by Roz Lee
Bree wiggled her hips to find a more comfortable resting place and felt his cock stir beneath her belly. He shifted in his sleep, pulling one rough-haired leg along hers, reminding her just how deliciously different his body was than hers. He settled back into the deep sleep she'd disturbed, like a bear who'd been poked. She knew there was no threat. However, she'd be wise to remember how dangerous a bear could be when provoked.
She woke sometime later to find the tables were turned. Drew hovered over her, his hips in the cradle of her thighs, his cock poised at her entrance. His eyes held hers in an unfathomable lock.
"No restraints this time. Just you and me." His gravel-laced voice melted away the vestiges of sleep, and turned her insides to liquid heat. He flexed his hips, nudging the head of his cock against her. "Say you want me."
The moisture between her legs made denial impossible, but she understood. Drew needed to hear her say the words. After everything, he still wasn't sure she wanted him, and only him. No games, no egos, just the two of them giving and receiving pleasure. If she'd thought she was in danger of losing her heart to Drew, she understood now how wrong she'd been. The danger was past. She'd moved way beyond that, all the way to disaster. But right now wasn't the time to think about what would happen when she left. Right now, the only thing that mattered was being with Drew. She flexed her hips and felt the delicious stretching as he pressed harder against her.
"I want you," she whispered. "Now."
He cradled her face in his palms and covered her mouth with his. Her lips parted. He filled her heart as surely as he filled the empty caverns of her body. The vessels opened and stretched to accommodate the familiar, and the new. Heat shot through her as if he'd flipped a switch and closed the electrical circuit. She was alive, more so than she had ever been. Drew moved inside her, never fully breaking the connection, but coming to the brink, then slowly filling her again. With each controlled thrust, her heart absorbed more of her love for him.
He stroked tenderly. Slow and controlled, but in his eyes she saw how much the control cost him. She rocked her hips and dug her fingers into his ass, urging him to put an end to the slow torture.
"No. Not this time." His breath fanned against her ear. "No rush. Climb the mountain one step at a time, darlin'."
His lips trailed along her neck to her chest. His hands gently explored, as if a wrong move could ignite a cataclysmic explosion. Each touch of his callused fingertips caused sparks of sensation along her nerve endings. His hands slid under her arms and pressed them up and over her head in a slow movement that brought his body flush with hers from their joined fingers to the point where they became one. Her breasts ached under his weight. As if he understood, he bent his head to take one peak into his mouth.
Fire shot through her like a wildfire out of control. Her back arched as he released her breast. "No. Relax, sweetheart." His tongue swiped across the neglected nipple.
"Please." The word tore from her chest on a choked sob. Tears blurred her vision and spilled over to form twin rivers down her temples.
"Don't fight it, sweetheart." His tongue captured the tears and placed tender kisses on her eyelids. "You can do this. We're almost there." He pulled almost all the way out and inched back in so slow she forgot to breathe.
"I can feel you getting tighter. I've never felt anything as perfect as you." His tongue returned to her breast. He slid out, then sucked her nipple against the roof of his mouth as he filled her. She couldn't help it. She screamed with frustration.
"Just a little higher, darlin'. We'll be there soon."
So this was making love. She'd heard of it, of course. She'd heard it was different than having sex, but until now, she'd thought that was just talk. Things people sappy in love said. Now she knew. This was so much more. Sex was nice. It was fun, sometimes wild, and always exciting. It was a challenge. Find the prize at the end.
Making love wasn't a challenge. There was no prize at the end. The prize was in the act itself. Each stroke, each touch, the murmured words, the connection that went beyond the physical to touch your soul—that was the prize.
This was dangerous. This had the ability to shatter her.
Chapter Ten
This was what she'd been avoiding. The first night she'd spent with Drew had been like this. Not as intense, but she'd known then that something like this was possible, and ever since, she'd done everything she could to control their sexual encounters. And Drew had slowly and surely manipulated her right into his trap.
No way was she walking away from this, from Drew, without damage to her heart. But she was going to walk away. She had to. She couldn't live like this anymore, no matter how much she loved Drew. As the old saying went, you can't live on love. And she sure as hell couldn’t live on the Lothario.
"Open your legs wider," he coaxed. "Let me go deeper."
She didn't think it was possible for him to go deeper, but she did as he said and allowed her knees to fall to the mattress.
"That's it," he groaned, and slid all the way to her heart.
She turned her face away to hide the fresh tears forming in her eyes. She might have known Drew wouldn't allow her to hide.
"Look at me, Bree." It was as much a plea as a command. Unable to resist the emotion in his voice, she turned back to him. And realized he wasn't moving. He was buried as deep inside her as he could possibly get, and he wasn't moving. Not at all. His body was rigid as stone. His soft voice denied his struggle. "Feel that? Feel what it's like when we're like this? It feels like I'm home, like this is where I'm meant to be. Christ, Bree. Tell me you feel it too.”
****
She did feel it. It was a soul-deep connection that couldn't possibly happen more than once in a lifetime. Leaving Drew was going to cut a gash in her so deep she'd never be whole again. She swallowed hard and tried to look away. Maybe if she didn't answer, he'd finish this, and she wouldn't die from the pain of leaving him.
"Dammit, Bree. Don't do this. Don't turn away from me."
She couldn't turn away. Her body wouldn't do a damned thing she told it to.
"I know you feel it too. Just say it, sweetheart. Say you feel it."
She opened her mouth to speak, and just then Drew's cock twitched inside her. Instead of words, she gasped.
"My God, Bree. Tell me something. Anything. Am I the only one who feels this?"
"No. I feel it too." The tears she'd fought so hard to stem flooded out and great wrenching sobs wracked her body. In the haze of her despair, Drew retreated and drove his cock deep again.
"Let's go there together, darlin'." He flexed his hips one more time and tunneled his way past every barrier she'd erected, straight into her heart. Her body absorbed the shock and tumbled headlong into the abyss.
****
She was gone when he woke. The soft light in the cabin told him the sun was coming up on another endless Caribbean summer day. Drew sat on the edge of the bed and looked around. Her things were still there alongside his, so the place shouldn't feel lonely, but it did. Bree's presence made all the difference.
He stumbled out of bed and headed for the shower. Tomorrow was a port day in Miami. It was also the day the Callahans and Wolfes were leaving the ship. They'd decided to spend the next few months in Miami, and he'd agreed to spend a few weeks making sure the security he and Sean had arranged was adequate to meet their needs. It was lousy timing as far as his relationship with Bree was concerned. Last night they'd made progress on a personal level. At least he'd thought so. Waking up alone didn't exactly bode well, but hey, she had a job to do. He couldn't very well criticize her for that, especially when his job and hers were basically the same one. Unfortunately, his contacts didn't have any more idea where Vernon Cannon was than hers did.
He adjusted the water temperature and stepped under the spray. An endless loop of images from the night before played through his mind. He smiled as he remembered the way she'd taken him by surprise. All he could say was, it was a good thing she wasn't the
enemy. He'd be dead now. Still, he had to admire her resourcefulness. She'd had him cuffed and at her mercy before he comprehended the danger he was in. Stupid on his part, but he couldn't regret it. Not with the way the evening had turned out.
Letting her have her way had been more fun than he'd expected, even if he did have sore wrists this morning. He wouldn't mind doing it again, but that had been just sex. Fun sex, but still, just sex. Ever since the first night he'd spent with Bree, he'd been looking for the connection he felt that first time, and he hadn't seen a glimmer of it until last night. Last night, he'd found the connection he knew was there, and more. She'd felt it too, he was certain of that. What it meant, however, was something he still didn't understand. One thing he knew for sure. He didn't want to let it go. Not now, not ever.
Grabbing a towel, he wrapped it around his hips and stepped out. He lathered his face and pulled the razor over his cheek. Bree wouldn't necessarily be happy about his clean shave. He recalled last night when she'd been all over him, she'd made a comment about his scruffy look and how rugged she thought it made him look. It didn't sound like much of a compliment to him, but something in the breathless way she'd said it made him think otherwise. He finished with a final stroke from neck to chin, rinsed off and splashed on some aftershave, smiling at another memory. Bree, her cheek against his, was crooning in his ear about how good he smelled.
Damn. He got hard just thinking about the way she said those sexy little things. She'd be mortified to know how much he enjoyed hearing her say them, or that those moments were ones he would never forget. In fact, he was counting on them to get him through the next few weeks when he couldn't be with her. But would Bree remember him while he was gone? After last night, he was sure she would, but it wouldn't hurt to give her something she'd never forget.
****
Bree braced her elbows on her desk and let her head fall to her upturned hands. Nothing was working out the way she thought it should. Take last night, for example. She'd set out to prove her point, that Drew secretly wanted a woman to take control. Or, if not to dominate him, to at least take charge and put his pleasure first. He'd allowed her to do just that for a while before he tried to take charge, and she'd been obliged to restrain him. That thought brought a smile to her lips before she remembered the way he'd turned the tables yet again, and she hadn't been able to block her heart from the emotional overload.
For a variety of reasons, loving Drew was the last thing she needed. For one, he loved Celeste. He might deny it, but she'd seen the way he looked at his former DIA partner. The entire crew knew how he and Sean Callahan had taken turns with Celeste, supposedly so she could decide between them. Only a man in love would do something so stupid. Drew had come out on the losing end, and Bree had no doubt he was still in love with Celeste. Why else would he hie off to see her every few weeks?
Yeah, Drew was still in love with Celeste. And that meant he didn't love her.
So, losing her heart to him was only going to cause her pain, whether she stayed aboard the Lothario or not. But seeing Drew, hell, sharing a cabin with Drew for any longer than necessary, was only going to make matters worse. It was too late to not fall in love with him. That bridge was crossed and burned, but she could minimize the collateral damage to her heart by wrapping up her business regarding the ship and moving on. The sooner, the better.
Which was why she was sitting at her desk in the first place. She opened the satellite link and typed the email to her superior. She had a hunch about what Vernon Cannon would do, and she wanted to follow through on it, but she needed to go through the chain of command. The FBI frowned on their agents running operations without proper authority.
****
The only good thing Drew could say about the weekly costume ball was that most of the costumes covered more than the daily attire provided for the passengers and crew. There were always the Lady Godivas and the idiots who went around nude with big stickers on their back and chest proclaiming them to be streaking, but for the most part, the costumes were typical Halloween fare. His first week on board, he'd requested military fatigues, and other than the time Celeste had put him in a tuxedo for her little tango surprise for Sean, they had been his go-to attire for the weekly dress-up party. It was the only night of the week he felt truly comfortable, so he was less than pleased when he opened the package from Wardrobe and found a ridiculous policeman costume.
The accompanying note indicated a shortage of fatigues due to a recently well-publicized mission undertaken by the Navy SEALS. Seems everyone wanted to pretend to be one of the elite. That left the crew with the leftovers. It was too late now to protest. It was his own fault he'd spent too long finalizing the security setup for the Callahans’ and Wolfes’ return to the real world and missed his chance to choose his own replacement costume. Too much had happened to the four of them already. He couldn't afford to take any chances. Costumes were mandatory, so he'd have to make do.
Drew pulled on the shirt. It was tight, made for some wimpy-assed wannabe, but it would do. The shorts were another thing. He tossed his briefs in the direction of the closet and sucked his stomach in as he pulled up the zipper. Commando was his only choice. There wasn't a scrap of room between his skin and the fabric of the shorts. God help him if he got a hard-on.
He fastened the cheap plastic utility belt around his waist and looked in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. "Christ. I look like a stripper." The black combat boots they'd sent along sat on the floor behind him. "No way am I getting into those." Bending over or sitting was out of the question in the tight shorts. He slipped his feet into the rubber flip-flops he wore everyday and took another look. "Shit." Not a thing had improved.
Drew eyed the plastic toys hanging from the utility belt. A rubber nightstick that resembled a cock more than it did a weapon, a plastic gun that shot water instead of bullets, and a pair of plastic handcuffs that wouldn't restrain a child. He removed the cuffs and replaced them with the real pair on the nightstand. Those could come in handy if and when he found Bree. The party on the Mediterranean deck would be in full swing by now. He swept the gift he'd bought her earlier into his hand and dropped it into the breast pocket of his shirt, right below the plastic nametag that proclaimed him Officer Hottie. The bauble had cost a pretty penny from the custom jeweler onboard, but it would be worth every cent if it did what he intended. While he was gone it would remind Bree every minute of every day that she was his.
From the open rail of the Arcadia deck, Drew surveyed the crowd gathered around the pools on the Mediterranean deck below. Bree had to be there somewhere amid the undulating sea of camo costumes. He smirked at the pretense. There wasn't a passenger onboard that could make it through SEAL training alive. Maybe he should view this fad as a tribute to the men who had survived the training, himself included. It was because of men like him that these yahoos could spend a week on a ship like this in relative safety. Let them have their night of pretend. He knew the truth, and he didn't need a camo outfit to be who he was.
He had intended to get back to the cabin in time to see what Bree was wearing tonight, even have dinner with her, but that ship had sailed hours ago. Now, all he had to do was find her. Have that little talk with her, the one he'd been rehearsing in his head all day long.
Every week she seemed to be something different. A cheerleader, a nurse, a movie star. It didn't matter. She looked like a goddess in all of them. Finally he spotted her near the lap pool dancing with one of the camo-guys, only this one seemed to have eight sets of hands. Drew's blood boiled as he watched her adroitly avoid the guy's hands as he tried to latch onto whatever part of her anatomy was closest to him.
Drew made his way to the lower deck and elbowed his way through the crowd toward the area where he'd last seen Bree. She couldn't have chosen a better costume for what he had in mind. The skimpy little corseted sailor outfit lifted her breasts like two delectable treats on a platter, and what he supposed passed for a skirt, barely cover
ed her ass. Perfect for displaying the gift he'd bought her. Not that he wanted anyone else to see it, but he damned sure wanted to. As soon as he could get her to a private place, he'd give her the gift, and then he'd figure out how to get her back to the cabin where he could admire it up close.
****
Bree dodged another questing hand and considered how best to put the guy out of commission without causing a scene in the middle of the crowded deck, now turned dance floor. It would be easy enough to toss him into the lap pool, but that would definitely be considered causing a scene. A quick move and he'd be on his ass, but in this crowd, that wouldn't go unnoticed either. These people were just drunk enough to stampede, not a good thing on the deck of a cruise ship. A big hand pawed at her waist. She feinted in the opposite direction, but as she shifted, movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention and she turned toward it, ready to meet the threat with force if need be. Instead, her dance partner slumped toward the deck like a tree felled in the forest. A split second more and he would topple several more human trees, some less steady than her dance partner. In the blink before Mr. All-Hands, No-Feet crashed into another dancing couple, a solid, beefy arm slid around his waist and pulled him back up.
"Come on. Let's get out of here."
Drew.
Bree watched as he parted the forest, using the dead weight of her unconscious dance partner as a battering ram. "Step aside." Shove. "Give him some air." Shove. "Comin' through." Bree followed along in Drew's wake, unable to believe the audacity of the man. The crowd parted for them and then, like a jungle on steroids, swallowed the void as if they'd been nothing more than smoke. Drew stopped on the edge of the crowd, and as if he'd arranged their appearance, two men Bree recognized as members of her security team materialized and took the burden of her dance partner off Drew's hands. "He should come around in a few minutes. Sober him up and teach him how to keep his hands to himself." Drew turned from issuing orders to her staff, wrapped one hand around her wrist and tugged.
