At least he’d pulled on pants before answering the door, but the technogear revealed the long, lean muscles of an athlete, not a desk guy. His eyebrows and chest hair were as white-blond as his hair, his skin ruddy. The glower of impatience on his brow radiated arrogance, energy. He couldn’t be older than mid-thirties. And the sharp, dark gaze inhaled her in a single testosterone-colored photo snap.

His expression telegraphed that he knew what he liked, and he liked the look of her.

The overall punch was…well, downright bamboozling. It was more than his being unexpectedly hot. She just rarely, rarely got that suck-in-the-gut response for a guy. She loved men; what woman didn’t? And she’d slept with them now and then, of course. Liked a good-looking ass, naturally. But she always carefully steered miles around the rare guy who brought on that suck-in-the-gut feeling.

She liked adventure. Hell, she loved risk.

She just didn’t like risky men.

“You’re the chef,” he said, in a voice that sounded like rough gravel.

“Yes. And I don’t want to bother you. I just wanted to ask you a couple of short-”

“Come in. There are a few things we should cover.”

She didn’t want to go in any of the boys’ cabins. But she tapped her pencil on her list and sucked it up.

The master cabin was an awesome comfort zone-queen-size bed, teal carpet thicker than a lawn, teak cabinets for gear, an angled private head. Steam was still pouring from that bathroom, a thick white towel abandoned on the bed, all of it smelling like wet, clean male-intimate, distracting. Somehow there wasn’t room enough for the two of them, even in the most spacious cabin onboard.

She backed up against the door, thumbed on her ballpoint and started with the questions, but he immediately interrupted her.