Romancing the Alpha: An Action-Adventure Romance Boxed Set (7 page)

Right.

They’d hit the beach.

And then…

“Hey, sleepy head.”

Mel jerked awake, that embarrassed
where the hell am I
feeling quickly colliding with the awkward realization that she’d probably been drooling. They were in front of the hotel, and Cade was smiling at her. Maybe he had a drool fetish.

God, she had weird thoughts when half-awake.

“I drifted off?” she croaked, rubbing her hands over her face as she shook off the sleep.

“Yeah.” He grinned. “It’s okay. Let’s get you upstairs.”

“Mmm. And then the beach.”

“If you don’t fall asleep in the shower.”

“I won’t.”
I want to rub sunscreen all over you. Hard to do that in my sleep
.

“And food first. I was going to feed you a protein bar, but since we’re here, do you want me to order room service?”

Normally she’d say they should go to the restaurant and save the delivery fee, but she
was
tired, and eating in the privacy of their room with Cade? That was too tempting to pass up. “Yes, please.”

He kissed her forehead. “My pleasure.”

When she got out of the shower, scrubbed clean from head to toe, he told her sandwiches had been ordered. And ten minutes later, while he was still in the shower, the knock came at the door.

Mel tightened the belt on the robe she still hadn’t changed out of and let the waiter in. She tried to tip him, but he waved her off, saying it had already been taken care of.

“You didn’t need to pay for lunch,” she called out as Cade cracked open the bathroom door. She could see him through the opening, a towel wrapped low on his hips as he tidied up his shave kit on the counter.

“Sure I did,” he said with a slow, easy grin, joining her in the room. “And at some point we’re going to talk about how you shouldn’t pay for all of this, because I’m not really here just to do you a solid, right?”

“You’re not?” She should listen, pay attention to this conversation. Keep her gaze glued on his face instead of following the last few water droplets rolling down his chest and into the narrow path of dark hair swirling around his belly button. His torso was a thing of beauty. She already knew that from the day before. Hell, she’d known that from how he wore a dang shirt, but now…now they were alone. In a room with a bed, and he was only wearing a towel and she was only wearing a robe.

He laughed and pushed her into one of the chairs at the small table. “Eat.”

Oh, she wanted to eat all right. Him, from tip to toe.

Instead, they talked about the race and more about the training she’d done. She swelled with pride as he praised her trail-running skills, and blushed when he winked after pointing out he liked running behind her.

“I know the feeling,” she murmured.

They shared a heated gaze for a second before he broke away and pointed to her sandwich—lobster salad with thick-cut applewood bacon on grilled sourdough. “Good?”

“So good. Oh my God.” She lifted the plate, offering him the second half. “You want to try?”

“Are you full?” He furrowed his brow. “We burned a lot of energy this morning.”

“Yeah. I want the other half of yours.”

He laughed hard at that and they switched plates. His grilled chicken, pineapple and avocado wrap wasn’t quite as good as her sandwich, but there was something special about the share that made her float a few inches off the ground. It was…relationship-y.

Maybe Cade’s whack-a-doodle idea about taking things slow had some merit. Maybe, if she let him in, he could be more than a fling.

Maybe she was ready to try something other than a casual hook-up. Maybe she was ready to put her heart back in the game again.

“So,” he said, wiping his mouth with his napkin and tossing it onto the plate. “Beach?”

Beach. Bikini. Sunscreen. “Oh yeah, definitely.”

They took turns using the washroom to get changed again, but Mel didn’t take her cover-up in with her. And she didn’t miss the sizzle in Cade’s eyes when she came out in a light orange two-piece that cut low on her hips and lifted her breasts just so. It wasn’t overly skimpy, but it showed off her best assets, and now she was grateful she’d packed it—her other swim suit was a pretty basic white one-piece.

She took her time sliding on a cover-up, Cade’s gaze burning into her skin.

As they stepped onto the elevator, she tripped over the toe of her flip-flops, and his hand, which had been hovering just behind the small of her back, wrapped lightning-quick around her waist and stopped her from falling forward.

“Easy there, beautiful,” he murmured in her ear, and she swallowed hard to keep from suggesting they just turn around and go back to the room.
Keep touching me
, she wanted to scream.

She didn’t need to.

He kept his hand on her waist, like a hot-iron brand of possession, until they were downstairs and moving through the crowded lobby.

They found two sun-loungers together on the beach and Mel fished her bottle of sunscreen out of her bag as they stood between the chairs. She wiggled it in the air. “Can I do your back?”

He flexed his shoulders as she stroked the protective cream over every inch of exposed skin.

“Turn around,” she whispered. She didn’t miss the half-chubby he was sporting when he did. He didn’t try to hide it, and she didn’t bother to hide that she looked for it.

As soon as she took off her cover-up, he’d see her nipples were tight and peaked, too. This prolonged tease was getting to both of them.

Inhaling roughly, she stroked over his chest, circling his pecs. She was eye-level with the piercing. Her mouth watered at the up-close view of it.

“I can do my own front,” he said, his words strained.

“I…okay.” She blinked up at him just as he closed the gap between them and, cupping her face in both of his hands, kissed her roughly.

“If you keep going, I’ll embarrass myself,” he whispered.

She laughed quietly. “So I shouldn’t ask you to do me now?”

He crowded even closer to her, pressing his erection into her belly. “That’s a dangerous request. I’m not the boy scout you think I am.”

“Who says I want you to be a boy scout?”

His eyes flared dark as he grabbed the sunscreen bottle from her hands and pointed for her to lie down and stretch out. She whipped off her gauzy sundress and did as he commanded. Unlike her, he didn’t concentrate just on her back. He started at her feet and worked his way up, and when he traced his slick fingertips along the bottom edge of her boy-short swim bottoms, she thought she might lose it, too.

But as soon as he reached her arms, he moved away, leaving a lingering sweet kiss on the top of her head.

They lay in the sun for almost an hour. When Cade finally rolled over, she handed him the sunscreen so he could finish the job he’d stopped her from doing earlier.

Which meant she got to see him touch himself, which was almost as good as doing the touching herself.

He watched her watching him, and when he got to his right pec, he lingered on the piercing.

So did she, with her eyes. And her mind. Her curiosity finally got the better of her. “Did it hurt?”

“Afterward. Like any other stitches or injury.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“You’ve never had any stitches?”

“Nope. No broken bones or hospital visits, either.”

“Good,” he said softly, his eyes running over her body. “I’d hate to think of your beautiful skin being wounded in any way.”

She shifted restlessly on the chaise lounge. “Does it feel good?”

He lifted one brow and his lips twisted in a secret smile. “What do you mean?”

“I’m assuming that’s why you got it. Not just for looks, although…it looks good.” She glanced at it again, her gaze lingering on the silver balls on either end of the bar. On the small brown nipple in between, and the flat disc of skin behind it.
Would it feel good on my tongue?

He waited until she looked back up at his face, then he smirked ever so slowly, making her wet and achy just like that. From a
smirk
. An expression that should have made him look like an asshole. It really didn’t. “Yeah, it feels good.”

“That’s…good.”

He held her gaze, stretching the heavy pause between them. Then he lowered his voice, for her ears only, and poured gasoline on the fire already sizzling in her veins. “I tug on it. When I’m getting myself off. I jerk myself with my right hand, and rock my left thumb over it. That’s why it’s on that side.”

A weak, gurgling sound came from Mel’s throat as she stared at him, picturing that. He swung his long legs into the space between their chairs and sat up.

“Here,” he said, tucking the bottle of sunscreen against her side. His knuckles rubbed against her waist and she shuddered with pleasure. He was halfway to making her climax on a public beach, with a few words and an almost innocent touch. “I’m heading back to the room.”

She rolled his statement over in her head. Did he mean for her to follow him? Why wouldn’t he just invite her to come back with him? Was this another way to toss the ball back into her court? Maybe she shouldn’t follow him. But she did, first with her eyes, and then with her feet as he disappeared through the doors and into the shade of the lobby.

She managed to slow herself down in the lobby.
Go to the gift shop. Go find the information table about the race.
Her footsteps faltered as she looked at those two options, then the elevator.

There wasn’t any way she could stop herself from pressing the up button.

Her heart hammered in her throat and her cheeks burned—could anyone tell what was in her mind? What Cade had whispered to her before leaving her at the beach?

Was she reading the situation all wrong? Would she find him reading a magazine when she got up to the room?
“So yeah, thanks for leaving me the sunscreen, but I decided to go shopping instead.”
She practiced the excuse for following him over and over again until the elevator car stopped on their floor.

Then she stopped thinking about anything at all.

Hands shaking, she fumbled with the room key. The light turned green on her third try, and she held her breath as she cracked the door open.

The shower was running.

And it was louder than usual, because the door was open.

She flattened against the wall opposite the bathroom door, dropping her beach bag on the floor.

Cade stood under the water, his back to her. He lifted one arm, then the other, soaping up as he washed off the sand and salt. Her eyes greedily ate up every bit of his body, from the parts she’d seen before—the broad shoulders and long, muscled arms and legs—to the breathtaking view of one part she hadn’t before—his tight, flexing ass. Paler skin than the rest of him, his glutes pulled high and tight with each stretch of his extremities.

She wanted to take a bite out of him. Squeeze that butt hard as he surged into her and smack it when they were done.

When his hands disappeared on the other side of his body and stayed there, Mel thought she might pass out from holding her breath.

Was he doing what she thought he was doing?

His right elbow swung out into the steamy water, then pulled tight against his side. Again.
Holy shit.

A low groan carried over the hissing, steamy spray of water, and Cade rotated, sliding his back against the tiles, disappearing halfway behind the door, but giving her a view of the rest of him.

He was huge. At least she was pretty sure he was huge. There was steam and a giant hand in the way, and her perception was definitely clouded by lust, but as he fisted his cock, there was still a lot of flesh he wasn’t holding.

And his left arm was, in fact, braced across his torso, his hand heading straight to the piercing.

She wanted to do all of it for him. Stroking, tugging. And more… She wanted to drop to her knees for him, mouth open and welcoming.

Her sex flooded with moisture as she watched him get himself off, but she didn’t touch herself.

Not with her hands. She pressed her thighs together as she rocked her hips back and forth and squeezed her pelvic muscles. She felt…empty. Hungry. Her mouth watered for the taste of Cade’s skin on her tongue, and her pussy clenched as she imagined the thick press of that erection sliding between her folds.

Fill me up.
She gasped as his hand sped up to a blur, as a long, sustained, cursing groan filled the air. She couldn’t see the actual evidence that he’d come—the glass and steamy water obscured that detail, damn them—but he sagged back against the wall, and so did she.

That was, hands down, the sexiest thing she’d ever seen.

And now it was over, she didn’t know what she wanted to happen next.

He reached for the taps and her heart leaped into her throat.

— —

Cade could feel her presence as he turned off the water and grabbed the towel. He hadn’t meant to throw down that gauntlet. But having her hands on him, and then the way she watched him touch himself—it had all been too much.

He’d needed her.

And because of the…rules, for lack of a better word…they’d established, he’d needed to walk away.

He’d hoped she’d follow.

Hoped she’d watch.

Hell, he’d have died and gone to heaven if she’d joined him, but that wasn’t the filthy promise he’d poured into her mind before he got the hell away from her.

Next time.

He dried his hair, then his chest. Arms, then legs. Each time the cotton swung over his sensitive cock, he twitched. Her shadowy form didn’t help matters. Finally he turned, towel still in hand, but he didn’t bother to wrap it around his body.

“Mel,” he said, her name cracking as his voice dropped when he saw her face.

She looked stricken. Not the reaction he’d been hoping for.

“Jesus,” he whispered, hastily wrapping the towel around his waist. Nope, that wasn’t enough of a barrier. He gingerly filled the bathroom doorway. “Let me just grab some clothes…”

“No,” she said, holding up her hand. “I just…”

“What?”

“I need a minute.” She closed her eyes, and he slipped past her.