Sweet Stuff

by Donna Kauffman

  “What’s funny?”

  “Not a thing.” Deciding to take matters into his own hands, he slid his satchel to the deck, and set the tray down on one of the fish wells. Then he stepped over to her and simply pulled her through the door and right into his arms.

  “What makes you think you can just climb on my boat and have your way with my person?” she asked, blinking up at him, making absolutely no effort whatsoever to extract herself from his hold.

  “This.” He bent down and kissed her.

  She didn’t respond, for at least the span of three seconds. Then there was a little ... whimpering sound, and he felt her body soften against his. She gave a soft little moan in the back of her throat, then gave up entirely and slid her hands behind his neck, and molded his mouth more firmly to hers.

  He’d only intended that slow, sweet, warm, good morning kiss he’d imagined earlier, but it was quickly moving along toward the caveman scenario by the time he managed to break free and lift his head. She was smiling up at him just as he’d hoped, only there was a bit of smugness there. Probably because his heart was beating like a wild man, and he looked and sounded a bit the part, as well.

  “Well,” she said. “When you put it that way.”

  He grinned at that. “You weren’t changing your mind, were you?”

  “I might have been.” She was a terrible liar. “Of course, you wouldn’t know, since you didn’t bother to call, come by, send smoke signals. A tasteful carrier pigeon would have been welcome.”

  “I know. But if you recall, you all were at that first shoot until three or four in the morning. I didn’t see or hear from you Saturday.”

  “I was unconscious Saturday. I haven’t done that kind of work in a couple years.”

  “I did come by here that afternoon—”

  “You did? Oh. I drove into Savannah. I had a ton of things to replace, put my tool kit back together, all the tricks of my trade. Char and Carlo asked me out to dinner. I wanted to call you, tell you to come meet us ... but I didn’t have your number, either. And I hadn’t heard anything. Where were you yesterday? I came by the bungalow.”

  “You did?” He grinned. “You know, we might want to avail ourselves of some modern technology.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “Good. I had to drive to Atlanta to do some press stuff for the book that’s out now. I didn’t get back until late last night.”

  “You were in Atlanta yesterday?”

  He nodded. “Being away was torture—which should appease your need to punish me if you feel the need to do so.”

  “I’m not disagreeing with that part, but next time, punish yourself some other way, will ya? Depriving you, deprives me.”

  “Well,” he said, echoing her earlier statement. “When you put it that way.”

  And the caveman scenario won.

  She squealed when he scooped her over his shoulder. “You can’t haul me off my feet and—”

  “Can too. And I prefer the more romantic sweep, if you don’t mind.”

  “Well, I don’t sweep easily, either.” She giggled when he slid his hands up her waist and adjusted her so they could make it down the narrow passageway to her stateroom.

  Sliding her down his body, he ducked and cleared his head through the opening to the stateroom.

  “I have no idea how you managed that,” she said on a breathless laugh. “I can hardly make it down that hall without elbow bumps and bruises to show for it, and probably would even if this thing didn’t bob and sway.”

  He smoothly whirled her into his arms and around in a tight circle, without either of them clearing a thing off any surface. “That’s why you need me around. I’ll keep you safe from all the bobbing and swaying.”

  She looped her arms around his neck and let him whirl her again. “Is that right?” She squealed again when he scooped her up against him so her feet left the floor.

  “In fact, it’s possible we can find a way to make the bobbing and swaying work to our benefit.” He wiggled his eyebrows and made her laugh again. Then he slid his hands up and under the edge of her flannel boxers, cupping the soft, delectably full curves of her buttocks, turning the laughter into gasps.

  “What time are you due at the bungalow?” he said, nuzzling her neck.

  He felt her fingertips dig into his back as he continued nuzzling, which tugged the thin cotton across her plump, hard nipples.

  “Eight,” she breathed.

  “Good.” He stepped up so he could lower them to the bed. “It’s possible you might still get there on time.”

  The boat rocked just as he was lifting her onto the bed, which landed her closer to the middle. She laughed again, and covered the top of her head to keep it from bumping the headboard. Quinn tugged off his polo shirt and levered himself up ... and over her.

  “You have way too many clothes on,” he said, bracing himself above her.

  “The same could be said about you,” she replied, sinking back into the tousled linens of the unmade bed she’d just crawled from.

  He grinned. “We could probably fix that.”

  “Probably.” She started to reach for the hem of her tee, but he stopped her.

  “That’s no fun.”

  “No?”

  He nudged her hands away and levered himself so he could sprawl on the bed next to her. The bed itself was wide, though a bit short for his long legs. “Well, more fun for me, if I get to do it—which may mean more fun for you.”

  She lifted her hands away and let them rest over her head. “Really? Huh,” she said, trying for insouciance, but the gleam in her dark eyes betrayed her anticipation. “Who knew?”

  “I could explain—”

  “You are very good with words.”

  “—but as writers, we’re taught to show, rather than tell.”

  “Is that so?” She lifted one hand to toy with his hair, just above where it brushed his ear. “This would be another one of those things about your work that fascinates me.” She ruffled his hair. “It’s grown. Since you’ve been here.”

  “I haven’t found a barber. Or looked, really.”

  “Don’t.” She smiled when he lifted his eyebrows. “Not on my account, anyway. It makes you look—”

  “Heathenish?”

  “I was going to say a little rough around the edges. Less like that book jacket guy.” She teased his hair with her fingertips. “You’re always so effortlessly groomed. This makes you seem, I don’t know ... more like us mere mortals.”

  “Good to know. Being godlike can be such a burden.” He leaned down and placed his lips over one plump nipple, making her gasp and her hips buck up.

  “I can only imagine,” she managed, her hands falling limply next to her head when he shifted his attention to her other nipple. “Oh ... God,” she gasped, when he used his fingers to gently rub and massage one nipple, while suckling the other hard through the thin cotton of her shirt.

  “Yes?” he said, lifting his head and giving her his best celestial leer.

  She snorted out a laugh, then almost choked on a sharp indrawn breath, her hips bucking again as he went back to teasing and tormenting first one tight tip, then the other.

  She fisted her hands in the loose linens as he nuzzled the hem of her shirt up, exposing the creamy white skin of her tummy. “You have the softest skin.”

  “With freckles galore,” she said. “Everywhere. If you squint in the right light, they look just like a tan.”

  “I like them just the way they are,” he said, kissing one, then another. “In fact, I think I’ll make it my mission to catalog each and every one.” Quinn lifted his head to look at her. “After all, I’m very good at research and keeping track of lots of tiny details.”

  She lifted her head to look at him, whereupon he dropped his mouth to one freckle, then another and another, all while keeping his gaze intermittently focused on hers.

  “Hmm,” he said. “I’ve a quandary.”

  “That’s
a good word,” she said, moving restlessly beneath him. “Quandary,” she repeated, drawing it out, rolling her hips in a sinuous motion as she did so. “Who knew vocabulary could be so hot?”

  That got a chuckle out of him.

  “What is your quandary, sir?” She rolled her hips again.

  “Well, it seems I’ve gotten to all the freckles in my immediate research area. I’m torn now between exploring northward”—he nuzzled her shirt up another few inches, until the plump undersides of her breasts were exposed—“or taking a more leisurely southern route.”

  She let out a long, satisfied groan when he nudged the wide elastic band of her boxers down below her bellybutton, then further down, until they clung to the faint crests of her hipbones. “I hear the south is lovely this time of year,” she croaked out as he kissed and teased his way lower ... then higher, then back lower again.

  “There’s another skill that writing and researching has helped me to hone.”

  “Hone,” she repeated, drawing the word out and making it sound remarkably earthy.

  He was already rigidly hard almost to the point of pain, but that got another surge and twitch out of him, making him swallow his own groan. She had absolutely no idea how utterly carnal she was. Goddess in her own right.

  “Go on,” she urged.

  It took him a moment to recall the thread ... he was sidetracked by how decadent it was, seeing her sprawled half beneath him, a hint of those voluptuous breasts exposed, threatening to spill out of that thin, worn cotton. And that wide flat band of flannel-covered elastic, caressing the softly rounded swell of her stomach, exposing the creamy freckled sweetness to his hands and mouth. Teasing him, so close to revealing the truth of her blond hair, downy and waiting for his tongue to toy, part, and plunder.

  She was all but vibrating beneath him, a coiled spring, as he continued to linger around her navel, dipping his tongue in, then drawing it out, then darting it in again, until her hips moved in unison and her soft moans became urging growls.

  “Multitasking,” he murmured against the sweet, freshly exposed skin below that elastic band, which he pulled down farther. . . and farther still, taking advantage of the way her hips pumped up hard in shock when his fingers slid under her tee and closed over her swollen nipple. He gently rolled and caressed it while tugging her flannel shorts down with his free hand, so she could kick them loose.

  “Move up,” he urged her, shifting them so they lay diagonally across the wide bed. He kicked off his worn docksiders and shucked his shorts down and off, as she wrestled off her tee. “You’re glorious, Riley,” he said, easing his body between her legs. He had to keep his long legs bent slightly, but he could prop his toes against the stateroom wall, which gave him leverage. “Scoot back, just a—yes, right there.” He leaned down and kissed the sweet, tender skin of her inner thigh. “Hold on,” he said, then slid his tongue deep into her.

  Her surprise shout of pleasure ended on a long, shuddering groan, as he began to toy and tease, stroke, and caress. He stopped long enough to slide two fingers into his mouth, then returned to his slow, languorous exploration. He slid his hand back up her body, reaching her nipples with his slick fingers, toying, flicking, and rolling them with a bit less gentleness as her hips started to buck in earnest.

  “Quinn,” she panted.

  “Right here,” he murmured against her slick, sweet flesh.

  She shuddered hard as she went over, her body jerking beneath his questing and plunging tongue, as he pushed her longer, higher, harder.

  “Can’t, can’t,” she panted.

  “Can,” he said gruffly, focusing on the throbbing nerve center with the gentlest of swipes with the very tip of his tongue ... while sliding a finger, slowly, deeply, inside her.

  She cried out loudly, and thrashed beneath him.

  Then she was grabbing his hair, leaning up to claw at his shoulders, her body still bucking and quaking with the aftershocks of her release. “Here,” she commanded, pulling him up and over her body. “Now.”

  “Now?” he asked, poised over her.

  Her eyes were so dark, the pupils had all but swallowed the sweet dark chocolate of her eyes. “Now,” she growled almost angrily.

  He grinned, even as he throbbed almost in pain he was so hard. “I like a woman who knows what she wants. Let me grab—”

  “No,” she said, which made him lift a brow. “I’m—I’m safe. Pill. We don’t need, I mean ... unless you want—”

  “I only want one thing.” He gripped her hips and dragged them up and off the bed so he could drive himself between them, sheathing all of himself inside every last sweet, hot, wet inch of her in one smooth, steady plunge.

  She cried out, bucked hard against him again, and he realized she was climaxing. Again. Thinking of her he thrust again, and again, and she almost sobbed as she cried out, her nails digging into his shoulders, then his buttocks, as she urged—no, demanded—that he keep on. Faster. Deeper. Harder.

  Her command was absolutely his wish. He’d have gone longer, for as long as she wanted him to, but her tight muscles throbbing around him ripped him to release before he even knew it was going to happen. He’d been on the brink since he’d slid his tongue inside her. Or, more honestly, since she’d stuck her head out the sliding glass door, all sleepy and flushed in those ridiculous flannel shorts.

  Panting heavily and trying to find his breath, he moved to roll away, so he could take his weight from her, only to have her hook her ankles around the backs of his calves and pull his head down to hers.

  “I’m heavy,” he said, his voice sounding like that of a drugged man.

  “Stay,” was all she said. Then she pulled his head down the rest of the way and kissed him.

  They’d coupled more like wild beasts than lovers. There hadn’t been anything intimate about it. He knew that because the kiss ... her kiss ... the one she was tenderly giving him, so sweetly exploring, and soft, as if she’d never kissed him before, as if they hadn’t just mated like wild jackals—was truly intimate. Not the way she’d responded to his slightest touch, not her multiple orgasms which had, in fact, made him truly feel somewhat godlike. No. It was this genuine and pure kiss, freely and fully given, all vulnerabilities laid bare.

  He knew enough about her, understood enough about what scared her, to know that this was the true gift of herself. It was that, more than anything that had come before, that completely undid him.

  He slid from her then, and eased his weight off her, pulling her with him when she would have ended the kiss to protest the shift in position. He kept her with him, tucked her against him, and continued to glory in the most amazing gift he’d ever received.

  As he pulled her closer, sheltered her with his body, as if protecting her was and would always be his natural, default directive, he knew he’d do everything in his power to always be worthy of that one, single kiss.

  Chapter 18

  “What time is it?” Riley murmured, coming awake slowly, realizing as she became aware of being wrapped up against Quinn’s big, hard body, that they must have dozed off—while still kissing, if she recalled it properly. She smiled against the warmth of his skin as it all filtered back.

  She rolled her head just enough to see the bolted wall clock. Just after seven. Good, she had a little more time before embracing the real world.

  “Is someone else on the boat?” Quinn’s deep voice was even sexier when rough with sleep and a little honest fatigue. “I hear footsteps.”

  “That’s just Brutus.”

  Quinn’s eyes cracked open. “Brutus is onboard? How did I miss that?”

  She laughed. “Where did you think he was? Out in the backyard, treading water?” She started to roll over and sit up, but a very strong arm hooked her right back up against an equally strong body. Since that was exactly where she wanted to be, she let him. “He sleeps up on the front of the boat, and nothing wakes him until the sun comes up.”

  “What if it’s raining?”
/>   “He goes under the awnings.”

  “Never in here?”

  Riley grinned. “Let’s just say he goes wherever he’s most comfortable. That storm we had last week? I found him wedged between the barbeque and the life preserver bins. I try to get him to stay in here, but I think he just likes being outside. If it’s really cold, he stretches out in the main cabin in front of the little space heater. Mostly I don’t mind him not being underfoot.”

  “I can imagine.” Quinn grinned and rolled his head so he could press a kiss against her hair. “I liked you being under me.” He toyed with the long tangle of curls that spread across his chest, sending delicious little tingling sensations skittering all over her skin. She really thought this was perhaps the best use of an early morning she’d ever had.

  “Yeah,” she sighed. “That I didn’t mind so much.”

  There was another thud from somewhere on board.

  “He’s jumping down from the front of the deck to the side rails.”

  “Sounds like he’s really gotten accustomed to boat living.” Quinn drew his fingertips through her curls, slowly untangling them. “I guess you both have. How long did that take? Do you take it out much? I’ve never been on one of these—how does it maneuver in open water with the waves and all?”

  She laughed. “Curious monkey and silly wabbit. I have no idea how to even turn the thing on, much less steer it anywhere. You don’t honestly think Chuck and Greg would want me to take their big expensive toy out for a spin, do you? I mean, they have been around me for more than five minutes. It’s a testament to their inexplicable affection for me that they agreed to let me even step onboard.”

  “How did you get it up here from Jekyll then?”

  “The same way any self-respecting klutz would. I paid Chuck’s uncle to do it.”

  Quinn chuckled at that. “Well, given my extensive, if youthful, life aboard ships of various sizes and modes, what do you think the chances are your very dear friends would let me take us out for a spin?”

  She lifted her head to look at him. “I’m sure they’d be delighted to, but . ..”

  “But what? Do you get seasick?”