We stared at each other awkwardly in the doorway and he looked almost embarrassed. “I really didn’t mean for us to end up here. Not yet, anyway.”
I laughed. “I bet you say that to all the girls you bring on your yacht.”
“Actually you’d be the first one.”
I shot him a teasing look. “New yacht?”
He shrugged, sheepish. “It’s not old.”
“So you never brought Lindsay here?”
He looked at me sharply, “Lindsay? No…no. No.”
I laughed at his vehement protest. “It’s okay. I realize you two have a history that I know nothing about.”
He shifted from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable. “Lindsay and I go way back.”
I couldn’t resist. Not with it dangling out there in front of me like that. “How far back? And was there a bedroom involved?”
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and affected nonchalance, putting his hand in his pocket. “We had a history as sexual partners.”
“Interesting.” I folded my arms, leaning back against the doorjamb. “You don’t use the term ‘lovers.’”
He snorted. “Love had nothing to do with it.”
“Was she married then?”
And Adam’s expression grew so horrified that I almost laughed. “God, no. It was like ten years ago.” That meant he’d been just a teen.
I wrinkled my nose. I was a like a dog with a bone with this, unwilling to give it up. “Dare I ask if she was your first?”
He actually blushed and that’s all I needed to answer my question. He gave another one of those fake shrugs. “You can always ask.”
I ignored the evasion because I already had the answer to my question. Lindsay had popped Adam’s cherry. “So, does she always act like that with you?”
He frowned. “Like what?”
“Like you two are still a couple?”
He looked at me like I was an alien. “First of all, we were never a couple. We got together and we fucked and that was about it. We didn’t date. She was too busy with her career and I didn’t really care about relationships. I was too young for that. We’re friends now. She’s a partner in my uncle’s firm.”
I was not convinced, wholly, of Adam’s cluelessness. He was far too perceptive a person not to have noticed Lindsay’s flirtatious behavior. And beyond that I was a little shaken by how strongly I felt about it. Why did I even care who Adam had slept with in his past?
He knew my sexual history—well, most of it, anyway. Shouldn’t I have a right to know his?
A grin flickered on his lush mouth. “So why all the questions? You’re not jealous, are you?”
I widened my eyes, “Oh, no. No, no. God no.” I blathered, flustered. Now who was overdoing it? “What’s there to be jealous of? You and I have a business deal, nothing more.”
But when I talked, my voice was a little too shaky and his handsome face was completely devoid of any emotion. He turned and moved to an inner doorway. “There’s the bathroom if you want to change into your swimsuit. I’m going for a swim once we stop.”
“Out—in the middle of the ocean?”
He shot me a puzzled stare, as if I’d just spoken Mandarin. “Yeah.”
“But aren’t you going to freeze your ass off? That water is cold.”
He shrugged. “We have a Jacuzzi on board. We get too cold, we get out and hop in the hot water.”
I bit my lip. “Maybe I’ll just watch from the edge.”
He picked up my bag from where it sat on the table and tossed it to me. “Get in your suit.”
I grabbed it and went into the bathroom and shimmied into my trusty one-piece. It wasn’t the fancy bikini that I’d posed in for the auction, but it was still a nice suit. And it was his favorite color, too. Blue.
When I went to open the door, I heard him moving around out in the bedroom and realized he must be changing out there. Not wanting another awkward repeat of that first afternoon in Amsterdam, I tapped on the door and he told me to come in.
He was shirtless with his trunks—long board shorts—hanging off his hips. I smiled and walked into the room and he ran an appreciative eye down my form, giving a mock wolf whistle. I couldn’t help but devour the sight of his body again. He had a narrow waist and solid shoulders, every muscle clearly defined from firm pecs to rock-hard abs. He wasn’t as tan as I’d expect of an inhabitant of Newport Beach, but of course he spent most of his life under fluorescent lighting in an office in Irvine, so that was understandable. His finely chiseled chest was covered with the slightest dusting of dark hair, with a narrow trail leading down to his navel and beyond.