‘You think it’s going to be that easy?’
‘It will be because I’ll chuck these clothes to the bottom of my suitcase and return to my boring skirts and tops.’
‘And that’s why you’re sexy.’
‘Why? What are you talking about?’
‘You say things that make me smile. Do you honestly think that a change of wardrobe is going to quench what I’m feeling? You make me smile and, when you add in a sharp brain, you have a killer combination. I looked at you earlier, poised...confident...at ease with every bit of technical conversation being tossed around... You can’t imagine what a turn-on that was.’
He paused and then turned away to grasp the hand rail that ran round the edge of the boat. ‘I need to cool off.’
Ellie didn’t say anything. Her head was buzzing. She wanted all this nonsense to stop immediately! But she also wanted him to keep on talking, feeding her ego and sending her nervous system into a tailspin.
She liked what he was doing to her and that terrified her. The door that had been nudged ajar between them had now been kicked wide open and, whilst she was desperate to get it shut again, whilst she knew she had to get it shut again, a wilful part of her couldn’t help but toy with the idea of touching him.
She’d wanted to, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she thought about that in the early hours of the morning, caught in that pleasant place between sleep and wakefulness, when thoughts were allowed to roam free? Yes, of course they weren’t compatible, not at all, but still, acknowledging that did nothing to kill the surge of desire inside her.
‘I need to have a swim.’
‘You can’t!’
But he was already stripping off his tee shirt. After swimming off and on during the day, he had left his swimming trunks on. He was ready to dive into the sea, except this time there was no blue sky above or transparent water lapping the sides of the Catamaran. Now, the sea was threateningly deep, dark and fathomless. Ellie watched in fascinated horror as he moved swiftly to the side of the boat, eschewing the shallow steps on each hull that would have made for a slower adjustment to the coldness of the water.
He dived straight in and disappeared. Of course he would surface! She had watched from the sidelines as he had swum earlier on, mesmerised by the graceful fluidity of his lean body slicing through the water, his strokes effortless and powerful at the same time It was so dark that she could barely make out anything. She certainly couldn’t make out any surfacing shape and her panic began rising the more she peered into the darkness, hoping to see his silhouette.
The twin-hulled, squat shape of the boat made for a very solid, safe vessel but she now wondered whether he had misjudged the width of it, so much broader than a typical small yacht, and had tried to surface only to find his head bumping against the bottom of the boat. Things could get confusing when you couldn’t see clearly and you were in unfamiliar surroundings. What could be more unfamiliar to someone whose stamping ground was the concrete jungle than an ocean, at night, in the middle of the tropics?
Frantically moving from bow to stern and scouring the flat, dark ocean mass, she yelped when she heard his voice behind her. In fact, it took her a couple of seconds to recognise his voice at all, and her heart was in her mouth when she whipped round to see him standing in front of her.
‘Where the heck have you been?’ She was pressed against the railing, gripping it for dear life. The gentlest of night breezes wafted her fine hair around her face and she impatiently pushed her hand through it.
‘Swimming.’
He’d fetched a towel from the deck somewhere and was drying himself.
‘Yes, I know you’ve been swimming!’
‘Then why the rhetorical question? Let’s go below deck. I need to get into some dry clothes.’
He spun round on his heels and began heading down to the living and sleeping quarters, ample enough, as she had discovered, for eight people to move around comfortably without getting in one another’s way.
‘Were you worried?’
The spacious quarters now seemed cramped as he slowly turned to look at her, having flung the towel on the table which nestled in the centre of a fitted L-shaped banquette.
The galley, the saloon and the helm station all flowed into one huge open space in this area. Ellie’s legs felt like jelly but, whilst she was desperate to sink onto the padded leather banquette, his dark blue eyes, so dramatic with their lush, dark lashes, skewered her to the spot, making movement impossible.
Down here, the dark, warm night and the inky black ocean were no longer pressing around them. Only the gentle undulating of the boat was a reminder that they were on water.
‘I didn’t see you surface,’ she said thinly. ‘Of course I was worried! Anyone would have been in my situation?’
‘And what situation is that?’
He’d towel-dried and slung on his dry tee shirt, but the swimming trunks were still on, clinging to his muscular thighs, and she had to steel herself not to look.
One glance and who knew what kind of unwelcome physical responses would be surging through her already heated body?
The electricity between them sizzled and she wasn’t going to do anything to ratchet it up further.
He fancied her... He wanted to touch her...to kiss...to make love...
Those words were now lodged in her head and how on earth was she going to get rid of them? There were only so many times she could keep telling herself that they weren’t suited. Maybe she had become reliant on her role of carer. Maybe she had hidden behind that role even when her mother had stopped needing her quite so much... Maybe, just maybe, she had become fearful of taking all those risks involved with dating guys and just having fun. But, if things had to change, then surely not with a man who had ‘heartbreaker’ stamped all over his forehead! Her breathing was staccato, uneven, as she continued to flounder helplessly.
‘Drink?’
‘No!’
He’d moved to the ingenious wine bottle holder that was built into a concealed walnut drawer.
‘You’re not going to be able to get the boat back...’ She followed his movements with avid, treacherous concentration.
James paused, wine glass in one hand, and shot her a slow, lazy smile that made her toes curl. He’d cooled down and was obviously back in control of the situation. Was he sufficiently in control to realise that anything between them, anything, would be a disaster?
‘Oh, ye of little faith...’ He poured himself a glass of red and strolled towards her to sit on the banquette and pat the space next to him. ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ he prompted softly. ‘What situation?’
‘Huh?’ She ignored the space next to him and sidled to sit facing him instead. The soft lapping of water against the side of the boat was a barely discernible noise, more felt than heard. In here, the silence was thick with tension.
‘You said that anyone in your situation would have been worried sick...’
Ellie noted the way he had tacked the word sick onto his sentence, turning it into quite a different emotion.
‘Do you mean,’ he continued thoughtfully, ‘that anyone trapped on a boat would be worried if they ended up on it alone because they might be stranded at sea until someone came along and rescued them?’
‘Of course not! I’m not a helpless damsel in distress! If I were on this boat alone, I’m sure I would be able to somehow get it back to shore.’
‘Maybe, then,’ he mused, sipping his wine and looking at her with the same pensive expression that gave no guidance as to exactly what was going through his head, ‘you were concerned that, if your boss disappeared off to that great watery graveyard in the sky, your future as a highly paid worker bee might be on the line. I’ll admit there are few companies in London that could rival the working conditions at my place, not to mention the pay...’
‘That’s a crazy
thing to say!’ She whitened, thoughts zooming to him involved in any kind of accident, feeling sick at the very thought. ‘That’s not why I was worried! I was worried because...because...’
‘Because,’ he murmured, looking at her steadily, his dark eyes boring straight into her, addling her, ‘you have feelings for me that go beyond the usual, predictable boss-secretary relationship, don’t you...’
It wasn’t a question, it was an assumption, and she opened her mouth to deny it but nothing emerged.
‘You’re attracted to me, whether you want to admit it or not. You’re as attracted to me as I am to you. Maybe we might not have said anything before, when we were in London, imprisoned in the routine and normality of my office there, but here we are.’
‘No,’ Ellie whispered weakly.
‘Alone...’ he continued with the remorseless determination of a battering ram. ‘In this Catamaran, out in the tropics, with nothing but the deep, dark ocean beneath us and the deep, dark skies above us...’
‘Stop, please.’ She barely recognised her voice. Gone was the no-nonsense firmness which represented the backbone of her relationship with him. In its place as a wavering, pleading hesitancy that exposed all her weaknesses.
He’d said that she had feelings for him.
He’d summed that up as meaning that she was physically attracted to him.
That wasn’t the whole story, though, was it? And therein lied the danger. But, sitting here, the danger was sidelined by the tremendous drag on her senses evoked by what he was saying and the way he was looking at her.
‘Come sit next to me.’
Ellie hesitated and he smiled, smelling victory, which instantly made her stiffen, even though her heart was pounding and there was a giddy pulsing in her veins.
‘We should be getting back.’
‘I thought you were concerned about my handling the boat with too much alcohol in my system.’
‘James...’
‘I’ve always liked the way you say my name, in that husky voice of yours.’
‘Don’t.’
‘Come sit next to me and then tell me don’t...’ But he didn’t leave her wriggle room, instead fluidly vaulting to his feet and before she could take evasive action. He was there, next to her, his body warm and still slightly damp, smelling of the salty sea and something else...
Ellie’s breath hitched in her throat and everything in her body seemed to grind to a halt.
When she dropped her gaze, it was to rest on his hand, loose on his thigh.
She could feel his eyes on her, his attention on her, and the silence pressed down until it was suffocating.
When he stroked the soft underside of her wrist with his finger, she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth together.
‘Look at me.’
‘I... I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
Ellie glanced sideways but then she couldn’t stop herself from feasting her eyes on him.
So beautiful, so dangerous. Up close with him like this felt like the first taste of forbidden fruit and the wetness of her own arousal made her feel faint.
He trailed his thumb over the fullness of her mouth and, when he very gently eased it between her lips, she gave a soft little moan and sucked on it.
What was she doing? How was she ever going to get back from this?
But she was discovering at speed what that little word lust was all about and just how useless common sense was as a weapon with which to ward it off.
His mouth found hers and she melted against him with a sigh of pleasure. She clutched at the tee shirt and her body unconsciously curved towards his, seeking his hardness and his heat. His clothes felt like a barrier between them and she wanted to shove her hands under the tee shirt and tear it off him.
He pushed her back and his kiss deepened and hardened hungrily.
She was barely aware of him scooping her up and carrying her through to one of the four bedrooms, somehow managing to maintain his balance on the gently bobbing boat. The sky could have fallen in and Ellie didn’t think she would have noticed, so caught up in the moment was she.
During the course of the day, none of the bedrooms had been used. This one, the master bedroom, was spectacular, with a generous queen-sized bed, and hatches and opening portholes which could allow in natural light.
He deposited her on the bed without bothering to switch on the overhead light, for which she was extremely grateful. Heaven only knew, the cold glare of daylight was just around the corner, and with it would come all those horrifying questions she knew she should be asking herself right now, but for the moment she wanted this so badly...
There was no room for questions as she watched him peel away the tee shirt and step out of his swimming trunks.
Ellie groaned aloud and resisted the primal urge to touch herself.
* * *
Watching you watching me...
James had never been so turned on before in his life. She lay there, clothed but in disarray, her cheeks hectic with colour and those calm grey eyes hot with the same hunger tearing through him. It was like nothing on earth for him.
It hurt taking his time. He was so hard for her. He felt the hugeness of himself, and gritted his teeth and remained still for a few seconds, willing himself to take it easy. Just looking at her was enough to make him want to bring himself to a fast climax and there was no way he was going to do that. But those eyes on him, looking at him as he absently played with himself, touching himself...
Was this what playing with fire felt like? Because this was playing with fire. Though temptation had never promised to taste sweeter.
He made sure he had protection at hand and then sank onto the mattress alongside her. Here, the slapping of the water against the sides of the boat was more noticeable because the portholes were open.
He kissed her. He teased his tongue into her mouth and felt her shiver against him. He knew that his hand was not quite as steady as could be expected as he slipped it under the small, stretchy top to find her cotton bra and her small, perfectly shaped breasts. He gently massaged one through the flimsy fabric of her bra.
He’d known she wouldn’t wear a swimsuit and she wasn’t. What he hadn’t expected was how satisfied he’d been that she hadn’t frolicked in the sea with the rest of them. He’d had to tear his eyes away from her and it hadn’t escaped him that he wasn’t the only one. Had she noticed? At any rate, having her remain on deck, dutifully working while they swam, had been just fine with him. He wasn’t a jealous guy, but every so often, he’d been honest enough to admit that there was a twinge of something dark that stirred inside him when he caught one of the young guys looking at her.
He baulked at the thought that he might be jealous. He didn’t have a jealous bone in his body. To be jealous, you had to invest, and he was over any kind of emotional investment—had been for years.
No. The bottom line was that this sexy creature represented the taste of forbidden fruit, and what could be more succulent?
He eased the bra off her, expertly unclasping it from behind, and groaned as he settled his hand on her bare breast. He raised himself over her, staring down, taking deep breaths as he pulled off the top and bra.
Her skin was soft and smooth, her breasts small and pert, tipped with glorious, pink, circular discs begging to be licked.
But not yet. First he wanted to savour just the stunning sight of her. See all of her...
He undid the sarong with shaking hands. Underneath she had on a pair of tight shorts, red to match the colours in the sarong, and underneath that her panties.
A voyage of discovery. Heady, sexy, mind-blowing. He’d returned to an adolescent place where he was no longer in control of his reactions. He should have been disconcerted, but instead it was a turn-on. Like taking a white-water ride.
Ellie blossomed under that
fierce, appreciative gaze. His nakedness was intensely erotic. When he had clothes on, his good looks were on the killer scale. With him naked, words failed her.
She had never lain like this before, with a man’s eyes hungry on her naked body. Her one boyfriend, the guy who should have been her soul mate, because they had known one another for a couple of years before going out, had been a disappointment. It had been a classic case of friends who should never have strayed from the straight and narrow. They had parted company without any bad feelings at all. They followed one another on social media, offering appropriate congratulations as necessary at life’s small triumphs, but all that she had taken from it was the firm conviction that, when it came to the physical, she was sorely lacking.
Ben had been pleasant, kind and good-looking. Theoretically, it should have been good between them. Shouldn’t it? So this intense reaction now was something she was ill-prepared for and she could feel it sweeping her along with the ferocity of a tidal wave.
The first touch made her moan out loud and she squirmed as he settled over her and began exploring her breasts with his tongue, with his mouth, with his hands.
Not even in her wildest imaginings had anything felt so good. He suckled on her nipples, drawing them into his mouth while he stroked the soft flesh of her inner thigh. He licked a sensuous path between her breasts and circled her belly button with his finger at the same time. When she squirmed to touch him, he gently propelled her back to tell her that he wanted her to feel like she’d never felt before.
‘But...’ she protested helplessly and he smiled.
‘Don’t worry. I’m not a saint. I want you touching me badly and we have all night to indulge... I’m happy to wait.’
‘All night?’ She’d almost forgotten that they were still on the yacht.
‘I have this boat for as long as I want it.’
Ellie sighed. She wriggled as he continued to touch her, stroking her stomach and circling her nipples with his finger. Then his mouth replaced his finger, and she gasped and breathed in sharply as he traced a sensuous path down her stomach with his tongue, inching lower, then parting her thighs with his hands so that she was open to him.
Claiming His Cinderella Secretary Page 8
