Inner Harbor by Nora Roberts Page B

They’re not just walking through, not just there. They’re involved.”
    â€œAnd you think that because I observe, I’m not.”
    â€œI don’t know. But I think that observing from a distance isn’t nearly as rewarding as experiencing up close.”
    â€œObserving’s what I do, and I find it rewarding.”
    He slid closer and kept his eyes on hers, ignoring the waiter who tidily served their coffee. “But you’re a scientist. You experiment. Why don’t you give experiencing a try? With me.”
    She looked down, watched his fingertip toy with hers. And felt the slow heat of response creep into her blood. “That’s a very novel, if roundabout, way of suggesting that I sleep with you.”
    â€œActually, that wasn’t what I meant—though if the answer’s yes, I’m all for it.” He flashed her a grin as she shifted her gaze warily to his. “I was going to suggest that we take a walk on the waterfront when we’ve finished our coffee. But if you’d rather sleep with me, we can be in your hotel room in, oh, five minutes flat.”
    She didn’t evade when his head lowered to hers, when his lips slid lazily into a lovely fit over hers. The taste of him was cool, with an underlying promise of heat. If she wanted it. And she did. It surprised her how much, just at that one moment, she wanted the flash and burn—the demand that would override the tension inside her, the worry, the doubts.
    But she’d had a lifetime of training against self-indulgence, and now she laid a hand lightly on his chest to end the kiss, and the temptation.
    â€œI think a walk would be pleasant.”
    â€œThen we’ll walk.”
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    H E WANTED MORE . Phillip told himself he should have known that a few tastes of her would stir up the need. But he hadn’t expected that need to be quite so sharp, quite so edgy. Maybe part of it was sheer ego, he mused as he took her hand to walk with her along the quiet waterfront. Her response had been so cool and controlled. It made him wonder what it would be like to peel that intellect away, layer by layer, and find the woman beneath. To work his way down to pure emotion and instinct.
    He nearly laughed at himself. Ego, indeed. For all he knew, that formal, slightly distant response was precisely all that Dr. Sybill Griffin intended to give him.
    If so, that made her a challenge he was going to have a very difficult time resisting.
    â€œI see why Shiney’s is a popular spot.” She slanted him a smiling look. “It’s barely nine-thirty and the shops are closed, the boats are moored. A few people strolling along, but for the most part everything here is tucked in for the night.”
    â€œIt’s a little livelier during the summer. Not much, but a little. It’s cooling off. Are you warm enough?”
    â€œMmm. Plenty. It’s a lovely breeze.” She stopped to look out at the swaying masts of boats. “Do you keep your boat here?”
    â€œNo, we have a dock at home. That’s Ethan’s skipjack.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œIt’s the only skipjack in St. Chris. There are only a couple of dozen left on the Bay. There.” he gestured. “The single mast.”
    To her untrained eye, one sailboat looked very much the same as the next. Size varied, of course, and gloss, but essentially they were all boats. “What’s a skipjack?”
    â€œIt evolved from the flat-bottomed bay-crabbing skiffs.” He drew her closer as he spoke. “They were enlarged, designed with a V -shaped hull. Had to be easily and inexpensively built.”
    â€œSo they go out crabbing in them.”
    â€œNo, mostly the watermen use motor-powered workboats for crabbing. The skipjack is for oysters. Back in the early 1800s they passed a law in Maryland that allowed only sail-powered vessels to dredge for