by Andrews, Amy
“Stop,” she panted, yanking on his hair, wrenching him away, her head falling back against the tiles. “Enough.”
Kelsey watched him through half closed lids as he rose like freaking Poseidon from the sea, all hard and male and potent as fuck. He had that smug kind of look she’d seen on her own face earlier, and she gave a half laugh because words weren’t currently possible. Her eyes were working fine though and she watched enthralled as he ducked his head under the spray, water sluicing over his face and down his body.
“You have an extremely dextrous tongue,” she said, finally coherent enough to speak.
He grinned but shook his head. “I’m a little rusty.”
Kelsey blinked. Rusty? Why was a guy, who was clearly a freak between the sheets, rusty? And if this was him rusty how wrecked would she have been with his oral superpowers fully oiled?
Before she could reply he flicked off the taps and reached for her, sliding an arm under her legs and one around her back, picking her up with ease. Kelsey might have objected had her legs not been jelly. But they were so she looped her arms around his neck instead.
“What now?”
“I still have one more condom,” he said and strode from the shower.
Twenty minutes later, Ari lay boneless in the aftermath, Kelsey’s legs intertwined with his, her tousled hair spread out on his chest. He slid a hand onto her hip, hitching her closer as his thumb stroked lazy swirls on the rounded flank of her upper thigh.
“I bet you couldn’t do that again if you tried,” she said, propping her chin on his chest, her husky vibrato ruffling the air around his body.
Ari grinned. “Sure I can. You might need to give me a second to recover.”
She laughed and it was light and happy and filled all the spaces inside him that had been so desolate for so long and it was...nice being with her like this lying in the aftermath all slow and lazy and thoroughly sated, idly touching, stroking.
He felt a resurgence of the guilt that had plagued him these past days but it was quickly swallowed up by a sense of revelation. Who knew that he could feel this way again? That he could be intimate in this way – perhaps an even deeper form of intimacy than sex - with somebody else.
Ari honestly didn’t know what to do with such a thought. It belonged in the hot mess of emotions that Kelsey had stirred up since they’d met.
“That move has a high degree of difficulty,” she said, her voice low and lazy as she traced circles on his collar bone. “You practise that often?”
Ari’s hand stopped its stroking. “Are you fishing, Ms Armitage.”
“No.” She smiled. “I’m letting you know my best friend also works on this ship. She can castrate a steer in ten seconds flat and I will send her to this cabin if you tell me you’re using me to screw around on someone.”
Ari laughed – god, how long had it been since he’d laughed like this? - despite the abhorrence of her cheating implication.
He was a one woman guy, always had been.
“You can tell your friend to stand down. There’s nobody.”
Nobody. The thought was hardly new but it was sobering. Up until this cruise, Ari hadn’t particularly cared. He hadn’t looked outside his shell in three years.
Meeting Kelsey had him reassessing everything.
“Right answer,” she said, that cupid’s bow stretching out as the smile spread across her face. Her finger stroked down his chin and along his jaw line, the faint rasp of his whiskers loud in the night.
“I had a wife...”
Her finger stopped in its tracks, the bow relaxed back to its usual fullness. She blinked. So did Ari. What the hell? He hadn’t planned on saying that at all.
It had just...slipped out.
Ari didn’t talk about Talia. He’d tried, in the beginning, but his family had discouraged it because it caused him distress. They’d thought it healthier to look forward not back. So, he’d stopped trying.
Hell, he’d barely opened up to his therapist about her.
But he hadn’t moved forward. He’d talked to her in his head instead, shutting everyone out. Just him and her, holding her close that way.
“Okay.”
Ari liked that she wasn’t battering him with questions or freaking out. That she was waiting for him to direct the conversation. “She died. Three years ago. In a car accident. She was thirty.”
Her gaze searched his and Ari watched as realisation dawned across her face. “The one you were in. That causes your migraines?”
“Yes.”
“I’m...sorry.” She slid her hand onto his cheek, her fingers brushing his hairline. “So very sorry. That’s a truly shit thing to happen.”
Ari stared at her for a few seconds, taken aback by her unusual condolences. And then, much to his surprise a big bubble of laughter rose in his chest and found its way out his mouth.
“Oh god, I’m sorry.” She leaned back a little, her cheeks turning pink, her brows crinkling in consternation. “That wasn’t very respectful, was it? I never really know what to say.”
“No.” Ari shook his head. “It’s perfect. I’ve heard so many well meaning platitudes this past three years I want to scream. People telling me that there’s a reason for everything and at least she didn’t suffer or that god needed another angel in heaven.”
He shook his head. He knew people were as much at a loss over something to say as Kelsey but he’d rather they said nothing at all than something trite. He slid his hands onto her face, cupping her cheeks. “It was shit and you have no idea how good it is to hear somebody say that.” Ari was glad he’d gone with the strange urge to open up. “You clearly have a gift with words,” he teased, wanting to dissolve the frown knitting her brows together.
She gave him a crooked smile. “Oh yeah. I should definitely open my own condolence card company.”
He laughed. “Let me know if you ever need an investor.”
And then he kissed her, savouring her mouth for long, drugging moments. The scent of his soap on her skin and the feel of her breasts squashed against his chest was a dizzying combination.
He wanted this woman.
But she broke away, the bow of her upper lip wet and a little swollen from his passion. “Is that what you meant earlier?” she asked. “About being rusty?”
“Yeah. There hasn’t been anyone else.”
“Since...she died? For three years?”
He nodded. The thought of being with anyone else after Talia had been about as exciting as a kick to the balls. “Are you freaking out?”
“No.” She shook her head slowly. “I’m...impressed.”
“By the period of celibacy?”
“Yes. And,” she smiled, “your still impressive skills. You’re like a...wizard or something.”
He laughed as she slid her leg over him and pushed herself up, straddling his hips. She was glorious astride him like this, her hair in disarray, her skin pale against the swarthier tone of his, her rose-tipped breasts full and round and bouncy.
Gathering her hair to the side she leaned in to kiss him and Ari met her half way, raising his head off the pillow, kissing her quick and hard. She moaned as he stroked his tongue against hers and desire flowed like quick silver through his veins and flooded his groin, his cock stiffening in an instant.
“Mmm,” she murmured against his mouth as she rubbed herself up and down his length. “You brought your magic wand, I see.”
He chuckled, his hands stroking down her back to her ass, holding her tight against him. “What self respecting wizard leaves home without it?”
She ground a little harder, moaning in a way that went straight to his testicles. “It’s indefatigable, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Ari muttered, dropping a chain of kisses from the side of her mouth to her ear. After three years of celibacy his cock had returned with impressive vigour. “Unfortunately for it, I’m out of condoms.”
Ari hadn’t thought to secure more. Because they weren’t supposed to be
doing this again.
“Oh no,” she whispered, dropping her head to the side. “The poor thing.”
“He’s very sad,” Ari murmured, nuzzling down her neck, his tongue licking against the pulse fluttering in her throat.
“Maybe I can kiss him better?”
Ari’s groin tightened. “I’m sure he’d enjoy that.”
He kissed her then, hard and deep one more time before Kelsey broke away and moved determinedly south. Down his throat, buzzing her lips and flicking her tongue over his nipples, licking around his belly button, tracing the trail of hair heading south from his navel all the way down to the root of his cock.
Ari groaned as she grabbed hold around the base, and planted a string of kisses the length of his shaft from the root all the way to the tip. When she reached the flushed, taut crown she licked at the bead of liquid that had formed at the slit and Ari’s hands bunched in the sheets.
The urge to thrust up, to push himself into her mouth rode him like the devil. He wanted to see her lips stretched around him, he wanted to feel the head of his cock pushing into the soft give at the back of her throat and he wanted to lock gazes with her as she sucked and released every inch of him.
But he didn’t. Because most of all he wanted to prolong this connection. Not just the wet suck of her mouth but the intimacy of the act. When he’d gone to that other woman’s room so long along, he’d wanted two things – to forget and for it to be over.
It was different with Kelsey...he wanted to remember every moment and he never wanted it to end.
Ari didn’t know how he was going to feel about this time when it was all over – he expected it wasn’t going to be pretty - but right now he felt alive and that felt good.
Slowly – oh so slowly – her mouth sunk down over his taut, aching girth, wet and hot and so fucking good, he almost went blind with the flare of light bursting across his retina. It was pure torture to stay still, not to place his hand on the back of her head and thrust.
Ari’s balls tightened and the nerves at the base of his spine sparked and lit up like a circuit board. He groaned as her cheeks hollowed out on the upstroke, his hands tightening in the sheets as she sucked good and hard. Pausing at the head she swirled her tongue around and around, lingering each time on the underside, flicking back and forth against the ridge of skin before completing another full rotation and doing it again.
Theé! She was the devil!
He grunted as her tongue relented its maddening flick and she plunged her mouth down his shaft once more, their gazes locking. Kelsey’s big green eyes stared at him through strands of her hair as he bottomed out and her throat worked to accommodate him, moving convulsively, moisture glistening at the corners of her mouth as she held him there for interminable seconds.
Christe! Her mouth was pure, wicked sin.
She half gasped, half gagged as she finally withdrew. But not fully, she spent long moments torturing the taut aching crown again, her eyes fixed on his, the muscles in his ass clamped tight as wheel nuts. She dallied mercilessly, stoking the spreading heat in his belly before heading south again, taking him all the way to the back, swallowing convulsively again, humming her desire as she held.
The low guttural sound vibrated right through his testicles and they pulled even tighter as cool fingers dragged up the centre of his ball sack, cupping and squeezing. The sensation was like throwing rocket fuel on the fire of his arousal and Ari groaned praying for strength.
“Theé dóse mou dýnami.”
Pulling off him, one hand still firmly at the base of his cock, Kelsey’s mouth found his balls. The wet heat was a shocking contrast to her cool fingers and Ari’s hips bucked involuntarily. When she sucked first one and then the other in her mouth, the muscles of his ass locked so tight he was pretty sure he was going to need some kind of intravenous medication to relax them again.
Ari closed his eyes as she rolled them in the hot cavern of her mouth and saw stars – tiny, white pinpricks of light bursting into supernovas as her tongue savoured them like they were the finest damn truffles in the land. His heart beat like it never had before and there was a tightness in his chest that made him breathless and restless all at once. Lightning forked up his spine and sizzled along nerve endings.
She made him want to cuss and buck and grind. She made him want to split his skin. She made him want to give in to the desperate urge to let go.
Just when Ari felt certain he couldn’t contain his orgasm any longer, Kelsey’s tongue trekked from his balls to the crown again and sunk down. But she didn’t play around this time. She didn’t tease or do clever things with her tongue. She just sucked him – all the way down and all the way up, applying just the right amount of suction.
And, as his climax rushed out from his groin and wrung through the muscles of his ass and thighs and belly, Ari couldn’t keep his hands still any longer - he had to touch. His fingers slid into her hair, glorying at the silky strands as he cupped her head, crying out as the first jet of come roared from his balls straight into the wet, willing heat of her mouth.
She moaned as her throat worked to hold him deep and swallow at the same time, the sound sinking hot talons into his ass. And then her hand closed tight around his balls and flaming arrows of lust let fly finding their marks with pinpoint precision.
Ari’s body was one giant throb. His abdomen pulsed, his groin pulsed, the thick, fat vein at his neck pulsed. The mad flutter at his temples was loud in his ears. His entire body trembled to the hard drum beat of his heart.
And then it was over, the climax ebbing and finally stealing away leaving him spent and ravaged, his breathing heavy as Kelsey planted tiny kisses from the soft, vulnerable skin of his groin to the dip of his belly button, to the flat, brown discs of his nipples.
Reaching his throat she nuzzled her way along the ridge of his trachea before anchoring her bent elbow snug in his armpit and propping her head on her hand. She quirked an eyebrow. “Does he feel better now?”
Ari chuckled, his hand sliding up her back, under the golden strands of her hair to her shoulder. “I think it’s fair to say he feels fucking fantastic.”
She smiled. “Then my work here is done.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Kelsey tiptoed through the deserted passageway to her cabin like a thief in the night. In half an hour it would be bustling with staff busily heading to the breakfast shift but for now, it was all clear.
She’d hadn’t meant to stay the night with Ari. Kelsey didn’t usually stay the night. Since Eric had screwed her over so thoroughly, she’d been determined not to get close to anyone, not to let anyone distract her from her goals.
Once the sexy times were done – she left. Sleeping with someone was relationship territory. Not one-night-stand territory. And definitely not ill-advised, against-the-rules cruise fling territory.
And, she’d gotten the distinct impression the last time she’d been in Ari’s bed that he’d been relieved when she’d scrambled out of it and gone back to her quarters.
But she must have been even more exhausted than she’d thought and by the time she realised Ari had drifted to sleep she was almost there herself and it was so warm and snugly by his side.
Kelsey smiled then shook her head. She should not be smiling at five fifteen in the morning. She’d had less than three hours sleep and was acutely aware of the ache between her legs and the graze just about her left nipple from a string of over-zealous kisses. But every part of her hummed with satisfaction and just thinking about the pink paper umbrella she’d found in her pocket and left on Ari’s vanity unit turned her smile goofy.
Not even the thought she’d broken another rule and stayed the night, was enough to stop her smiling.
Grabbing her swipe card, Kelsey waved it in front of her door and quietly pushed it open, grateful for the single cabin that came with being a senior member of staff. She didn’t want to have to face any roomie questions.
But she wasn’t counting on Tiffany.
>
“Well hello there.”
Kelsey practically jumped out of her skin, turning to find Tiffany leaning casually against the door jamb. “Jesus,” she hissed. “Must you lurk?”
A fiercely imperious eyebrow – Tiff’s eyebrows were magnificent - winged halfway up Tiffany’s forehead. “I’m not lurking, I’m just getting off shift.”
She indicated her croupier uniform that hugged all her curves and had caused many a punter to lose his mind and his chips. The other eyebrow winged upwards. “What’s your excuse?”
Crap. What was her excuse? “I...wanted to see the sunrise.”
“In your uniform from last night?” Tiffany laughed as if it was the most absurd things she’d ever heard.
Kelsey shushed her before dragging her into her cabin and shutting the door. “Do you want to wake everybody up?” she demanded.
Those eyebrows knitted together as Tiffany eyed her speculatively. “You’re having sex.”
“No.” Kelsey’s denial was hot and fast but the instantaneous shot of colour to her cheeks gave her away.
“Oh my god.” Tiffany grinned. “You are, aren’t you?”
Kelsey’s second denial was significantly weaker. “You’re being ridiculous.”
But Tiffany in full sleuth mode was not to be deterred. “It’s that new sommelier, isn’t it? Damon or Devon or something?”
“Davida,” Kelsey supplied. Tiffany’s shocking memory for names was legendary. “And no. I’m not screwing any of the wait staff.”
She snapped her fingers. “That hottie dancer dude with the tight buns and a twelve pack? The blonde one.”
“No.” There was significant male talent amongst the entertainment staff but Kelsey doubted she could ever sleep with a blonde again after being with the bronzed and beautiful Ari.
Tiffany narrowed her eyes. “Why are you being so evasive? You’re never evasive.” Suddenly her face took on a look of abject horror. “Oh dear god, you’re not screwing one of the officers, are you? You know those dudes are the biggest manwhores in existence.”
A few years ago their friend Jamilla had been screwed over by a first officer and Tiffany had to be restrained from putting a cockroach in his dinner.
