by Lori Wilde
He was so damned handsome, the embodiment of the fantasy heroes she’d read about and dreamed of but never believed she’d find in real life. Making this first move was both terrifying and empowering. What if he rejected her? But what if he didn’t?
She raised her chin. She might not have much experience at seducing men, but she was going to do her best to try to turn him on. She winked and slowly ran her tongue over her lips and made soft enjoyment noises as if she were licking a dollop of Häagen-Dazs triple-chocolate fudge from her mouth.
He grinned.
She raised her hem, coyly giving him a shot of her upper thigh.
He whistled and applauded like she was a showgirl at a topless Vegas review.
How embarrassing.
How nerve-racking.
How absolutely exhilarating.
An eyebrow arched up on his forehead and Joel regarded her with a wicked stare.
Her stomach plummeted and she nearly lost her nerve. But the need to feel him inside her body stiffened her spine. She had to have him. If only for one night.
He made a come-to-me motion with his fingers.
Bumping her hips the way she did when she danced alone at home, she inched closer.
The springboard rebounded against her weight, scaring her. “Uh-oh,” she whispered.
“I’m here.” He reached out his hand.
She took it and carefully eased herself down beside him.
They looked at each other.
Marlie smiled and tentatively leaned in to kiss him. The gangplank wobbled more.
“Um, I thought it might be fun to seduce you out here, but I’ve changed my mind.”
“About seducing me?”
“No, no.” She shook her head. “About doing it on the gangplank.”
“Nervous?”
“Yeah.”
“Excited?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a good combo. Don’t tell me you’ve never done the gangplank boogie with anyone before.”
She knew he was just teasing, but the answer was, hell, no. She’d never done it much of anywhere. Technically, she didn’t qualify as a virgin. She’d had a couple of partners. Neither long-term romances, and she’d never had an orgasm with either one of them.
And that’s how she feared it was going to be with Joel.
It turned out she worried for nothing.
Gently, he laid her across the gangplank, kissing her with the magical embodiment of him. Strong, confident, decisive. He boldly explored her mouth with his tongue and she felt a primal comfort that bound her to him, strengthening her tentative trust and cementing their pair bonding.
Their radiant energy fused. She wrapped her left arm around his neck, pulling him down closer to her lips vibrating with receptiveness.
He pulled back, chuckling.
“What?” She blinked.
“You’re humming.”
“Was I?”
“Yeah.”
She wrinkled her forehead. “Was I really?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What was I humming?”
His grin covered half his face. “I think it was ‘Holding Out for a Hero.’”
Marlie felt a blush burn from her scalp all the way to her toenails. “Oh, gosh, I’m so embarrassed. I had no idea I was humming that song.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been holding out for a hero too.”
Gently he unbuttoned her dress. Marlie propped herself up on her elbows to watch him. Uncertainty swept over her again and she scooted to the edge of the gangplank, ready to drop off.
But Joel rested his open hand against her right knee and ran his palm up her thigh, fingers drumming as if playing her leg like a musical instrument. With his other hand, he tilted her chin up and brought his mouth down on hers for another searching kiss.
She melted into him.
Enveloped in each other, pasted together by contact at the shoulder, hand, leg, hip, and chest, Joel and Marlie sealed their destiny and closed their fate with the stoppers of their mouths. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her heels bumping into his muscular hamstrings. It felt as if their very cells were entwined. They were oblivious to everything on earth beyond themselves and this moment.
They had fallen down the well of each other, absorbed in each other’s very beings. Joel’s deep inner vitality and rich, amazing restlessness for life filled Marlie with rapture. It rolled off every inch of her in glorious waves. He evoked in her an immeasurable desire, a thirst so vast all the oceans of the world evaporated in a single drop of it.
How was this possible? How could she have become so deliriously intoxicated with him so quickly?
Her thrill terrified her.
The gangplank vibrated between them; one wrong move and they could fall off. Their entire time together had been like this. A daring adventure, and now they were embarking on a dangerous affair.
At last Marlie understood why she’d hidden behind Angelina’s cartoon facade all these years. Through Angelina, she could gamble without risks. Feel without feeling.
But now all that had been stripped away. She was naked. Exposed.
It felt glorious.
She was being bold and sassy all on her own. She was feeling, touching, tasting, hearing, and seeing everything with her own five senses. Nothing was blunted, nothing distant or muted, nothing viewed through the filter of her alter ego’s eyes.
Alive.
She was finally totally and completely alive.
“You’ve been deprived,” Joel said, smoothly caressing the delicate skin under her arm with a tickle touch so light she couldn’t believe it was his big masculine fingers doing the stroking, sensing somehow what she was thinking. “I can see it in your eyes.”
She was barely aware of what he was doing, because she was so busy staring into his face, but he was unhooking her buttons one by one. She finally noticed what he was up to when the cool air kissed her heated skin.
It was too much for her to handle. She shrank back, retreated, called Angelina in to take over and finish the deed.
“Stop it,” Joel growled.
“Stop what?”
“Stop holding back. Let yourself go.”
“I . . . I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Just relax, sweetheart.” Joel dipped his head, lowered his lips to her chin, and nibbled. She shivered at the delicious sensation radiating through her nerve endings.
“I’ve always had bad luck with men,” she said, dragging out the words.
“Don’t mean to brag, Ladybug,” he nestled his mouth next to her ear and whispered, “but your luck’s just turned.”
“It’s not bragging if you can live up to it,” Marlie said smartly. “Can you deliver on the hype?”
That had been a stupid, cocky thing to say. Joel had thought he was being charming. He realized now he had probably sounded like a jerk. His arrogance fled, and he was left thinking what a bad idea it had been to get this whole thing started on top of a board hanging off a pirate ship float. What had they been thinking?
You weren’t thinking.
“You’re supposed to say, ‘Ladybug, “Deliver” is my middle name.’” She winked at him.
He wanted to tease back, but suddenly his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. He wasn’t sure how to proceed. He had to be careful. Should he call it off? Back down? Turn away from the sweetest thing that had ever happened to him?
But he wanted her so badly. More than he’d ever wanted any woman.
He reached out to stroke her, his fingers dangling just above her exquisite bosom. Her body heat radiated up through the air and into him, invading his bloodstream, filling his heart.
He couldn’t resist her. Even when he knew it was a bad idea. He was helpless. He stroked her hair. God, she had such beautiful hair, long and dark and wavy. Her cheek. Her chin. Her lips.
Lightly, he trailed his fingertips o
ver her skin.
He brushed the delicate bones of her jaw, traced a powdery blue vein down her throat to her breast.
What a woman!
But she had no idea what she was getting into. She’d finally placed her trust in him when he’d been lying to her. He couldn’t make love to her. Not until he came clean about who he really was.
“Marlie,” he said, “we have to talk.”
“Not now,” she murmured. She took his hand and kissed his fingers and then slowly took his thumb into her mouth.
Joel groaned. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”
“I don’t care.”
“Listen . . . ,” he said, but he could not talk, could not think with her wicked little tongue licking around and around his thumb. She might look angelic, but the woman was deceptively devilish. “I’m not who you think I am.”
“Shhh, Joel. I know you.”
What? he thought fuzzily, his brain bathed in testosterone. Did she really know who he was? Had she known all along he was J. J. Hunter?
“Marlie.”
She was staring up at him with such an expression of awe on her face—as if he’d created the galaxy just for her. How had he gotten so lucky? What had he done that was so right?
“Joel,” she said, “you have no idea how hard this is for me to say.”
“I’m listening. It’s okay.”
“I’m used to hiding out. For me to step forward and ask you to make love to me is a big deal. I have no idea when I’ll have a normal life again. Or if I’ll ever see my mother again. We have no idea where to look for her. Please, I need this respite. I need to escape. Just for a little while. Please, make love to me.”
How could he refuse that heartfelt request? Especially when there was nothing else on the face of the earth that he wanted more than to love her?
“Let’s get away from this damn gangplank,” he said.
He took her hand and led her off the board. When they reached the main part of the float, he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the apartment.
She was so feminine. Her buttocks, waist, and breasts all nicely fleshed and curvy.
He laid her on the bed, stripped off both their clothes, hurriedly palmed a condom from his wallet, and then got in beside her. They’d been dancing around this moment from the first time their eyes had met across the broken glass in his kitchen.
Marlie was underneath him. Joel had all his weight on his elbows and was peering down at her as if staring at the Grand Canyon for the first time.
Flesh against flesh. Skin on skin. Their hearts pounded so loudly in the same rhythm they both could hear it.
The sensation was so vast, so indescribable, that Joel felt awkward all over again. He’d never experienced anything like it, wasn’t sure how to deal with his feelings or what they meant in the long run.
He tried to pull back, to reevaluate what was happening, but Marlie pushed her pelvis against him and made pleading noises.
“Easy, Ladybug.” He was so hard, so turned on, and it had been so long since he’d had sex that Joel feared he would come way too soon and ruin it for her.
She pressed her lips into his throat, nibbled, and moaned softly. She ran her hands up the back of his neck, combing her fingers through his hair.
It felt so frickin’ good.
He tucked the condom under her pillow and then ran his hands over her breasts, cupping them in his palms.
“I want to please you,” he said, feeling desperate and hating his desperation, but there he was. He’d lost all control of the situation, and she was in full charge whether she knew it or not.
“Just being with you pleases me.”
“Tell me, what do you like? How can I make it good for you?”
Her eyes widened. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I’ve never . . . no one’s ever pleased me.”
“You’re a virgin?”
“No,” she said and a lone tear pearled in the corner of her eye. “But I wish I were. I wish I’d saved myself for you. I just never thought you existed. I never thought I would ever feel this way. My mother told me—” She broke off.
He cuddled her close, threaded his fingers through her hair. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out together.”
“Just don’t stop kissing me,” she said and pulled his head down to her lips.
She tasted so good. Hot and spicy and salty. Joel kissed her long and deep and hard. The kiss was fat and rich and full of promises. He was caught in an expense of time, in an expanse of spirit, and they melded. One into the other.
He didn’t want to feel it. It had sneaked up on him swift and sure, and in that instant when their lips joined and their eyes connected and their bodies made head-to-toe contact, Joel Jerome Hunter gave Marlie Montague his heart.
Fully. One hundred percent. Forever.
A magic carpet ride. That’s what this was. A magic carpet ride to the stars.
“Fly Me to the Moon.”
This was the dream she’d never dared to dream. It happened just as her mother had said it would.
Mom? Where are you? I wish I knew where you were so I could tell you about Joel.
“Marlie?” Joel had been kissing her neck, but he stopped.
“Uh-huh?” She kept her eyes closed, trying to will her thoughts off her mother and back into the moment, but it wasn’t working.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head.
“Open your eyes and look at me.”
Slowly, she did as he asked and found his gray-green-blue eyes brimming with compassion.
“Talk to me.”
“I don’t want to talk. I want you to make love to me.”
“What were you thinking about?”
She swallowed, paused. “My mother.”
He pressed his lips together and caressed her cheek with the crook of his finger. “I’m sorry. I knew this wasn’t a good idea.”
Joel moved to slide off her, but she grabbed him around the waist with her legs and held him in place.
“Please, don’t go. I need this. I need you.”
He nodded, understanding in his eyes. “We’ll find your mother, Marlie. I promise you. I can’t wait to meet her.”
“She’ll be so excited to meet you too.” The tender expression on his face made her feel better immediately. He smiled at her and she smiled back.
She wanted to get things back on track with Joel, wanted to recapture the mood. She latched her legs tightly around him, careful to avoid the area where he’d been grazed by the bullet, and boldly reached down to touch his inner thigh.
Her hand moved beyond, cupping him. He was so hot and heavy, smooth and hard and excitingly male. Her breathing quickened, but his did not.
It should have.
She opened her eyes and found him staring down at her with a look on his face that unraveled her completely. He was still concerned about her.
Darn it. She didn’t want him to worry, didn’t want to take away from this moment, from their first time together. She wrapped her fingers around his shaft and whispered, “Wow, wow.”
“Oh, babe, you have no idea how you’re undoing me.”
And then she realized the concern on his face hadn’t been just for her, but for him too.
He kissed her again, gently, sweetly.
He was opening up to her. Not with just his body, but with his mind and soul as well. She could feel it in the way his fingers trembled as he caressed her face. Opening up to her in a way he’d never opened up to anyone.
He was risking his heart.
She felt honored beyond words. She let go of her last remaining shreds of doubt, let go and gave him every part of her. Including her trust.
Especially her trust.
He’d proved he was worthy of her loyalty. She would stick with him through thick and thin. No matter what.
Finally she understood what her mother had been trying to tell her all these
years.
In his arms, she had found what she thought would never be hers.
A soul mate.
Joel’s lips absorbed her essence.
With her legs wrapped around his waist and her hands threaded through his hair, with her body cradled against his, he was having difficulty even recalling where they were, never mind remembering why he’d hesitated.
“I want you, Joel,” she whispered, took his hand, and guided it between her legs. “Now. Inside me.”
Her directive couldn’t have been clearer if she’d printed up frilly pink cards that said “You are invited to a party.” Joel wasn’t about to refuse the call. She was so hungry. Her appetite fueled his own. He touched her down there, lightly at first, then more deeply, increasing their intimacy. She was supple and silky and unreservedly female. Not to mention that she was hot and dripping wet.
For him.
She was giving herself over, surrendering her concerns, letting down her guard.
There was a reason this wasn’t completely right. There was something he’d forgotten to do. It was lurking back there in his brain, fuzzily beyond the reach of his intense fog of pleasure. But his mind wouldn’t work, wouldn’t focus. He couldn’t concentrate on anything except Marlie and the mind-blowingly erotic sounds of ecstasy she was making. He was working her to a fever pitch, pushing her beyond all boundaries of both their endurance.
“Inside me!” she commanded. “Now!”
He couldn’t stand it any longer. He was just about to plunge himself into her ripe, willing body when he remembered the condom he’d tucked under her pillow.
“Wait, wait,” he said, rolling off her.
“No,” she cried, “you can’t stop now.”
He shoved his hand under the pillow, came up with the condom, and held it up for her to see.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, God, I didn’t even think about protection.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I gotcha covered.”
“I could have . . . we could have . . .”
“But we didn’t,” he said, putting an end to her speculation.
She had a tendency to spiral into conjecture, and now was not the time to let her wander loosely down that path. He fumbled with the package but she was too impatient. She surprised him by snatching the condom from his hand, pushing him back against the mattress, and straddling his torso.
