by Lily Harlem
“Stop it. Just damn well stop it.”
He slammed the heel of his hand to his forehead and took a deep breath. Putting the soap back on the small plastic shelf, he exhaled then shut the water off. Got out and toweled himself dry. Shoved erotic visions of her from his mind and coached himself to think of her only as a job. Slipping into his shorts, he took a few seconds to compose his features then unlocked the door. He swung it open thinking he’d see them still standing where he’d left them—how he’d left them—but they weren’t in the living room area. He clenched his teeth. Had they gone to Jose’s bedroom, to continue what they’d started? Was that how it was? Was that the answer he’d wanted from them earlier, on where this was heading?
He took a bottle of water from the cooler and made his way up the stairs. If they’d decided to be an item for the next couple of days and didn’t want him involved, that was for the best.
Wasn’t it?
He reached the top step and stared. They were there, sunning themselves on loungers, as though what they’d done hadn’t taken place. India had her eyes closed, and the damn cuffs had been removed. Dillon felt a spike of annoyance at that. Jose should have checked with him first. One whiff of her cunt and his partner had caved.
“No cuffs, I see,” he said, going for gruff. He dropped onto the plastic-padded bench that sat above the swim-deck.
“Pointless, don’t you think?” Jose said, draping a forearm over his brow.
Dillon narrowed his eyes and studied them. They looked like damn honeymooners on a cruise, catching the sun, comfortable, as if they’d been together a long time. He was annoyed about that too, how Jose always seemed to come off as the good guy, the one at ease, while he, Dillon, was the moody bastard.
“I see your point,” he conceded, looking at Jose for his reaction.
Jose’s mouth twitched, as though he was suppressing a triumphant smile.
“She asleep?” Dillon asked.
“Looks like it.” Jose raised his arm and glanced at her.
Her chest rose and fell steadily, and her breathing was languid and heavy.
“We need to talk,” Dillon said.
“I know.” Jose covered his eyes again. “But if you’re going to go off on me, save it.”
“Listen.” Dillon knotted his fingers. “If you want to be with her, for however long, then fine. Just be aware of the consequences.”
“I know. Just…just let it be, all right? It isn’t how you think.”
“Isn’t it? So tell me how it is. Maybe then I won’t be such an ass.”
Jose pursed his lips then said, “Look, I think she’s nice, okay? I shouldn’t, but I do. She’s not how she seems on TV. And before you say it, I’m not star struck. It’s as though she isn’t her—India Moore, I mean.”
Dillon frowned. “What are you talking about, she isn’t her?”
Jose sighed, propped himself up on one elbow, and looked across at Dillon. “It’s like she’s someone else and she can just be herself here. She damn well melted down there, you know? As if she hadn’t been touched that way in a long time. She just needed it—I felt that—and I wanted her to be at ease, to know we care about her welfare.”
“And fucking her is going to do that?” Dillon shook his head.
“I didn’t fuck her.” Jose slammed back down and turned onto his side, facing away from India and Dillon.
“Near enough, man.”
“Whatever.”
The conversation was over. Dillon rested back and closed his eyes. A woman had come between them and that hadn’t happened before. Women had always brought them closer. He felt the void, the tiny crack forming in their relationship, and swallowed the lump of anger sitting in his throat. He ought to calm the fuck down, relax a bit, because if he wasn’t careful, that crack might stretch into a crevasse.
He thought of India, the woman who had caused the tension. It wasn’t her fault, he needed to remember that. Giving her a hard time for something she wasn’t aware she’d done wasn’t going to help matters. No, he’d have to be kinder to her, more understanding so she wasn’t so goddamned afraid of him. And she was, he saw it from her body language, the way she looked at him, but it had been the only option he could think of to keep things on a level footing. A footing that wouldn’t turn into a repetition of the past.
Chapter Nine
The gentle sound of lapping water reminded me of where I was. It felt so good to be basking in the sun and I stretched out my legs and pushed my arms over my head. I’d had such a wonderful, deep sleep, brought about by a satiation that had been missing from my life for too long.
What the fuck.
I snapped open my eyes then blinked rapidly when my retinas were tormented by the glare of the daylight. Once again there was tightness around my wrists. A now all-too-familiar feeling of metal on skin as unyielding loops restricted my movements.
“Easy does it,” a deep voice all but growled next to me, from the lounger Jose had been resting on when I’d fallen asleep.
“What the fucking hell do you think you’re doing?” I snapped, sitting and holding up my cuffed wrists. “Jose took these off. How the hell did you get them back on?”
Dillon curved one corner of his mouth in a maddeningly smug smile. “It seems you sleep very deeply when you’ve just had an orgasm.”
“Get them off.”
“No.”
“I demand that you do. It’s ridiculous to keep me cuffed. What the hell do you think the authorities will say about this?”
“You forget, we are the authorities.”
“Not once I tell my people how you’ve treated me you won’t be. They’ll see to it that you’re stripped of your badges and buckles and guns and whatever else you have.”
He raised his brows. “And cuffs?”
“Yes, and your fucking cuffs. Now take them off.” I glanced around. “Where is Jose?”
“He’s gone to do some navigation plotting below deck. I said I’d watch you.”
“I don’t need watching.”
“I think you do?”
The way his gaze dropped down my body confirmed that he had indeed been staring at me while I’d been asleep. Drinking me up as I’d drifted through my sweeter-than-sweet dream. Despite myself I couldn’t help a little tingle of excitement that this sexy, unpredictable man had spent the last, goodness knew how long, bestowing attention on me.
I sucked in a breath and frowned. “Get these off,” I said again, this time snapping my wrists apart and straining the cuffs.
“Jose had no right to remove them.” Dillon shrugged. “He broke the rule.”
“What rule?”
“He who cuffs, uncuffs.”
“Oh, for crying out loud. This is just pathetic.” A wave of intense irritation surged through me and I stood from the lounger, adrenaline spurting into my system and requiring me to move. “I insist that you take these off right this instant, and not only that, I insist that you go and radio in that you’ve found me so I can get picked up by the coastguard.”
Dillon stood, his big body generating a shadow that engulfed me. “Really?”
“Yes.”
Damn it, do I really mean that?
“Because,” he said, “I thought you were worried someone on your team is involved in these hate notes and death threats.”
“So what if they are? I would rather cope with that than be here with you.”
“With me?”
“Yes, you!”
“But not Jose. You two are all cozy now. You like being with him.”
I stepped away, moved to the edge of the boat. Looked down at the rippling dark water below. “You have no idea what I do and don’t like.”
“Oh, but I think I do.”
He chuckled and the sound made me want to slap his face so hard it would leave a red handprint on the side of his stubbled cheek.
“I know you like Jose touching your pussy,” Dillon went on, “and that you like it when he fucks you with his ha
nd and makes you shout yes, yes, yes.” He’d put on a silly, high voice for the last few words.
“Oh, grow up, Dillon. What’s the matter with you?” I turned to face him. “Are you jealous of the fact Jose was the one to touch me and not you or…” I purposefully allowed my gaze to drop down his body as though studying him, seeing into him. I lingered on his hair-coated chest, his ripped abs and the way his orange swim shorts sat low on his hips, exposing the indentation of his oblique muscles. Damn the guy was hot. If only he wasn’t such a number one asshole. “Maybe it’s because you want Jose all to yourself. Is that it, Dillon? Are you two an item and this was meant to be your lover’s break away and I’ve turned two into three and made it a crowd?”
In a single stride he was in front of me, his face creased with anger. “You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.” He gripped my upper arm and held me tight, jerked me to him. “So shut the fuck up.”
I tried to wrench away but jostled both of our stances and bumped my thigh on the tight wire rope that stretched along this outer section of the boat. “Your reaction speaks for itself,” I said. “You have feelings for Jose and you don’t want me to distract him from whatever your intentions are with him.”
“Of course I have feelings for him, the guy has been my partner for the last five years and we’ve been through a pile of shit together.” He lowered his face to mine and the heat of his body radiated onto my chest. I could smell his skin and breath; raw male, fresh sweat and a hint of coffee.
“But,” he said, “those feelings are not what you’re suggesting, got it?”
I pursed my lips and narrowed my eyes. Gave a small shrug and made my voice purposefully light. “Whatever you say.”
He grunted and released me at the same time as I yanked my arm away from him. Suddenly my balance was gone and the wire that had been against my leg was no more. My footing was free of the deck. My body light in the air, tipping and spinning.
I was falling toward the water. “Argh,” I cried, alarm racing through me as I looked up at Dillon’s shocked face.
His mouth was parted and his eyes wide. He’d outstretched his arms and splayed his fingers as though trying to catch me.
It was no good.
The sound of my body hitting the ocean was deafening, a sonic boom.
Ice-cold folded around me.
My world went dark and the hiss of bubbles eerily replaced the bang. It was so cold, like a thousand bee stings. I kicked out, strained to keep the breath in my lungs and struggled toward the surface. I could see wavy sunlight shining like a distant, fog-swamped beacon.
But swimming was hard—no, make that impossible. My cuffed wrists hindered my arm movements and injected terror into my soul. Frantically I flailed and thrashed, but the surface seemed to be drifting away rather than closer.
My lungs were screaming for air now. Blackness was seeping into my peripheral vision. I wanted to open my mouth and suck in, hopefully oxygen. Panic welled within me, a panic only associated with not being able to breathe; primeval, instinctual, a basic, undeniable knowledge that soon death would be knocking at the door.
Suddenly a strong surge captured me around my waist and I was thrust upward. My head burst through the surface and out into the air. I gulped wildly, greedily sucking in breaths.
Dillon was holding my back against his chest, secure and strong, kicking for both of us, keeping me afloat.
I spluttered and tried to twist, frantically attempting to latch onto him; if he let me go I knew for definite I would drown.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he said breathlessly into my ear and holding me firm. “Don’t struggle and I’ll get us to the swim-deck.”
“Oh, God, please, don’t let me go,” I said, blinking water from my eyes and focusing on the boat that was about twenty feet from where we were bobbing.
“I won’t, I promise, but for fuck’s sake quit the squirming.”
“Please, just hurry.” I was still wriggling. I couldn’t help it.
He turned us and began to move toward the boat with powerful kicks and one arm swooping through the water as I stared up at the cloudless sky and prayed he wouldn’t release me.
Finally we reached the solidity of the boat. I hooked my elbows over it, almost ready to kiss the bumpy surface of the metal step. “Oh, my God,” I said, “That was awful.”
Dillon didn’t reply. Instead, he cupped my ass and shoved me onto the hard, hot swim deck.
I landed in a heap, my dress clingy and tight around my body and my panties on display. “Hey,” I said, scrabbling to my feet.
He hauled himself out of the water and stood. The sunlight caught on the drips in his hair and on his body, making him look like a goddamn Roman warrior, all caramel tan, brooding gaze and a few dinks and imperfections from past battles.
“Watch it,” he said, eyeing my chest. “You don’t want to fall in again.”
I tore my gaze from a silvery scar on the right side of his abdomen and glanced down at myself.
Goddamn.
My nipples were like two bullets pressing against the sopping material and the left side of my dress was dislodged, showing more cleavage than normal. Hastily I trapped my arms over my breasts and turned from him. Stepped up onto the main deck and searched for a towel.
There wasn’t one, not anywhere. My eyes began to moisten, but to hell with it, I wouldn’t cry, not in front of Dillon. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“So are going to say thank you to me for saving your life?” he asked breathlessly.
I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of that either. “If you think about it, Officer,” I said stiffly and spinning to face him. “If you hadn’t insisted on cuffing me and then pushing me into the ocean I wouldn’t have needed you to save me at all.”
He dropped his mouth open. “I did not push you.”
“You might as well have. You grabbed me and then let me go.”
He stepped closer. “I grabbed you because you were talking shit.”
I stared up into his eyes. They were wild, the icy blue bases deep vats of fury.
So what? I’m furious too.
“But your stupid insistence on cuffing me,” I said, “just about caused me to drown, even you have to admit that. So why the hell should I say thank you? You only did what you had to otherwise you would be a murderer.”
A small muscle twitched in his cheek and he swallowed. He was silent. The tension crackling off him sizzled in the air between us.
“Dillon,” I said eventually, my heart rate increasing rather than settling. Something about the way he was looking at me had turned him from just plain dangerous to downright dangerously sexy.
“I am not a murderer.” His right nostril twitched, pulling his lips and balling his cheek.
“I never said you were. I said you would have been.” Oh God, why did he have to be so damn gorgeous when he was mad? Now my nipples were tight and tingling not just from the cold but our proximity. What the hell was the matter with me? Years without sex and now it was all I could think about, even though I was shaking with anger and had just had a near-death experience.
Maybe that was why. Perhaps it was some weird reaction to facing my maker.
His gaze dropped from my eyes, down the channel of my neck onto my chest. I could see him inhaling and exhaling rapidly, his breaths matching the pace of mine.
“Dillon?” I whispered.
“You should get out of that wet dress.” He spoke through gritted teeth, moving his lips but not his jaw.
“Yes,” I said, dropping my arms from their protective position over my chest.
“You want some help with that?”
He still looked mad as hell but now he also looked like he wanted to eat me alive or something.
Or something.
“Yes,” I said, “I reckon I do need help.” The cuffs, how could I get undressed with the cuffs still on?
Dillon reached forward, poked his fingers into the top o
f my dress, either side of my cleavage, and yanked—hard.
A ripping sound accompanied the freeing of my breasts. Cool breeze washed over my skin and my nipples hardened further until they were tight twists. I gasped and steadied my stance on the deck to recover from the abrupt tug.
“Fucking hell, you’re beautiful,” he said on a heavily exhaled breath.
I was exposed but all I could think of was pressing my breasts to his chest, feeling that wiry body hair scratching my flesh and the heat of him penetrating my skin. “Dillon, I—”
My words were cut short when he dipped his head and sucked my left nipple into his hot mouth. I buckled my knees and swayed again, only to find he’d pressed his palm into the small of my back and was holding me steady.
Damn, he was good with his tongue; hot, stiff licks and powerful sucks. My breasts felt so heavy, engorged with blood and greedy for more.
“I want you,” he groaned, switching to the other nipple and treating it to the same wonderful treatment.
“Yes,” I gasped.
He stood, loomed over me again and dragged my body up against his. The solid length of his cock dug into my stomach, rigid, vital and demanding. “And I want to show you that I like women just fine.”
I caught my breath. It was the second time in a day I’d become acquainted with a cock this way. I wasn’t complaining.
What have I become?
“I can tell that you do,” I said breathlessly. “Very much so.”
That cocky smile he’d perfected danced across his face, but only for a second, because then he turned all serious and business-like.
A shiver of anticipation tapped up my spine.
“You know you’re going to get it good, don’t you?” he said, sliding his hands around the rips in my dress. “Probably better than you’ve ever had it before.”
I swallowed, felt my pussy quiver and a delicious heat pool in my belly. “Okay…good.”
The muscles on his shoulders contracted and once again he ripped at the dress, this time severing it completely in half and breaking the straps. It fell to the floor forgotten, a pathetically tiny piece of soggy material that had once graced a Parisian catwalk.
