Excerpt of Wicked by Nikki Duncan

Checking his watch, Braydon saw he had a few hours before needing to shower for dinner, so he headed to the cabin to grab the polish for the rails. He didn’t like cleaning, but living on a boat and travelling the world writing freelance stories for yachting magazines made hiring a regular housekeeper tough. Besides, he was particular about his boat.

Starting at the bow, he sat cross-legged and cleaned and polished the rails. Steady, slow and even strokes back and forth removed the salty build-up and restored the shine. With the front part of the railing done, he moved to work on the rigging hooks on the deck. The action of rubbing the surface to a gleam brought images of Danica to mind.

Images of her stretched out beneath him on the newly cleaned surface. His hands stroking and rubbing her, awakening her body and the shine of arousal he’d seen in her eyes earlier. His dick hardened, pressed into the zipper of his cut-offs.

When he’d agreed to attend the reunion, he’d been surprised at how much he’d wanted to be there. He’d wanted to see old friends and even those he hadn’t been friendly with. How much did ten years change people? Were the cliques the same? Were the nerds still nerds, snobs still snobs, jocks still jocks?

He had one answer. Sort of. Danica Kent, for all her awkwardness, was changed and still the same. Every run-in with her in high school had been stilted and awkward. She’d fawned over him, followed him, and spied on him from her room. She’d been unable to talk to him without stumbling over her tongue or spilling things on one of them or tripping. And okay, some had seen her attention as creepy, but mostly he’d found it kind of flattering.
She was still awkward, but somehow not. Clearly she still had the talking and tripping issues, but she hadn’t spilled anything. And damn if she hadn’t turned into the proverbial swan, even if it was with help from Victoria at the Whispering Salon.

“Nice boat.”

“Shit!” Braydon lurched up, tossed the rag and can of polish into the air, slipped on the newly polished surface and fell overboard with a giant splash.

Wading the cool water, he eyed Danica as she moved to the rail. No, she hadn’t spilled anything. She’d moved on to dumping him off boats.

“Do you need help?”

“No! Just move to the cockpit before you hurt yourself.” Rather than wait to see if she responded, he swam to the back of the boat where their small watercrafts were tied and climbed aboard.

She opened the gate part of the back edge of the boat. Rather than swing it in toward her, she swung it out, smacked him in the forehead and sent him falling backwards a second time with a lancing pain to his head. He fell into the inflatable dingy, which was somewhat padded, but his hand slammed into the motor and his left ankle crashed against the boat with a resounding crack.

“Son of a bitch!”

“Damn it. Sorry.” Danica’s voice didn’t rise to frantic levels, but he could imagine her flapping her hands in hysteria.

Instead, she climbed down the few steps and got into the dingy with him. “Don’t move.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding.” She pulled her t-shirt over her head with no apparent thought to anyone on nearby boats, leaned over him and pressed it against his forehead to staunch the bleeding.

Her white, lace-covered nipples hovered just in front of his mouth. His cock hardened again. His body urged him to listen to desire, to lean forward and pull a nipple into his mouth. To taste more than her tempting mouth.

She moved the t-shirt, now half-soaked with blood, and put it immediately back to the cut. “This is bad.”

“I’m fine.” Ignoring his body’s impulses, he replaced her hand on the t-shirt with one of his own. “I’ve got this, Danica.”

“You’re going to need stitches.”

“I’ve had worse.” He moved to sit up. The boat rolled beneath him from dizziness and nausea rather than waves. Maybe he hadn’t had worse.