Second Time Around

by Nancy Herkness

  He was so close that she could see the pale hair glinting where his shirt was unbuttoned at the neck. She caught a whiff of the woodsy soap he used. His face was level with hers so the texture of the skin over his cheekbones and jawline tempted her fingers to explore.

  She gulped a swig of champagne to quell the longing that seared through her. “You know, your father respects you. It’s your mother who doesn’t approve of what you do.”

  Will actually rocked back an inch as he frowned. “My father has never forgiven me for not being a lawyer at Chase, Banfield, and Trost.”

  “You’re wrong. There’s pride in his eyes when he looks at you. He really wanted to discuss organic farming with you. That was sincere.”

  Will shook his head.

  “Your mother called Ceres a ‘little fast-food franchise.’”

  His frown eased somewhat. “Mum calls everything little. The women she plays tennis with are ‘her little group of gals,’ and they’re nationally ranked amateur players. The Spring Fling is just a ‘casual little gathering.’ You’ve seen it.”

  “She insulted Ceres. Your father didn’t.” Kyra started to take another swallow of champagne when she realized her glass was empty. “But it’s none of my business.”

  She reached for the bottle between them just as Will did, so their fingers brushed. She pulled her hand back more abruptly than she meant to, but he made no comment as he refilled her glass.

  “It’s your business because I dragged you to this party.” Will refilled his glass as well. “You always pegged people exactly right at Brunell.”

  “I’ve spent all of five minutes with your parents, so take my comments with a grain of salt.” She could hardly judge his family’s inner workings based on such a brief acquaintance.

  He drank down his glassful of champagne in two swallows, drawing Kyra’s gaze to the ripple of muscles in his neck. She was grateful when he flipped onto his back and closed those hypnotic eyes. “God, this feels good.”

  What felt good? The hay? Lying down? Being with her?

  Kyra didn’t copy his position. She didn’t want to give up the chance to drink in the length of him laid on the blanket like a feast. She’d always known he was tall, but when he was on her level like this, she was aware of how solid he was. He had one arm tucked under his head so the cotton of his shirt pulled tight over the bulge of his triceps. The expanse of striped fabric that covered his shoulders and chest was impressive, as was the flat plane of his abdomen. She followed the stretch of his legs all the way down to where they extended beyond the horse blanket, his ankles crossed so she could see the shine of his loafers.

  She squinted at his socks, a medium blue with red silhouettes of sharks circling on them. “Are your socks a comment on the party guests?” she asked.

  He opened his eyes and flexed one foot as he glanced down with a crooked smile. “It was that or T. rexes. Either would work.”

  Kyra laughed and flopped back on her horse blanket to gaze at the rafters of the barn as lust sparked through her. She needed a moment to quell that reaction.

  “Kyra, I’ve had just enough to drink to ask you this.” His deep, cultured voice shimmered over her skin. “What happened that night after the frat party?”

  Embarrassment sent a stinging flush over her cheeks. He’d lulled her into a false sense of security, hadn’t he? “Nothing. You feel asleep on the couch.” That was true, and she hoped it would end the conversation.

  “I remember more than that.” His voice sounded closer, and she made the mistake of turning her head. He’d rolled onto his side again. Now he was nearly touching her, his gaze on her face while heat flickered in the depths of his eyes. “But not enough more.”

  She should sit up and scoot away from him, but she didn’t have the self-discipline. “We got a little hot and heavy, but before anything, um, serious happened, you started snoring.”

  “Thank God, because I would hate to think that I didn’t remember making love to you.”

  Kyra couldn’t breathe as Will leaned in toward her, his eyes fastened on her lips. His words had wiped away the deep-seated sense of inadequacy, the mortifying conviction that she had been too dull to keep him awake. Now all she could think about was finishing what they had started all those years ago. She tilted her head so their mouths could meet, at first a light, teasing pressure, but then Will threaded his fingers into her hair and cupped the back of her neck to deepen the kiss. She whimpered at the pleasure of his lips against hers, and he touched their seam with his tongue, not demanding she open to him, but just tracing along it.

  She reached blindly for him, her hand finding his shoulder and tugging him closer. She wanted to feel her breasts against his chest. He shifted so he was braced over her. “Will,” she breathed, arching upward. And then she got her wish as he cradled her head between both hands and let his weight press her into the springy hay.

  He angled her head to kiss her neck just behind her earlobe, sending shivers of delight streaking down to tighten her nipples. He nibbled at her sensitive skin, and she gasped and shuddered, her hands like talons curving over the muscles of his shoulders. Her hips rocked and he again gave her what she wanted by driving his leg between hers, so she had the friction of his muscled thigh to push against. She could feel him harden against her, ratcheting up her longing.

  His body was so solid and warm, his shirt smelled of the woods and Will, and the heat and motion of his lips made her insides soften and ache on a hot glide down between her legs.

  “Not in a barn,” he said, rolling off her. He picked a piece of straw out of her hair. “We’re doing it right this time.”

  Still in a daze of arousal, Kyra said, “Not in your childhood bedroom either.”

  “Spoilsport.” He smiled but looked away from her for a few moments before he gave a decisive nod. He came to his knees and offered his hand to her, rising and pulling her up with him. “You don’t get seasick, do you?”

  He tugged her along by the hand, that one point of contact sending a ripple of arousal through her.

  “I don’t know.”

  That put a hitch in his long stride. “You’ve never been on a boat?”

  “Just a kayak,” she said. “Not a lot of oceans where I grew up.”

  He dropped a hot kiss on her lips. “I’m beginning to enjoy being your first.”

  Heat bloomed low in her belly. “Hate to break it to you, but you’re not my first.” She gave him a wry look as he helped her into the golf cart.

  “Your first helicopter ride.” He spun the cart away from the barn. “Your first sailboat ride.” He gave her a wicked glance. “Your first sailboat sex.”

  “Don’t even think about the helicopter,” she said, grabbing the side of the cart as he sped over the grass.

  “You’ve never wanted to join the mile-high club in a jet?”

  The suggestive purr in his voice seemed to stroke over her skin.

  “In one of those teeny, tiny bathrooms? You’d have to be a contortionist.” But her imagination kicked into overdrive, painting a picture of her perched on the tiny steel sink, thighs spread, while Will drove into her.

  “That’s what makes it so satisfying,” he said. “You have to work hard to find the right position.”

  They skidded to a stop on a cobblestone apron in front of a multidoored garage. Will leaped out of the cart and tapped a code into the keypad on the garage wall, while Kyra tried to ignore the ache of yearning between her legs. The wooden door with its beveled glass windows glided upward to reveal a sports car in British racing green with a curved, elongated hood. She caught sight of the distinctive chrome ornament shaped like a leaping cat. “A Jaguar!”

  He ran his long fingers along the car’s roof in a way that made her feel as though he was tracing the curves of her own body. “A classic E-type. My seventeenth-birthday gift.”

  He walked to the passenger door and swung it open for her.

  “It’s a sexy car,” Kyra said, slipping onto the
tan leather seat and almost gasping at the friction against her sensitized clit.

  “Wait until you hear the engine.” His voice went low with a hint of extra meaning.

  Inside the garage, the engine throbbed like one of the longest pipes in an organ. As he shifted up, the car’s exhaust added an extra bass note.

  “Top down?” he asked.

  “Why not? It’ll blow the hay out of my hair.” And cool off some of the steam she’d worked up.

  He hit a button and the ragtop folded back behind them. Then he punched the accelerator and Kyra sank back into the seat like a fighter pilot. By the time they pulled onto a wharf twenty minutes later, adrenaline and anticipation were surging through her, making laughter spill out of her throat. “That might have been better than sex,” she teased.

  Will bent to rumble into her ear. “I’ll have to do my best to convince you otherwise.” He took her hand in his strong grip to lead her through a gate marked “Private—Boat Owners Only.” The creaking wooden docks held an assortment of sleek motor yachts and elegant sailboats, but Will drew her down a ramp to a float where small skiffs were tied up. A teenage boy in a sky-blue polo shirt, khaki shorts, and boat shoes leaped off the milk crate he’d been seated on, swiping away at his cell phone. “Hey, Mr. Chase, where to?”

  “The Royal Wave,” Will said before turning to Kyra. “It’s moored out in the harbor. Easier to get in and out that way.”

  “You got it,” the young man said, heading for one of the runabouts. He held the boat steady at the dock while Will helped Kyra in and then followed her, his balance as secure on the sea as it was on land. For some reason, that fanned the flames smoldering inside her even higher. When they were settled side by side on the metal seat, the kid cast off and stepped into the boat before it drifted away from the dock.

  “I’m betting you were just like that when you were young,” Kyra said by Will’s ear, as the outboard motor roared to life. “Knew exactly what you were doing on a boat.”

  He lifted his head and sniffed the air as they headed away from the dock. “I worked here several summers when I was around his age. I liked running people out to their yachts. The tips were good, too.”

  She flushed as she remembered Will’s over-the-top gratuity to her, but he was turned into the sea wind that flattened his shirt against the firm curves of his pecs, curves her palms itched to press against. Her embarrassment transmuted into pure desire.

  Their youthful skipper wove through the marina, dodging a couple of yachts just coming in, and gunned the motor when they got out into the harbor. Although it was dotted with moored boats, the craft were farther apart, so he had their skiff skimming over the waves. Kyra realized they were headed for a graceful single-masted sailboat with a dark-blue hull and wooden trim.

  “My mother’s beloved Hinckley,” Will said, standing to flip down a wooden ladder while their young captain held the skiff against the sailboat’s hull. “You might want to take your shoes off.”

  “I’m more worried about climbing that in my dress,” Kyra said, surveying the ladder that rose and fell with the rocking of the boat.

  “I’ll give you a little boost,” Will said, a roguish twinkle in his eyes.

  “Yeah, thanks.” She unstrapped and handed him her sandals, along with her clutch, all of which he tossed onto the cockpit’s cushioned bench. She stood carefully, bracing her legs as he held the ladder with one hand and her elbow with the other. She took a deep breath, grabbed the ladder, and waited for the skiff to ride up a wave before thrusting her foot onto the first step. Will’s hand shifted to her bottom and he gave her a lift so powerful that she practically flew up the ladder.

  Her step down on the deck wasn’t graceful, but somehow she plunked onto the bench without ripping her dress or twisting her ankle.

  Will was there beside her almost immediately, bending to retrieve her handbag. “Sorry, I didn’t think through the whole tight skirt angle. Are you all right?”

  “I’m a little worried about getting back in the skiff, but for now I’m fine.” She heard the skiff’s engine grumble away from the sailboat.

  Now that they were alone on the boat, Kyra was frozen by a sudden shyness. Back at the barn, Will’s mouth and hands had stopped her from thinking, but the fog of arousal had dissipated on the journey to the boat.

  “Are we sailing somewhere?” she asked, glancing around to avoid looking at Will.

  “No, we’ve got all the privacy we need right here.” He slid open the door—no, it was called a hatch, she remembered—that led into the interior cabin. “More steps but these aren’t moving. Much,” he said, slanting a smile over his shoulder. Something in her face or posture must have alerted him to her change of mood because he came back to hold out both his hands, palms up. When she placed hers in them, he pulled her upright to stand, an inch or so of space between them. “I want you. Very much,” he said. “But you can say no. No harm, no foul.”

  He wanted her. A bald statement, but somehow it made her heart squeeze. His eyes burned greener than the grass at his parents’ farm and the fire in them reignited the desire in her veins.

  Yet she found it hard to answer him with her own words, so she fell back on their quote swapping. “‘In delay there lies no plenty; Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty.’”

  She had expected him to respond with another line from Shakespeare, but he let go of her hands and swept his arms around her, holding her against him from knee to shoulder. He bent and found her lips in a kiss that sent tendrils of need curling through her. Her shyness evaporated like dew in July, and she wound her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. When he released her lips, his face was tight with desire. “Not so sweet-and-twenty,” he said. “More like dirty-and-thirty-something.”

  A laugh rasped up from deep in her throat. He touched his lips to the hollow at the base of her neck, almost as though he wanted to kiss the source of the sound. She felt it as a bolt of lightning straight to her breasts.

  He kept his arm around her waist and walked toward the open hatch. “No more delays then,” he said. “I’ll go first.”

  He ran lightly down the few steps and pivoted, reaching toward her. She leaned in to take his hands but he seized her waist and lifted her down, letting her slide along his body until her feet touched the floor. She let out a long sigh at how wonderful he felt against her.

  “Hold that thought,” he said, flipping open a storage compartment to pull out a couple of plaid comforters. Tossing them on one of the built-in benches, he fiddled with something under the cushion of another bench so that it extended out over the galley table, making a capacious bed.

  Kyra laid the comforters out while Will opened a porthole, creating a delicious cross breeze of tangy sea air.

  As he came up to her, she laid her palm on his chest, holding him at a distance. “Fair warning: if you fall asleep on me again, I will finish without you.”

  “Sleep is the farthest thing from my mind right now,” he said, his fingers drifting up her bare arms in delicious, exploring strokes. She could feel the tiny hairs on her skin dance and tingle.

  “This time we start with you,” she said.

  “A gentleman is taught that ladies should go—or come—first.” His voice was a slow pour of seduction.

  She lifted her hands to the first button on his shirt and flicked it open. “I didn’t say anything about coming. I just want to see you naked.”

  The hiss of his inhale was audible in the boat’s enclosed cabin. He toed off his loafers and gave her a heavy-lidded smile. “A gentleman is also taught that he should do everything in his power to make a lady’s wishes come true.” He started to unbuckle his belt, but Kyra grabbed his hands.

  “The lady wishes to undress you herself.” She might only have this one chance to enjoy his body, and she planned to savor it.

  “As long as the wish is reciprocal, the gentleman is willing, although a bit impatient.” He let his hands fall to his sides.

 
Kyra finished unbuttoning his shirt, yanking the tails out of his waistband and dragging the shirt down his arms before tossing it across the cabin. Now she sucked in a long breath because he was more than she expected. The lanky college boy’s body had been transformed into the muscle and sinew of a man who exuded control over himself and those around him. It was a heady experience to have all that leashed power at her command.

  She ran one fingertip over the swell of muscle that joined his neck to his shoulder, then trailed back along the sharp edge of his clavicle. His skin was warm and smooth as silk until she reached the center of his chest where a patch of gilded hair tickled her fingers.

  “You’re doing this to torture me,” he said, his voice tight.

  She smiled up into his eyes. “I’m doing this because I didn’t get to ten years ago.”

  “Revenge is a dish best served cold, but it’s having the opposite effect on me,” he said, cupping a hand over her backside and pulling her against him to feel his erection.

  The delicious ache inside her turned to a furnace of need. But she wasn’t going to rush this . . . yet. “Does a gentleman hurry a lady?”

  “I’m losing my grip on gentleman and regressing to caveman.” He brought his hand back to his side, although it was curled into a fist.

  She shifted her exploration to his arm, following the line of muscle from his shoulder, over his biceps, to his forearm. He must work out regularly. His well-defined abs caught her eye so she trailed her fingers over them, following the line of blond hair down his center to his waist.

  “Finally,” he rasped.

  Just to bother him, she skimmed her hand back up his chest to stroke his cheek. He groaned and let his head fall backward, the tendons of his neck standing out as he fought his frustration.

  She smiled at her ability to affect him, and went back to his belt. Unbuckling the leather tab, she noticed that the brown fabric of the belt had a pattern of knives, forks, and spoons woven into it, a subtle reminder that he hadn’t followed the path his parents had chosen for him. As soon as she had run the zipper of his khakis down, he shoved his trousers to his ankles, ripping them and his socks off before straightening to stand in his black silk boxer briefs, tented by his straining cock.