He turns her down

Brenan felt conflicted looking at Cindy as her head, arms and shoulders appeared above the side of the skiff, with his cock having begun to harden in response to her seductive behaviour while his mind was crying out for him to keep his hands off her.
He didn’t exactly know why it was that way, but the thought of him doing anything to her was enough to make his skin crawl.

“No,” Brenan began as he struggled both to come up with a way in which to turn down a beautiful young woman, something which he had never before had to do, and to control the baser of his instincts, “I can’t think of anything.”

“Oh,” Cindy instantly adopted a disappointed look, her eyes now being directed towards the floor of the small boat as the air seemed to seep out of her. The sea apple which she had held so close to her full lips now slipped from her grasp and fell into the boat as Cindy continued to avoid meeting Brenan’s gaze.

“You’re a fine sailor, Cindy,” Brenan began, struggling to find the right words while threatening to be overcome by the tenderness which he now felt towards the nearly naked woman as he realized that she was almost as damaged as he was, though she used different means to hide it, “and I’d be glad to have you as part of my crew.”

“Okay,” Cindy’s voice was so weak that Brenan could barely hear it, and as he recalled Red’s description of how Cindy had been leading her life before she brought her to her new home, he suspected that she still couldn’t quite accept that there were men who could appreciate her for other things than her sex, despite all the things that Red had made up about him.

“And you’re an incredible woman,” Brenan added, being guided by his desire to banish Cindy’s sad expression and to ensure that she wouldn’t beat herself up because of his rejection of her. Now all he needed was an explanation that wouldn’t make things worse, which wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to come up with.

“And in any other case, I would fight every man for you,” Brenan continued on, as his route of escape from this uncomfortable situation popped up in his head, “but I can’t, because of Red.”

“You feel the same way about her as she does about you?” Cindy gave every impression of having bought Brenan’s white lie.

“Uh-huh,” Brenan got halfway through nodding his head before blurting out a startled “Wait… what?” Red had warned him that Cindy believed her to be in love with him, but it still hadn't prepared him for hearing it like that.

“You didn’t know?” Cindy was looking surprised now, rather than devastated, it was a considerable improvement, “Red always seems so happy when she talks about you, she gets this calm smile as she comes up with things to tell me about you.”

“Well, I hoped that she felt the same way about me, but I didn’t want to take her for granted,” Brenan did his best to keep his bluff from being called, “But get out of the water so we can head back.”

“You’re eager to get back to Red?” Cindy teased Brenan as he looked away while she climbed back up into the skiff, the young woman seeming to have undergone an instantaneous transformation back to her usual cheerful self. Brenan nodded his head like an idiot and tried to stop his cheeks from going bright red.

“Oh…” Cindy soon let out a sound of disappointment.

“What is it?” Brenan asked, still careful not to ogle her scantily clad body.

“My top ended on the bottom of the boat, and now it’s all soaked through.” Cindy revealed.

“Here,” Brenan began to jerk his way out of his jacket so that he could offer it to her, “you can wear this.”

“Thanks,” Cindy accepted the jacket that Brenan was holding up, his gaze still remaining fixed on a point outside of their skiff, adding an innocent-sounding “Okay, you can look now.”

“Red really was right about you, wasn’t she?” Cindy asked as Brenan tried not to stare at how the centre of her large breasts peeked out between the cuffs of his opened jacket, “I pretty much throw myself at you, and you turn me down and then try to be as kind to me as possible, acting like you’re afraid that you might have hurt me or something.”

“Yeah… well…” Brenan cleared his throat and tried to come up with a way in which to deal with Cindy’s praise, “We’d better get back.”

As the two of them began the short journey back to Red’s cottage, Brenan began to realize that him lying about having deep romantic feelings for Red might not be entirely without consequence.