Hooked (A Romance on the Edge Novel)

by Tiffinie Helmer

  They’d talked enough.

  “Garrett, wait—”

  “No more waiting.” He was done waiting. He was all about having, taking, giving back. He seized her mouth, ending her objections. Here, she was quiet, pliable, demanding. The kiss was too short when she tore her mouth free.

  “Garrett.”

  “Sonya, I can’t think straight. Don’t make me form sentences.” She smiled and disengaged herself from his embrace. He almost begged.

  “All I wanted to say was follow me.” She lifted the trap door to the sleeping quarters below, bending over, her sweet ass teasing him to the point of pain. She stepped onto the top step of the ladder, and he watched as she lowered herself, rung by rung, that seductive smile of hers promising untold pleasures to be found if he followed.

  Like he was staying put.

  He was damn lucky he hadn’t broken his neck in his rush to join her below. The quarters were tight. A double bed took up most of the room. Shelves, with locked wired fronts to keep the contents in, flanked the wall on one side of the bed. A trunk, obviously for clothes, took up the opposite corner with more shelves colored with the spines of books, above. A half-opened narrow door led to the head.

  Sonya had taken off her sweatshirt and had her hands on the hem of her t-shirt when he stepped off the last rung of the ladder. Mesmerized, he watched as she lifted the soft cotton, inch by slow inch, up her body. A simple white bra, encasing soft rounded breasts, was revealed, and it was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen a woman wear. He tamped down the desire to grab her and plunder his face in her cleavage. Next, she teased him by fingering the snap of her jeans.

  He couldn’t hold back the groan that traveled up his throat. In the small space, it only took him two strides to reach her. He gripped the waistband of her jeans and yanked her close, her breath escaping with a whoosh. One handed, he unhooked her bra and tore it from her body. Her breasts were glorious, soft, and full, with nugget-hard nipples begging for his touch. Her breath hitched and her eyelids shuddered closed, as his fingers twirled the nubs into harder points.

  She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her body to his as though to stop the overwhelming sensations. With her supple breasts pressed against his chest, his knees buckled and they fell onto the bed. Lips locked and pillaging, they both fought for dominance. With a rumble from deep within his chest, he flipped her onto her back and held her arms above her head. She undermined him by arching her lower body into his. Damn, but this woman was going to be the death of him.

  “Sonya,” he growled her name. With his last coherent thought he muttered, “Do I need a condom?”

  She froze. “Tell me you have one.” Then she kicked him in the back of his calf with her heel. “I told you that it had been a while. So yes, that meant I’m not taking anything to prevent conception.”

  Without letting go of her hands, he reached into his back pocket, grinding his erection against her in the process, a pleasure punishment for her kicking him. Her groan and returning grind had him clenching his teeth as he pulled out a few condoms and tossed them on the bed. Her eyes closed in obvious relief. He’d begun carrying them after their last heated encounter. She kicked him again. “Hey,” he muttered.

  “Did you have to tease me like that?”

  “It wasn’t intentional.” He grinned. “Much. For your information, I tested clean two months ago. If you were on the pill, there wouldn’t be a barrier between us when I take you.”

  “I’ll get on the pill as soon as fishing season is over.”

  He gave her a triumphant smile. Whether she realized it or not, she’d just agreed to further a relationship with him once they returned to civilization. Tenderly he kissed her, brushed his lips against hers until she sighed. Then he deepened the kiss, loving how she eagerly opened her mouth to his conquering tongue.

  Yet, he was the one who was conquered. She met him kiss for kiss, touch for touch, grind for grind. She was his match. Not only did she hold her own dressed, naked she downright did him in.

  He let go of her and shed the remainder of his clothes. She propped herself up on the bed and inspected him up and down.

  “You look much better out of that uniform,” she said. Her eyes traveled south, centering on his throbbing erection. “Much, much better.”

  Laughter erupted from deep within his chest, the sound surprising him. When was the last time he’d enjoyed a woman so much? For the life of him he couldn’t remember. Sonya teased him with her lips, tormented him with her questing hands, tempted him with her shapely body, and brought him to a level of arousal he’d never felt before. He peeled her out of her jeans, finding thin, barely there, silk panties trimmed in delicate lace. Never had he wanted to unwrap a present so much. Hooking his fingers under the fragile lace, he slowly slipped her out of them. Then he took his time viewing what he’d uncovered.

  She squirmed under his stare.

  Rather than playing with his newly unwrapped present, as he knew Sonya wanted him to do, he captured her foot and leisurely rolled off her sock, doing the same with her other foot.

  “Garrett.” Her tone threatened, and her hips arched off the bed as though begging him to delve into her depths.

  Instead, he kneaded the curve of her foot, pressing on points that he’d learned from a very knowledgeable woman in the Middle East. Sonya’s hips dropped to the bed, and her head twisted on the pillow while she moaned.

  “Sonya,” he kissed the underside of her toes, “you have incredibly sexy feet.” The deep burgundy polish she’d painted her toenails surprised and, if possible, aroused him even further.

  “Garrett, Garrett,” she chanted his name. “Who taught you how to do that?”

  “A woman I met in Kuwait.”

  “Remind me to send her a thank you card.” A whimper escaped her lips and she wriggled on the sheets. “As much as I’m enjoying this, I really need you to get down to business.” Her heavy lids shuttered eyes that were deep, dark pools of pleasure. “Can’t we come back to the foreplay?”

  “God, yes.” He crawled up her body and positioned himself at her opening. The head of his shaft nudged the inner folds of her heat and he about came undone. Wet and writhing, she was ready. So hot, so tight, so right for him. She arched her hips, taking him deeper. His possession was a wicked mix of pleasure and pain as he tried to restrain himself from slamming into her. Each inch he gained brought him clenching his teeth and praying he lasted. In a flash, he realized what he’d forgotten. “Shit.” He pulled out of her, the friction almost his undoing.

  She cried out his name and tried to draw him back inside her with toned legs wrapped around his waist, her heels digging into his ass. Damn, she was strong.

  “Condom,” he grated out on a curse, searching the bed where he’d tossed them. “I forgot the damn condom.”

  “I don’t care.” Her head thrashed back and forth on the pillow. Her hair flowed like silk, thick lashes lay dark against flushed cheeks. She was stunning. The sight of her had him pausing just to look at her.

  He swallowed past the lump of emotion suddenly in his throat. “You’ll care nine months from now,” he said. For the first time in his life, he envisioned what the woman who’d carry his child looked like.

  It scared the hell out of him.

  Her eyes slowly opened and met his. He thought he recognized yearning. Her lips parted and he wondered what he’d do if she told him to forget the condom. Then she blinked and the moment was gone.

  “Need help?” she asked, with a lift of her brow.

  How he loved the way she challenged him—when she wasn’t pissing him off. “I think I can handle it.” He tore the wrapper open, sheathed himself, and slowly reentered her. Her legs tightened around his waist and she arched her hips hard against him, forcing his penetration.

  She stole his breath, his control, his domination. A man consumed with making a woman undeniably his, he took her, slammed into her with a force that rocked the bolted-down bed. He spread her legs, h
auled her hips off the sheets with bruising fingers, and plundered.

  He claimed her with each thrust, strained to be part of her. One with her. He wanted there to be nothing between them. Not her being a fisherman. Not him being a trooper.

  Her head fell back on a cry, the curve of her neck summoning him to bite. He closed his teeth on the cord of her neck, loving how she hissed out her pleasure and urged him to take her harder, faster. His climax built at the base of his testicles and he held tight to the slippery threads of his control. Sonya screamed his name, her nails raking down his back as her inner muscles contracted around his shaft, milking him of his inability to prolong his own orgasm. Another hard thrust and he was helplessly caught in the storm of a devastating climax.

  He collapsed into her comforting arms. His body spent.

  His soul shaken.

  Sonya woke to the boat rocking to and fro with the force of the incoming tide. The motion of the waves stroked her against a hard, hot, fully aroused body. Garrett lay behind her, his front pressed to her backside, their legs entwined. His arms were wrapped around her, his clever hands already on patrol. He stroked her body with long sure strokes of a man who’d paid attention to what had thrilled and excited the woman he’d made love to many times during the night.

  She hadn’t awakened well-rested; rather, well-used and completely resplendent. Did that even make sense, she wondered. She didn’t care. Resplendent was the word that had popped into her head and stuck. She was so far past merely sexually satisfied.

  Sonya purred, arching her body into the heat of Garrett’s, as he lazily continued to caress her with his hands. She turned her head to peer over her shoulder at him. His slumberous eyes regarded her with pure male satisfaction. His soft lips were swollen, much she suspected like hers were. His hand cradled her jaw, and pulled her in for a sweet, good-morning kiss.

  “I’ve never woken on a boat with a sexy woman locked in my arms before,” Garrett’s voice was rough and raspy, much like the stubble on his chin that grazed the side of her neck as he kissed and nibbled her. “It’s erotic as hell.” He rubbed the hard ridge of his erection between the cleft of her bottom with the next wave, and her breath caught. He gave a sexy chuckle. “Glad to see I’m not the only one who’s getting a rise out of these waves.”

  Not that they could do anything about them. They’d used up the three condoms he’d tossed on her bed last night. The last one had required a desperate treasure hunt. They’d found it lodged between the mattress and the wall. The memory of how he’d taken her then brought a heated flush to her skin. “Garrett,” she moaned as he rubbed his rigid length back and forth against her soft, slick folds, “no more condoms remember?”

  He dropped his head to her shoulder and barely smothered an oath. The next wave crested and caused a delicious friction to develop between them as their bodies rolled with the water.

  She moaned and arched her back. To know what he could make her feel and then knowing they couldn’t consummate their desires was a luscious torture all its own.

  Garrett groaned—a rough, aggressive sound that thickened her blood. He grabbed her hips—she thought to hold her still—but instead ground against her as though he couldn’t help himself. “Trust me, Sonya.” His hands bit into her hips.

  “Trust me, Sonya.” His hands bit into her hips.

  Muscles deep within her bore down on emptiness, throbbing to have him inside her. The ache painful.

  “Say you trust me,” he ground out, his tone desperate, daring. The thick head of his penis penetrated her. She stiffened in his arms, but he was relentless in his mission to fill her. The sensation of the buffeting waves knocked her into him and he took advantage of the motion to completely impale her.

  “Garrett.” His name was a thin whisper of warning on her lips. This wasn’t good. He was deep inside her with no protection. Regardless of the amazing sensations spilling throughout her body, the fact still remained, his puppy wasn’t covered and she didn’t want to get pregnant.

  “When was your last cycle?” he demanded, keeping her body locked with his. “Could you get pregnant?”

  “Like I’m supposed to remember that while you’re—” Another wave hit the boat. She moaned and arched into him, taking him farther inside her.

  “Remember, Sonya,” he growled, the sound taut with lust.

  “A few weeks ago. Maybe…I think.” She ground her hips back into his fierce thrust. “I’m sure. Pretty much.” Hell, she no longer cared if she got pregnant as long as she got off.

  Damn him.

  She curved her back as he bit her neck in that glorious spot he’d discovered last night. His hands cupped her breasts while he rhythmically thrust into her with the timing of the waves as they pitched the boat back and forth.

  “Sonya, I’ll pull out,” he said in a strained voice. His hand found the button between her legs that had her agreeing to anything he wanted. He’d taken full advantage of the little traitor all night long.

  “Yes,” she hissed. Did she really have a choice?

  He rewarded her by flicking and rubbing her sensitive switch while deepening and quickening his thrusts. It didn’t take long for her rockets to fire on all cylinders. She didn’t worry about being quiet. She was in the bottom of a boat with water all around her. For all intents and purposes they could be the only ones alive, and she responded with abandonment as though they were.

  She shuddered in his arms as she returned to earth. “Garrett?” She tried to turn and look at him over her shoulder.

  He held her fast. “Don’t move.” He lay heavy, throbbing and thick inside her, not having climaxed. She felt his muscles tighten and twitch. His arms were bands of live steel and kept her immobile. “Give me a minute.”

  One push, an arch, a vibrating moan, and she knew he’d be a goner. The power that she held was intoxicating. Rigid ropes of muscles—with corresponding thick veins pumping blood throughout his system—held her fast as though he knew she was tempted. All it would take was one little shove.

  A wave broke against the boat’s hull.

  “Fuck.” On a tortured groan, he lost the formidable grip he held over himself and pumped his hips into her like a man possessed, thrusting in long, fast, unrelenting stokes, driving deep.

  The way he held her, imprisoned against his body, his leg pressed between hers, one arm across her chest, the other anchoring her hips to his, left her with no alternative but to take what he delivered. It should piss her off to be at his mercy like this, but it had an opposite, thrilling effect. As physically restrained as he had her, she knew she held him within her body just as captive, and it sent Sonya crashing into another orgasm.

  Garrett hoarsely hollered her name as his body betrayed him and he climaxed deep within her.

  Silence, and the seemingly mocking of the rocking boat, followed the tempest that had raged in the small room. Sensations ebbed and sanity returned. Sonya jerked out of Garrett’s arms and scrambled off the bed. “What the hell just happened?”

  Garrett opened his eyes and regarded her with intense satisfaction. “You know what happened.”

  “You said I could trust you!”

  He laid his forearm across his eyes as though the action would make the harsh reality of what had happened go away. “I know.”

  How dare he look so pleased with himself?

  He lifted his arm and raised himself on his elbow. She tried to ignore the way his perfectly carved body lay draped, in naked splendor, on her bed. “I’m sorry, Sonya. I thought I could resist. I should have known better.”

  “I should have too.” She should never have let this situation get so far out of hand. “There could be serious repercussions here.”

  He rubbed his hand over his face, the sound raspy as he scratched over the stubble on his chin. “I know.”

  “Quit saying, ‘I know.’ You don’t know! This is my body we’re taking about. My life. I’m not ready to be a mother. I’m not even a wife!” Gramps wouldn’t care for
his coveted great-grandchild being conceived before a ring was clamped on her finger. If that happened she saw a lifetime of lectures. Not to mention, the inexcusable example she would provide for Peter.

  “Calm down. Chances are good that you won’t get pregnant. Couples try for months, sometimes years, and don’t conceive.”

  She raised a brow in disbelief. “Do you really believe that would happen to us?”

  “Nope.”

  “Me, either.” Grabbing a change of clothes, she stormed into the head, slamming the door behind her.

  She wished, not for the first time, that the boat had a shower. Instead she had to settle for a thorough sponge bath. Knowing Garrett, his little soldiers would be as tenacious as he was. What if one of those soldiers was breaching her unsuspecting girl at this very moment? Sonya laid her hand on her flat stomach, trying to visualize a tiny life just beginning.

  No. She straightened. Garrett had to be right. Chances of them having made a baby must be one in…who the hell knew how many? Who figured odds like that anyway? Chances had to be just as good that they hadn’t. Right?

  There was definitely nothing she could do about it now. If she found out she was expecting, then she could panic. Until that happened, she had more pressing matters to deal with.

  Like a drift opening to fish in a few hours and crewmen to retrieve.

  And how the hell to get a fish cop off her boat in the condemning light of morning.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “Have a good night?” Judd asked, with a knowing smirk, as Garrett entered the cabin aboard the Calypso to find him and Skip eating smoked salmon for breakfast.

  Garrett glared at Judd until he squirmed in his seat. “Where do we stand on Kendrick?”

  “Took his statement, along with his crewmens’.” He angled his head. “As you’ll expect, they differed from everyone else’s in the bar, including Harte’s and mine. Remember, I was having dinner with Davida when Sonya and Harte entered the bar and confronted Kendrick.”