While his thumbs worked on the taut muscles at the back of her neck and on top of her shoulders, his fingers circled over her collarbone, doing incredible things to other parts of her anatomy far removed from the places he touched.
"You offered to teach me," he said presently. "Did you mean it?"
Marian tried to breathe. It was nearly impossible, but she managed to suck in air enough to speak. "If you gave everywoman you dated a...massage like this," she said faintly, "you'd never get rid of them. You'd have them stacked up in your closets."
"You think so?" He didn't sound convinced. He spread his hands wide and worked farther down her back. She wished she weren't wearing a blouse. She wished she weren't wearing anything. She wished she knew how to help him and that in doing so, she could help him see that she, for one, wouldn't leave after "five minutes" if only he'd give her a chance.
She sighed. "Why do you think they don't stay interested for very long?"
"Oh, sometimes they do," he said. "I was exaggerating when I said that. Butit's finding a woman willing to make a commitment I'm having trouble with."
"What...kind of commitment?" Dammit, her voice was too squeaky!
"The usual kind. You know, marriage, home, family."
"Oh. You...want that?" Oh, lordy, now it was too husky, throaty, all but purring.
"Of course I want marriage." He sounded surprised that she would ask. "I'm thirty-six years old, Marian. It's time I settled down. Not that I expect you to understand that, not at your age, and with your personality, your lifestyle, but it's what I want. A wife, babies, picket fence covered with roses and all that. Oh, I wouldn't insist on the family right away, of course. I like the idea of a couple being a couple for a year or two or three before the babies come along. Time to travel, time to take life easy, time to drift a bit."
She twisted her head around and looked at him from under afan of hair. "Really? I thought you considered drifting a waste of time. I thought you were married to your business."
"I guess maybe I am, but that would change the minute I found the right lady."
She swallowed hard. "I see. And are you actively searching?"
He paused and she saw him looking off into a distance she couldn't see. "Probably not. Not yet, at any rate. Ideally, I'll have someone fully trained to leave in charge here for a few months, then I'll find my permanent lady, get married and take a nice long honeymoon, sail Sunrise up to Alaska, or maybe down to Mexico, even through the canal and into the Caribbean."
"Oh. Sounds heavenly," she murmured, and dropped her head down to her desk, rested her brow on her folded arms, letting herself relax into his massage, letting dreams swirl and collide in her mind. She and Rolph, a house, a picket fence, babies and roses and other sweet, growing things. But first, the ocean, the solitude, each other, drifting...sharing Sunrise.
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