Page 16 of Hooked on a Feeling

“I was thinking you’re higher up on the food chain than you let on. You’ve really never been to any of these normal local restaurants? How do you survive?”

As if on cue, a mariachi trio stood at their end of the bar and started playing a song. Starr clapped along with the tune. John’s face was beet red. He mostly looked everywhere but at the band and her. When the song was over, she clapped and retrieved a few dollars from her wallet and handed it to the guys.

“Wasn’t that great?” she asked John.

“No. That was embarrassing.” John took another drink of his beer, and she was a little sad that he was serious. The two of them had clearly been brought up on different playing fields. Good-but-not-great restaurants were the norm for her, and he apparently wasn’t comfortable unless the wait staff delivered warm bread and real butter to his tablecloth-covered table. “Does that make you like me less?”

“Who said I liked you that much to begin with?” She bit the inside of her cheek, trying not to smile at the memory of him kissing her. What would it feel like to have his hands on her bare skin? She masked the heat brewing in her body by taking another sip of her drink.

“You didn’t have to say anything. Not while your lips and the sounds from your throat when I kissed you earlier were doing all the heavy lifting.”

“Oh, whatever. What was I supposed to do? You know how long it’s been since a man has kissed me?” Why had she said that?

“No matter how long it has been, you haven’t forgotten how to do it.” John brushed away her embarrassment, which she was grateful for.

The bartender stood in front of them. “What’ll it be?”

“We can go somewhere else, if you’d like,” she offered to John.

He gave a single shake of his head. “I’ll take the taco platter. No rice. No beans. Just the tacos, please.”

“And for you?”

“I’ll have the smothered burrito with guacamole and sour cream. No beans or rice either. Thank you.”

The bartender looked at the two of them as if they were from a different planet. She felt like that was the case, considering the way John kept looking at her and the way her body kept getting heated in all the right places.

“Is work off-limits to talk about?” he asked after the bartender turned away to relay their orders. “I saw you with the Wright boys earlier. Another bid?”

“Yes. But it’s the last one. I can’t afford any renovations. I don’t have time to do a crowdfunding campaign the way you suggested. I’ll be calling a Realtor tomorrow.”

* * *

That was mostly what John wanted to hear. He enjoyed having Starr around, and once she sold the marina, she would be out of his life for good. Even though he didn’t like the sad and lost look Starr was giving him. It was now or never. He placed his hands on the bar top and leaned close to her. “Sell it to me.”

“The marina?” She furrowed her brow like it was a wild thought that he was interested in her marina.

“Of course the marina. What else would I mean? I mentioned it before.”

“Well, I didn’t take it that seriously. Sort of thought it was just words.” She crunched a chip. “You build yachts. What would you do with the marina?”

“Open it and run it. Well, I wouldn’t run it… or I could run it. What if I ran it?” His voice trailed off. He could run it. If his dad never retired and he didn’t work for Dom… maybe that was what he could do. Have his own company. Run it the way he saw fit. Not have to leave Emerald Port. Could he leave his family business though? It wouldn’t be for a yacht rival, but it would still be a rival, wouldn’t it?

“What if?” Starr prodded.

“Well...”

“You listened to me about my problems. You can trust me to listen to yours.”

Starr shoved another chip into her mouth, and when she licked a bit of salsa off her thumb, he couldn’t help imagining what it would feel like if she did that to his dick. He blinked the thought away, refusing to get hard while sitting inside a bar that may or may not have seen its fair share of secret rendezvous in the bathroom stalls. “It’s been assumed in my family practically all my life that I would take over Blue Horizon Yachts from my parents when my dad retired. The problem is that I’m getting older, and he’s getting old, and he’s not retiring. And I got another offer for a job.”

She frowned. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-two. I’m turning into an old man waiting for somebody else to give me permission to start living my life.” He took another sip of his beer. When he’d graduated college, he’d imagined running the company and having a wife and children by now. He hadn’t thought he would be this old and single.

“You’re not old. Well, I’m thirty, and I’m not calling myself old. I still feel young and great, and actually, I think I could do anything a twenty-year-old could do.” She put her hand up to her mouth like she was telling him a secret. “Maybe even better. So, what kind of job did you get offered?”

John laughed. He could think of a few things that she probably could do better than most twenty-year-olds, but he wasn’t going to voice his inappropriate thoughts the first time they were having dinner and drinks together. It was bad enough that he’d jacked off last night to visions of her doing yoga. Naked. Naked yoga should become a thing in Emerald Port. He told her about the call from Dom. “Which is why buying the marina would be the less hated route. I think, anyway.”

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