of his spine.

      After thirty minutes she surrendered the wheel and he piloted them slowly back to the marina. Sabrina hovered next to him while he steered and docked the boat.

      She perched nervously on the pilot’s chair and removed her sunglasses. She played with the stems. He wondered what was going on in her pretty head.

      “I felt like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic,” she said.

      Weary but game, he asked, “As if you were going to sink?”

      She laughed and he felt better for having amused her. She’d come a long way from the crying woman he’d brought to his sailboat. “No—as if I’m ‘king of the world’.”

      Reese understood completely. There was something about being out in the elements. On the part of the earth that wasn’t readily habitable by man and surviving. He loved his boat, had wanted to live on it forever, but none of the women in his life had ever wanted to.

      “Is that how you feel?”

      “Sometimes,” he said.

      “Why do you guard every answer?”

      “Why do you ask probing questions?”

      “I’m telling you the intimate details of my life.”

      “In return for compensation.”

      She looked out over the bay. The sun was setting and the breeze was cooler now. She shivered a little, but he suspected it wasn’t from the wind. “I feel cheap.”

      Stay back, he warned himself. Stay away from her. Don’t touch.

      Yet he moved toward her, anyway. Rubbing her arms with his hands and felt her fragility beneath his grip. He could crush her. How would she ever be able to protect the child she wanted?

      “There is nothing cheap about you.”

      “I’m selling myself for a child.”

      “You’re not. You’re sharing yourself with the world for a chance at your dream come true.”

      She looked up at him, eyes wide, mouth trembling—and he couldn’t stop himself. He bent to her, touching her lips lightly with his own. She tasted even better than he’d thought she would. He plunged his fingers into her hair and tilted her head for better access, then took her mouth completely.

      Reese blocked out the sun and the sea and the painful memories she’d dredged up. His mouth on hers was sweeter than her first taste of champagne at sixteen and more forbidden. But she longed for more.

      His tongue thrust past her lips and teeth and probed the depths of her mouth. Sabrina had never in her life been so thoroughly kissed. She held tightly to his shoulders, covered by his shirt.

      She remembered his back and those faded scars. His flesh not movie-star perfect but well-defined—real. Much like the man, a man with facets to be explored. She wanted to touch his skin. To caress each imperfection because it made him seem more human.

      Sliding her hands down his back, she slipped them under his shirt. He was warmer than she’d have guessed. So warm. The little notch at the small of his back invited her touch and she fingered him gently. Letting her touch expand slowly, she sought out and soothed each brutalized piece of skin. Each part of his back that had been hurt seemingly long ago. She wondered how he’d been injured.

      She knew he didn’t want to discuss his past. She would have to have been an idiot not to notice the way he kept the conversation away from himself and solely on her, despite his promises that they’d be friends this afternoon and forget about the article. He couldn’t forget. It was his job, she reminded herself.

      While his mouth moved on hers, she knew it was more than a job to him. Desire pumped through her body. Her blood pooled at her center and her skin felt so sensitized, the slightest touch from Reese sent shock waves through her.

      He pulled her closer. At last, she thought. He held her body flush to his and she reveled in it. In the firm, muscled flesh that cradled her softer curves. He was man and she was woman, and on this boat in this time they were the only two in the world.

      It had been a long time since Sabrina had stood breast to chest with a man while he kissed her senseless. Too long. She wanted more.

      He nibbled little kisses from her mouth to her neck and bit her gently there. Sabrina let herself go. Let herself experience Reese Howard as she’d longed to from the very first moment she saw him.

      Weaving her fingers into his hair, she held him to her neck. Felt his own fingers slide under her shirt, then slowly up the front of her body. Feathering a caress along her midriff, then higher, fondling her breasts through the thin layer of her bra. The functional plain white cotton bra that she’d be embarrassed for him to see.

      Oh, God, his touch felt so right, so perfect. She wanted more, she needed more. She needed it now.

      She leaned into him, and his touch intensified. She slid her hands around to his chest. Rubbing his hard stomach and following the trail of hair that narrowed down his body, disappearing beneath his waistband.

      She felt his arousal press the juncture of her thighs and rubbed her body against his. Luxuriating in being woman to his man. In being the elemental answer to his quest. In being the fulfillment of his base needs.

      The boat rocked, jarring them apart. Reese grabbed her shoulders to steady her. But Sabrina didn’t want him to let go. Her blood was pounding so hard she felt like her heart would leap from her breast.

      “That went further than I’d planned,” he said, rubbing his hand across his face and through his hair.

      She couldn’t focus. She could only stare at his mouth. His full, sensual mouth, which she wanted back on her own. Now, she thought.

      “It did?” she asked. Her voice was low and raspy, sounding weird to her own ears.

      He nodded.

      Sabrina thought maybe he was playing with her but realized that their situation was delicate. He could only make the first move for so long. He could only be the aggressor for so long before she’d have to make a decision.

      “I…”

      “It’s okay. I know it went too far.”

      He gathered up her things and led her to the side of the boat. Sabrina stared at the lonely empty slip next to his—a vacant space waiting to be filled. She thought about her life. About her cold, lonely apartment with its sparse furniture. She remembered her childhood home. The pictures and antique furniture. The Irish linens her mother had collected and her father’s classic cars. Her family had had more than the emptiness that plagued her. Her parents had shared intimacy, a life, everything.

      And this was her last chance.

      After she had the child, she wouldn’t be able to have a man in her life. Wouldn’t be able to make love to a man, sleep with him through the night and wake up to make love again. She’d been celibate a long, long time and that choice had been a smart one.

      A girl doesn’t forget having to make a tough decision at a young age or the circumstances that led to that decision. But she was a woman now. With a woman’s needs and a woman’s desires.

      She looked into Reese’s eyes. Into his darker-than-midnight eyes that made her breath catch in her throat. Into his dark gaze that peeled away layers she’d never let anyone reveal—and she made her decision. Tonight she would be woman to his man.

      “Reese?”

      “Yes?”

      “I don’t want to go. I don’t think our embrace went far enough.”

      In