He’d never before had to bear the burden, the responsibility of taking a woman for the first time. What was she thinking now? Had he hurt her? If he’d known, he would have been gentler; he would have given her time to adjust.
No. That wasn’t true. Had he known, he would have stopped. He didn’t want to be the man to take a woman’s innocence. But even as he thought this, he knew he was lying to himself. He didn’t think the boat capsizing could have stopped him last night. He’d never wanted a woman so badly as he’d wanted her.
But why hadn’t she told him? And how in the hell did a woman get to age twenty-four without ever having sex? Especially a woman as completely sexy as Savvy Mills …
Well, dammit, Ashton wasn’t going to wait long to find out. The more he thought about it, the more upset he became. Was this a game to her? Was she trying to entrap him? What in the world was going on?
While he threw on his captain’s uniform, he grew more and more determined to find Savvy immediately and have a showdown. She was most certainly going to explain herself.
Of course, that wasn’t happening. As soon as he emerged from his suite, there were issues that he had to deal with. One after another of his employees bombarded him with problems. Dammit!
The only thing keeping him from snapping at each and every one of those employees, though, was knowing that Savvy couldn’t run away. He would get a chance very soon to say whatever he needed to say to the woman who had taken his world and flipped it upside down in an incredibly short period of time.
Hours passed and dusk began to settle before Ashton was able to get a real break. It was now time to find Savvy. Now he would get some answers. And he wasn’t going to let this woman hide from him anymore.
As he walked down into the area of the ship where the crew slept, he stopped in his tracks. Because, just like that, another thought hit him, and this one made his legs feel a little bit weak.
If Savvy had been a virgin until last night, and all signs pointed that way, it meant the chances of her being on birth control were slim to none. And for the first time he could remember, he hadn’t used protection.
Chapter Twenty-Three
With the music in her headphones turned up to full volume, Savvy progressed from one room to the next. She was doing basic cleaning up after the passengers, making beds, and turning towels into cute little animals to set on top of the pillows of the privileged people who were taking this cruise. Normally, she wasn’t working nights, but one of the other new girls had developed the flu and Savvy had jumped at the chance to stay busy — and, better yet, to avoid Ashton.
She snuck a few of the chocolates into her mouth while she was occupied with putting most of them into bowls in the passengers’ rooms. A woman had to do what a woman had to do. She was delighted to find a few notes thanking her for such a job well done in the past two days.#p#分页标题#e#
The evening was ending on a more positive note than she’d expected. Sure, the prospect of seeing Ashton again made her nervous as sin. What if he hadn’t enjoyed the sex as much as she had? What if he’d had enough of her after the one night?
That would be tragic. Sure, she was a little sore. The man had woken her up in the middle of the night and taken her on another journey — this one was even more acrobatic — and she’d used muscles that had never been used before.
But the soreness was a price she was more than willing to pay for the amount of pleasure she’d received. If only she weren’t such a chicken. She’d been too afraid of turning to look into his eyes and seeing disappointment, so she’d run before the first rays of Alaskan sunlight could seep into his windows. So much for her decision to conquer her dang fears.
Okay, there was more to it. She also hadn’t wanted her co-workers on the ship to see her doing the walk of shame from the captain’s room. Especially if it was only a one-night stand.
Savvy remembered her college days only too well. Roommates of hers had stumbled into the dorm room, still drunk and sporting the same clothes as they’d had on the night before. Hook-ups seemed to be part of the culture, and the girls had always thought her strange because she had no interest in such things.
But their idea of pleasure hadn’t looked all that pleasant, in her humble opinion. Yes, the girls would go on and on about how this man had a magic tongue, and how this one had a package that would need at least two UPS trucks. But she’d also heard stories of complete disappointment. And Savvy was convinced that with her luck, that’s how it would end up for her. She’d get the boy who jumped right on, got his jollies off, and then ran for the hills.