Sail (Wake #2) (14 page)

Friday, January 8, 2010

I WANTED TO GIVE her everything. The things she never knew existed, but mostly the things she dared not ask for.

The feel of her in my hands, the taste of her on my lips, it was always more than I could store in my memories. And even when I was with her I wanted more. More minutes. More hours. More places on her body to find and claim for myself.

I touched her breasts and wished I had two extra arms and hands. I loved the shape of her and how she fit perfectly in my palms. I loved how, when she lay on her back, they fell to her sides a little and left a clear path for me to kiss down the middle of her chest. Perfectly, her nipples reacted to my curious touch, growing stiff when I applied even the smallest amount of pressure.

Bending down, I kissed the pair and then my fingers touched over her soft flat belly, which rose and fell shakily as I took my time. She felt like silk or something equally smooth. I always wondered if my hands felt rough moving over her skin. She always seemed to like it, so I wasn’t ever going to stop.

My fingers made their way to her panties, but instead of moving under them I teased her by rubbing her over the top. Her arousal made them wet and she lifted into my touch. She squirmed, but her hands stayed clasped together just like I told her to do.

She made me feel incredible and she wasn’t even doing anything. Following my requests gave me power, when I used to have none. And hearing her tell me she liked when I told her what to do or what I wanted, well that would keep my dick hard well into my eighties.

“You’re making me crazy,” she begged. “Please, Casey.” Her bare foot dug into the top of the bedspread.

It would have been easy to yank my pants off and push myself into her. Really, really fucking easy. But I owed it to myself—and to her—to be a man who gave without taking.

“What do you want, honeybee?” I asked against her tummy and kissed my way down to her pussy. “Do you want me to touch you with my hands?” I kissed where I knew her clit was through the satin underwear. “Or my mouth?”

“Both,” she panted.

I gave her what she needed. My fingers and mouth bringing her to orgasm in only minutes. Then I did it again.

When she was sated and worn out, she curled into my chest and fell asleep.
Had she ever given herself so fully to me? So unguarded? Fearless?
I have loved her for so long, but in submitting so easily to my desire to look after her, she gave me herself. At
that
moment, she gave me everything.

Monday, January 11, 2010

“For a chef, you’re kind of a monster when it comes to cracking crabs,” I teased.

With her tongue half out, she worked the cracker thing up and down the length of the king crab legs we’d ordered to share. We were on our third order and to say we hadn’t been drinking would have been a major lie.

We had barely drunk at all that week, aside from our first night in Costa Rica, and it had probably been the best thing. We talked a lot. I actually listened and it gave me more control than ever in our relationship. And since I’d put the kibosh on jumping right in the sack, it was like we were truly concentrating on reality. Even when we were together at my house in October, there had been something hanging in the air over us.

Maybe it was being on a real vacation.

Maybe it was being there with her and out in the open and seeing new things together, but it all felt peaceful. We were so much closer in lots of different ways. Closer to being a real couple. Closer in distance and communication.

But I hadn’t let myself get as close as I wanted. Even though she’d come every day, sometimes twice, and so had I, we still hadn’t had sex. Okay. It wasn’t like we were celibate; we’d only been there four days. There was a benefit to holding back. Both of us were like live wires. Still, she never pushed, letting me take the lead.

There were a couple of—damn fine—reasons to finally have sex. We were fucking good at it and it felt fucking amazing. But the more time we spent together, the more I was confident that holding off a few days was a good idea.

It just didn’t seem right jumping back into our old habits, into the old ways that had never worked out for us. I’m not saying it was always just sex with us, but we had a lot of sex in the past when we could have been building a foundation or just talking. We never expected
us
to be a reality.

Us. A real relationship.

Besides, she’d just moved out of her house. She needed a goddamned minute, and even though her body was ready to go with a few touches or words whispered, I had to make sure her head and her emotions were ready too. It was my job to make sure she was doing okay. Her nerves had to have been shot. She was still reeling from the holidays and then poof, she was in paradise with me? It was enough to make anyone’s head spin. Everything back home wasn’t magically fixed. She still had a divorce ahead of her and I knew it weighed heavily on her mind.

That night—after not drinking much over the past few days—she was a little loose from the Rum Runners we’d been drinking. She was calm and at ease. Her shoulders were relaxed and sun-kissed beneath the tie of her bikini she still wore. She wore a strapless dress thing that hugged her chest and fell just below her knees. Her hair was swept back in a messy bun, having been wet and then dry, and then wet and dry once more that day. Pieces had fallen free all over. She wouldn’t have looked better straight out of a salon.

With one foot up on the extra chair, she sloppily worked at her crab.

We’d stopped at the beachfront restaurant after walking around the little town on the coast, and decided to have a late lunch. Which turned into dinner. And there we still were. Laughing, drinking, and eating. Those seemed to be our three talents.

“I’m on vacation,” she said. “And I’ve been drinking. My hand-eye coordination must be off.” She didn’t look at me as she pried every last piece of white and orange meat from its shell.

The air was cooler and since we’d been putting down the alcohol, I was going to call a car to pick us up anyway. I didn’t want to worry about the long walk we’d have back to the resort. And the ride bought us more time. There was no rush.

The whole trip had been like that.
Easy and carefree.

I threw my napkin down and leaned back in my chair. There was no way I could eat another bite. I watched her adorably struggle with another leg.

“You look pretty doing it though.”

Her eyes finally met mine, having been focused on her food. The compliment got her attention.

“Are you flirting with me?” she asked.

“Maybe. Are you going to eat that piece of crab on your cheek?” It had been there for a while. Her lips glistened from the butter. She was going to taste good. Then again, she always did.

“I was saving it for you,” she said, joking, as she faked a seductive voice.

“That was thoughtful.” I winked at her playing along.

Her face soured and she snaked her tongue out to find the morsel.

“Hey, I thought you said that was mine.”

“Well, that was when I thought you’d earned it by calling me pretty. I’ve since realized you’re just trying to torture me. So, it’s mine.”

“You’re missing it anyway.” And she was, but just barely.

I leaned toward her. She leaned toward me. Her eyes blinked slowly meeting mine. I wanted to jump her right there, where she would least expect it. Instead, I used a move that worked well for me once upon a time and pulled her chair closer to mine while I moved in toward her.

“Whoa, hey,” she clambered. “I think you
are
flirting with me.” The light in her eyes was so much brighter than I ever really knew possible. She just kept getting better.

My voice low, I said, “Give me that.” And I kissed the place on her cheek, just out of her reach, and picked up the forgotten seafood.

Her head tipped up to me and she moved in to meet my lips, but I pulled back just out of her reach.

“You are a pain in the ass,
Señor
Moore. Stop teasing me.”

I had to admit. I liked taunting her. “I’d never do that.”

“Yet here you are, pulling away when I want you.”

“You want me, huh?” I asked, knowing we were about to reach the threshold of her comfort with flirty face-to-face talk. I wanted more, too. I always wanted more. “Tell me what you want with me, Ms….” Then I stopped almost calling her Ms. Warren, then concluding it was really Mrs. Kelly. It hurt somewhere in my chest, but I didn’t want to let it show. She’d been doing everything I’d asked of her and in my time, not hers. How she got that name bore fault shared by us both.

Almost shyly, she looked up at me through her bare lashes and said, “I
always
want you.”

Well, fuck. Those four words were pretty damn sexy. Everything about her was. Deprived looked good on her, or maybe it was my own deprivation playing tricks on me.

“What else?” I was fishing, but we were in new territory for us. Talking, flirting and playing, knowing that it all meant something. Headed somewhere. Somewhere good. Somewhere I’d always wanted it to go, but just didn’t have a map.

“I think your face needs a shave.” She smiled as she studied me.

“And?”

“Have I ever told you how handsome you are?” Thinking back, she hadn’t that I could remember.

“No? I just thought you liked my moves.” I was a little embarrassed and a lot flattered. Turning the tables was a talent she was perfecting and at that moment she was full-out hitting on
me.

It was the best seafood lunch-dinner I’d ever had.

“Oh, I like those moves, but all this,” she said and made a circle in front of my face, “is your secret weapon.”

“No, my—” And before I could say cock or dick or whatever other phallic term I could think of, she pressed two fingers to my lips.

“Shhh. Don’t ruin it.” Her brown eyes looked like amber glass sparkling in the Christmas lights strung around the outdoor dining area where we’d taken up residence.

I didn’t say anything, but I gave her a look that said, “Fine. Keep talking.”

“I’ve never met someone who has eyes like yours. Those two green-blue-hazel-whatever eyes can tell me everything I ever need to know. I should have taken them more seriously.”

Her chin pushed out. She wanted a kiss, but I was greedy with her thoughts and I wanted her to keep going. Hearing her talk about me like that was medicinal. I was going to lose my man card, but I wasn’t telling if she wasn’t.

I gave her a swift kiss and pulled away again. She seemed satisfied, for the time being, and then she continued, “Those lips, that mouth. Your tongue. The way they work together. They can make me forget my name and when I remember what it is, they make me want to change it.”

Blake Moore sounded about right.

She got another small kiss for that. Maybe dirty talk wasn’t all “pussy” and “fuck me harder.” The things she was saying were making me hard in my pants and soft and mushy in my heart.

“Sometimes you say such perfect things before I’ve even told you what I’m thinking about. How thoughtful you are. How romantic. Have you always been this irresistible? And the way you know how to touch me. You got me
good,
” she admitted and shook her head a little, bowing it between us.

The tension was growing a little too strong for dinner talk and I wanted to be in private when my resistance failed. I didn’t have much left. The only thing I could do was be a wise ass—it would buy me time. Hopefully, we could continue our chat back at the room.

“Did you rehearse this? Do you have all of this written down somewhere? Are you holding out on me? I didn’t prepare anything.” I grinned at her to show I was only kidding, but seriously, I was so hard that the end of my dick felt like it was about to explode.

“I’m ready to go back to the hotel and talk more about this,” I said coolly.

“Okay,” she agreed. “Let’s get some beers to go.” She really was a bright girl.
“Dos mas!”

“Good plan. You pack up the rest of those legs and I’ll go settle up and see if the bar will sell me a few to take back with us.”

She nodded and began sorting through the shell ruins for crabs uneaten.