Authors: Virginia Kantra
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal, #Suspense, #General
dark? She mopped at her dress with his handkerchief. “What are you
doing here?”
10
“I followed you.”
If he hadn’t just groped her breasts, she’d be flattered. “I meant, on
the island.”
“I wanted to see if they would actually go through with it.”
“The wedding?”
“Yes.” He refilled her flute, emptying the bottle, and handed it to
her.
The gesture reminded her sharply of his brother. Despite the breeze
off the water, her face felt hot. She felt warm all over. She gulped her
wine. “So, you just showed up? After twenty-five years?”
“Not quite that long.”
He folded his long body onto the rock beside her. His hip nudged her
thigh. His hard, rounded shoulder brushed her shoulder. The warmth
spread low in the pit of her stomach.
She cleared her throat. “What about your mother?”
“Dead.”
Oops. Ouch. “Sorry.”
Let it go, she told herself. She wasn’t getting anywhere swapping
dysfunctional family stories. Not that she wanted this to go anywhere,
but—
“It’s pretty strange that you never came back before,” she said.
“You only think so because you never left.”
She was stung. “I did, too. Right out of high school. Got a job
washing dishes at Perfetto’s in Boston until Puccini promoted me to prep
cook.”
“Perfetto’s.”
“Alain Puccini’s restaurant. You know. Food Network?”
11
“I take it I should be impressed.”
“Damn straight.” Pride and annoyance simmered together like a
thick sauce. She drained her glass. “He was going to make me his sous
chef.”
“But you came back. Why?”
Because Alain— the son-of-a-bitch— had knocked her up. She
couldn’t work kitchen hours with an infant, or pay a babysitter on a line
cook’s salary. Even after she’d forced Alain to take a paternity test, his
court-ordered child support barely covered day care. His assets were tied
up— hidden— in the restaurant.
But she didn’t say that. Her son and her life were none of Dylan’s
business.
His thigh pressed warm against her leg.
Anyway, men looked at you differently when you had a kid. It had
been a long time since she’d sat with a man in the moonlight.
Longer still since she’d had sex with one.
She looked at Dylan, lean and dark and dangerous and close, and felt
attraction run along her veins like the spark on a detonator fuse.
She shook her head to clear it.
“Why did you?” She turned the question back on him.
His shoulder moved against hers as he shrugged. “I came for the
wedding. I’m not staying.”
Regina quelled an unreasonable disappointment.
So it didn’t matter how he looked at her, really. She leaned down to
dig the bottom of her glass into the sand. It didn’t matter what he thought.
After tonight, she’d never see him again. She could say anything she
wanted. She could do . . .
Her breath caught in her throat. Anything she wanted.
12
She straightened, flushed and dizzy. Okay, that was the wine talking.
Loneliness, and the wine. She wouldn’t ever really— she couldn’t
actually be considering—
She stumbled to her feet.
“Easy.” He caught her hand, supporting her.
“Not usually,” she muttered.
His grip tightened as he stood. “What?”
She shook her head again, heat crawling in her face. “Nothing. Let
me go. I need to take a walk.”
“I’ll go with you.”
She wet her lips. “Bad idea.”
He lifted an eyebrow. He did it beautifully. She wondered if he
practiced in the mirror. “Better than you turning an ankle on those rocks.”
“I’ll be fine.”
To anyone watching from the tent, they must look like lovers,
standing hand in hand at the surf’s edge. Her heart thumped. She tried to
tug away.
His gaze dropped to their clasped hands. His fingers tightened. “You
are warded.”
She scowled at him, aroused and confused. “What are you talking
about?”
He ran his thumb along the inside of her wrist, over her tattoo. Could
he feel her pulse go wild? “This.”
Regina swallowed, watching his thumb stroke over the dark lines,
the pale skin. “My tatt? It’s the Celtic sign for the triple goddess. A
female empowerment thing.”
13
“It is a triskelion.” He traced the three flowing, connected spirals
with his finger. “Earth, air, and sea, bound together in a circle. A
powerful ward.” He looked up at her, his eyes dark and serious.
Too serious. She felt a jolt in her stomach that might have been
nerves or desire.
“So, I’m safe,” she said breathlessly.
His beautiful mouth curved in the moonlight. “As safe as you want
to be.”
Goose bumps tingled along her arms. She shivered, as exposed as if
she stood naked by a window.
“Safe works for me,” she said. Or it had until recently. “I have
responsibilities.”
“Not any longer. Caleb told you not to work tonight.”
Regina blinked. He’d heard that? He was watching her with his
brother?
Caution flickered. She hadn’t been aware of an audience. She hadn’t
been aware of him at all except as Caleb’s brother, a tall, dark presence at
the back of the wedding, on the edges of the celebration.
Her toes curled into the sand.
She was aware of him now. He was barely touching her, only that
light grip on her wrist, and yet she felt the heat of him all along her body.
His eyes glittered black in the moonlight, absorbing the light, absorbing
the air, growing bigger, darker, enormous as he leaned close, closer,
tempting her with that well-cut mouth, teasing her with the promise of his
kiss. His breath skated across her lips. She tasted wine and something
else— dark, salty, elusive— heard a rushing in her ears like the sea. She
opened her mouth to breathe, and he bent over her and covered her mouth
firmly, warmly, with his.
14
Two
HE TASTED SO GOOD, HOT AND GOOD, LIKE salt and sex and
brandy. Or maybe that was the wine she’d been drinking.
Regina rose on tiptoe, straining for more of his taste, as his teeth
scraped her lower lip, as his tongue plundered her mouth. Nerves and
need danced together in her belly. Warning pulsed in her head.
If she were smart— if she were sober— she would end this right
now.
Dylan’s hands stroked down her back and settled on her hips to draw
her closer. His erection nudged between her thighs, and she lost her
breath because he felt so good, hard and real against her, filling up the
empty places, driving away the lonely thoughts.
She wanted this. Needed it.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, tangling her tongue with his,
grinding their hips together. His hands moved lower as he rocked against
her. He was so hot, and she was burning up inside, everything inside her
melting and flowing toward him. He kneaded her buttocks, pressing
below, between, and when she spread her legs to give him better access,
his fingers dug into her thighs, and he lifted her, positioned her against
him.
Sensation shuddered through her. She closed her eyes at the
irresistible pressure, the unbearable temptation.
Stupid, stupid.
She tore her mouth away. Her heart slammed in her chest. Anyone
could see them from the tent. Her mother, anyone.
Okay, not her mother, Antonia had left with Nick. But—
“No,” Regina gasped.
Dylan’s arms tensed. His grip shifted. “No?”
15
Her head spun. Her blood pounded. She was wet and open and
aching as a wound, and if she didn’t get some relief, she would scream.
“Not here,” she amended.
His low chuckle vibrated through her belly. If she knew him better,
she would have slugged him. Regina scowled, her brows drawing
together. Of course, if she knew him better, she wouldn’t be groping him
in full sight of a wedding reception.
Before she could follow that line of thought, Dylan hitched her
thighs higher around his waist and carried her down the beach, over the
shale.
Barefoot?
He splashed through water. Slabs of granite lay like tumbled
building blocks where the land plunged to the sea.
Regina clutched his shoulders. “What are you—”
Dylan rounded a tall outcrop of rock. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.”
“Not yet.”
His smile gleamed in the twilight. He set her down on dry rock,
smooth and warm with residual sun, and took her mouth in another deep,
drowning kiss.
His kiss swamped her thoughts. Dizzy with wine and lust, she
staggered as if the tide dragged at her knees. Her heart pounded— hard,
fast, reckless. She felt alight, alive, her mouth as hungry, as greedy, as
his.
His skin was hot, his body taut. She burrowed beneath his jacket,
yanked at his shirt, desperate to grab as many sensations as possible to
take back with her into the long, celibate nights. “Touch me,” she
demanded.
Anywhere. Everywhere.
He did.
16
His hands were strong and lean like the rest of him, rubbing her
through her dress, cupping and caressing, until the fabric scraped her
nerves and her knees trembled. He shaped her breast, weighed it in his
palm, before tugging the neckline aside, freeing her to the cool, moist air.
She sucked in her breath at the sight of her pale breast in his dark
hand, his fingers working the tight nipple.
His arm was a warm band at her back. He bent her over it and
suckled her hard. And she went off— just like that— in a series of swift,
light bursts, her orgasm rising through her like the bubbles in her wine.
“Oh.” Oh, God.
Her blood fizzed. Her face heated. She stared down at his dark head,
her fingers still tangled in his hair, her mind a mess. She had never . . .
She couldn’t possibly . . .
She gulped. Obviously, she could. She had.
“Well.” Her voice sounded insanely cheerful. “That was . . .”
Embarrassing. “Quick.”
He slid to his knees in front of her, his hands hard on her hips. “I’m
not done with you.”
Oh. Regina pressed her thighs together. Or tried to. He was in the
way. She had to tell him, politely, she was done.
Not that she wasn’t grateful. He’d just touched off her first male-induced orgasm in years. She owed him.
He slid up her dress, making her shiver.
Really, she should say something.
His hair brushed her stomach as he pulled her panties down, his
breath hot against her, and she flushed.
“Uh, listen, you don’t need to—”
17
He licked between her thighs and her mind went blank. She didn’t
say anything. She didn’t have to do . . . anything. She was trapped
between his warm, insistent hands and his urgent, clever mouth. He kept
at her, on and on, while the stars wheeled and the sea whispered and the
rocks shifted under her feet. She strained against him as the pressure built
inside her, as the tension coiled tighter, until she couldn’t stand it, until
she twitched and twisted to escape, until she came, over and over again,
between his hands, against his mouth.
She was limp and loose and reeling when he surged up between her
thighs. He was breathing hard, his chest warm and damp. She spread her
fingers against his shirt-front, against his pounding heart. Dimly, she
registered the rasp of his zipper, and then he put himself where his mouth
had been.
She thought, Oh, yes.
And then, Oh, no.
And then, as he plunged thick and hot inside her, Oh, shit.
She panted. “Stop.”
He withdrew and thrust again. “No.”
She bit her lip to keep from screaming. He felt so good, hard and
good, filling her, stretching her. There.
She whacked his shoulder in time with his thrusts. “I won’t . . .
you’re not . . . I could get pregnant!” The last word was a wail.
His head reared back. His black eyes glittered. “So?”
She smacked him again. “Get out!”
With mingled relief and frustration, she felt him pull out.
He turned her, so that she faced the cliffs, and grabbed her hips.
She braced her palms on the cold, rough rock face for balance.
“What are you doing?”
18
Stupid question. She could feel him, his erection, rubbing her,
pressing her from behind, wet with her moisture, sliding and gliding
along the cleft of her buttocks.
She stiffened, her mouth dry with panic and excitement. “Uh . . . no.
I don’t—”
His arm was hard around her waist, his chest solid at her back.