by Lori Wilde
Tish sat sipping lemonade and gazing out at the red-and-white Hereford cattle grazing on the other side of the fence until Shane appeared ten minutes later smelling of sandalwood soap and shaving cream. He loomed over her, blocking out the sunlight.
Suddenly she felt a tiny splash of fear.
Calm down. It’s all right. You’ve got absolutely nothing to lose. You’ve already lost it all.
The thought was strangely freeing. She took a deep breath, smiled up at him, and patted the rocking chair beside her. “Sit.”
He sat down awkwardly.
“Lean over.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“What is it?”
“Some things never change. I see you’re as argumentative as always.”
“Me? You’re the feisty one.”
“Stop being difficult. You’ve got a smudge of shaving cream on your earlobe.”
He didn’t lean over, but she did, reaching out to wipe the spot of white shaving cream away. It dissolved against the heat of her thumb.
Shane sat back in his chair, angling his body away from hers, then picked up the lemonade and took a long swallow. She watched his throat muscles work and realized he was more nervous than she was, but he’d carefully arranged his features not to give himself away.
The Secret Service had taught him a lot of tricks, but she’d been intimate with this man. She knew him inside and out. The clues to his emotional landscape were easy for her to read.
He held his shoulders like a razor, stiff and sharp. He sat leaning away from her as if an accidental brushing of their skin would unravel him completely. A sweet sense of power rippled over her. This man was four inches taller than her and seventy pounds heavier, yet he was afraid of her. Tish almost laughed. Instead, she reached for the top album on the stack. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
“I don’t…”
She pulled the album into her lap, cocked her head, and slanted him a sideways glance. “Yes?”
His gaze met hers and she felt it. That click. That lock. That old black magic.
One look in his eyes and she was jettisoned back in time to the moment that had sealed their fate.
Tish had never intended for him to be more than a fling. They were simply too different and she’d known it the minute she’d met him.
It was about sex.
Or that’s what she told herself. That was how it started out.
The morning after she’d taken him home from Louie’s was his day off. She asked him if he wanted to go to Galveston Island for the day and he’d surprised her by saying yes. They enjoyed the island, and neither of them wanted to go home. It was almost midnight when Tish suggested they walk onto the ferry and take a late night cruise.
“I don’t know about that,” he’d said, eyeing the sky. “Looks like rain.”
She touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip and gave him a wicked grin. “I don’t melt. Do you?”
He smiled back. They were the only foot passengers on the ferry and there weren’t even many cars. They climbed the stairs to the open-air deck. The wind was whipping and the waves were rocking and thick black rain clouds obscured the stars.
They found a little alcove between a support beam and the railing. Shane pulled her into his arms and crushed her mouth with his. It was the first time he’d kissed her, even though they’d been touching all day. And it was the most savagely wonderful kiss of her life. Full of sex and promise.
He pulled back from the kiss and shoved his fingers through her curls. “I love your hair,” he murmured huskily. “Autumn on display.”
She tasted rain on his lips, and that was the first time she realized it was sprinkling. She tasted her own desperate hunger for him. The intensity of her hunger was stark and startling. She yearned to be joined with him. Nothing less than full body contact would do.
Tish had never possessed much self-control, but around Shane, her willpower was nonexistent. The hold he had on her was mysterious and strong. He was not her usual type. Too darkly handsome. Too straitlaced.
But how she longed to undo those laces!
This whole thing was turning into a big game. Could she seduce him without losing her heart? It would be fun to try. And dangerous.
What if she fell for him? What then?
I won’t fall for him, she promised herself, but secretly, deep inside where she kept the truth well hidden from herself, she was halfway there already.
His arms were around her and he pressed her spine into the side of the ferry. The rain picked up speed, falling warm and spiky against their skin. The wind caught the skirt of her short dress, whipping it around her legs. Brilliant lightning so white it hurt her eyes split the churning black sky with a single perfect hot-fingered fork.
In the stab of lightning, lash of rain, bluster of wind, there was no resistance, no logic, no regret. There was only pleasure. Great waves of sweet, intense pleasure.
“I’ve never done anything like this,” Shane rasped after he pulled his mouth from hers and stared deeply into her eyes.
“Neither have I,” she whispered back.
He looked like he didn’t believe her. That sort of hurt her feelings.
“I haven’t,” she insisted.
“I’m not saying that you have.”
“You think I’m easy. Because I like to have fun. Because I’m not interested in commitment.” They’d already spent the day talking about those things.
“No,” he’d said. “You’re wrong. That’s not it.”
“What is it then?”
“Every time I look at you, I can’t help but ask myself why me? Why would a stunning woman like you bother with a guy like me?”
No man had ever talked this way to her. He made her feel special. “What are you talking about? You’re handsome.”
He shrugged. “Not in a traditional way. I’ve been told I can be pretty scary-looking.”
His eyes were deep-set, almost black. His eyebrows were thick and dark. His chin was strong and determined. He could look a little scary to the timid sort.
“I’m not a traditional girl.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
She smiled.
“Why are you here with me?” he asked.
Tish didn’t have an answer. She couldn’t say why she was attracted to him. She simply was. He stirred her blood in a way no man ever had. Couldn’t that just be enough? Why did he need to analyze it?
If there was one thing that troubled her about him, it was that. His need to dissect everything.
“Just shut up and kiss me again.” She slid her arms around his neck as the next crack of thunder shook the small ferry. The waves rocked against the boat in sensuous, rhythmic motions.
Raindrops splattered the deck, patterned their skin. Tish’s T-shirt had stuck wetly to her chest, clearly outlining the contours of her bra.
“This is insanity,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed, laughing loud enough to be heard above the wind.
The next charge of lightning was hotter than ever and mind-jarringly close. The chance they could be struck by lightning was very real and very thrilling. This was the most erotic thing that had ever happened to her. She had a feeling the same was true for him.
He pulled her up tight against his chest, pressing her to his hard angles that promised so much enjoyment. She tilted her head to plant a kiss on his masculine chin.
Cupping a palm behind her head, he trapped her to him. He kissed her, thrusting his tongue deep inside her mouth, ironing his body flat against hers. She could feel him everywhere—her breasts, her pelvis, her knees. His taste was in her mouth. His smell, mingling with the rain, was in her nostrils. His breathing, rough and rapid, resonated in her ears.
Awareness sparked off them, sharp as the lightning decorating the sky. She gripped his hard-muscled back. His hips locked hers against the boat, holding her safe. He wasn
’t going to let her slip into the churning black waters.
But she couldn’t trust him completely, no matter how tightly he squeezed her. For her whole life, there had never been anyone to catch her when she fell. Her father had taken off when she was a kid. Her mother, while well-intentioned, bounced from man to man, always looking for the one great true love that Tish had decided never to believe in.
She might not be able to trust him, but she wanted him right now more than anything else in the world.
Desire rolled like liquid fire through her veins, tugged her down on an upsurge of sexual need. Tossed her heedlessly, mindlessly toward a destiny she couldn’t fathom but lusted after.
He was a stranger. She barely knew him. Maybe that was the reason she wanted him so badly. Attraction to a stranger was always more exciting than the familiar.
The waves rocked the ship, rocked her pelvis into his. Tish moaned soft and low. She swayed into him. She had no self-control. She couldn’t stop her hips from rubbing against his; not even if the ship were sinking could she stop.
Their clothes hung heavily from their bodies, sodden with rain. The weighted sensation added to the intrigue.
Tish wanted out of her clothing. Wanted to feel his naked body against hers. Wanted to feel the rain sluicing off of them. Wanted to feel everything all at once. She’d always been greedy that way. Hungry for experience, thirsting for excitement, desperately seeking to hide her pain through pleasurable sensations.
His hips kept moving against her. He was measured, slow, taking his time. He wasn’t as desperate as she. Either that or he was much better at hiding his need. Maybe it was just that he liked to draw things out. Liked how he was torturing her.
He possessed a lot of control. Here was the kind of man you could spend a whole weekend in bed with and never grow tired of making love. Sore, yes, tired, no.
Shane kissed the length of her neck, nibbling and nipping as he went. She thrilled to the vibration of his lips on her throat.
“I want you naked,” he said, although she could barely hear him above the noise of the rain and her steadily pounding pulse. “I need to touch you.”
Yes! It was exactly what she wanted, too!
Sighing happily, she burrowed her face against his chest, shielded her eyes from the pelting storm. She slid two fingers down the column of his throat. He swallowed as she stroked his Adam’s apple.
They nuzzled and kissed. Tasted and teased. He treated her with tender licks. His tongue was an instrument of delicious delight. Somewhere along the way, his hand had inched inside the collar of her dress, easing aside the soft material, skating in to unhook her bra.
The feel of his rough, masculine fingertips against the soft, gentle skin of her breasts was highly arousing. Her nipples hardened tight as diamonds.
Then he dipped his head and began unbuttoning the top of her dress with his teeth. One by one, they popped open.
Her knees weakened. If he hadn’t been holding her pinned to the wall, she would have melted straight into the floor. They were going to get naked right here on the top level of the ferry. Right here in the rain, hidden from view by a support pillar, but standing underneath a full flowing sky.
She shoved her hands underneath his shirt, as eager to get at him as he was to get at her. Her hunger escalated his need. Frantically, he stripped off his own shirt and tossed it, sopping wet, to the ground.
Lightning flashed, illuminating him.
He was magnificent.
Her breath left her body at the sight of his muscular bare chest. He was exquisite. Not an ounce of flab on his hard-honed frame. This was indeed a man.
And she couldn’t wait to get him out of his pants.
Thunder growled, low and sexy.
Her shirt hung open. Her bra was unhooked. He pulled both garments off her shoulders in two forceful moves and then he dropped to his knees in front of her. His eyes stared at her bare breasts with awe and reverence.
His caresses grew frenzied. She realized she was just as frantic as he was, maybe even more so.
Their breathing grew ragged, husky. It all seemed so urgent. She must have him or she felt as if she would literally die. Things were totally out of control and she loved it. This was the way she lived her life, acting on impulse, obeying her gut instincts.
She told herself he was nothing more than a way to take her mind off her problems. A diversion she would soon tire of. That was okay. She wasn’t going to fall into the trap her mother had fallen into so many times. She was not going to lose herself in a man. Sex, yes, but with just one particular man, hell no.
But this man seemed to have other plans.
He twisted away from her and her body throbbed to have the contact back. In the darkness, his gaze collided with hers. The expression on his face was feral, primal.
She was vulnerable. Alone with a stranger. She acknowledged this. She shrank back into the shadows, suddenly realizing how vulnerable she truly was. This crazy foolishness was beyond comprehension.
Yet, in spite of the passion, in spite of her out-of-control urges, in spite of her raw vulnerability, something told her she could trust him. That he would keep her safe. And that scared her more than anything else. She had an urge to bolt over the side of the ferry, plunge straight down into the inky water and swim away.
“God, Tish,” he said with a catch in his voice. “You are so beautiful.”
She’d been told she was beautiful before, but never with such heartfelt rendering.
Tish found herself pressed hard against him. They were chest to breasts, skin against skin. He wrapped his arms around her, seized her mouth with his, tipped her backward until her hair trailed the ground.
She exhaled sharply and he swallowed up the sound.
He read her need and his hands explored unfamiliar territory, slipping up the skirt of her dress, gliding up her thighs and sliding around to grasp her rear end.
The next thing she knew his hand was inside her panties and she was on fire. Burning up inside, shoving her pelvis hard against his.
“Finger me,” she demanded.
But he didn’t have to be told. He was already doing it. He pushed his thick middle finger inside her, stroking her ache.
“Devil,” she growled.
“Wench,” he growled back.
She nipped his shoulder, sank her teeth into him.
He touched her in places that ignited thoughts of what it would feel like when he was between her thighs, pushing deep enough inside her to soothe that throbbing ache.
He lowered his head, made love to her breasts with his wily tongue. He zeroed in, plucking a straining nipple into his mouth.
Tish wobbled in his arms. He braced his hand against her spine.
“I’m going to make love to you now,” he said.
“Yes.”
It was that simple. Her acquiescence. He had her. She would do anything he wanted. God, she was lost. And it felt wonderful.
His mouth caught hers again in a possessive kiss that made her quiver. Caught her, arrested her. She wasn’t going anywhere until he’d branded her as his own. They were in a whirlwind, swept up by a maelstrom of chemistry and passion and need. Shane unzipped his pants, wrestled himself out of them and his underwear.
She shimmied out of her skirt, shucking her panties, and then shifted her gaze back to the magnificent man in front of her.
They stood completely naked on the upper deck of the ferry, in the middle of the night, in the crescendo of a thunderstorm, completely vulnerable to each other.
It was, quite honestly, the most exciting moment of Tish’s life. She let her eyes drop from his. Allowed her gaze to travel over the length of his bare chest, down his taut belly to his very impressive package.
She lifted her eyes to meet his again and saw he was assessing her as avidly as she’d been assessing him. The corner of his mouth quirked upward in approval. That lopsided grin shot an arrow straight to her heart.
The emotions playing across
his face riveted her.
A strange feeling overcame her, a combination of fear and excitement and danger and trust. Yes, trust. In spite of their wild circumstances she trusted this man.
That she trusted him scared her. A lot.
The impulse to back out was suddenly overwhelming. But then he clamped a hand around her bottom and drew her up tight against his hardness and she just melted. Into him, into the rain, into the darkness of the steamy night.
He braced her back against the support column. He took her right leg and guided it around his waist. She understood what he wanted and pulled her left leg up as well, until she was pinned against the pillar, totally supported by the strength in his body.
And she trusted him to support her. That was the miracle.
He leveled into her, slipping in with surprisingly gentle movements considering how fired up they both were.
She hissed in a breath. The minute Shane was snugged inside, her muscles contracted around him.
“Oh, no ma’am, don’t start that yet,” he said, “or I won’t last a minute.”
But he felt so good. So big and thick inside her that she couldn’t resist squeezing.
“Ah, Tish, I can see I’m going to have to distract you if I want to satisfy you.”
His mouth sought hers, kissing her thoroughly, imprinting her with his taste. She could hear the rasp of his breathing through the sound of the slowing storm.
“That’s it,” he whispered. “Settle down. Enjoy the ride.”
And then he began to move.
Their bodies fit. Hand in glove.
She felt every manly inch of him as he slid in and out of her warm moist folds, his movements languid and pointed, clearly designed to drive her quite mad. She could feel it coming.
The storm.
Not the one lashing them against the ferry. But the one gathering in her womb.
Legs braced wide, penis sliding in and out of her, Shane anchored her to the wall, his strong arms holding her in place. Like a dedicated explorer, he took his time, getting to know the feel of her.
She slid the fingers of one hand down his back, feeling the bumps in his spine, grateful for him, for this moment, for this delicious pleasure.
