“Of course I enjoyed it. Yes! I enjoyed it so much, Savannah, that I can’t get enough of you. But I could have made it better for you, been more gentle.”
She didn’t reply for several moments, but he gave her the time she needed. Thank goodness for small miracles.
“Would you have still wanted me if you had known I was inexperienced?” she finally asked.
“Yes, I would have still wanted you,” he said. “But I don’t know if I would have pushed it,” he said, before his cheeks glowed a bit at that unfortunate choice of words. “I mean, I most likely wouldn’t have pursued you in the first place. I mean — a virgin!” His hands went in the air as he paced in front of her.
She still didn’t know how she was supposed to react to this, but her temper seemed to be right there to save her.#p#分页标题#e#
“Well, then, it was a good thing I didn’t tell you, because I can’t imagine how you could have possibly made it any better. I’ve heard a lot of stories of it being painful and horrible, but there was nothing horrible about that. It was spectacular,” she said. “And now you’re ruining it for me. That’s pure crap!”
He stopped his pacing and sent her a withering look. But she wasn’t afraid anymore. She was just ticked off.
“You are the one who chased after me, Mr. Storm. You are the one who demanded that I have dinner with the captain. You are the one who took my clothes off. Don’t you dare stand there now and act like this is all on me,” she thundered, beyond caring if anyone happened down the hallway.
At her words, some of his anger seemed to drain away, but she didn’t care about that either. She was now pissed off all the way around.
“And what about protection, Savvy? I’m going to assume you aren’t on any,” he said, but his tone was a lot less intimidating.
Wow. She hadn’t even thought once about that. Stupid or what? She did some quick math in her head and blew out a relieved breath. “Don’t worry, Ashton, I don’t want kids, and believe me, I stand firm on that.”
“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that it’s not the right time of the month for me to get pregnant,” she told him, stepping away.
Her words seemed to deflate his anger again. What had he thought she’d meant? Better yet, she didn’t think she wanted to know what was going on in his brain.
“You know what, Ashton?” she snapped. “I think it would be much better for all concerned if you stay on your side of the ship — the elite decks — and I stay on mine — in the steerage.”
She didn’t give him a chance to respond. She was done for good this time with Ashton Storm and his screwed-up philosophies on sex and on what was and wasn’t considered acceptable.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The night hadn’t been good to Ashton. He’d barely slept a wink because of some feverish plan, repeated in his head every other minute, that he was going to storm down to Savvy’s room and carry her back to his. But each time he sat up to do just that, he threw himself back down again on the bed.
She wasn’t alone in her room, and he knew the humiliation she would feel if he made it so clear to other employees that the two of them were having sex. That wouldn’t end well for him.
So he tossed and he turned and he stewed. By the time he had to get out of bed, the ship was getting ready to port in Skagway. It was time to help ensure the safety of his passengers, his crew, and his boat. He would then finish what he and Savvy had started two days before. This time she wasn’t escaping him. If she really thought things were over between them, she wasn’t as bright as her university transcripts made her seem to be.
By late morning, the ship was pretty much empty, just crew members scattered around cleaning up plus a few passengers who weren’t feeling well and didn’t want to go out on a lengthy excursion.
Savvy wasn’t hard to track down.
He pushed open the door to the room she was cleaning, and any and all words he’d been about to utter froze on his tongue. Ashton was instantly transfixed by the sight before him. Obviously, this woman had him under a spell, and, dammit, he didn’t want to find an antidote.
Her finely formed hips were swinging as she stretched high to wipe dust off a shelf, and she was belting out the lyrics to a song he didn’t know. The voice was off-tune, but who would notice? When “the hips don’t lie” came from her throat and she swung her butt in a perfect spiral, he agreed. The hips most certainly weren’t lying.#p#分页标题#e#