She filled her palm and massaged the cream into her breasts, bringing her nipples to peak. Jared’s wicked smile filled her vision. She worked quickly on her arms and calves, but when it came to smoothing the cream into her upper thighs, she slowed, imagined Jared’s hands there, at the crease between her mons and her leg.
She shook herself free of the sensuous fantasy and wrapped the towel around herself again.
There were still no sounds of life aboard. She’d make coffee. Surely the smell would wake him.
She crept out of the bathroom and turned into the kitchen. The coffee maker was timed to start in an hour, which gave her some idea of Jared’s internal clock. But she needed caffeine now, especially after sleeping off all that champagne. She canceled the timer and turned on the coffee.
Just when she’d found the cupboard that held the mugs, Jared appeared in the doorway of his small cabin. He was sleep tousled, in a pair of swim trunks. His chest hair covered each nipple and thinned down to a point just above the waistband of his trunks.
She watched, fascinated by the hand he used to scrub across his belly. Fresh from sleep, he seemed unaware she was there. His sculpted chest called to her, his arms, both strong and smooth looking had held her last night when she needed holding more than anything.
He could have done so much more and she wouldn’t have fought, wouldn’t even have been capable of protesting. It warmed her that he’d realized she was beyond consent and that he’d been a gentleman about it. She had deliberately teased him and made him think she was ready, willing, and able. If he had taken what she’d so blatantly offered, she couldn’t have blamed him.
But it pleased her no end that not only did her pirate have heart, he had a good dose of gentlemanly scruples.
His hair, even blacker in the weak light, stuck up in adorable cowlicks around his forehead. He reached for the ceiling and stretched each sinuous muscle and his morning erection was obvious. And spectacular.
“Hello,” she said.
He released the stretch. His gaze caught hers, then ran down her body to her bare legs and feet. “Hi. Sleep well?” He smiled, apparently delighted with what he’d seen.
“Like a drunken sailor.”
He grinned. “You were that.” He cocked an eyebrow at her and she realized she was still wrapped in the bath sheet.
She patted the knot sitting on her chest. “I thought I’d get the coffee on and then get dressed.”
“Don’t have to dress on my account.” His smile widened into pure come-get-me and she very nearly did.
The coffee burbled into the pot while she processed his comment. “No, I don’t suppose I do. You could have undressed me last night, but you didn’t.”
He put up his hands in surrender. “And have you feel awkward this morning? No. You’d have every right to demand to go back to Kingston and I want this time with you.”
Her breath stalled. She couldn’t speak.
Jared moved closer. “I want you to stay, Teri.”
“I’d like that.” She moved toward him, too.
“I want you.” His voice curled around her, drew her near, pulled at her insides.
The sigh of the coffee maker punctuated the intensity of the moment. “I want you, too,” she said, “for all the time I’m here.”
He reached out and she closed her eyes, wanting to be swept into his embrace, wanting, needing the feel of his firm lips and hard arms.
But his touch didn’t come. She opened her eyes to see him pluck a mug out of the cupboard behind her. He offered another to her. He brushed her fingers as she took it. The electric arc that had startled them so badly the first time passed between them again.
“Not so weird this time, eh?” he said as he traced her knuckle, wrapped around the mug handle.
“No, not scary, either.”
He blinked and smiled in a mysterious way that set her heart to race. “I’m glad you’re not frightened, Teri. I would never hurt you.” He poured coffee into their mugs and took a drink.
She sipped her coffee too, and contemplated his words, his actions the evening before, and his kind consideration for her raw feelings.
“I dreamed last night,” she offered.
“No surprise there. About Philip?”
“I guess. I dreamed of freedom. I was flying at the bow of the SandJack. When I woke up, I felt happier than I have in a long time. Philip betrayed me. June betrayed me. Being here and away from everyone asking questions is the best place for me.” She touched his forearm, the black coarse hair springy under her fingertips, the flesh warm and alive. “This charge I feel when we touch is very odd.”
“Yes.” He grinned. “But it’s growing on me.”
“It makes me feel alive. But then, I dodged a bullet yesterday so it could just be relief.”
“Could be, but that doesn’t explain why I feel it, too.” His grin widened. He brushed the back of his hand against her jaw, by her neck. “I’m glad you’re relieved.”
She tilted into the caress, closed her eyes and savored the tingle of understanding that danced between them. This time was apart, separate from her life at home. She’d take these days for what they were. Time to heal. Then she’d go home to begin again.
Chapter 6
While Jared showered, Teri took the time to investigate the rest of the cupboards. She dug out some healthy looking grain bread and the toaster. Over the sink she found plates and cutlery and then she got butter out of the fridge under the counter.
The water stopped running so she pressed the lever on the toaster and poured him another mug of coffee. Handing it to him, she saw he’d done the same thing she had. He wore a bath towel tied at his waist. The intimacy of his choice struck her.
They were naked, but they weren’t. They looked like people comfortable with a morning routine, but they weren’t. They looked like people of long acquaintance, but they weren’t.
What they were was attracted.
She decided to cut to the chase and undid the knot at her chest. Her bath sheet dropped, as did his jaw.
“You’re exquisite.” He moved his hand in a slow, palm up gesture that took her breath. She focused on his fingertips, stretching toward her, the supplication in the gesture making her belly quiver and her heart race. She saw the calluses, the evidence of his labor-intensive day, but she already knew the gentleness in them. In him.
Without speaking Jared was asking permission to touch, to feel her skin, to caress, to take her places she’d never been. He let his hand hover near her neck, as if she might break if he allowed the full force of his desire to flow. His fingers actually trembled in her peripheral vision. She knew why.
He knew the arc would come again. They drew sparks of energy from each other, but she was too far gone to care. Whatever it was made her hot and yearn for him. Only him.
“There’s no stopping if I touch you, Teri.”
“I know.” She closed her eyes, tilted her head back to let him see her neck, the way the blood pulsed in a mad rush to her head. “This is exactly what I need.” And what I need to hear.
When his touch came her flesh burned.
His fingers seared and scorched and sent an inferno down her spine. He cupped the back of her head to hold her when she couldn’t have moved if she’d tried.
His kiss was slow, easy, and undemanding for a long time. He explored her lips, her soft inner skin, and then the ridge of her front teeth. She shuddered against his chest, raised her palms to cup his pecs, and molded his shoulder muscles.
She squared her hips to his, felt the bulk of his bath sheet between them. But a languid sense of time slowing took her to a peaceful ease. There was lots of time to undo that knot, lots of time to explore and play and be together. To come together in every sense of the phrase.
The electric charge they felt eased back to a hum, a steady throbbing hum that grew and pulsed with life. Their life-forces joined, melded and captured them.
His skin smelled of the men’s body wash she�
��d seen in the shower. Spicy, heated by his body. Blood whooshed to her loins, every nerve tingled, every pulse pounded between her legs. That whole secret place filled with moist heat and yearning. She felt herself soften in readiness, ripen for him. Drip for him.
As he also prepared for her. To enter, to plunder, to take her. His cock rose against her belly, pressing the roughness of the terry cloth into her flesh.
And still, this was just a kiss. A first kiss, a tentative kiss, an exploration of the attraction between them. A test.
His hands burrowed into her hair, cupped her head, and massaged her scalp as he took and took and took from her lips. She gave, and took back, swept up in the moment, in the exciting electricity that was Jared.
His lips eased from hers, traced her jaw, and skimmed down her neck, back up to her ear. His breath there sent powerful surges down her spine that bloomed deep inside her most private places.
“This is crazy or, I don’t know what it is, just something.” She stopped talking because she wasn’t sure what to say.
“Right?” he suggested. He pulled back, searched her eyes, held her loosely, ready even now to step back if she needed him to. “Because it is right, Teri.”
“Yes.” Unbelievably, it was. So right.
He opened and dropped his towel. His erection, heavy and jutting made her mouth go dry and her clit, plump and rosy, pulse with need.
She pulled herself up to sit on the counter. Arching backward Teri offered herself. She expected him to prod at her entrance, to rush to her core, to plunder where he could, like the pirate he was.
She propped herself on stiff arms, tilted her head back so her hair hung like a fall behind her, the tips grazing the counter top. She couldn’t make more of an offering than this. Vulnerable, open, her arms behind her, her legs spread to receive, her head thrown back. She could hear his labored breath, feel the arc of pulsing need, smell the arousal of her own flesh, sense the import of the act of possession.
“Do it.” She was braced and ready.
“Teri,” his voice held wonder, excitement, intimacy. “Look at me.”
She raised her head, opened one eye. He stood transfixed.
“I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman, a more beautiful offering than this. But I need you to look at me. I need you to know who’s inside you.”
She nodded, befuddled. “Okay.”
“What’s my name?”
“Jared.”
“Who am I?” The demand in his voice was raw-edged, the words bitten off and harsh.
“Jared MacKay, captain of the SandJack.”
“What am I?”
“My pirate.”
He blinked when he heard the words. His face softened. When he looked at her again, she thrilled at what she saw in his gaze. She’d offered whatever he wanted sexually, made it plain he could do anything he liked.
He dropped to his knees. Oh, he liked that. . . . Thank you, thank you, she said in a silent plea. A flash of the actors crossed her mind’s screen and she shivered in anticipation of the touch of his tongue on her moist slit. Would it be powerful like a ravishing pirate or gentle and coaxing like a tentative lover?
His long callused fingers gripped her ankle, held her foot still.
She felt his mouth on her big toe and jerked, startled. But he held her foot still and moved on to the next toe. Fire raced up her leg from each touch of his tongue and set a throb to start inside. Pulsing and needy she bloomed for him as he set sparklers on each toe, giving each equal attention.
“Oh, Jared, that’s exquisite.”
“I’ve wanted to kiss these tiny perfect toes since you took your shoes off at the pier.”
“Just keep moving up my leg and I’ll be happy.”
His fingers slid to her knee. “You mean up to here?” He swirled her pinky toe into his mouth and tugged on it.
Her knee turned into a fireworks display at the same time her toe melted in his mouth. “Unnnnhh, higher.” She’d implode if he kept up this slow pace.
His fingers swirled behind her knee and probed delicately there, making her croon in desperation for him to move higher, but she knew asking him would only prolong the agony. He wanted to torture her.
“I didn’t know you were a tease,” she murmured.
“Unlike yourself?” The husky tone held humor, but she was too far gone to get the joke.
She counted the inches he crept. Two, then three, four. . . .
This was not what she expected. He ran a finger along her sole, sending shudders up her leg to her heart.
And then it came to her. “Is this payback for my game on deck with the lotion?”
He raised himself to lean over her, desire and deep humor blazing from his eyes. “Did you think I didn’t want my tongue on you? Your finger was less an inch from your clit. You threw your head back and the sun played across your skin in pink and red and I couldn’t tell if it was my eyes playing tricks or if you really were on fire.”
“I’m on fire now,” she said hoping beyond reason that he’d quench her and do it fast.
But his mouth quirked up into an evil, teasing grin and she knew down to her well-sucked toes, she was at his mercy. The pirate took complete control.
Chapter 7
Teri considered being at Jared’s mercy and wasn’t sure she liked the idea. He was so damn slow, when all she wanted was to get to it. Besides, she’d decided at first sight the man needed to learn some manners.
She grabbed his head, pulled him down fast and kissed his smile hard. She plunged her tongue into his mouth, sucked his bottom lip, and then licked the tip of his tongue until she couldn’t take anymore. She moaned. It had been so long, and she’d been so lonely. Lonely in her bed and lonelier in her heart.
She fell back to the counter top, startled by the surge of desire that had her demand more than he wanted to give. Six months. Six long months since she had felt like this.
Her hands on Jared’s chest, tempted beyond reason, she squeezed his pecs, wanting him to understand. To get it. “I haven’t had sex in six months. Hurry!”
He stopped kissing her neck immediately, loosened his grip. “Excuse me?”
”I was hoping for faster.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “No can do. I think the wattage on the buzz drops when we go slow.”
She shuddered at the throaty sound of his voice. “I’m so horny I’m squirming.”
He closed his eyes, set his jaw so hard she saw a muscle jump. “If I move faster it’ll be over before you’re ready. Believe me, slow will work.”
Suddenly she realized he wanted fast, too, but he was more concerned with giving her a sure thing. She melted. “You’re in charge, Jared. We’ll go slow this time.”
Her statement took the edge off, assuring her that now that they were here together with their bodies ready and their minds set the end would be spectacular. Spectacular beat fast every time.
She smiled to ease him and pecked Jared on the lips. “You should know Philip’s completely gone,” she patted her chest over her heart.
“Glad to hear it.” His eyes glowed relief and happiness. “Now that there are only two of us here, let’s move to the bed.” He slid his hands down her arms to her hands and tugged.
She moved off the counter and felt the dip as he swung her up into his arms. She’d never been carried before. “I like this,” she said, “My pirate’s carrying me off to ravish me.”
“Prepare yourself, then. I’m definitely not stopping now.”
She laughed and set her lips to his earlobe as he walked.
“Yes, yes, yes,” she breathed into his ear. “Ravish me, take me, all of me, all over.”
He followed her down onto the bed and she fell into a warm cocoon of heat and desire and longing where for the first time in too long, she wasn’t alone. “Before things get any more interesting, I have to leave you here,” he said. “I put the condoms away in the bathroom cabinet.”
Jared had another reason for going slow. S
he was tiny in spite of her taut athletic build. He was far too aroused for her comfort.
Seeing her timid expression when he returned, he knew he would have to ease into her. But, he would get into her, of that he was sure, because under the timidity he read hunger that matched his own.
She rolled to her side, propped her head on her elbow and patted the bed in invitation. He settled next to her. He slid his arm under her head so she could snuggle into him then slowly petted her smooth warm thigh. He traced her flushed skin from knee to crotch, where he found her dewy curls. He finger combed through them.
She bit her lip. “That’s nice. The buzz goes straight inside.”
Smiling, he kissed the top of her head.
She ran a palm from his waist to his shoulder. “Take me somewhere hot, Jared, somewhere steamy,” she said. “But take me slow.”
He shuddered at the thought of having her for a week. Of all the things he’d do to make her want to stay. Stretching her arms over her head, he held her wrists by one hand. He coaxed her to lie flat, set out for him like a feast.
He fed.
He fed on her neck, her ears, licked her collarbones, making sure to dip into the hollow at the base of her throat. Her neck was warm and smelled of heaven and promise. Her breasts were full and lush, tipped with nipples that tasted of candy and sugar. He sucked on her deeply, coaxing her to stay still by weighing her down with a leg thrown over hers. When she moaned low in her throat, he stopped.
“No, no sounds, no movement, Teri. If you want slow you have to help me. If I feel you respond, if I feel you want me, I’ll go too fast, too hard, too soon. I’ll take, Teri, I’ll take and take and take. And you’ve given enough.”
She nodded, but didn’t speak, although her eyes spoke volumes. She wanted him, but he put the thought out of his head. This had to be about Teri receiving. As much as she said her heart was free, she’d been through a shock and she needed time.
Slow Hand Page 4
