Читать книгу 3 Seductions and a Wedding - Julie Leto, Julie Leto - Страница 14

WITH ANY OTHER WOMAN, Leo might have tried to hide how he was shaking, how perspiration had begun to form above his bottom lip and how breathing came with a heavy price. But not with Jessie. He needed her to know, needed her to see—needed her to accept how she rocked him to his core.

He released her only so he could open the door to the master stateroom and gesture her inside. She headed as far to the opposite wall as she could. The cabin was spacious by nautical standards, but not so large otherwise. From across the room, he watched her suckle her bottom lip with her teeth. He should have interpreted it as a sign of her anxiety. He should back off. But damn if all he could think about was her applying those straight white biters to parts of his body.

“Shouldn’t you be driving the boat or something?” she asked, crossing her arms tight across her chest.

“Yeah, I should,” he conceded, grabbing a pair of swim shorts out of a drawer near the door, but not putting them on. He had a raging erection and he wanted her to understand that they weren’t through. Not by a long shot. “Why don’t you take a few minutes to look around? See what exactly we have at our disposal. Get comfortable. Then we’ll … talk.”

She tilted her chin upward before speaking, which only emphasized her erect nipples beneath her peachy tank top. “I didn’t come on this excursion to be comfortable. Or to talk.”

His whole body tightened at the sound of her defiance and the flash of fire in her dark eyes. So she had thought this through and wasn’t acting purely on instinct. She was attempting to turn the tables on him—and so far, she was doing a damned solid job.

“Well, that’s good, then, because if comfort was what I wanted, I would have stayed as far away from you as humanly possible,” he said. “Yet here I am, holed up with you on the open water and still feeling the pressure of your hand on my dick.”

“Don’t be crude,” she admonished, but without much conviction.

He chuckled. Jessie was a lot of things, but a prude she was not.

“I’m just being honest. Maybe if you can manage the same, we’ll both get exactly what we came for.”

He left and shut the door behind him. He banged against the cabin wall as he hopped into his trunks, then went back up on deck. He wasn’t exactly floating on air. Despite the fact that she’d given him a hand job unlike any other, his body seemed weighted with lead. Or more accurately, heavy with the power Jessie held over him after all these years.

He still wanted her. He’d devised this entire excursion on that premise. He’d had no illusions about the fact that she owned him body, mind and soul. What he hadn’t expected, however, was for her to take advantage of her position of power so soon into the trip.

After releasing the wheel back to his command, he checked their location on the GPS system and corrected their course so they’d reach their destination: the relatively shallow water off a small protected island about an hour away, if he unfurled the sails. Suddenly desperate for something to do that would kill his focus on what Jessie had just done to him—and what he planned to do to her in return—he set to work. In no time, the mainsail billowed with what might seem like a soft breeze to anyone but a seasoned sailor. Soon they were listing slightly port and gliding over the water at just over six knots.

Not surprisingly, Jessie came up on deck a few minutes later. She’d wrapped herself in his yellow windbreaker and though she remained in the companionway, she tilted her head into the breeze so her hair whipped out behind her.

“I could have helped,” she said.

“I needed some time.”

She turned, holding her hair back while her dark eyes sought his. “I know the feeling.”

“I only took ten minutes, not ten years,” he shot back.

She groaned. “Are we really going to talk about this now?”

“When would be a better time, Jess? Because I’ve spent the last decade letting you set the timetable, allowing you to make all the rules. When you didn’t want me around, I wasn’t around. Then, when you had no choice but to hang out with me, I kept things cool and impersonal.”

“You call flirting with me constantly ‘cool and impersonal'?”

He bit the inside of his mouth, but his grin would not be squelched. “Can I help it if you’re impossible to resist?”

She sighed and took the last step out of the hatch. “Apparently, so are you.”

She took a turn around the deck and then settled atop the cabin roof, which was only about eight inches higher than the deck. She faced the bow and leaned back on her elbows so that all he could see of her was his bright yellow jacket, her hair flapping behind her and one bare knee drawn up to her body, taunting him with her tanned skin.

They sailed in silence until Leo reached his first planned stop, secured the sails and then dropped anchor. There were no other boats in the immediate area. The island, overgrown with mangroves and teeming with nesting birds, was off-limits and therefore wild with sound. The coastal shoreline, less than a half a mile away, was dark except for the glow of the moon against the sparkling white sand. Once Leo had the boat moored, the gentle rocking of the Gulf against the hull became soothing. He closed his eyes and allowed the water to lull him into a place of unsurpassed peace.

Until he heard Jessie unzipping his jacket.

Still sitting atop the cabin roof behind him, Jessie took her time removing the yellow material. Her skin glistened in the moonlight and, despite her natural olive skin tone, contrasted against her dark lingerie. She must have abandoned her clothes below. He ached at the lost opportunity to peel away that luscious peach top and tiny white skirt.

Not that he’d complain.

“Did you like how I stocked the boat?” he asked, his voice choked raw with lust.

She laughed and unfurled a ribbon of condoms from just inside the cup of her bra. “Kind of cocky on your part, to pack so many condoms and buy out the entire stock of the sex toy shop. Or do you have a constant supply so you can screw every girl you bring on board this boat?”

Her raunchy language didn’t shock him nearly as much as what he was about to admit out loud. “I’ve never brought any other woman on board The Sweetheart before. Not unless she was on my crew. And I make it a rule to never screw any of my crew.”

Still seated, Jessie leaned forward and spread her legs—not wide, so that the move was blatant and vulgar, but enough so she could lean forward on her elbows and give him a mindspinning view of her cleavage.

“But you’ll do me?”

He hadn’t realized he was shaking his head until he watched her expression turn from expectation to confusion. “Do you want me to ‘do you'?”

“Why do you think I’m sitting here in a black lace bra and thong? I remember what you like, Leo. I’ve dressed the part. I’m ready, willing and able. So let’s get this over with.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

For a split second, he was just as surprised by his response as she was.

“I’m not going to have sex with you, Jessie. However, I do plan to make love to you at the first opportunity.”

She snorted. “That’s impossible. To ‘make love,’ the people involved have to actually love each other. I don’t love you.”

With concerted effort, he suppressed a smirk. “Are you entirely sure about that?”

She waved her hand dismissively. “I stopped loving you a long time ago. Remember? When you boned that random chick and claimed you thought she was me?”

“I did—” he shot back, but then stopped. This wasn’t the time for excuses. Stirring up that nest of hornets was not what this weekend was supposed to be about. “That was a long time ago. I’m talking about here. Now.”

“Okay.”

She stood and walked across the deck like a Victoria’s Secret runway model.

His chest clenched and blood rushed south. She glanced at the tenting material at his crotch and her smile was cat-in-the-cream.

“Hard to hide what you want in those shorts. Why don’t we just get rid of them? That way, you’re not fooling anyone, least of all me.”

While divesting him of his shorts, she dropped to her knees in front of him. She then took her sweet time straightening up, running her hands on either side of his legs as she rose and making sure her warm breath blew across his hard, engorged flesh before she stood and arched her back so that he couldn’t rip his gaze from her tantalizing breasts.

“There. Now I know you still want me and, not surprisingly, I want you, too. I mean, you’ve kept yourself in incredible shape,” she said, appreciatively moving her fingers over his chest. “A chance to have a sexual blast from the past is too tempting to pass up.”

Without wanting to, he was leaning down, his mouth watering in anticipation of tasting her again, touching her again, loving her again. His hands hovered near her waist. He was certain that if he didn’t make just the right moves, he might have sex with her but he’d lose his chance of ever winning back her heart.

“And that’s all you want?” he asked. “Hot sex with an old flame?”

She brushed her lace-covered breasts against his chest, a tiny moan escaping her lips before she muttered, “Essentially.”

“Well, essentially,” he said, grasping her upper arms and staring down into her eyes until he saw them widen with what he hoped was a mixture of alarm and excitement, “I’ve never stopped loving you. So why don’t I just love you enough for both of us and see if I can’t remind you about more than just how I can make you come?”

He didn’t give her time to protest or reply, but covered her mouth with his. Sensations shot through him as her lacy underwear came into full contact with his skin. She pressed her palms against his chest, but he walked her backward until he’d draped her across the low roof of the cabin, then lowered his body onto hers and trapped her hands above her head.

For this moment, he did not want any distractions from her wandering touch. He concentrated solely on the kiss. She thrust her tongue hard against his, suckling wildly and breathing hard, but he refused to meet her frantic pace, no matter how he strained to thrust inside her.

He had at least eight hours of pleasurable opportunities until daybreak and, depending on the weather as they sailed south to Key West, more time after that to enjoy every sensual delight imaginable on a luxurious sailing vessel with the woman of his dreams. From the beginning, this trip had been planned and executed with the express purpose of reminding Jessie about how good they were together. But now he realized that the sex wouldn’t be enough.

Sex between them had always been amazing. Neither of them virgins, even their first time had been mind-blowing. It was as if they’d been designed for each other. His body fit hers. Her needs jibed completely with his. Sexual compatibility had coaxed them through the rough patches of getting to know one another and as a result, they’d fallen madly in love.

So madly, he’d put the pieces in motion for ultimate destruction. He’d gone too far, too fast—and had, in circumstances he’d regret until his dying day, ruined the love of a lifetime.

His mistakes had cost him ten years of being without the woman he loved. What would it cost him this time if he repeated his actions and pushed too hard? Moved too quickly?

No, his goal for the weekend had to change. Now that she’d made it clear seduction would be no challenge, it was time to up the stakes.

It wouldn’t be enough to make her come.

No, he was going to have to make her beg.