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“What are you doing?”

“Warming you up.” His hands switched to her left calf, kneading and softening the muscle, before coming back to her right leg and thigh. One hand on the front, one hand on the back, he squeezed her flesh, manipulating the stiff muscles. “Feel any better?”

Helena, heart in her throat, staring dumbly at the top of his head, nodded. It took a moment for Ocean to look up, but when he did, he answered her dumbfounded expression with a quizzical one.

“Helena, if this makes you uncomfortable, please let me know.”

“Uncomfortable? No, not that…”

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Who says anything is wrong?”

“You’re looking at me like I’m an ax murderer.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, it’s not that at all.” Helena could have smacked herself. Why couldn’t she say something intelligent instead of answering questions with questions or stuttering useless platitudes?

“Then what’s wrong?”

“I’m just nervous.”

“I’m making you nervous?”

“Yes.”

“Like, you’re nervous I’m going feed you to the sharks when we go out tomorrow morning, or you have a boyfriend named Bruno who would break both my legs if he saw me touching you?”

His head was down, focusing on working the kinks out of her legs, but his probing question made it clear that he wanted to know if she was in a relationship. Helena knotted her fingers together in nervous excitement, flattered and unnerved by his interest. She wasn’t so beautiful that every man she met wanted to sleep with her, and her painful self-doubt insisted that she’d read the signals wrong.

“I don’t have a Bruno, I mean boyfriend.” She wished she were a better flirt, able to whip out witty banter at a moment’s notice.

“Then you’re worried I’ll feed you to the sharks?”

“Well I wasn’t, but now I’m starting to.”

Ocean threw his head back and laughed, a full-bodied sound. He laughed as if he didn’t care who knew he was amused. Helena smiled, his mirth infectious, her chest and cheeks flushing with pleasure at having made him laugh.

“If I promise not to feed you to the sharks”—his eyes sparkled with amusement as he said it—“will you stop looking so worried?”

“I’ll try, I just get nervous talking to pretty guys.”

“Pretty?” He seemed disgusted with what she’d said, though she meant it as a compliment.

“I, um, meant handsome, not pretty.”

He gifted her with a tender smile, and Helena worried that she’d just changed attraction to fraternal caring with one careless comment. It wouldn’t be the first time, but she felt a deep pang of sadness at having lost his interest.

“I’m glad you think I’m handsome.”

“I bet girls tell you that all the time.”

“Maybe.” At least he had the grace to acknowledge it. “But it’s not other girl’s opinions that matter right now, just yours.”

There was a silky quality to his voice, a bedroom smooth that overrode her earlier conclusion that he’d lost interest in her. Ocean’s manipulation of her muscles changed along with his voice, from physical-therapist massage to lover’s caress. He pushed to his feet, hands circling her hips and thighs in a slow, deliberate touch.

“You smell like the sea, and all I can think about is making love to you. I want to lick the smell of salt off every”—Ocean pressed his lips to her right ear—“inch”—he moved his mouth to her other ear—“of you.”

Between the midday sun and him, she was more than warmed up. Protected from the wind by the raised pier, there was nothing to cool her. From above, the sun baked her inside the black wetsuit jacket and shorts she wore. Ocean’s hands on her thighs pressed her against his wetsuit-clad body.

She was on vacation, her first one in a long time. A man she found attractive, if intimidating, had just made it clear he was interested in having sex with her.

Helena had two options. She could push away from him, make it clear she didn’t find this behavior appropriate and continue her vacation. Or she could pretend to be someone else, a woman so confident that she had sexuality to burn and ate gorgeous men for breakfast. The second option terrified her, but the sun’s heat combined with his presence and his touch burned away her reservations, questions, worries and doubts.

Helena shook her hair back, imagining it was a rich, flowing mane of blonde locks rather than a bedraggled brown braid.

“I want to feel you. I want you to touch me, taste me. I want to feel your body above mine, in mine.” If her words were awkward and forced, her voice shaking in nerves, he had the grace to ignore it.

He pressed his lips against her cheek and smiled, letting her feel his pleasure. Those lips then traveled across her cheek. Helena started to turn her head into the kiss, but Ocean pulled away.

“No. I want to save that, save this kiss, until the perfect moment.” His voice promised things she couldn’t imagine, promised kisses that changed lives.