Off the Charts

by Anna Lowe

  Julie turned within the frame of his arms and found his eyes. They were shining and fierce, revealing a dark, determined side. She could imagine him morphing into a dragon if anyone came too close. A dragon, and she was his jewel, shining in the night. If only he’d take her back to his lair and—

  She gave herself a little shake. Clearly, she’d been reading the wrong kind of books lately.

  “You good?” he murmured. His voice just about vibrated into her chest, it was that low. That close.

  She managed a nod and searched for somewhere to put her hands. They ended up flat up against his abs, which seemed slightly more acceptable than around his waist.

  “I’m fine,” she murmured, feeling his body heat under her touch.

  Feeling more than fine, because he was that close.

  All but the noise of the crowd was gone, and all but the sight of him closed away. His eyes dropped to her lips, then bounced back up again.

  God, I’d like to kiss you, they said.

  God, I’d like that, she wanted to reply.

  His gaze was like a spotlight, and her heart thumped as he leaned in. Closer. Closer, until he was right over her lips.

  Then he blinked, and she could practically see the barriers jump up his mind. What the hell am I doing?

  “Julie—” he started.

  Nuh-uh. No second thoughts. She grabbed him by the collar and pulled him closer. He’d been thinking about a kiss, and damn it, that’s what he’d get. That’s what she’d get, too. No more thinking, no more wondering.

  No regrets.

  Chapter Four

  The minute their lips met, Julie wanted more. And more, and more.

  Seth’s lips were the slightest bit salty, the slightest bit dry, just like a weathered sailor should be. Canted and tasty and just right, they met hers in a gentle, rippling kiss, like moonlight dancing over the sea. A kiss to waft away on and follow to uncharted shores.

  Seth’s lips pulsed against hers. Slow and sweet and intent, as if he wanted to draw out the pleasure of this new taste. His lips nibbled along the edge of hers, daring but not quite daring to do more.

  She sighed, drinking it in. It wasn’t her imagination. Seth wanted this, too. Wanted more than a kiss, judging by the slide of his hands along her ribs.

  He pulled back just long enough to breathe and scrub his chin along the length of her jaw in a long, leonine nuzzle. Then he dove back in and kissed her again. Harder, hungrier. There wasn’t a trace of city slicker in that second kiss; more like a sailor who’d been too long between ports. On the surface, his touch was gentle, but beneath it was urgency and unrest, like the gentleman was fighting the buccaneer inside.

  Julie had no such inner battle. She looped her arms over his shoulders, grateful for every inch of height that let her line up so perfectly with him. Dangerously naughty felt awfully good, now that she was trying it for the very first time. Especially once he slid his hands around her back and pulled her even closer. Tighter. They were chest to chest, stomach to stomach, thigh to thigh. She shifted to let his leg slide between hers, tipping her whole body over into the red zone. His, too, because he was hard and hot and teetering close to the edge.

  The kiss went deeper — so deep it wasn’t about kissing any more. She slid her tongue over his and ran it along that row of perfect teeth. Bit by bit, the kiss got away from her, and the itch became a blaze, an ache in her core that only this man could soothe.

  He didn’t feel like a perfect stranger. He only felt perfect for her.

  He pulled back and hid his face in her neck, huffing for breath. She crushed her body closer, wanting more of his breath and his lips and his hands all over her.

  “Woo-hoo, amigos!” A couple of stragglers from the soccer crowd wandered by, chuckling.

  Julie couldn’t care less. She went back to nuzzling him in long, steady strokes that he returned in deliciously rough pulls, back and forth. His chin was like sandpaper of exactly the right grit, and every time they got to the end of one pass, he’d move smoothly into the next, like a dance partner who could predict her every move.

  Then a voice broke in to her little bubble, and the outside world came shouldering back in.

  “Heya, Seth! Did you see…um…ah…” Tobin, the brother, sputtered to a stop. “Oh. Sorry.”

  Julie hid her face against Seth’s neck. If life had a rewind button, she’d hit it, go back to two seconds ago, and edit his brother right out of the scene.

  Seth’s hands tightened around her waist, and his answer came out in a grizzly growl. “What, Tobin?”

  It was so fierce, she almost felt sorry for his younger brother. Well, almost.

  “Oh,” Tobin started up again. “I mean, right. Um…nothing.”

  Seth lifted one arm and braced it against the wall, letting her hide in the den of his arms. Protecting a moment he, too, seemed reluctant to let go.

  Julie ran her chin across his shoulder, and Seth’s face dipped back to hers. When the brother spoke again, he seemed far, far away.

  “Well, um… See you.”

  Then it was only them there again, the distant music, the rumble of the sea. Seth’s sea-breeze scent, so enticingly close.

  “Don’t mind my brother,” he whispered between nuzzles, and they both chuckled until the hunger gradually seeped back into his eyes.

  “Seth,” she said.

  He looked at her with an expression so hopeful that her nerves all fired simultaneously.

  Her lips struggled with anything but the idea of a kiss, so she kissed him, rubbed her hands along his round shoulders, and tried not to shove her hips any closer to his. Broke the kiss from his mouth to follow the line of his jaw up to his ear, where she whispered, “How much shore leave do you think you can get, sailor?”

  His lips quirked against her skin. “I’m the captain. I can do what I want.”

  “And what is it you want?” she breathed.

  The way his whole body went tight said, You.

  “Another kiss,” he said.

  “Just a kiss?” she teased, circling his ear with her lips.

  He inhaled sharply and went perfectly still. “A kiss,” he rumbled, and the sound vibrated into her bones the way the bass notes of a powerful stereo did.

  “And after that kiss?” she went on. God, she was better at picking up perfect strangers than she thought.

  “Then you decide what comes next.”

  A zing went through her. The man was the real thing.

  She let her body slide up against his, then back down, the itch growing again. If she didn’t watch it, she’d be rutting up against him shamelessly. Hell, she already was rutting against him shamelessly. Time for another kiss.

  She tipped her chin back and found his lips. Her whole body wanted in on that kiss, and the bulge of his cock against her stomach told her he did, too. She kissed harder and harder until they broke apart to gulp the night air. She rested her forehead on his shoulder and sighed when his arms fell into just the right hold.

  “Your turn,” Seth whispered, running his thumbs along her neck. “What do you want?”

  Fast, hard, furious sex seemed like a good start. But the words that slipped out of her mouth came from the good girl side of her soul. “Um, a walk down the beach?”

  “Just a walk?” Now he was teasing.

  Well, two could play at that game. “A walk. A seaside walk.” She nodded and played it cool while her heart thumped wildly inside. “Then a question.”

  His eyebrows lifted, bringing even more shine into his eyes. “A question?”

  She ran the back of her hand over his chest before answering and took a deep breath. “Your place or mine?”

  His eyes shone brighter then flitted to the sea as if he were a merman considering his underwater realm. His fingers tightened around hers as he murmured into her ear.

  “Yours.” Taut fingers ran through her hair, smoothing what he’d mussed. “Yours.”

  Chapter Five

  It should
have been awkward, that long walk to Julie’s bungalow, but it wasn’t. It was fun. Free. Easy, just like every moment of the past hour or two since they’d met. Seth looked up at the stars the way he did on night watch in the open sea, checking if he was drifting off course. They were winking madly, telling him his latitude and longitude were spot-on because that’s where she was.

  Julie. Christ, he didn’t even know her last name, but it still felt so right.

  She kept up a steady stream of conversation. A little keyed up, maybe, like him, because it wasn’t every night you wandered into town for a beer and wandered back out with a woman on your arm. Not a woman like Julie, at least.

  She’d slipped her sandals off to walk barefoot in the sand. The southeasterly breeze toyed with her sandy brown hair, and the moonlight gave it a golden glow. Her blue tank top curved softly over her lean curves, and toned legs swung along under the frilled edge of her shorts.

  She picked up a coconut and shook it, listening to the milk slosh back and forth before tossing it aside.

  “Not quite ripe.”

  A woman who knew coconuts. He loved that, too.

  “I bet you’re all coconuted out by now,” she sighed. “All those islands…” Her hand waved toward the horizon, and her voice was wistful.

  And there it was again, the urge to toss her over a shoulder, row her over to Serendipity, and sail off with her to some tiny tropical island of their own.

  “We haven’t quite mastered coconuts yet,” he admitted.

  “You have to get just the right one, and put your machete right there…” She put her hand against an imaginary coconut like a blade.

  “Your machete?” Like every woman carried one in her purse. Except this woman probably had it strapped to the side of her motorcycle.

  She shrugged. “You should see some of the places I work.”

  He could picture her hacking through the jungle, beating back a python or two on her way to vine-covered ruins.

  “Really?”

  “Really.” She nodded, completely matter-of-fact.

  “Where have you worked?”

  She waved a hand vaguely. “Peru. Turkey. Guatemala.”

  Christ. She made Boston and New York sound so tame.

  Her gaze wandered back out to the anchorage. “I’ve never traveled by boat, though. A big sailboat.”

  He laughed. “Serendipity’s not big.”

  “Big enough,” she murmured.

  His eyes followed hers out to the boat. It was small and weathered and damn it, Tobin had left the boom drooping again, but none of that really mattered. Julie didn’t look like she minded, that was for sure. And she was right. Serendipity would be big enough for two people. And not just the me-and-my-brother kind of two. For all the fond memories of summer trips with his grandfather when he and his brother were little kids and zipped into sleeping bags in the forward berth on cool Maine nights, he wouldn’t mind a different kind of sailing company these days.

  Her kind of company.

  They petered to a stop, and he glanced at Julie just before her lips closed over his. Another kiss that was hard and hungry and so hot, his eyesight dimmed a tiny bit. He wound his arms around her and held her body flush against his. Her fingers threaded into his hair as his tongue found hers and kissed harder. Harder. So hard he was tempted to lower her to the sand and strip, then and there.

  It had a certain appeal. He’d never had sex on a beach, or in the backseat of a car, or even a cheap motel. Hadn’t done much more than straight-up missionary style with any of the straight-up women he’d dated over the years.

  God, it was high time he had a little more adventure in his life. And Julie was just the woman for that. If they compared notes, she’d probably admit to having sex in lots more interesting places than beds. Like on the hood of a jeep with some Indiana Jones type he already despised.

  An image he blocked out fast. There was no Indiana Jones type, not tonight. Tonight it was him and her. A little adventure in its own right.

  He breathed in the salt air. It was a night made for sex on the beach, and he had just enough alcohol in his system to make that seem like a good idea. But there were a couple of night fishermen right over there, and someone walking up from the other direction, so that would never do.

  She moaned into the next kiss and pushed her hips so close, his cock ached.

  “Where’s this bungalow of yours?” he managed.

  Her hand fluttered in one direction, but she didn’t budge. “Over there.”

  It took a series of half starts and near stumbles to get there, what with their bodies squeezing every inch of air out of the space between them. Julie seemed torn between exploring every corner of his mouth and racing to the bungalow, and it didn’t help that he couldn’t quite get his feet and his cock to agree on the order of operations. Take her then and there, or shuffle over to the privacy of her palm-thatched hut?

  When they finally made it there, he backed her against the wall and consumed her. Locked his arms around her and his mouth over hers and stopped breathing for a while because, what was a little oxygen at a time like this? The bungalow creaked, giggled, groaned against the pressure. If he had any faith the place would stand up, he’d bang her right on this wall. Jesus, he practically was. Her hands were clamped over his ass, tightening in suggestive little thrusts.

  “Gotta get inside,” he mumbled, and his dirty mind wasn’t just referring to the hut.

  Her hands found the hem of his shorts and dove inside, exploring the bare skin underneath. “Soon,” she whispered.

  He rocked against her. “Soon isn’t that far off. Not if we keep this up.”

  She ran a hand down his chest. “Soon is good with me.” Then she went a little red under the moonlight. “Please believe me that I don’t usually do this.”

  He wanted to echo those whispered words. Because he’d never hopped in the sack — or over to the nearest wall — this quickly with anyone. But then again, he’d never met her before. She was something so new, so unique…so everything.

  “Neither do I. But, believe me, it’s never like this.”

  She seemed to know just what this was. This pull. This explosive chemistry. This need.

  “Definitely never like this,” she nodded, running her hands up the back of his shirt.

  “I’ve known you long enough to know we both want this,” he whispered, sliding his arms behind her and lifting her up. Her legs snaked around him as he lowered her to his aching cock. Lifted again. Lowered. Rubbed her hard, cock to her mound. Finding the soft, yielding flesh underneath.

  Her sharp exhale caught him in the ear and sent a tingle down his spine.

  Voices sounded in the distance, and when she broke away, he let her go, thinking she’d unlock the door and let him in. As it turned out, she had other thoughts. Like sliding a hand down the front of his shorts and closing a sure hand around his cock.

  He forced his eyes to stay on her instead of rolling backward. The groan, though, he couldn’t hold back. “God, that’s good.”

  Her eyes sparkled like the sea under the moon, and her hand worked up and down. “Just good?” Her fingertips found the sensitive head and one finger slid across the seam. He’d come right into her hand if she kept that up.

  “More than good,” he breathed, then locked his hand over hers and held her gaze the same way. “Let me in.” He said it slowly, so she knew just what he meant.

  She grinned, practically glowing with feminine power. “Say it, Seth.” She wiggled her fingers, and whatever blood hadn’t already made it to that part of his body yet went rushing in.

  “Let me inside you.”

  The pixie grin on her face slid over from tease to pure lust, so he said it again. “Let me inside you, Julie. Hard and fast, or soft and slow. Whatever you want. Just let me in.”

  She leaned in and answered, a millimeter away from his lips. “How about hard and fast, then soft and slow? Can you do that, sailor?”

  God, he liked t
he sound of that. “Aye, aye,” he mumbled, giving in to her kiss. “Aye, aye.”

  Chapter Six

  On one breath, Julie sniffed the nutmeg and coconut of the night air; on the next, she fumbled with the doorknob and pulled Seth inside, inhaling his clean, masculine scent. Every nerve in her clamored to be tickled, touched, turned shamelessly around.

  She stepped backward, pulling Seth deeper inside, and he reached back to close the door.

  “Leave it open,” she whispered, tugging on his hand. “Let the moon shine in.”

  Even with his face cast into shadow, she could see his grin.

  “Tell me you have a condom,” she mumbled. “If I have to excavate one out of my bag now—”

  “Excavate?” He chuckled.

  “You should see my bag.”

  “Good thing Tobin insisted on sticking one in my wallet, then.”

  “Just one?” she blurted.

  Seth chuckled, and her sex ached. With the moon boxing his shoulders and the sound of the sea whispering in, he was a vision right out of a pirate fantasy. The one where she was the willing prize and he had the endurance born of too many nights alone at sea.

  “Two,” he answered.

  “Good enough,” she mumbled. “For now.” She dropped backward on the bed, pulling him with her. Working his shirt off in a smooth move totally unlike her usual self. Not that she was shy in bed, but it never seemed to go as seamlessly as this. Like they’d rehearsed over and over until they got it exactly right.

  And that was just his shirt. She couldn’t wait for the rest.

  His hands came down on either side of her, and he kissed her just hard enough to send a shot of heat to her core, but gently enough to let her hands explore the exciting new territory she’d just uncovered. She traced the grooves of his abs, slid over the shelf of his chest, and smoothed a palm over the flat expanse of his pecs.

  Not a tan line in sight. “What, do you sail in the buff?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Seriously?” Her imagination went wild. Which was kind of crazy, what with the real thing in her hands, but the image of him at the wheel of a ship with the sun beating down on his bare body was just too good to resist.