I want You Deeper

Derek stepped out onto the balcony of his room, taking a deep breath to inhale the fresh ocean air. It had been all he’d inhaled for the past three days, but somehow, standing on land, looking out at it, gave it a perspective that sailing didn’t.

His yacht was too big. The plan was to trade it in on a strong, sturdy, but simple sailboat that could get him from one mooring to another. But right now, he was just trying to get as much space between himself and Silicon Valley as possible.

It hadn’t taken long for his disappearance to make the news. He’d tracked it on his new burner phone that morning. His ex-girlfriend-if that was the right word for someone who’d just been using him for his money- had reported him missing when he hadn’t responded to her texts for two days straight. Obviously, nobody ghosted Nancy Moriarty.

Nobody but him.

“I don’t want to scare you.”

The sudden sound of a female voice did, indeed, scare him. He actually jerked around, ready to defend himself. But it was Renee, the woman who had occupied his thoughts for the past five hours as he’d taken a rideshare into town, bought a few snacks and other essentials, then returned to his room to wait for dinnertime…

When he could see her again.

But he didn’t have to wait until dinnertime. She was here, now, on the balcony directly next to him.

There were five rooms in this inn, which was really more of a bed and breakfast. Five rooms…and they’d put the only two guests side by side?

Not that he minded, especially right now.

She was seated on one of the chairs that had been provided on each balcony, feet propped on a horizontal bar that ran the length of the railing at the bottom. She had a paperback book in one hand, cover and part of the pages pulled back, but her head was turned in his direction.

Finally, he found his voice. “Sorry. Didn’t know you were there.”

She smiled. He couldn’t see her eyes past the sunglasses, but he saw enough. She wore shorts and a halter top that showed far more skin than the t-shirt and jeans she’d been wearing at breakfast. He assumed she was getting some sun, considering the way she was stretched out as it blazed down on her.

“I thought as much.” She held up her book. “The sun came out, but I don’t know how long it will last, so I thought I’d stay here.”

“Wouldn’t want to get all set up near the water, only to have to come back?”

It had been one of those days on the island. Rain, then sunshine, then a fierce early-afternoon storm, then more sunshine. He’d ended up jetting from place to place in rideshares to avoid getting caught walking in a storm.

“You know, I don’t think I caught your name.”

Renee’s statement pulled him straight out of his thoughts. No, he hadn’t told her his name, and he certainly couldn’t reveal he was Derek Hughes. One quick web search and she’d find out exactly who he was. Oddly, his first concern wasn’t keeping his identity secret so he could remain in hiding. Right now, he was more interested in getting to know her without all that baggage.

“David Humphreys.”

That was the name he’d been using on the road. What people didn’t know was that David Humphreys was his real name. Derek Hughes was the fake persona. But that just made it all that much easier to go into hiding since he had the birth certificate to back up that this was his name if it came down to having to prove it.

She didn’t respond immediately, which made him wonder if he’d given something away in his response. What, he had no idea. He thought the answer had sounded pretty natural.

“Nice to meet you,” she finally responded.

She hadn’t told him her last name, he noticed, but he hadn’t really asked. He wasn’t all that interested in knowing right now, although if he followed through on his hint of a job, he might need to do a basic background check on her. Or maybe not. These days, he was kind of tired of people invading other people’s privacy. There was something to be said for trusting your instincts.

And his instincts said this was one of the most interesting women he’d ever met.

It wasn’t just that she was beautiful. Drop-dead gorgeous, some would say. He’d dated his share of women who turned heads wherever they went, including his ex-fiancee. No, there was a depth to Renee that he hadn’t seen in a while, despite the fact that he met plenty of extremely intelligent women through the course of his work. She was beyond intelligent. She was simply…

Mesmerizing.

“I can go back inside if you want your alone time,” Derek said, suddenly realizing just how rude he was being. Talk about invading someone’s privacy. She’d been enjoying some peace and quiet on her private balcony when he’d come along and completely shattered it.

“Don’t go.” She closed her book, set it on the table next to her, and sat up in her chair, crossing her long, tanned legs in front of her. “Have a seat.”

Derek was actually flattered she wanted to spend time with him. He told himself not to let it go to his head. She’d probably come to the island to rest and consider her next move in life, only to find it lonely and isolating. He knew that feeling. It was why he was glad he’d hired a captain to come along with him on this adventure. No matter how much you prized alone time, after a while you just craved the company of another person.

She waited until he sat down, then leaned her head back, face pointed toward the sun, and said, “Tell me about this work opportunity.”

Oh. That. He wasn’t sure he was ready to reveal the extent of it at that point. It would definitely scare her off. Besides, he needed to make sure it was the right move for all involved.

“It’s a personal chef on a yacht. The owner needs someone to do the cooking.”

She looked over at him, and he was pretty sure her eyes were wide with either surprise or alarm behind those glasses. He wasn’t sure which. “Is it safe?”

Yeah, that would definitely be her first concern. Getting on a yacht with some stranger-and a man, at that. He wasn’t sure what to say except that he could personally guarantee she’d be in good hands. That probably wouldn’t be worth much, though, considering the fact that she’d just met him.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

“There will be a crew,” he rushed to say. “Probably pretty soon. There are ads on all the job boards, including one for a chef. It’s just-well, we all know personal recommendations are always best.”

He had no idea if we all knew that. It had been his experience as someone who ran a company with thousands of employees. But he’d been handed money to start a business when he was sixteen and had just happened to have chosen the right industry. He started building small canoes and kayaks on his own and selling them, soon finding that there was a huge demand for water vessels all along the coastline. Somehow, he’d managed to turn the six figures his grandmother had given him into a billion-dollar enterprise with employees all over the country.

And now, that company would run without him.

“I assume I’d get to meet this guy.”

For a moment, Derek was lost. He almost even asked, “What guy?” but he caught himself in time. “Sure. That can be arranged. But you’d have to be able to leave tomorrow.”

Renee gasped. “Tomorrow? That’s-”

“I know it’s late notice, but we just met. Think of it as an adventure.”

“I’ll talk to the owner, but I can’t promise anything.” It was clear in her voice that she was on the “no” side of the fence when it came to this idea. “I have plans.”

“To stay here all week?” he asked. “Or were you going back home?”

“I’m here until Friday. Just enough time to get the salt air in my system and clear my head. Then I have to go back…” Her voice trailed off. She seemed to be deep in thought about something. In fact, he’d noticed that during breakfast, this constant need to stop herself, as though she didn’t want to reveal too much. This woman was definitely hiding things. As if he had room to talk about hiding things.

“Instead of sitting here on your balcony, reading all week, you could hop on a yacht and sail to Hawaii.”

Slowly, her head turned back toward him. He held in a smile. Yes, he’d definitely gotten her attention with that.

“Hawaii?”

Derek nodded. “It can take up to a couple of weeks, though, depending on weather conditions. And it’s a couple of weeks of nothing. No land, no people-”

“No way.” Shaking her head, Renee sat up even straighter in her chair.

“I’m not getting on a boat, yacht, whatever, with some strange man-”

“I wouldn’t call him a strange man.”

“That just sounds like a recipe for disaster. There was this reporter-” She broke off. She kept doing that. Like she was about to say too much. But this time was different. This time he had reason to worry that maybe she’d stopped talking because she realized who he was.

Derek Hughes, topic of all the local headlines lately. Some local reporter had billed him Silicon Valley’s Most Eligible Bachelor, despite the fact that he’d technically, on paper, had a girlfriend at the time. That girlfriend had loved the attention, though, rushing to tell all his friends. Meanwhile, having his face plastered all over the internet had been the last thing he’d wanted. He’d worked too hard to hide in the shadows of his company to be outed as David Humphreys now. So, he’d left his phone at home, bought a burner phone, hopped on his yacht, and headed out to sea.

“This woman went in this guy’s submarine,” Renee said, this time noticeably omitting the fact that the subject of a story was a reporter. “He killed her.”

Renee shuddered and suddenly all thoughts of her discovering his identity fled his mind. He was suddenly worried about this woman he hadn’t even known about until seconds ago.

The first question he had was why this stranger had been on the submarine in the first place, but he could piece that together from what Renee had said. The woman had been a reporter. And she’d gotten on a stranger’s water vehicle-a stranger who was a murderer.

“This particular yacht owner is very reputable,” Derek assured her. “I wouldn’t refer you otherwise.”

“The submarine owner was a well-known expert. Fairly famous. I can’t remember the details but look it up when you get a chance.”

How did he break it to her that the job was on his own yacht? At this point, she probably pictured him traveling around on a normal-size sailboat, not something his own company had designed to be the best sailing watercraft currently available. But when he’d taken off, he hadn’t thought about the fact that he’d need to serve as co-captain, deckhand, chef, housekeeper, and everything else he’d always had done for him when he went out on the water.

That reminded him. “There’s a captain on board. One of the best in the industry. A true professional. So, it’s not like you’d be alone with one strange man.”

“It would be two strange men,” Renee pointed out. But she had a slight smile on her face. He took that to mean she was teasing, but still- justifiably-concerned.

This wasn’t about having someone to make delicious meals for him, though. This was about finding a way to spend more time with this woman who intrigued him. So, the key was to hire at least one other person so Renee wouldn’t be signing up to spend a couple of weeks on a boat alone with a stranger. One other person, then maybe line up more crew once he got to his destination.

But how did he find another person to hire quickly in a big, empty inn where there were literally no other people around?

Suddenly, he had an idea.