Mend Your Heart (Bounty Bay Book 4)

by Tracey Alvarez

  Cocking her head toward the house, Nat listened to the faint noises coming from inside, her mouth curving up as she recognized the sound of a fast-speaking sports commentator. Friday night watching a rugby game on TV—Isaac’s evening was about to get a whole lot more exciting. She knocked on the back door then arranged herself into the most confident I’m here to sex your brains out pose she could manage, which was a little tricky as her feet felt encased in blocks of ice and she was pretty sure the metal underwire in her bra had frozen to her—

  The back door swung open to reveal a hotter-than-hell Isaac wearing ripped blue jeans and a black tank top which exposed miles and miles of delicious muscular arm porn. His dark eyebrows shot up at the sight of her, and the transformation in his expression from surprise to shit, you’re sexy gave her a different kind of shiver altogether.

  “Hey,” she said, and while his jaw still sagged, tugged on her trench coat belt so that it loosened enough for her to part the unbuttoned front, giving him an eyeful of crimson lace and cold nipples.

  She’d planned something witty to say next on the drive over there, but the words got tangled up in her throat when a distinct male voice from farther inside Isaac’s house suddenly bellowed, “Are you bloody blind? That was a penalty!”

  Oh. Crap.

  Owen’s voice.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. Who the hell does this ref think he is?”

  Another raised male voice Nat recognized. Sam.

  Nat’s gaze shot to Isaac. “You’ve got the guys here?” It came out more of a squeak than actual articulated words, but Isaac seemed to understand.

  “They’re watching the game—hey!” He lunged for her as Nat tried to spin around to make a quick, mortified exit. “Oh, no you don’t.” His big, warm hands caught her by the waist and tugged her close into his body.

  Instinct had Nat burying her icy nose into the warm, delicious-smelling skin beneath his collarbone while she wrapped her arms around him. She was right about how warm the man would be, but, sheesh—worst faux pas ever arriving in the middle of a boys’ night.

  “I should go,” she said, then let out another yelp when Isaac picked her up and swung around to deposit her inside his house.

  “No bloody way.” He grinned at her, then his gaze shot to the right, down toward a short hallway and the continuing sounds of the game.

  “What’s taking the beer so long, bro?” Sam’s voice sounded way closer than it had before.

  Isaac swore and flung open the door closest to him, quickly ushering her inside. “Wait in here. I’ll get rid of them.” He shut the door behind her.

  Nat blinked in the inky blackness of the room, which judging by the clean, fresh smell of lemon soap powder, was probably the laundry. Nat ran her fingers along the wall until she found the light switch—yep, it was Isaac’s laundry room which contained a washer, dryer, and a long sorting counter. Nowhere to hide should one of the guys have a sudden urge to sort coloreds from whites.

  She bit back a smile and pressed her ear to the door. She needn’t have bothered as the cursing and complaints that followed the sudden silence of the TV being switched off were easily heard.

  “Really? You’re kicking us out to do your freaking laundry?” Nat heard Sam grumble.

  “Are you going to braid your hair and paint your toenails afterward?” Owen added.

  But it sounded as if the two men were on the move through Isaac’s house. Nat couldn’t hear Isaac’s reply, but moments later, a heavy door slammed from somewhere near the front of the house. Any moment he’d be coming back. He’d be—

  The laundry door banged open and Isaac strode through the doorway, multitasking by pulling his black tank top off over his head and tossing it into a waiting laundry hamper. Before Nat could say, “Black’ll make your whites go gray,” Isaac had scooped her off her feet and lifted her to sit on the nearest horizontal space—the long white countertop running the length of the room. He pressed his big body between her legs, palms flat on the counter either side of her thighs, effectively trapping her.

  Oh my. She wasn’t complaining.

  Nat dug her fingernails into the inflexible bulges of his biceps, trying desperately not to melt into a pool of hot lust. “Am I the laundry you’re about to do?” Please say yes, even though that totally didn’t make sense.

  “Yep.”

  Isaac’s voice was gruff, ragged even, and his nostrils flared as his gaze swept down her face to her throat, then back to her mouth. Without breaking eye contact, Nat dropped her hands from his arms and unknotted the belt of her coat so it gaped open. Her nipples throbbed in a slow aching rhythm, the sensitive tips rubbing against her bra cup as she leaned back a little to shrug the coat off her shoulders.

  His gaze zeroed in on her breasts like a homing signal, and deep inside her, her womb gave a little squeeze because she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him either. The flex of muscle twitching in his arms, the sprinkling of dark hair across his sculptured chest that tapered down his flat stomach and disappeared beneath the waistband of his jeans—there suddenly wasn’t enough oxygen in the air. The crisp fabric rustling as she pulled her arms out of the coat was the only sound in the room, other than the harsh inhale of Isaac’s breath as she was finally free, all but naked in crimson lace and stilettos.

  For a moment, she coasted on a wave of doubt. Did he like what he saw? Maybe the fancy lingerie and heels were too much and said I’m desperate to impress you because I’m scared that if I wore my usual sports bra and bikini brief instead of this thong, which is trapped in my butt crack, you wouldn’t want me.

  His roughened palms skimmed over her knees and up her parted thighs to rest lightly on her waist, his thumbs stroking slow circles on her hip bones.

  “Nat.”

  Isaac’s voice cracked on the one syllable of her name.

  He dipped his head, the warmth of his breath on her shoulder causing another womb squeeze and a shiver to traverse her body from scalp to toes.

  “Nat, tahu,” he whispered. Lips, soft as the caress of a silk scarf trailing across the skin, dropped kisses up her throat in a fiery line.

  She hadn’t expected such restraint from him, such tenderness in his touch as his hands continued to trace a languid pathway up from her waist to her rib cage. Her breath caught, held in delicious anticipation as his dark gaze trapped hers and his fingers finally, finally reached satin to sensuously brush across her nipple. Her spine arched, pushing her breast further into his palm. Sensation—pure, heady, I’ve forgotten how to breathe sensation—flared through her, and she once again gripped Isaac’s arms as if doing so would stop her from drifting out of herself and floating up to the whitewashed ceiling.

  His mouth joined hers, hot and demanding, bringing her back to the here and now. Firm lips coaxed her into a dance of kiss after kiss, a soft duel of tongues where there were no winners, just ever-growing heat. She wriggled closer to the counter edge and locked her heels together around his butt to hold him right where she wanted. Right where she needed him the most.

  He was hard and thick and straining against the fly of his jeans, and she was like a deprived chocoholic faced with the sudden choice of white, milk, or dark—she couldn’t decide what she wanted to feast on first. If she leaned back in order to release him from the confines of his jeans, she’d lose the delicious pressure notched between her legs. If she stayed where she was, letting each and every one of his kisses shimmer hotly through her, melting her inhibitions one at a time, they couldn’t get naked, ergo, precious seconds were being wasted in which all that thick hardness could be inside her.

  Desperation punched into her, and her nails raked down Isaac’s biceps in the rush to get to the button of his jeans. She fumbled briefly at the ridge of his hip muscles, then he drew in a sharp breath, allowing her fingers to slip between the jeans’ waistband and his skin. One of them—and she couldn’t be certain if it was her or Isaac—moaned as her fingertips brushed over something even harder and smoother
than his stomach.

  She unbuttoned and unzipped him, arching away so she could see the harsh rise and fall of his labored breathing, the dusky-colored head of his cock rising above stretchy black boxer shorts. Nat swallowed in an attempt to moisten her dry mouth.

  Cock. It’d been a long time since the word had passed through her brain in anything but a flicker of a thought, and longer still since she’d been this close to one.

  Isaac used one hand to free himself from his clingy shorts and gave one slow, firm stroke. The sight of his hand wrapped around his cock had her panties growing damp. Damp-er.

  “Touch me,” he said.

  She traced a fingertip down his length, from tip to root where her fingers bumped against his fist. He removed his hand and hers closed around him, the intoxicating feel of him hot and silky smooth in her palm drawing a soft moan from deep inside her. One big hand cupped her nape, bringing their mouths together again as she continued to explore every delicious inch of him. His other hand skipped up her spine to unclasp her bra, and when her breasts fell free of the satin cups, he teased and caressed her pebbled nipples until the pleasure was so great she released him and gripped his hip.

  He took advantage of the gap between them to push aside the crotch of her lace panties and traced a finger through her wet folds. Nat squeaked, her face instantly flaming at the sound and the upward jerk of her hips. The up-until-now moderate current of arousal transformed into an electrifying jolt of pleasure.

  “You want me to stop?” he asked.

  “No. Don’t stop.” Her body would mutiny if she said anything else. “It’s just…been a while.”

  He offered her a crooked smile. “For me, too.”

  “Do you have…protection?” Frankly she was amazed her brain could still form more than a single syllable, since Isaac had taken her at her word and continued to touch her, the pad of his thumb sliding through her slickness to rub gently over her clit.

  “Yeah. Made a pit stop to my room on the way back.” He twisted his hand and thrust a finger inside her, his heart-stopping smile growing wider as she squeaked again. “I didn’t know if we’d make it down the hall in time.”

  “We won’t,” she assured him on a gasp as he added another finger to the first. “I can’t wait that long.”

  “Best thing I’ve heard all year,” he said and lifted her high enough to drag off her panties while she clung to his shoulders.

  “Hurry,” she demanded.

  He tore into the small foil packet, suited up, then returned to her with a toe-curling kiss that had her quaking with need. His big hands squeezed her bottom, sliding her back to the counter edge—which, praise the laundry room designers, was at the optimal height for spontaneous sex—and positioned himself at her warm, wet entrance. She broke the kiss as he nudged the head of his cock inside her, arching away at the delicious but unfamiliar intrusion and squeezing her eyes shut.

  “Open your eyes. Don’t hide from me, tahu.” His labored breathing puffed against her throat.

  Her eyes fluttered open to find his dark gaze intense and fixed on hers. She needed a moment—something—to distance herself from the overwhelming sensations spinning out of control within her at the feel of this new intimacy. This wanted but terrifying connection.

  “What does tahu mean?” Her voice came out fast and breathless.

  He pushed inside her a little more, and stilled when she whimpered with the sheer bliss of being stretched to surround him. Dipping his head, he brushed his lips along her jaw.

  “Sweetheart. Lover,” he murmured against her lips. “Which we are now, since I’m inside you.”

  His fingers unerringly found the little bundle of nerves that required his attention, and he stroked and manipulated her until the words he whispered in her ears had no meaning and her whole world was focused on Isaac’s crazy, talented hands. Nat writhed beneath his touch, bracing her palms on the counter and leaning back to give him the space to drive her out of her ever-loving mind. Suddenly, the sweet fullness between her legs was gone and her eyes popped open as Isaac dropped to his knees.

  “Isaac?”

  The look he gave her as he leaned into the apex of her thighs stripped away the last of her inhibitions. Raw, unrestrained desire, with an intensity that said he’d do anything to have her. To claim her as his tahu with his mouth and tongue. To make it so good for her that he’d ruin her for any other man.

  He didn’t answer whatever question might have followed his name, but instead dipped his head to taste her with the most deliciously male sound of satisfaction rumbling up in his throat. His tongue flicked through her folds and circled her clit with delicate strokes. Her hips arched with pleasure so intense it was almost pain, and he responded by devouring her with his mouth, licking and stroking her endlessly. He held her hips firmly in place as she writhed beneath him, her climax building until its ferocious arrival had her bucking and screaming his name.

  He stood while she was still trembling with aftershocks, a boneless wreck that he gathered into his arms and kissed again. She tasted herself in the musky heat of his tongue stroking along hers, and moaned into his mouth as he seated himself within her with one firm thrust. Her blood fizzed in her veins and she clung to the broad width of his shoulders.

  More, her body silently ordered, the fullness of him stretching her to accommodate his thick length, triggering the beginnings of a second orgasm. He thrust into her again, and then again, his gaze growing darker as his control finally began to crumble. She wrapped herself around him, melting into lax surrender. Slow delicious friction peaked as Isaac moved faster, his need driving her own to heights which would’ve been unbearable except for the exquisite knowledge that he was right there with her. Willing her to release and let go.

  So she did. Nat let go of every thought, every worry, and every denial, and let the forces of her orgasm wring every last drop of pleasure from her body. Moments later, Isaac ground out her name into the hollow of her throat, his beautiful body shuddering within her.

  Sometime later—minutes or hours, she wasn’t sure—Isaac raised his head from her shoulder and brushed another whispery kiss across her mouth. Laugh lines radiated out from his gleaming dark eyes as he continued to grin at her.

  “What?” she said finally. “What is so damn funny?”

  He pulled a nothing’s funny frown and shrugged. “I feel as if I should thank you.”

  Thank her for the most spectacular sex in the history of ever? “Oh…well. You’re welcome.”

  He threw back his head and laughed, a great big belly laugh that backhanded her out of nowhere in the heart region. God, he was beautiful when he laughed…

  His belly laugh trickled down to a rough chuckle. “Because I’m never, ever gonna complain about doing the laundry again.”

  Then he kissed her again, until laundry was the very last thing on Nat’s mind.

  Chapter 12

  Nat opened an eye in complete darkness. Even in utter blackness and brain-fogged with sleep, something was different. Everything was different.

  A clock ticked somewhere in the room—something that in her own room would’ve driven her insane. The air didn’t smell of the lingering scent of lavender oil that she sometimes sprinkled on her pillowslips to help her relax, and she wasn’t wearing pajamas or a nightshirt. Crisp cotton covered her and stretched beneath her naked body. And the cotton wasn’t chilly—she wasn’t chilly—because something like a flexible radiator heater with slightly hairy skin was spooning her.

  Isaac. She was still in Isaac’s bed.

  She pulled the snuggly soft comforter away from her and squinted down. Yep, if she couldn’t exactly see the warm, rough palm tucked under her left breast, she sure as hell could feel it. And oops, her nipple was starting to wake up, eager for round three. But since her bladder demanded a quick trip to the bathroom, Nat gently lifted Isaac’s arm off her and slithered out from it to sit on the edge of his bed.

  He muttered cryptically in his sleep a
nd rolled over, the mattress jostling beneath her. Her bare skin prickled with the room’s cool air, so as fast as one could in an unfamiliar pitch-black room, she shuffled across the bedroom in the direction of his en suite bathroom. She flicked on the lights, squinting as she went about her business.

  Afterward, she paused in the doorway, a shaft of light from the en suite preceding her and falling across the king-sized bed. Isaac was sprawled over his half, the covers bunched up over his left leg.

  The last vestiges of sleepiness vanished as her gaze skimmed down Isaac’s thigh to the hard curve of his kneecap, and the swirling black ink of a tribal tattoo that covered the relaxed muscles of his calf. The tattoo hadn’t been there back when she’d last seen him in shorts. She tiptoed closer, her shadow falling like a hunched crone over the white sheets. Blood thudded against her eardrum, louder than the clock ticking in the room or the fading trickle of water from the flushed toilet behind her.

  She reached the bed, and for the first time let the cool triangle of light illuminate the ridged scar that twisted down Isaac’s shin. The tattoo artist hadn’t tried to disguise the scar, but almost highlighted it with the thick bands of black and a stylized rendering of a taniwha—a water monster in Māori legend.

  The design was both beautiful and heart-wrenching at the same time. Why had he chosen a taniwha? Was that the way Isaac saw himself? As a monster? Surely not.

  Nat backed away from the bed, stumbling when she stepped on one of her discarded heels. She bent and picked it up, turning away from the bed as she spotted the second shoe out the corner of her eye.

  “Hey,” came a sleep-thick voice from behind her. “Are you leaving?”

  Nat straightened and spun around, dropping the shoes in order to cover her breasts—which, yeah, was kind of pointless since Isaac now knew every curve and crevice of her body…intimately. She snatched up a button-down shirt left draped over a chair and slipped it on. Thank God Isaac wasn’t one of those rare neat-freak guys who actually dropped their discarded clothes into a laundry basket.