He inhaled sharply.
Her heart pounded furiously, and a wanton thrill of desire shot through her. “Caleb…” His name was a low, hoarse moan on her lips.
His callused palm cupped her face, then slid into the silken mass of her hair, holding her captive as he swiftly bent his head. His mouth opened over hers with fiery demand, and desire cracked like a whip through Daniela’s body. Her arms stole around his neck and she leaned into him, kissing him back with equal hunger. His tongue delved inside her mouth, hot and sweet, and the pleasure was sharp, splintering, making her moan aloud. His tongue moved deep and sure, taking, and hers danced around his, seductively teasing. Heat pooled in her tummy and her breasts throbbed, aching for his touch. Before she knew what was happening she was on his lap, her bottom pressed to the rigid length of his arousal.
In the space of a heartbeat they went from kissing to devouring each other, oblivious to their surroundings.
It was Caleb who finally broke the kiss, tearing his mouth from hers. His eyes met hers. Dark, intense. “I know you asked if we could slow things down, and I respect your wishes,” he said, his voice like coarse velvet. “But if we keep this up a moment longer, Daniela, nothing will stop me from laying you down in this boat and making love to you, and I can’t promise that I’ll be gentle.”
Her pulse hammered. “Who says I want you to be?” she challenged, in a husky voice she hardly recognized as her own.
His eyes glittered under a canopy of cypress trees strewn with tiny lights. “We need to get out of here,” he uttered raggedly, “before we get arrested for indecent exposure and a helluva lot more.”
Chapter 17
On their way back to Caleb’s apartment, they stopped at one of the riverside restaurants and ordered dessert to go. Armed with two hefty servings of tiramisu, they headed up the street to the Towers of the Majestic. Caleb escorted Daniela into the marble-tiled lobby where a uniformed security guard was buried behind the sports section of the newspaper.
“How’s it going, Mr. Hammond?” Caleb greeted the man.
Eugene Hammond glanced up from the Express-News he’d been reading and beamed when he saw Caleb. “Hey there, Counselor! You’re home a little early tonight.”
“I know,” Caleb drawled, making Daniela wonder if he regularly stayed out late, and with whom. She quickly shoved aside the ugly suspicion, determined not to let anything spoil the perfection of the evening.
“Mr. Hammond, I’d like you to meet Daniela Moreau. Daniela, this is Eugene Hammond.”
Daniela smiled at the older man. “Nice to meet you.”
Lowering his newspaper, Eugene Hammond leaned forward with an engaging smile. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Moreau.” He winked at Caleb. “No wonder you’re home early, son.”
Caleb chuckled, and Daniela feigned an affronted look as he led her toward the gleaming bank of elevators with a gentle hand at the small of her back. They rode the elevator to the sixteenth floor and exited onto a plush, carpeted corridor. Caleb’s penthouse unit was located at the very end.
Unlocking the front door, he gestured Daniela inside ahead of him. With the flick of a switch, cool white lights washed over a gleaming expanse of hardwood floors and dark, contemporary furnishings arranged around a living room that boasted twenty-foot ceilings, a wood-burning fireplace and a pair of tall French doors that opened onto enclosed side porches. Fifteen-foot windows with wrought-iron bars commanded a panoramic view of the glittering downtown skyline.
Daniela heard a soft gasp escape her lips as she crossed the length of the room, lured by the stunning vista.
“Oh, Caleb,” she breathed. “You mean you wake up to this view every morning?”
“Something like that,” he answered, disappearing into the kitchen. He emerged a few minutes later carrying a bottle of Merlot and a pair of wineglasses in one hand, and balancing two dessert plates in the other. By the time Daniela hurried over to help him, he’d already set everything down on the round mahogany table that occupied the cozy dining nook.
“Bienvenue à la maison de Thorne,” he announced with a flourish. “Dessert is now served, mademoiselle.”
Daniela grinned as he gallantly pulled out a chair for her before seating himself. “Merci, monsieur. Your enunciation is flawless, Caleb. Parlez-vous français?”
He chuckled, uncorking the Merlot and filling their wineglasses. “Oui. But only when I’m trying to impress a pretty girl.”
“Ahh,” Daniela said with an understanding nod. “Well, then, I suppose I should consider myself privileged.”
“You could,” Caleb agreed, straight-faced.
Daniela laughed, picking up her spoon. “Don’t get carried away.” She sampled her tiramisu, then closed her eyes on a dreamy moan as several exquisite flavors exploded on her tongue—mocha-flavored whipped cream, espresso and a tantalizing hint of liquor. “Oh, my God. This is soo good.”
She opened her eyes to find Caleb gazing at her in a way that made her feel slightly self-conscious. “What?”
“I love to watch you eat,” he said simply. “I’ve never known another woman who enjoys the simple pleasures of food the way you do.”
She grinned. “Which is your polite way of telling me what a pig I am.”
“Not at all.” His dark eyes glinted at her. “In fact, I think it’s incredibly arousing.”
Her belly flip-flopped. “Arousing?”
“Mmm-hmm,” he murmured. “But as I’ve already told you, everything you do turns me on.”
“Everything?”
He chuckled low in his throat. “Everything. Now stop repeating after me like a broken record, and eat your tiramisu.”
“With pleasure,” she said, spooning up more of the delectable dessert. “So, when did you learn French?”
Caleb took a sip of Merlot. “In college. I already knew Spanish fairly well, so French seemed like the next obvious choice.”
“Naturally. What better language to impress pretty girls with than the language of love?”
“Of course.” He smiled lazily at her. “What about you? When did you take French?”
“In high school. Guess that means I got the jump on you, huh?”
“Not quite,” he drawled, picking up his spoon. “By the time you entered high school, I was already on my way out of college.”
“Oh, yeah, I’d almost forgotten what an old man you are,” Daniela teased.
He laughed. “Who’re you calling an old man?”
“Poor baby. Your hearing is already failing you? I’ve heard that’s one of the first things to— Hey!” she protested as, without warning, Caleb flicked a spoonful of tiramisu at her, hitting her squarely in the chest.
She gaped at him as if he’d lost his mind. “What’d you do that for? You’re wasting perfectly good dessert!”
Caleb’s expression was one of exaggerated innocence. “What’s that you said?” he asked, cupping a hand to his ear and leaning toward her. “I’m having trouble hearing you.”
“Yeah? Well, maybe this will help.” Before he could react, Daniela spooned up a chunk of tiramisu, reached over and smashed it against his ear.
With a startled exclamation, Caleb jumped up from the table, staring at her in incredulous disbelief as he dug cake out of his ear. “I can’t believe you did that.”
Daniela howled with laughter. “You started it!”
“You’re right,” he said calmly—too calmly. Grinning, he scooped up a handful of tiramisu from his plate. “And I always finish what I start.”
Sobering quickly, Daniela leaped from her chair. He advanced on her, slowly and purposefully, dark eyes twinkling with mischief.
She eyed him warily, backing away, step for step. “Don’t even think about it,” she said. “I’m warning you—”
He lunged, and with a startled squeal Daniela took off in the opposite direction. She didn’t get very far before he tackled her around the waist with one arm, whirling her around and pinning her against the wall.
<
br /> She could do nothing but laugh at how easily he’d captured her. “Caleb—”
“Too late for begging now,” he said with the impenitent glee of a predator that has successfully cornered its prey. Grinning as she squirmed in his arms, Caleb pinned her wrists above her head with one hand. With the other, he brought the handful of smashed tiramisu toward her face, a wicked gleam in his eyes.
Daniela shook her head wildly from side to side. “Don’t do it! I’ll do anything you ask! Just don’t—”
Her pleas fell on deaf ears; the next thing she knew, Caleb was smearing cake across her cheek and down her neck. Choking with laughter and indignation, Daniela bucked against him, struggling vainly to escape.
He grinned down at her. “I’ve just invented a new dessert,” he declared. “It’s called Daniela à la mode. Think I can sell it to one of the restaurants down at the Riverwalk?”
Daniela tried, unsuccessfully, to glare at him, but she was enjoying herself too much to summon any real antagonism. “If you do sell the recipe, I get the lion’s share of the profit, seeing that I’m the main ingredient.”
Caleb chuckled softly. “We’ll negotiate the terms,” he drawled, his amused gaze running across her face. “I wonder, though, if my new concoction is as temptingly sweet as it looks.”
As if he’d lit a fuse, the air between them changed, crackling with the sexual tension that always ticked between them like a time bomb. Daniela licked her lips, and his darkened gaze followed the gesture, stirring the flames inside her that were never far from igniting whenever he was near.
“I guess I’ll just have to take a taste test,” he softly proposed, lowering his head.
Daniela’s insides clenched as his warm mouth landed on the curve of her throat. She trembled hard as his tongue flicked out, licking the sweet confection from the throbbing pulse on her neck with slow, lazy strokes.
“Mmm,” he murmured against her, the vibration of his deep, sensuous voice making desire uncoil in her belly. “Just as I thought. Delicious.”
She shivered as his lips and tongue trailed a simmering path over her throat and collarbone, sending her pulse into overdrive. She was intoxicated by the feel of his hard, muscled body pressed against hers, the exquisite torture of his mouth upon her flesh.
“Who says taste tests are mutually exclusive?” she purred, licking cake from his earlobe and delighting in the shudder that convulsed him.
He lifted his head, his dark, smoldering gaze boring into hers. Still keeping her wrists imprisoned above her head, he bent and seized her lips in a kiss of such fierce, searing possession that Daniela moaned into his mouth. Their tongues tangled in a feast of wet and heat, and she rocked her hips against his pelvis, feeling the undeniable proof of his erection against her belly, hard and heavy.
It made her breasts feel heavy, too, so she pressed them against his chest and let her lips roam from his mouth to his chin, then down to the hot skin of his neck. His breathing grew ragged in her ear as her mouth found the beating pulse of his Adam’s apple and gently suckled, causing him to groan.
Still gripping her wrists in one hand, he used his free fingers to slide beneath her stretchy shirt and cover the aching swell of one breast. When his thumb grazed her nipple through the satin of her bra, she cried out and arched into him, demanding more. He deftly released the front catch, then cupped the weight of her breast in the palm of his hand. She sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes closing at the sublime pleasure of his touch. He rubbed his thumb back and forth against her nipple, teasing and stroking the taut peak until she thought she would lose her mind.
When he stepped back abruptly, releasing her wrists, she moaned softly in protest, her hips lifting off the wall to chase the heat of his body. He chuckled, a sexy, satisfied sound. Before she could rebuke him for teasing her, he reached for her again, pulling off her shirt and tossing it aside. And then he just stood there, gazing at her in a way that turned her knees to gelatin.
“Take off your bra,” he commanded, low and husky.
Holding his gaze, Daniela did as he told her, sliding the straps of her bra from her shoulders and letting the scrap of material fall to the floor. She felt both powerful and defenseless as she stood before him, her body bared to the possessive heat of his gaze. Her legs quivered as he ran his eyes over her breasts, as if he were seeing them for the first time.
“Beautiful,” he uttered softly, taking a deliberate step toward her. “Absolutely beautiful.”
When his hot, wet mouth latched on to her breast, she couldn’t suppress the breathless moan that escaped. He sucked first on one nipple, and then the other, until Daniela was on the brink of losing control. She grasped the back of his head and urged his mouth up to hers, kissing him as if her very life depended on it. Desperate for the feel of him, she tugged at his T-shirt, stopping short of ripping it from his body. And then she drank her fill of him, taking in the sculpted beauty of his wide, muscled chest and hard, flat abdomen while he watched her, his lids at half-mast. When she reached out and touched his stomach, he trembled beneath her hand, filling her with a heady sense of power. She wanted him, all of him, regardless of the consequences.
He pulled her roughly against him, the wet tips of her breasts meeting the smooth, hard skin of his chest in an excruciatingly charged embrace that made them both groan. Reaching down, Caleb palmed her bottom in both hands and held her tightly against his straining arousal as their mouths fused in a wild, voracious kiss.
The slow seduction was over, eclipsed by a fierce, consuming need that demanded immediate satisfaction.
Breaking the kiss, Caleb knelt down in front of Daniela and unsnapped the button of her jeans. She quickly stepped out of her boots, then allowed him to work the tight denim off her body. She shivered as his fingers grasped her panties and slowly, deliberately, dragged the black satin over her hips and down the length of her legs. As she stood before him, naked and trembling, he hungrily devoured the sight of her, his eyes glittering onyx.
“You’re so damned beautiful,” he whispered raggedly.
She felt a thrill of pleasure that quickly intensified when he cupped her buttocks and buried his face in her abdomen. His warm breath was an enticing summer breeze, trickling past her navel to touch the most feminine part of her. She bent her head and kissed his crown, then ran her hand over the smooth, close-cropped texture of his black hair. His palms tightened on her bottom, tilting her closer, urging her legs to part for him. And then his fingers were separating the springy curls at the juncture of her thighs, and his hot, silken mouth was on her.
Daniela cried out and arched into him, pleasure breaking over her body like a tidal wave. “Caleb,” she breathed, closing her eyes. “Oh…”
Her head fell back as his wet, velvety tongue stroked the delicate folds of her flesh, teasing and suckling, making her moan in mindless ecstasy. He licked deeper into her mound, the tip of his tongue circling the slick peak of her clitoris in a slow, erotic dance that sent flames sweeping through her body. Her hands gripped the back of his head for support as her legs threatened to collapse beneath her. She didn’t know how much more of the exquisite torture she could take.
When his tongue plunged deep inside her, she spilled over the edge, letting out a wild, hoarse cry as her body convulsed uncontrollably. Caleb caught her in his arms as her knees began to buckle, his mouth taking hot, primal possession of hers. He backed her against the wall and grasped her hips, lifting her from the floor. She clutched his shoulders and wrapped her still-trembling legs around his waist, dimly aware of the fact that he hadn’t gotten around to undressing completely.
With impatient fingers, Caleb unzipped the fly of his jeans and reached inside to free himself. Daniela cried out sharply as he drove into her with one long, demanding thrust. Her back arched tautly and he thrust into her a second time, burying himself deeper.
Cupping the roundness of her buttocks, he seized her mouth in a hot, plundering kiss. Her fingers dug into the muscles of his s
houlders, and she held on for the ride of her life. And what a ride it was, every stroke more powerful than the one before, coming harder and faster at a pace that robbed her of breath. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, matching the erratic beat of her heart. Their coupling was urgent, marked with the blind, mindless desperation of two lovers who felt they’d been deprived of each other for too long.
As Daniela felt the fire of their union burning within her, driving her toward another earth-shattering climax, Caleb rocked his hips one final time and stiffened against her, his grip tightening on her bottom. They erupted together, their loud, exultant moans soaring to the vaulted ceiling.
And Daniela knew, with a certainty that brought tears to her eyes, that there would never be another Caleb Thorne for her.
Caleb was awakened by the ringing of the telephone. Groggy and disoriented, he glanced around his bedroom, and seeing that daylight had barely cracked the sky outside, he frowned. His frown quickly disappeared, however, when his gaze landed on the beautiful woman fast asleep in his arms, her warm, curvaceous body outlined beneath the thick cream coverlet. She lay curled against him, her hair a tangle of silky black curls upon the pillow, her breathing deep and even. As his mind flashed on the erotic night of passion they’d spent together, remembering the number of times they’d made love, he grew instantly hard.
The phone rang again, rudely intruding on his steamy recollection. Biting back an oath, he carefully reached over Daniela and snatched up the phone before it wakened her.
“Hello?” he growled, keeping his voice low.
“’Mornin’, son. Hope I didn’t wake you.”
Caleb pushed out a deep breath, lying back on his pillow. “You did, but don’t worry about it.” He felt a prickle of alarm. “Is everything all right, Dad?”
“Everything’s just fine. The reason I’m calling—”
“—at the crack of dawn,” Caleb interjected dryly.
Crandall chuckled. “The reason I’m calling is to let you know that I’m going out of town this weekend. I’m accompanying Ruth to San Diego to visit her daughter, the oldest one, who’s expecting her first baby. She was admitted to the hospital overnight—”
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