Stepping onto a narrow, little-used dock, he halted beside a skiff, secured and bobbing. He rolled her from his arms, his muscles tensing as he slid her down his body. Lids fluttering, he lowered his head. Yes. She tipped her chin, welcoming the rush of blood between her thighs, the tightening of her nipples. Oh... her body remembered, even if her mind sought to forget.
Mint and ripe apple riding his breath. Close... closer.
He jerked, an oath muffled by the hand he swiped across his mouth. "Chrissakes," he whispered and steadied her with unsteady hands. Yanking his spectacles from his pocket, he hopped into the skiff.
Never thinking to ask where he took her, Elle watched him work the lines, the muscles in his arms bulging beneath blue cloth, each movement exposing his chest through the neck of his shirt. Knees beginning to tremble, her gaze dropped to his flat belly, the material there tucked haphazardly into form-fitting trousers. She blinked, curled her fingers, nails biting into her skin. A mismatched button on his trouser fly gaped.
Juste Ciel, she thought, and squirmed, a forbidden thrill racing to her nether region.
She lifted her head and encountered eyes the color of a stormy sea. The lines hung slack; his throat pulled in a long swallow. With a gradual movement, he extended his hand, palm up, fingers spread in invitation.
For a moment, she considered turning tail and running. From his rationalizations and the incredible power of his touch. She feared him in an elemental way, yet he remained a part of her, as essential as the blood coursing through her veins. Taking what he offered would not alter her love for him. Taking would only serve to heighten the pain of leaving him.
And, leaving him would be unbearable no matter what she did.
"I just want to talk with you, sweet. Please, come with me."
Decided by the faint tremor in his arm and the vulnerability on his face, she linked her fingers through his and closed them in possession. Stepping into the skiff, she ignored the warning her mind insisted on issuing: the words he wants to say aren't likely to be ones you wish to hear.
He settled her between his thighs, his arms circling her as he searched for the lines. The determined desperation in his movements sent a glimmer of feeling, his, through her.
Under a billow of white canvas, the flex of muscle at her back, Elle pressed her cheek against his collarbone and struggled to hold apprehension at bay. She had placed the power in his hands. If this was not how she pictured their relationship ending, her clothes damp and clinging, her hair curling about her face and neck, her hands clenched to keep from reaching... well, at least she had made the choice. Finally, even if the decision ended in grave error, she owned her life.
She owned her future.
Noah's chest expanded. He cleared his throat; his arms tensed. Oh, heaven, was he going to tell her he didn't want her in his life? Tell her he was leaving? That they had no future?
We're like oil and water, Elle, we don't mix.
Was he going to destroy her again?
She started, rocking the skiff. "Easy," he said, his lips against her ear. He drew back before he found himself tasting. She smelled different tonight, expensive and exotic. Almond and honey, a rich scent weakening his already weak resolve. "What's the new fragrance?"
"Caroline said you would like it."
Where had she dabbed perfume? Imagining that was sure to make him lose focus. Which he could not afford. He had planned precisely how he would tell her he loved her. Knew exactly what he would say. He had spent the last two days thinking about her every waking moment. Dreaming about her every sleeping one. He wasn't sure about the particulars, where they would live, and when they would get married, but he knew he didn't want to live without her.
Could not live without her.
The final determination had arrived last night. He had woken abruptly, his dream returning in fragments. Elle in the skiff with Leland and her father... a wave tipping them... her body tossed beneath the white-capped waves... a rapid descent into the depths of hell.
Expelling a terse breath, he fit her to his chest, his hands slipping on the lines, the awkward position making a laborious sail of a calm, easy one.
He didn't care; he wouldn't let her go again.
She shifted, and for a moment he feared he held her too tightly. Then, her lips grazed his neck, an arousing flutter, and he feared nothing at all. Her tongue, hot and rough, flicked his earlobe, her teeth digging in just enough to hurt. He leaned into the touch, his body kicking into gear, a frenzied rhythm it did not take long to find.
She kissed her way up his jaw, searching for his mouth. Her arms wound around his neck, giving him a plentiful view inside her gaping blouse. Of its own accord, his hand crawled higher, his knuckles, then the back of his thumb, brushing her taut nipple. She was exquisite, the wonder of her more extraordinary than all his dreams. Needing to prove she was real, he pressed his palm against her thumping heart as his fingers cupped her breast in blatant ownership.
She sought his lips, found them parted and ready.
Stop her before she makes you forget what you're supposed to be doing.
"Sweet." He grasped her wrists and pulled her arms by her side. "Please help me here." He struggled to speak. Blessit, he struggled to catch an even breath. With a quick glance off the starboard side, he saw they had almost reached the island. Another five minutes, and he could put his feet on firm ground, move a thinking distance from the warm, sweet-smelling bundle of seduction in his arms. "I can't think when you touch me."
Damn, why had he gone and admitted that?
She laughed—an empowered laugh that scared him a little—and did something he had never imagined her doing, even in his rowdiest dreams. She reached between his legs and slid her finger into the mismatched buttonhole he had caught her staring at on the dock. Not a bold touch by any means, more of a grazing, playful stroke.
It was the most erotic caress he'd ever imagined.
Seizing her chin, he found her lips and plundered. She tasted of whiskey and citrus. She tasted glorious, and for a brief instant, he didn't care if he sailed them off course and out to sea.
Beneath her exploration, her innocent discovery, he swelled and throbbed. She unsnapped buttons, and he held his breath, his trouser fly spilling wide. He sailed them into shore as skillfully as he could with her hand closing about him, gently at first, then with a determined rhythm. His thin underdrawers presented little defense against her touch.
"Am I hurting you?" Her mouth skimmed his neck, a moist slide, her teeth catching, nipping.
He couldn't speak, but managed to shake his head as the skiff beached in the shallows. His collected plan, his grand design, disappeared in the sensual mist enveloping them.
Reclaiming her lips, he swept her into his arms, climbed from the boat and stumbled across the sand, never breaking contact. She worked the buttons of his shirt, one by one, palmed the exposed skin, then she paused to thumb his nipple. A woman had not touched him there and if one had, he definitely wouldn't have imagined it shooting a burst of heat to his loins. Of course, his vixen would find a way to arouse him to madness on her first try.
"What are you doing to me?" he asked in a rushed whisper as he approached the glowing fire. Shadows flickered and danced across the dune. The ocean rolled into shore, and somewhere in the distance, sand locusts croaked. Nothing penetrated but the sound of her blouse crinkling against his arm, the whistle of air past her lips.
She dipped her head and laved his nipple, tangling her fingers in his chest hair. She'd gone wild, and he loved it. "I want to know your body"—she sucked the hardened bud between her teeth—"as well as I know my own." She shoved his shirtsleeve past his wrist. "Better."
Before he lost the use of his brain and his vocal chords, he forced her eyes to his. He loved this woman. It all but knocked him from his feet to realize how much.
"Elle, I—"
She shook her head, covering his lips with her finger. Then she replaced her finger with her mouth. Ag
gressive and sure, doing all the things she knew he liked.
He could not deny her.
Not when he had, quite possibly, wanted her forever.
He walked the required distance, his makeshift pallet coming into sight. Cradling her against his chest, he dropped to his knees, the sand cushioning their fall. Her legs sprawled; he smiled. He liked the strange trousers she had worn of late. Liked them a helluva lot.
She tore at the cloth hanging from his shoulder, bucking her hips. He let her strip the damp cotton from his body. In reply, he slanted his head and deepened the kiss, taking her lower lip between his teeth and tugging, a sudden image of her lips tracing his arousal filling his mind.
"I want to press your body against mine. Explore every naked inch of you." He started at her collar, working the bone buttons free with systematic precision. He stopped himself from cupping her breasts. This time, he would wait until nothing stood between them.
She complied, guiding his hips up, tugging his trousers down, while her lips traversed his cheek, his nose, his brow. Tentative pillages, light nibbles and licks, sensation snaking into every exposed pore, setting fire to every nerve ending.
Although their fingers faltered often, it seemed easy to divest each other of clothing. Boots, he toed off. She wore none. Her divided trousers, he managed quicker than he could a complicated dress. She wore a simple shift, no corset in sight. He had dressed in a hurry to get to her and wore nothing but a pair of worn underclothing. She had no stockings; he had no socks.
The first touch of her skin against his sent was a shock to his senses. He lifted just enough to allow moonlight to cross her body. Overwhelmed, he could do nothing but stare—and appreciate his good fortune.
She had grown into an incredibly beautiful woman.
"Noah." Embarrassed, she reached for his spectacles.
He shied away, emitting a husky laugh. "Oh, no, sweet. I waited too long for this, not to see clearly."
Her hair a wild, crimson riot flowing over the tattered blankets in such vivid contrast to the ivory sand. Her breasts plump and capped to perfection, nipples budding beneath his scrutiny. Her slightly rounded tummy, the bellybutton so feminine he wanted to smile. The need to smile vanished, the need to touch outweighing all else as his gaze dropped to her hips. Creamy skin and a round birthmark on her pelvic bone. Below, a swirling tuft of hair between her thighs.
Shapely thighs capping a pair of slender, surprisingly lithe legs.
"You're perfect," he said, and lowered his body to hers, the wind rustling the sea oats above them. "Simply perfect."
"No." A soft denial, followed by a breathless exclamation as he fully covered her.
He wrenched his spectacles off and flung them to the sand, kissing her cheek, her lips, her neck, wanting... wanting everything. His hand moved to her right breast, his mouth to her left. "Yes. Yes, you're perfect." Then he set out to prove it by catching her nipples between his lips and his fingers, lavishing them as he had dreamed of doing. Oh, God, he was....
Dying. She was dying.
The man she loved lay atop her, firm muscle to her sleek softness, half breaths rattling from his lungs with each slow grind of his hips, his fingers and teeth, his lips, all over her, everywhere at once. He groaned and in an instant of raw understanding, she realized his need matched hers.
Gliding her hands past his shoulders, she marveled. He found her perfect? Juste Ciel. He was perfect. If she could only get another look; a real, five-minute one. A vivid picture of his body bloomed in her mind, and she arched into the motion of his hips, capturing a whimper between clenched teeth. His hand had strayed, his fingers delving into the tight curls at her apex, a place forbidden except during bathing, and even then, under evidence of a heated blush.
He combed and stroked, diligently seeking, oh, merciful heavens... seeking. She stiffened and went on alert when he found what he sought.
"Trust me." His lips captured her earlobe, his breath sweeping inside. "I'm here, I'll always be here."
She shook her head and dug her heels into the sand, twisting the blankets and inching away from his hand. She didn't believe him... could not give him what he sought... not at all certain what he sought. It frightened her, the ease with which he molded her, as if she were a lump of clay in need of shaping.
Sensing her hesitation, he returned to her mouth and kissed her, seducing her, using whispered words and a velvet touch. She struggled through a cloud of half-formed pleasure. As his tongue began to match the rhythm of his fingers, heat rose from the tips of her toes, flowed up and out her fingertips.
She trembled, blood pounding in her head. "Please," she begged, unsure what she begged for.
A ravenous nip to the side of her breast... a rough tongue laving... hair chafing. Sliding his thigh between hers, he gradually forced her legs apart. Blinding sensation, each one of greater magnitude than the one before. She didn't know where this would end or how to end it; she could only hang on to him as a painter's splash stained her lids.
She clutched his shoulders, dug her nails into his skin as he dipped his finger into her moist folds. Desire clashed with fear, hunger with indecision. Tell him no, maybe, yes. She followed her body's will, arching, crowding into him, and sending his finger deep inside.
"Blessit, you're so warm," he whispered against her breast. He moved to her nipple, sucking, drawing her in. "So wet." His finger retreated, and she whimpered. "Let me pleasure you." Then he plunged. Again, and again.
A deafening roar, a mad pulsing. Mindless, breathless. A masculine scent on the hand she lifted to her face, moisture and sand on the arm she threw over her eyes. The hammering fury of the ocean, the hammering fury of the man she loved. She shuddered, then shuddered again, her toes curling into the sand. She moaned, perhaps she screamed. However loud, whatever sound, it pealed in her ears.
"I'll be here." He coaxed her, his voice thick, his touch direct and unrelenting.
Snagging her hands in his hair, she guided his mouth to hers.
He didn't follow, instead kissed his way down, swirling his tongue, lewdly, in her navel.
"Why?" She rocked against his finger as it went deep. His thumb found the erect nub nestled in her curls. He glided his tongue past her hipbone, stopped to suckle the inside of her thigh.
"I want to taste you, know every crease in your skin." The words blurred on a labored breath. "I would never hurt you. Trust me, sweet."
She did trust him, even as, unbelievably, his mouth replaced his finger.
One moment of suspended shock, then she broke apart, scattering in a thousand different directions. Need overwhelming reason. Delight overwhelming fear. She thrust her hips and demanded. Ecstasy, pure and undiluted, scorched a wide path, clearing her mind of everything but the reality of him caressing the most intimate part of her, his fingers working in delicate tandem with his mouth. She gasped, needle pricks of pleasure striking her, jettisoning her into a world of shrouded gratification known only to those who sought to grasp it.
Cool air brushed her skin, and she blinked to find found Noah poised over her, his weight held on his elbows, his gaze ravishing her, setting fire, inch by inch. She wiggled against the aroused flesh nudging the folds he had just vacated. He met her eyes, his as dark as she had ever seen them. The hunger in his gaze sent longing straight through her. Her knees swayed; her legs fell flat.
Had her heart ever felt this complete, her body this sated, her mind this calm?
A masculine smile of satisfaction crossed his face. Hands cupping her face, he leaned in, his mouth capturing hers in a long, deliberate kiss. She met each thrust of his tongue, desiring equal partnership. He groaned his approval, slanting his head and taking all she offered.
"Did you like it, Sweet?"
She closed her eyes, making a sound like a purr. Her arms flopping wide, she burrowed her fingers knuckle-deep into silken sand, uncaring that she lay before him, naked and complete.
His thumb smoothed her eyebrow, his hand trembling
against her temple, passion building inside him, she knew. "I've never, well... I didn't know if you would like it. God, I wanted you to." His arm slid under her bottom, angling her hips as he settled against her. "This will be even better."
"Not possible."
She felt his slow smile. "Just watch." This said, he seized her lips, a kiss of savage possession, of mastery and crude compulsion. More blatantly sexual than any he had given her. Gone was the seductive, patient lover, the childhood friend. In his place, a man whose need had risen above his level of restraint.
Elle should have imagined how he would take her comment. Even as a boy, Noah appeared apathetic about swimming contests or boat races, the most unconcerned of the bunch.
Until dared.
She had never seen anyone work harder, by honest means, to win.
And now, he used his incredible tenacity, his talented lips and fingers, to drive her wild. She blinked into a midnight sky nestled with winking stars. As she stared, the world tilted on its axis.
"Where next?" His gruff query rang in her ear. "Here?"
He caught her nipple between his teeth and suckled. "Here?" His hand slipped through her moist curls, he sent his finger into her, once, twice, then a complete, teasing withdrawal.
Heaven, what had he done to her?
He pressed his sex against her. "Here?" he asked, each word he spoke more hoarse than the last.
She dragged her hands from the sand and clutched his shoulders. "Yes." A memory of her fingers circling him, followed by an image of them joined, shattered her coherence. Moaning, she urged him to sink into her.
He made a guttural sound and pressed her into the blankets. A creeping thrust; his hold on her tightened. Lifting her hips, she took him deeper. She hid her face in the crook of his neck and breathed in the mix of soap and sea clinging to his skin.
"So long, I've wanted you for so long." He captured her startled cry as he embedded himself inside her, hip to hip.
Tides of Love (Seaswept Seduction Series) Page 22
