“Not sure how this’ll help morale,” Gannon added with a frown, his gaze lingering on Cam’s face for several long seconds. “But if Milly says it’ll help, I tend to believe her.”

Milly. Good to know.

“You know what they say about all work and no play,” Cam inserted, doing his best not to stare at Gannon.

“No, he doesn’t know,” Milly retorted, laughing. Her voice was husky, her eyes glittering with humor as she stared up at Gannon. “I don’t think anyone ever enlightened him.”

Cam liked her.

As for Gannon … well, there was something about him that piqued Cam’s interest. He was more pretty than rugged and looked fairly young, probably mid-twenties. And if Cam had to guess, the guy likely went to get manicures on a monthly basis. Perhaps pedicures, too.

And yet, for some inexplicable reason, Cam found the man appealing, although he certainly wasn’t Cam’s type.

He much preferred someone a little less … well, pretty.

Not quite so starchy, either.

Gannon’s dark eyes seemed to capture everything, and his full lips didn’t turn into a smile as much as Cam would’ve liked. Definitely all work and no play, evident by his expensive, tailored slacks and fancy navy blue tie.

Hmm. The things Cam could do to him with that tie.

His eyes immediately shot to Milly’s. She was grinning back at him, teeth flashing.

Yep, she’d figured him out.

Crap.

This boat was sinking fast and Cam wasn’t sure he could salvage it at this point.

Boat.

Right.

They were here for a boat. And a boat they would get.

Clearing his throat, Cam pulled his attention back to the task at hand. “All right then. Let’s get it set up.”

So Cam could send them on their way and get a grip.

Four

It was a damn good thing Gannon had opted to leave his suit jacket in the car.

It was getting hot in here.

Even without the jacket, he felt more than a little out of place standing in the small, quaint office of the Pier 70 Marina. Not only was he clearly overdressed for the establishment, he didn’t seem to have quite the amount of machismo required to blend in, either. At least not if he compared himself to the brick wall of a man staring back at him with those thickly muscled arms and beautiful cobalt eyes.

Yep, he was in so much trouble here.

Milly’s comment from earlier echoed in his head.

It’ll be fun. And who knows, maybe there’ll be a couple of hot guys there we can flirt with.

Well, there was definitely one hot guy. The man Gannon couldn’t seem to look away from.

Milly nudged his side again and he forced his gaze down to her.

“Quit flirting,” she whispered.

Horrified, Gannon’s face flamed.

“I’m kidding, big guy. Chill.”

Had he been flirting? It’d been so long since any man had held his interest for longer than a minute, Gannon wasn’t even sure he knew how to flirt at this point. Yes, he’d caught and held the man’s lingering gaze a time or two, making sure he saw Gannon’s interest. At least that was what he’d hoped to portray with the lengthy stare. As rusty as he was with the whole flirting thing, there was no telling what he’d actually looked like.

But the guy hadn’t looked away, which was a good sign, right?

Regardless, Gannon would be lying if he said he hadn’t enjoyed the hell out of it. Right up to the point Milly had embarrassed the shit out of him. Now, he didn’t want to look at the man.

Grabbing his phone from his pocket, Gannon pretended to be otherwise preoccupied, peeking up from beneath his lashes to see if the man was looking at him.

He wasn’t.

Thank the patron saint of video games.

For the few uncomfortable minutes that he’d been there, Gannon had done nothing except eye the guy while doing his best to hide his instantaneous physical reaction—both from Milly and from the guy now skimming through the pages of what appeared to be an appointment book. And he thought he was doing a relatively decent job, up until he’d detected that knowing gleam in Milly’s bright blue eyes. She’d busted them and she was enjoying the hell out of it. Which meant Gannon would probably die of embarrassment very, very soon.

Until that happened, Gannon needed to remember why he was there.

Rent a boat.

Yes.

So he could take his team out on the water—which he still hated, hot guy or not—and, according to Milly, boost morale. With a highly anticipated new video game scheduled to launch in less than three months, there was a lot that had to be done for them to be ready, so yeah, he understood her logic.

First part was out of the way. They were here. And they were ready to rent a boat.

Only Gannon couldn’t focus.

He couldn’t seem to stop ogling the thickly muscled, bronze-skinned guy with masculine hands and beautiful, intricate tattoos covering most of his forearms who was helping them. There was just something about him that Gannon couldn’t ignore. Something that called to a very primal part of him that he’d kept under wraps for far too long.

Perhaps it was the man’s rugged good looks with his firm, clean-shaven jaw, narrow nose, high cheekbones, and full lips. Or possibly it was his tousled dark hair or those pretty blue eyes and that smile… Fuck. That quick, easy smile that flirted with the corners of his eyes every so often made Gannon want to stand there all damn day.

Not that he’d noticed him. Much.

It wasn’t professional for him to have such a visceral, primitive response to a man he’d just met, but he certainly couldn’t deny the attraction. Hell, he didn’t even know the guy’s name at this point, yet his body was responding as though he knew him intimately. Or rather that he’d like to, anyway.

Damn dry spell.

“Will Tuesday of next week work?” the dark-haired man asked, pulling Gannon from his wayward thoughts.

Milly responded with a polite confirmation.

“Good. Morning or afternoon? I can get you out there at ten or one.” The guy looked up at him.

“Morning’s fine,” Milly replied.

“And which watercraft do you prefer?”

“What’s the difference?” Gannon inquired, feeling as though he should say something.

Funny how he could command an entire company but he couldn’t do something as simple as renting a boat. Then again, he hadn’t the slightest clue about boats. He didn’t own one, didn’t intend to. In fact, this trip would count for the second time in his life that he’d ever been out on the lake.

“We’ve got a thirty-eight-foot yacht, which is a little big for your party, but it’d work. Comes with a kitchenette, onboard bathroom, shower, and a bedroom.”

“Sounds like too much for what we’re hoping for.” Milly peered up at him as though Gannon had the first clue about what they did or didn’t need. After rolling her eyes and making Gannon grin, she turned back to Cam. “We’re looking for something for a couple of hours. Small enough for people to talk to one another but not big enough for them to sneak off.”

“My suggestion,” the handsome man said, his attention directed at Milly, “is the tritoon or pontoon. If you’re lookin’ for water sports—tubing, skiing, that sort of thing—you’ll go with the tritoon. If you’re just lookin’ to cruise the lake, the pontoon’ll work best.”

“Pontoon’s fine,” Gannon confirmed, hoping the guy would keep talking. Gannon was intrigued by that laid-back Texas drawl, the way he dropped the G on most of his words.

It was sexy as fuck.

Okay, not good.

Gannon clearly needed to get out of there because this man was proving to be too much of a distraction, and though Gannon was doing this at Milly’s request, he didn’t have much interest in the idea of taking his team out on a boat just so they could interact on a more casual basis. He’d rather order pizza in the office. They’d probably be content with that.