Читать книгу Cabin Fever - Jillian Burns - Страница 13

4

CARLY SHOVED OUT of Joe’s arms and scrambled off the bed. “What are you doing here? How’d you get in my room?”

“Your room?” Joe rose up on one elbow and ran a hand through his hair, all the while his gaze fixated on her...

She followed where he was staring. She wore only her thong underwear and a cami. And the underwear didn’t hide much. She snatched the comforter off the bed and draped it around her. “Yes, my room. Do you honestly think I’d sneak into your room and crawl into your bed?”

He sat up, looking around the room. The sheet fell down to his waist and Carly didn’t even try not to gape. Taut, defined muscles and dark hair that tapered to a line down past his belly button. Wow, even his belly button was sexy. He threw back the sheet and Carly spun to avert her gaze. From the corner of her eye she saw him swing his legs over the edge of the mattress on his side, his back to her. “If this is your room, then why did my key work?”

Her mind couldn’t focus. This was her room, wasn’t it? She didn’t remember using her key... The medication must have really knocked her out. She hadn’t slept so deeply in ages. But now her memory seemed to be missing parts of last night. She recalled getting Joe and Piper to switch cabins. Feeling dizzy again in the elevator and barely making it to her room, and—Oh!

She spun back to face him and snapped her fingers. “The steward!” Aha. “I didn’t have to use my key because the steward was in here turning down my bed when I—”

Joe had stood and moved around the bed, searching the floor, wearing black boxer briefs that hugged him nice and snug.

She swallowed. Out of breath all of a sudden. “—got here,” she finished lamely.

Shaking his head, he bent over and grabbed his pants off the floor. “I used the key you gave me to get in. This is the room number you told me was mine. So, if this isn’t my cabin, then it’s your fault I’m in here.” He shoved his legs—very long, very brawny legs—into the pants and yanked them up.

Carly blinked, trying to remember. Could she have given him her key?

Holding the bottom of the comforter up like the train of a long gown, she marched to the table, grabbed her bag and dug around for her key. By the time she found it and got to the door, Joe was already there, his key pulled from his pocket. He was so close his dark brown eyes looked like pools of rich, molten fudge. He smelled of sleepy linen and the faintest hint of masculine sweat. Oh, why hadn’t he put on his shirt? She realized she was staring at him.

“If my key works you’re going to owe me,” he said.

She snapped back. “Owe you what?” She didn’t owe him a thing. If he thought he could—

“Well, I was going for an apology, but if you had something else in mind...” He raised a brow and gave her a slow, suggestive smile.

Ignoring the bare chest in front of her, Carly pursed her lips. “Just try your key.”

“And if it doesn’t work are you going to leave me standing out in the hall the rest of the night?”

“Not so sure about your key, now, huh?”

His smile dropped and his eyes narrowed. “Fine.” He opened the door, stepped outside and Carly closed the door in his face.

A second later she heard the click of a key swiping, the handle turned and the door shoved open. Joe stepped inside wearing a smug expression. “So, what do you bet your key opens Piper’s room?”

Oh, no. What had she done? She stared at the key in her hand. He probably thought she’d purposely given him her key and room number. That this was all a ploy to get him. Did he think that she was so desperate for sex, or for him in particular? She’d never. She squeezed her eyes closed, too embarrassed to look at him.

“Hey, everybody makes mistakes.” His rough fingers cupped her chin and lifted her face.

She made herself open her eyes and meet his gaze. “I swear, I didn’t—”

“I know.” The fingers of his other hand caressed her cheek. He lowered his head and gently touched his lips to hers.

And that was all it took. She opened her mouth and took the kiss deep, her lips as desperate and as needy as she’d convinced herself she wasn’t minutes ago. She pressed him to her, wrapping her arms around his neck, running her hands over his taut shoulders and fingering the curls at the base of his neck.

With a low growl he took control of the kiss, teasing her with his tongue. His arms tightened around her waist. He lifted her, and she hooked a leg around his hip as he walked them to the bed. The comforter slipped down to her hips and he broke the kiss, grinned and laid her on the mattress.

Joe’s eyes flared as he stared at her body. Feeling her feminine power, Carly lay back on her elbows and raised one knee, then let it drop.

She watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. He raised a brow, unzipped his pants and got rid of them, along with his underwear.

Her breath caught. He was magnificent. How was this guy still single? Wait. Maybe he had a girlfriend.

He lowered himself over her, bracing himself with his hands. With one knee bent between her thighs, he nuzzled into her neck, nibbling the sensitive skin from below her ear to her shoulder.

Carly closed her eyes, shivering at the feel of his lips exploring, moving down her collarbone... What had she been about to ask him? Something about too good to be true... A girlfriend. She snapped her eyes open and flattened her palms on his chest.

He raised his head and frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“You have a fiancée?”

“Hell, no.”

“A girlfriend?”

His face contorted in disgust. “I wouldn’t be here, doing this with you if I did.” He shoved off the bed and bent to pull up his pants.

Carly scooted forward to the edge and covered his hands as he was about to zip up. “Wait.”

“I think the mood has passed, don’t you?”

“It’s just that generally when something seems too good to be true, it’s because it is.”

He scoffed. “And what about me seems too good?”

“Well, you did just win Modiste’s sexiest Average Joe.” She let go of his hands and ran her palms over his chest, reveling in the wall of muscle, and large flat nipples. “You have to admit you’re exceptionally attractive.”

Now he caught her hands. “I know I don’t exactly scare women away.”

“Come on!” She looked up into his eyes, saw the disbelief there. “You really didn’t enter our contest yourself, did you?”

“Does it matter as long as I’m here?”

She shook her head. “Not a bit.”

He cupped her face, his fingers combing back her hair. “Then, where were we?” He bent and captured her mouth and Carly assumed it was a rhetorical question.

She couldn’t get enough of his mouth moving over hers, his tongue playing with hers. She writhed beneath him when he caught her breast in his palm, kneading and caressing it until the nipple became a sensitive peak. His lips deserted her mouth and left a hot, moist trail down her jaw and neck to the top of her breast. He tugged the thin strap of her cami down until he could capture her nipple and draw on it deeply.

Shifting his weight to her side, he teased her nipple as the fingers of his other hand slid down her hip and slipped under her thong.

She moaned, bucking in time to his intimate touch. The exquisite pressure was building inside her.

The orgasm hit her hard and fast and she cried out. A fog of pleasure enveloped her. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t quite believe this was happening. That she’d let this happen. She was vaguely aware he was pressing tiny kisses around her breast, still stroking her sensitized core. He was skilled, all right. But it was more than that. More than just his unbelievable physique and charming smile. She’d met plenty of good-looking guys. But Joe seemed—the word sounded silly—but...he seemed sincere.

“Well, my job is done here.” Joe started to remove his hand and sit up.

Her eyes snapped open and she caught his wrist. “What?”

He grinned and chuckled. “Just wanted to see if you were still with me.”

With a growl, she shoved his chest until he lay on his back. She climbed over him, straddling his knees, unzipped his pants and encircled his cock. “Oh, I’m with you, all right.” She bent and took him in her mouth.

Behaving like this was so unlike her. She didn’t usually do playful in bed. This wild, intense response to Joe was mad. She’d probably regret it.

But not tonight.

He moaned and whispered her name. Thus encouraged, she put all her effort into driving him crazy. She took him deep and then teased him with her tongue, then deep again. He cursed and lifted his hips, tangling his fingers in her hair.

When she raised her gaze to watch him, his eyes were squeezed closed, his head thrown back and she could see a vein or two enlarged in his neck. She grinned. Turnabout was fair play. She swirled her tongue around the head once more before he urged her to stop.

“Okay, I give.” His chest rose and fell in heavy breaths, but his mouth was turned up in a lopsided smile. “Uncle. You win.”

With a seductive smile Carly pulled the cami over her head and tossed it to the floor. His gaze dropped to her breasts and he reached up to cup them in his large callused hands. His touch was so sensual, the look in his eyes admiring. She hadn’t felt desirable in so long.

She wanted him inside her.

She kneeled in order to drag her thong down and off, but she lost her balance, flailed awkwardly and fell onto him.

“Whoa!” He caught her and rolled her to her back, smiling. “You aren’t as graceful as you pretend.”

Carly clamped a hand over her eyes. This was ridiculous. What was wrong with her? She was twenty-eight, not eighteen. And even at eighteen she hadn’t fumbled sex as badly as she was tonight. First she’d insulted his fidelity, now this. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

The aggravating man chuckled more. “If it helps, I like you better this way.” She felt him tug her thong down to her ankles and off. Then, as she lifted her fingers away from her eyes, his hand traced a path up her leg, sending shivers along her skin.

Wait. She rose to her elbows and gripped his wrist. “So, you’re saying you didn’t like me before?”

“I didn’t say that. But maybe I like you a little more this way.”

“What way?”

“Relaxed. With your guard down.”

She let out a relieved breath. Relieved? Since when had she ever worried about being liked? Oh, who cared? He was caressing her hip, her stomach, and he’d leaned over to close his lips around one nipple, then moved his hand slowly down.

Her breathing faltered as he delved between her thighs with the exact right amount of pressure and an exquisite sense of timing. Much more of this and she’d be a goner for a second time. But she wanted him inside her when she came again. “Joe.” Was that her voice all husky and trembling?

“Hmm?” he answered around nibbling her other nipple, his unshaven jaw tickling her breast.

She gripped his shoulders. “Stop teasing me.”

He narrowed his eyes, but he was smiling. “Really? You have to boss me around even now?”

Boss him around? Is that how he saw her? She wasn’t demanding. She was begging. She was coming apart in his arms.

With a sigh, he rolled above her, pushed his erection against her hip and took possession of her mouth. She made approving noises, wrapped her arms around his neck, and hooked a leg over his thigh. “I’m not bossy I just know what I like.”

He chuckled against her lips and then pulled back long enough to grab a condom from his pocket before getting rid of his pants completely. “And this is what you like?”

She quirked a brow. “Yes, please.”

The way he looked at her, it was as if he knew how lonely she was, how scared she was to admit she needed someone. His gaze seemed to penetrate the layer of bravado she’d built around herself. As if he could see the real Carly.

“All right.” In a fluid motion he rolled on protection and fitted himself to her entrance. Then, with a satisfied groan he was where she wanted him. Needed him.

She gasped at the feel of him inside her. His head dropped to her neck as he began moving, thrusting at an angle and in a rhythm that made her say wicked things. She wasn’t usually verbal in her lovemaking, but she found herself murmuring, “Yes. Oh, yes. Oh, Joe,” over and over again.

The more she encouraged him, the faster and harder he thrust, building to a frenzy of pleasure. “Please.” Winding her fingers into his silky black hair, she nipped at his ear, as everything spun out of control. She cried out, clutching his back at the same time he froze above her. His muscles contracted beneath her hands as he made a low growling sound deep in his throat and pumped his hips one last time.

Neither of them moved for several minutes. She was still reveling in the best sex of her life. He was breathing heavily above her, but careful to keep his weight on his elbows. She almost wanted to pull him down and tell him it was okay, to relax, to touch his skin to hers, but that seemed too intimate. Too...emotional. And yet, she felt a niggling sense of happiness. As if things weren’t as dire as she’d always believed they were. She smiled and rubbed his back and he moaned and moved to her side. Air blew over her sweat-moistened skin and cooled her.

He rolled to his back and ran a hand through his hair. “Wow.”

“Yeah.” There. That sounded okay, didn’t it? Not too enthusiastic. She wasn’t gushing any more than he was.

But she wanted to. She wanted to roll over and press kisses all over his sexy, strong chest. How silly was that? She needed to get herself back under control. She should get up and head to the bathroom and tell him to find his own room now. And not to expect that this was going to happen again. Because it wasn’t. It couldn’t.

She had a photo shoot to supervise. This was the most important career opportunity of her life. If she blew this there wouldn’t be another. And Joe was as vital to her success. Not to mention she needed to maintain a professional relationship with him. Which meant she needed to make sure he understood tonight had been a one-off. Never again.

He rolled to face her, cupped her face in his hands and planted a kiss that promised he wasn’t anywhere near done. “Let’s do that again.”

She blinked and looked into his eyes, glinting with anticipation. “Okay.”