He finished the meal and went up to his office but found himself moving towards the windows more often than he needed. He was looking for her, he knew. He’d seen her go off towards the beach, but she had yet to appear in either the water or the sand.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her sitting off to the side, her toe making patterns in the sand as she watched the edge of the water as it lapped at the beach. She looked better, less stiff, he noticed and something unfurled within him. With her firmly in his sights, he sat down at his desk and made calls, checking details and reviewing contracts.
Two hours later, he was still at his desk, but had given up on trying to ignore how he watched her out the window. She was trying to windsurf again today, and failing miserably. He chuckled as she fell into the water once more, but raised herself up onto the board, a determined look in her eyes. He even thought he saw her talking to the board a few times, almost as if she were trying to negotiate with the piece of fiberglass.
Shaking his head, he ended the conference call in the middle of negotiations in which he was working to buy out a major hotel chain. To date, no one knew that the chain was in financial trouble and he had big plans to refurbish the rooms, the marketing strategy and the financial situation. But at the moment, his focus was on the slender woman who was once more trying very hard to control a board that was just as determined to ignore her efforts. It was time to teach her how to windsurf, he thought.
Pulling on a pair of swimming trunks, he headed down to the beach. Once there, he watched her technique for a few moments from the shore before shaking his head and walking into the water.
“You need to bend your knees more,” he said as he hauled her up from her latest dump.
Darcy jumped probably about a foot out of the water, so started was she to find Sergei standing right behind her.
Her eyes, which had initially been shocked at his face, were now transfixed on his bare chest.
“You’re naked!” she squeaked and took a step back, almost falling backwards into the water. If he hadn’t reached out to catch her, she would have gotten yet another mouth full of water.
He chuckled and pulled her back up, closer to his chest with his hands holding her gently but firmly on her upper arms. “I’m not naked. I’m wearing a swim suit,” he said calmly. “Are you okay?”
She nodded her head and pushed her hair out of her eyes.
“Why aren’t you wearing one of the bathing suits my assistant sent over with the other clothes?”
She put a hand on the board and blinked the water away. “They aren’t bathing suits,” she countered. “Those were small little triangles held together with strings.”
His face didn’t register his shock, but instead, he looked at the sail and rigging. “Do you want to learn how to do this?” he asked.
She looked at the board, then at his chest, biting her lip in indecision.
“Come on, you can do it. You’re almost there, but you’re trying too hard.” He turned the board around and jumped up, easily getting into a standing position. “Come on,” he said and reached down, grabbing her hand and lifting her out of the water as if she were a tiny piece of seaweed. One moment she was in the water trying to keep her balance with the passing waves, the next she was standing on the board, his strong, muscular arms surrounding her as his hands pulled the sail up so it was straight once again.
“Put your feet farther apart to get better balance,” he explained, moving her legs with his feet, standing behind her as he positioned her, “and bend your knees. With both hands here on the boom” he said, indicating the curved bar that ran from the pole sticking out of the board to the other end of the sail, “now slowly shift the sail so that it’s catching the wind, and lean backwards.”
As he spoke, he showed her, his long, lean fingers sliding up her wet skin, moving against her hips and shoulders. Each time she felt his hand on a new place, she couldn’t control the shiver that raced through her. And no matter how much she tried to be sophisticated about the experience, she’d never felt like this when a man touched her so she wasn’t sure how to control it, to hide her reaction. She was actually embarrassed when, several times, she realized that her nipples were hard and obvious through her thin shirt. She’d been careful not to wear a white shirt, but even the black couldn’t hide her reaction to him.
“You have to relax a bit more,” he said, his mouth close to her ear. His arms were basically wrapped around her, since both of his hands were also on the boom, her back against his chest and his feet next to hers on the board.
“I think I’ve got it now,” she said, the words coming out a bit breathlessly and she tried to turn her head away, but there was no escaping the heat of him. It surrounded her, wrapped around her and comforted her even as it increased her nervousness.
“Pull back a bit,” he suggested, then showed her how by pressing his knees against the back of hers. She was lying against him and her heart rate escalated. Darcy knew she wasn’t doing any of the surfing, it was all him, but as she looked up, she realized that they were now skimming across the water, the shoreline fading away as the wind blew them out to sea.
“Oh my!” she gasped and almost dumped them in her awe of the ride.
“Don’t get crazy,” he said softly, chuckling at her excitement. “You have to learn to turn now,” he said and showed her the way to ease back on the boom, the neutral position that would take the sail out of the wind. With great gentleness, the board slowly skimmed around the water, turning back towards the island and as they slowly shifted on the water, once again they were flying as Sergei maneuvered the sail so that it caught the wind, catching speed and skimmed over the waves.
For another hour, he showed her tips on how to work the rigging, slow down, speed up and turn into the wind. He explained tacking to her, showing her how to zig zag back to one point when the wind was against the direction one needed to go. Throughout the entire lesson, Darcy was aware of him against her, but her focus was now on the lesson, on learning how to control this contraption and share in the wonder he could teach her with the sport.
As they drifted back towards the island this last time, his arm pulled her more firmly against him as he held on to the boom with one hand. “Hold on,” he warned moments before the board jumped over a wave.
Darcy cried out, her hands gripping the boom and her back pressing against him. “Bend your knees now!’ he called out above the sound of the crashing waves and Darcy followed his instructions at just the right moment as the board came crashing down on the other side of the wave, gliding into the sand easily and Darcy hopped of, spinning around and jumping up in delight as she clapped at his expertise. “That was amazing!” she yelled out, jumping into his arms and hugging him, throwing her arms around his shoulders in her delight.