Another beachgoer splashed by. Laughter and chatter from others filtered through Sara’s desire-hazed senses, reminding her of their very public location. She broke their kiss and dropped a chaste peck to the corner of his mouth, his chin.
“This is not what I had in mind when I invited you to come in the water with me,” she said.
Betraying her own words, she licked the scruff on his chin, the saltwater tangy on her tongue. His hands tightened on her butt, his erection straining into her.
“Talking’s overrated.” He ducked his head to nuzzle his nose along her ear with a lusty grumble.
“Mmmm,” she murmured. “I’d love to take this further, but my offer involved something a little different.”
He paused, his mouth at her temple. “You drive a hard bargain.”
“That’s not all that’s hard. But . . . I digress.”
His chuckle tickled her ear. Made her fall a little deeper.
Luis leaned back a little to look down at her, his hold on her butt still secure. His smile faded at her seriousness.
Afraid he’d pull away from her, put up that emotional wall he was adept at erecting, Sara reached up to slide his sunglasses on top of his head.
“Hey—!”
“I wanna look in your eyes. Nothing hidden between us. Truth,” she told him, staring in the mahogany depths of his eyes.
His throat worked. But he didn’t argue. Didn’t look away.
Progress.
The ocean lapped at their shoulders, a piece of leafy seaweed floating by on the surface. She pushed it away, then cupped Luis’s cheek with her palm. “As long as we allow the past to negatively affect our present, it’s impossible to build a positive future.”
He rolled his lips together as if trapping a response in his mouth.
Gently she brushed her thumb over his mouth. “It’s not easy facing our fears.”
He shifted uncomfortably, turning his head to stare at the dock off to his right. Either because of the noon sun or the memories she was asking him to confront, he squinted at the distance. His jaw muscle tightened, evidence of an inner battle she had fought in the past herself. To reveal her most sacred secrets, trust another person with information that could wound her. Or remain silent, alone, hurting.
“Look, I’m not a therapist.” She paused, frowning at her ineptitude, desperately wanting to say the right thing.
“But you did dress up as one for another Halloween party?”
Her lips quirked at his lame joke. “No, you dork.” She swatted him with water, succeeding in splashing some in her own face.
Laughing at the situation could be a good sign. Or a deflection.
The faint smile curving the edges of his mouth calmed her unease. This was an important conversation for the two of them. Without it, they’d never get to a place of true intimacy. Even if this could only be a one-week interlude that served to help them smooth past hurts. She’d take it.
Seeking to soothe his obvious discomfort, she rubbed her palms over his shoulders, slowly drawing her hands up to support his neck. “No, I’m not a clinician. But I’ve had plenty of experience with therapists, and both in- and outpatient therapy.”
His face sobered.
“So talk to me, please.”
A heavy sigh pushed through his lips. He closed his eyes for several dull heartbeats before meeting her gaze, resignation haunting his face. “I was engaged once. About six years ago.”
The admission took Sara by surprise. Not wanting any reaction from her to make him shut down, she worked to school her face into an open expression.
“Not for long, though we dated for almost two years before I proposed. We actually knew each other as kids. She graduated high school a few years after me, with Enrique. Who—”
He broke off. Frowned. Cleared his throat as he shook his head and looked away again.
Sara stroked her fingers at his nape, giving him the silent space to take his time, along with the reassurance that she was listening.
“Who it turns out was the brother she really wanted.”
Sara’s fingers stilled. Shock at the idea of some woman not recognizing her good fortune in possessing Luis’s love and devotion knocked rational thought away.
In the next moment, despair and anger surged in Sara’s chest, blocking her throat with tight-fisted empathy. She knew what it felt like to be compared to a sibling and come out the loser. To know you weren’t considered good enough.
Above them, the sun slipped behind a cloud, casting a dull shadow across the water’s surface. A breeze skittered over her wet shoulders, and Sara shivered. Luis dipped them lower into the warmth of the water, thinking of her comfort even in the midst of his difficult admission.
She hugged him, their cheeks pressed together for the sweetest of moments. When she pulled back to offer him an encouraging nod, his frown deepened to a scowl that hinted more at confusion than anger.
“I was too focused on being her savior,” he continued. “Convinced I could show her that she was more than the troubled teen from a broken family who’d grown up to become a woman unaware of her potential, deserving of good things. But really, she’d said yes to our first date out of curiosity, thinking it’d make Enrique jealous. Then stuck around because . . .”
He scoffed with such harsh self-derision Sara’s heart broke for him.
“Because I made her feel good when my brother wouldn’t give her the time of day. Enrique knew she wanted him. Hell, they slept together after she and I first started dating.”
“What?”
The outraged question slipped out before Sara could stop it.
“I’m sorry,” she offered, not wanting to influence him in any way, especially if it would stop him from sharing. “It’s not my place to judge.”
“Why not? I have.” Luis’s mouth twisted with contempt. “Enrique was in Miami for art school at the time. I’m not sure if he knew we were an item. But he didn’t confess once he found out. After he graduated and moved back home, then decided to go to fire college, she propositioned him again. Even though we were engaged by then. When he finally manned up and threatened to out her, she freaked. Left a beach party up at Bahia Honda in no condition to be driving.”
Despair and disillusion clouded his dark eyes. The sad emotions painted the angles of his handsome face and Sara wanted to rail at the other woman for her stupidity. And his brother, for the hand he’d played in hurting this wonderfully generous man.
“Mirna survived a couple days after her car accident. Long enough to make peace with her erratic mom, say good-bye to the abuela who raised her. And admit the truth to me. She wanted absolution. As hard as that was for me. As betrayed as I felt, I had to . . .”
His lips trembled and he pinched them together. Sara gently cupped his jaw, willing him to sense her empathy, maybe find inner strength from it.
“I gave it to her because she needed it,” he murmured, his tone a heartrending mix of disgust and defeat. “She needed peace before she passed. But my brother? He didn’t even bother to come to the hospital. Then he showed up for the funeral and tried to bug out five minutes into the wake. Told me she didn’t deserve to be mourned.” Luis’s jaw muscle ticced, his pain palpable. “Our fight on Mirna’s abuela’s front lawn was not my finest moment. The little shit didn’t even fight back when I tackled him. I got two solid punches in before Carlos and Anamaría pulled me off him. I didn’t see Enrique until familia dinner a week later, but the shiner I gave him didn’t look half-bad.”
He reached up to grab his Ray-Bans, then dipped his head backward in the ocean, as if to wash away the painful memories in the salty water.
Rivulets ran down his temples and Sara wiped them away with her thumbs to keep them from stinging his eyes. His mouth curved in a sad semblance of the half grin that made her belly flip-flop and her chest tighten.
“And that is the end of my mood-killing sob story. Satisfied?” He squinted down at her before slipping his glasses back into
place. The move shielded his eyes from her, hiding the windows into his soul that she longed to peek into.
Satisfied? Not by a long shot.
He’d talked about what had caused his rift with Enrique. Not why it continued. Six years later.
But he had opened up to her, so it was enough. For now.
Tapping her chin with a finger, she frowned up at the sky, pretending to search for an answer.
“I don’t know?” she said, drawing out the words. “Satisfied can take on so many different forms. You know what I mean?”
Above his glasses, his right brow quirked. His arms tightened around her hips, pulling her pelvis closer to his. Desire curled wicked tendrils inside her, sensuous and rich.
Cradling his face in her palms, she stretched up to brush her lips against his. Featherlight. Teasing herself with the need to taste him. Show him how much she trusted him. With her secrets, her body. Maybe even, if she divested herself of all her reservations and fears, her soul.
“Thank you.” She whispered the words a breath away from his mouth before sealing her lips over his.
He groaned, deepening their kiss.
His tongue brushed hers. Once. Twice. A tangle and caress ripe with the heady taste of saltwater and him that made her head woozy, her body pounding for more than kisses and underwater caresses.
She gasped, overwhelmed by the rush of desire. Luis dragged his mouth down her jaw, her neck. She tilted her head to the side, murmuring her pleasure.
“Coño, I want you so bad,” he rasped.
He licked that sensitive spot behind her ear, and she bucked into him again.
“What if we skipped the rest of the bike tour?” she murmured.
Luis froze, his breath warm on her ear.
Arching back, she glanced up at him. Her pulse pounded in her ears, a bass drum throbbing an insistent, carnal beat.
He removed his sunglasses, holding them loosely on the water’s surface. They bumped against her shoulder where his thumb brushed tiny circles on her suddenly hypersensitive skin. He stared at her, his serious gaze boring into hers.
“We have the house to ourselves for a few more hours,” she went on, making her intent clear.
“Are you sure that’s what you want?”
The fact that he would ask, even after her invitation, was further evidence of the height he reached on her good-guy meter.
Unhooking her legs from around his waist, she stood on wobbly legs. Her feet sank in the ocean’s sandy bottom. She caught his hands in hers. Threaded their fingers together and tugged him toward the shore.
“This mermaid is ready for land. And a bed. And some privacy. With you.”
Luis’s dark eyes sparked with hunger, and a promise of the delectable afternoon ahead.
Chapter 16
Hot and sweaty after their Tour de France pace from the beach at one end of Duval to the rental house on the other, and with a different, more exhilarating activity on their minds, Luis and Sara didn’t bother storing their bikes when they arrived home. Instead, they parked them in the grass in front of the pygmy date palm trees and flowering bushes hiding the corner storage unit from view in the backyard oasis.
Luis sucked in a deep breath, trying but failing to slow the pulse hammering in his chest.
His body thrummed with anticipation and . . . hell, flat-out eye-crossing lust. Things had gotten so freaking hot and heavy in the water, he’d barely made the walk from the shore to the bike rack without giving bystanders a peep show of his hard-on.
Coño, had he and Sara been alone, at one of the secluded areas around the tiny islands and sandbars out in the Gulf, they wouldn’t have waited for niceties like a bed, clean sheets, or a shower.
The image of Sara standing under the chrome rain showerhead in their upstairs bathroom, water cascading down her body, now a captivating rosy gold after her time under the Key West sun, had Luis growing hard.
She hurried up the porch steps ahead of him, the cheeky grin she sent over her shoulder inducing him to pick up his own pace. She tapped the key code into the pad on the bath-laundry room door, then pushed it open.
The alarm beeped, alerting anyone inside that a door or window had opened. Thankfully, the house was empty.
Halfway through their race home she’d received a text from her mother. The golfers were starting the tenth hole, with the intention of arriving home by midafternoon. That meant Sara and Luis had the house to themselves for at least a couple hours.
And Luis knew exactly, and how deliciously, he wanted to fill them.
Once inside, Sara dropped the beach bag with their sheet and wet towels on top of the washer, then turned to face him. Her blue-green eyes swam with excitement as she held out her hand. A silent invitation from the sexy siren who had enticed him into the ocean.
Forget waiting for the bed! Luis grasped her tiny waist, lifting her to sit on top of the washer.
“Oh!” she yelped, eyes wide with surprise.
He stepped in between her spread knees, counting himself lucky when she leaned forward to meet his kiss. The minty taste of her gum and the coconut scent of the sunscreen he’d insisted she reapply before they hopped on their bikes again heightened his senses. Greedily he suckled her lower lip, nipped it gently with his teeth. Her tongue sought his. Twisting, exploring, taking everything he gave her and giving back in return.
His fingers found the hem of her Lycra tank, sneaking under to caress her trim stomach.
She moaned into his mouth, then hooked her legs around his back. Sliding to the edge of the washer, she brought her lower body flush against him.
His hands strayed higher, seeking the mounds of flesh he’d been dying to taste since he’d felt her nipples pebbling under the thin bathing suit material back at the beach. Only the threat of the two of them getting arrested for indecent exposure had kept him from peeling her top down so he could suckle her right there. Christening South Beach as his favorite make-out spot on the island.
Now, he cupped her pert breasts with his palms, rubbing the pads of his thumbs over her firm nipples until she gasped. Her breath shuddered, the force rippling from her chest through her slender torso. Her sensual reaction urged him on, and he lifted her tank up to her armpits, revealing the fuchsia bathing suit triangles covering her from his hungry gaze.
Hands splayed on the washer for support, she leaned back, offering herself to him.
Luis growled with impatient lust, blood surging to his erection. He tugged aside the thin material on her right breast, then bent to take her into his mouth. Dried salt from the ocean water melded with her sweetness on his tongue.
She moaned again, deep and throaty. The heady sound of her pleasure encouraged him and he trailed his tongue down her cleavage intent on giving equal attention to both beautiful breasts.
Sara rocked her hips, pressing against his torso. Her body, like his, desperate to sate the innate need to be one in the most elemental way.
“If we don’t . . . if we don’t slow down . . .”she murmured, her palm on his nape encouraging rather than dissuading him from making love to her breasts. “I’m gonna orgasm on top of this washer like . . . like a teen sneaking a quickie, while her parents are busy.”
Dios, her sense of humor slayed him. In the midst of some of the hottest foreplay he could remember, he found himself laughing. Feeling carefree. Something he’d never felt.
Not until her.
He peeked through his lashes to find her staring down at him, her lids heavy, skin flushed with desire. Wickedly, he lapped at her breast, then gently blew on her moist skin. Her blue-green eyes rolled. Her head dropped back as if too heavy for her slender neck to carry, only to bang against the cabinet behind her.
“Ow!” She ducked her head and swung her arm up to rub at the sore spot, accidentally knocking their beach bag to the white tile floor.
“That was not what I was thinking when I brought up slowing down,” she said on a groan.
Under his exploring hands, her stoma
ch muscles tightened with her laughter.
He pressed a kiss on her flat belly, then slid his hands under her ass to heft her in his arms.
“Let’s get you upstairs,” he said, striding down the hall toward the front of the house. “The only thing I want you thinking about is how amazing you feel. If you’re even thinking at all.”
“I heartily approve of that plan.”
He approved of anything that put that satisfied smirk on her delicious mouth.
Sara buried her face in his neck where she placed a moist kiss over his pulse point. Flyaway tendrils from her blond ponytail tickled the underside of his jaw as she nuzzled her nose over his skin in a tantalizingly soft caress.
“You always smell so delicious,” she murmured.
The erotic sound of her humming with pleasure as she inhaled deeply sent a spurt of lust arcing through him. His erection strained against his board shorts, anxious for release. At the same time, a need that had nothing to do with sex and was more about cherishing this precious woman who challenged and uplifted him pierced Luis’s heart.
Dios mío, he had it bad for her.
The thought scared the hell out of him. He’d kept part of himself locked away for so long, refusing to risk the type of pain and rejection he’d experienced with Mirna’s betrayal.
At least with Sara he was going in eyes wide open. They both were. This was temporary. Amazing and exhilarating, but temporary. They’d agreed to one week. Then she’d leave to focus on her career, in New York or Miami or whatever city offered the next career move. He’d . . . figure it out later.
That meant the clock was ticking on the amount of incredible sex they could have together.
Starting now.
Luis passed the light-stained hutch in the foyer where his car keys nestled in a white ceramic bowl shaped like a clamshell. At the bottom of the wooden staircase he paused.
“Here, put me down. I can walk up.” Sara wiggled in his arms. Her crotch rubbed against his stomach and he ached to be inside her.
Island Affair Page 22
