Thanks for your patience. I had every writer's worst nightmare happen last week. After 2500 words, somehow they all got erased. So, I had to start from scratch on this. The second part of this chapter will post tomorrow. Will be updating the other story, too. Thank you for reading and your comments and votes! I appreciate it so much! xox
"Ruffles, Taylor?" I ask as I talk to him on my Blackberry, standing on deck with Mac while he readies the sails for departure. Anastasia is getting dressed down below, so every time Mac makes the bullshit excuse he has to hit up the little boy's room—or as he calls it in his native tongue, "the bog"—I direct him to some other task. I know his game; he wants to run into Ana down there. Well, he can piss off the side of the boat for all I care, because there's no way I'm allowing him anywhere near Ana in a possible state of undress. All it takes is a turn of the wrong knob, an 'oops, wrong door', and then her naked breasts are seared in his memory forever.
"Did you not like the accoutrements, sir?" Taylor asks. What's he talking about? Her breasts?! Oh wait, the ruffles and kissing seahorse shit.
"Do I seem like a ninety-seven-year-old piano teacher to you?"
He doesn't answer right away, which on some level is troubling.
"You said beige with a feminine touch, sir."
"A touch, Taylor. Not a two-handed chokehold with a kick in the balls." Looking at Mac right now, that sounds like a good idea. "Why wasn't that shit in the picture of the bedding you sent me?"
"I believe it was, Mr. Grey."
I look at my Blackberry to find the photo.
"Where? I don't see anything," I say, examining the shot that was taken at the oddest angle possible. What, was he lying down with his knees over his head and drinking from a flask while snapping it?
"Top left area, sir." He knows this from memory? Odd, but impressive.
I look closer.
"I didn't know that was a ruffle; I thought the sheet was just wadded up against the pillow."
"Mr. Grey," Mac says, rolling up his sleeves and flashing his bulging bis and tris, showcasing the effects of his hoisting abilities—for Ana, no doubt.
"What is it?" I ask.
"This one is done, so I'll just hit the bog—"
"Finish the next one first!" I say in my GEH don't-fuck-with-me-or-I'll-have-your-dick-on-a-platter-and-you'll-never-use-the-bog-again big meeting voice. He wisely does as he's told. Fucker. I'm going to have Welch look into his possible illegal steroid use. The only comfort in that is that it shrinks your nuts up.
"Mrs. Adelaide assured me they were masculine, and pleased the ladies," Taylor says.
"What did?" Mac's balls?!
"The beige frill, sir." Oh.
"Who the hell is Mrs. Adelaide?" Did he really buy them off a ninety-seven-year-old piano teacher?
"The sales manager at the downtown Pottery Barn, Mr. Grey. She was quite proficient with the palate and quality of cottons."
Why the hell is Taylor so influenced by sales ladies these days? Hell, that woman over at the Neiman's beauty counter sold him so many berry lipsticks, I'm surprised she didn't hook him into buying a pot of dirt with a beanstalk and the promise of a giant, too.
"Did she also advise you on the bowls of wooden fruit?" I found three more lying about. When I saw a canister of popcorn in the entertainment cabin I had to do an FBI level investigation before I ate a piece to make sure it wasn't really buttered bark. It tasted like it was, but it wasn't.
"Didn't Miss Steele like everything, Mr. Grey?"
Fuck. He's got me there.
"No, she surprisingly loved it," I mutter. I can almost hear him smiling on the other end. With Taylor that looks more like satisfaction after passing gas than glee, but it's definitely happening right now. "She said it was vagrant couture or something."
"Shabby chic, sir?"
"That's the one."
"Oh good, that's what we were going for!"
I momentarily wonder if I should alert Gail to the fact her boyfriend is so excited about picking out bedding with another woman, but then again he nearly pisses himself happy by picking out spark plugs with any greaser he meets at the auto parts store. Such eclectic tastes, that one.
"Just alert me next time you want to make those sort of purchases on my behalf."
"Of course, Mr. Grey."
"Any news on Leila?" I assume he would've told me if something earth shattering happened before we got into our frilly poor décor discussion, but I question anyway. All this waiting is making me uneasy. Where the fuck is Welch with the updates, anyway? He's probably still licking my white truffle pasta off his sleeves.
"Nothing breaking. But, upon further examination she was seen on surveillance footage using the fire escape," Taylor says.
"Really? Thirty stories up?" I ask and he confirms. "Like you thought, Taylor." Leila was always quite the acrobat, but this is beyond. If she'll scale a thirty story building, what the hell else will she do? I shudder to think.
"The apartment has been swept so you and Miss Steele can return when you want."
"Are you sure it's safe?"
"There is no trace of her, sir."
"There wasn't last time either, but she somehow popped out of the cereal boxes and stood over Ana while she slept!" I close my eyes, the pain too great just thinking about that moment again. I should have been there to protect her. I failed her.
"I assure you, every precaution has been taken, sir."
"Well, that better be true." I clench my fists and grind my jaw. "Miss Steele's safety is our top priority. If anything happens to her—"
"On my life, Mr. Grey," he says with sincerity and quiet resolve, and I know that he means it.
"Good." I look around to make sure Mac isn't listening in. He's still working with the spinney and concentrating on holding his piss in and his pecks out. "Did you get everything from the hotel?" I whisper.
"Yes, sir. I put the bathrobes and edible massage butters in your bedroom, along with all of Miss Steele's things." The fact that he was fingering edible butters while unpacking Ana's panties doesn't make me happy, but the fact that she's all moved in with me there overrides it. Now, let's see if she goes along with it all.
"Excellent. We'll head back now, have a bite to eat, and then return to the apartment tonight."
"Very well, sir."
"And Taylor..."
"Yes, Mr. Grey?"
"Maybe you could casually put a few bowls of those apples around Escala," I whisper.
"Of course, Mr. Grey." He's definitely smiling now. Then again, so am I.
I hang up to find three missed calls from Elena and a text message that reads: Don't pout. Call me. Let me take you to lunch tomorrow and we'll figure things out together.
Why is this woman constantly bothering me? And what the hell is there to figure out? Don't fuck with Ana. Period. No discussion. She's a mother hen, I know this, and the text is nothing unexpected coming from her. But, there's an uneasy feeling in the pit of my gut about that last word—together.
"So, are you going to let me drive back?" Ana asks, startling me from behind. I put my phone in my pocket and turn to her. Sunshine. That's what she is.
"Under my tutelage," I say, beaming from her rays.
"I like being under your tutelage." She grins and raises a seductive little brow.
"Do you now, Miss Steele?" I rest my hands on her hips. "I certainly enjoyed being over you this afternoon." Sliding my fingers to the small of her back, I wrap my arms around her and pull her closer. "And under you, and beside you, and behind you..." I reach down and stroke her ass. "Definitely behind you." Lord, how I want to claim this.
"Would you stop," she blushes and nods toward Mac, who suddenly has no interest in the sails or pissing since Ana's tight-jeaned ass arrived up on deck. I palm each cheek, so he can't eye the rear view clearly and his last memory of it will be covered by my paws.
"Don't you have a bog to hit?" I say to him and he jumps down from his perch and dramatically heads down below, flexing his muscles all the way. I was right, he is a cowabunga Thor.
"It's lovely out," Ana says as she crosses to the side of the boat and leans over, smelling the sea air as the wind whips through her locks. She is a siren.
"There's a storm brewing," I say, wrapping my arms around her from behind, partly because I fear she may fall overboard, but mostly because I just want to hold her there. Did I really just say 'brewing'?
"Yes, but we can enjoy right now."
"And I am, Miss Steele." I brush the hair from her neck and kiss her there.
"What do you love about the sea?" she asks, and I nuzzle my cheek against hers as we look out onto the great unknown waters together that somehow, in this moment, are known only by the two of us. There's that word again—together. I again feel it in my gut, but this time it's butterflies.
"It's always been somewhere I could escape to. I could have quiet out here."
"You liked to be alone."
"Needed to be alone is more like it. It's the only way I could wrap my head around things. Find some sense of peace."
"But, you're not alone today," she says, turning her face up to me.
"No, I'm not." I smile and then kiss her hair, finding more peace and quiet and calm in this moment than I ever did alone.
As we look out onto the water I take pause, realizing that the ocean will never be the same for me again. My connection to it was perhaps my strongest and deepest relationship. There was a trust and an honesty and a long held bond that I had with nothing and no one else—until I had Ana.
I will no longer come here for days in silence, of that I'm sure. I will no longer find solace in the hours spent in solitary without the threat of human touch. There will be no quiet brought to my mind, because if Ana's not with me, my thoughts will always be with Ana. Maybe that's the truest meaning of together—Though apart, unbroken.
No, I will never have what I had with the sea again, so I close my eyes and bid her a silent farewell. And as her choppy waters splash against the side of the boat, her mist spraying us and causing Ana to giggle, I am sure of one thing—she's glad to see me go.
#######
"Sheepshank," I say as I demonstrate tying the knot for her up on deck. "It is a favorite of mine." I wink. Ana's a quick study. She tied a clove hitch a few minutes ago like it was her bitch. Well, I finally found one thing she and Elena have in common.
"Is it Mr. Grey?" She raises a brow as she takes the rope from me, and begins to replicate the tie with relative ease. It's such a fucking turn-on to see her long fingers move so fast.
"You sure you weren't a Girl Scout?" I ask, and she shakes her head and laughs.
"Are you sure you want to teach me all these knots?" She finishes tying the shank the fuck out of the sheep and hands it back to me. Damn, she's so good with rope tricks she could enter a rodeo. And then, of course, my thoughts drift to her tits bouncing up and down as she rides a bucking bull completely naked, her thighs wrapped tightly around it—all for my eyes only! Even in my fantasies of Ana I get jealous. "I may tie you up one day." She smirks.
"Oh, you'd have to catch me first." I give her a wicked grin, and while I'm still fantasizing about Rodeo Ana, when her face falls, immediately so does mine. Bad joke, Grey! Now, she's thinking of the night you chased her, and punished her—and she left.
"Come, Ana," I say in an effort to change the subject, and then take her hand quickly, leading her toward the bow.
"Aren't we going in the wrong direction for that?" She motions to where the bedroom is and smirks.
"Behave, Miss Steele," I tease. She sticks her lip out and gives me a pouty face in return. A face that if made to the old me would be punishable, but that the new me finds utterly adorable and will probably reward. "You are insatiable, you know that."
"For you," she says and she stops me in my tracks, my heart dropping into my belly, caught and cradled by the wings of those newly ever-present butterflies. Me. She wants me. She knows me better than anyone and she still says this. It blows my fucking mind.
But, she doesn't know everything, Grey.
Before I can dwell on that thought, I pull her close and hold her face with both my hands.
"Damn right, only me," I say and I bring my mouth to her just parted lips. The kiss is slow and tender at first, but soon I'm pouring everything I'm feeling right now into the connection of our skin and our lips and our tongues—into us. And though the fear I have of loving her and ever losing her is weighty, those butterflies still have me floating. And there is nothing in this moment but me and her and a thousand fluttering wings.
We're both breathless when I pull back and it takes a moment to return to planet earth, not that I'm sure I ever really have since first setting eyes on her, or that I ever really will. And I'd like nothing more than to float above existence with her forever. I brush her kiss swollen lips with my thumb and tuck her hair behind her ear, and then just stare at her. Not at all lost in this moment, but in awe of something truly found.
"What is it?" she asks, as I continue to gaze into her eyes. Their spell cast just five short and forever weeks ago only grows more potent. It's magic enough to make me believe that maybe I could have a future of more dreams than nightmares. "What are you looking at?"
"Everything," I say, and I smile. No truer word could ever be spoken, except maybe more. And she gave me that, too.
"Now, let's drive this ship home," I say, and lean in to kiss her forehead. "Together."
#######
"Aren't your hands supposed to be on mine?" she asks, gripping the wheel as she's seated back between my legs in the captain's chair.
"Oh, they are definitely on mine," I say, running my fingers up and down her hips and thighs. "All mine."
"Behave, Mr. Grey," she imitates me from before. Mockery—another punishable offense I'm finding completely irresistible. It's fun to tease each other. Who knew? Speaking of teasing, on my way to the wheel my fingers accidentally on purpose brush over her sex, which causes her to inhale sharply and twist against my groin, causing me to inhale sharply and have to adjust it. Damn. I can't even tease her without getting cock teased right back.
We're heading home now. This would historically be a low point in the evening—going back to reality— but home feels good with her. As long as I can keep her safe from Leila. We have to find her and get her help and then... and then,...and then, what?
Another terrible thought crosses my mind. When Leila is no longer a threat, Ana won't have to stay with me anymore. Ana will go back to her apartment and her life and her job and her own little bed. We'll spend nights together, sure, but not always. My bed won't be hers, it'll just be mine. I'm constantly tortured by the thought of Ana in someone else's bed, I just never knew how painful it would be when that bed was simply her own.
"I think the water is talking to us," she says as it sputters and sprays. Should I say it's telling her to move in with me, right now? No, that would sound bizarre and she might react badly, especially with everything that's going on. I can't risk that. I definitely can't tell her about the house, yet. But then again, we just made love in our honeymoon suite this morning! I mean, doesn't that legally count for anything? Hell, I'm so confused. I have to talk to Flynn about all this. And Legal about common-law marriage stipulations.
"What do you think it's saying?" I ask.
"I'm not sure, but it's beautiful."
"There is poetry of sailing as old as the world," I whisper in her ear, inhaling the scent that is salt water and sea air and my Ana.
"That sounds like a quote," she says, dipping her head back against me and looking up.
"It is; The Little Prince." I lean down and kiss the top of her nose. It's been kissed pink by the sun.
"I love that book!" she says.
"So do I."
"Really?" She turns in my lap to eyeball me.
"Don't look so surprised; even heartless megalomaniacs can appreciate a story about a boy who takes care of his precious rose."
"Yes, I love that part, especially." She smiles, kisses my cheek softly, and then turns and looks out onto the water again; my fingers wrapping over hers on the wheel once more.
As I steer us toward the marina and the lights and the city, the sun begins to dip behind the water. Hues of marigold and magenta and fire-born red are painted in broad and bold strokes across an amber lit horizon. The sun certainly doesn't go without a show, but it still always goes. And it's a harsh reminder that while there is a time of celebration when the sky is alive with color, darkness always comes and finds it.
"What makes the desert beautiful..." Ana says, cutting through the mire of my thoughts. Wait, I remember that part from the book.
"...what makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well," I say.
"Yes, Mr. Grey. It does." And with that, she rests her head back, directly atop my heart.
Next part coming tomorrow...