SEAL The Deal (31 page)

“Sweet ride. Thanks, guys,” he said as he walked around it, admiring the shiny candy-apple color and the tan leather interior. They’d delivered it to him with the top down. The warm September night was perfect for a ride out to the coast. Or a little back seat action. Nick’s mind was flooded with possibilities, and he honestly didn’t know which scenario to pick.

And then he saw Devon coming out with a Victoria’s Secret bag slung over her arm.  Christy gave Nick a knowing wink. He intended to slide over and give her a thank-you kiss on the cheek, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Devon.

Nick was mesmerized by how her beautiful her long hair was clipped up and hanging down in soft curls everywhere, covering the back of her neck and shoulders. She wore a red dress with a large brass zipper down the front, with a hemline that came well above her knees. If he was right, even though she carried the Victoria’s Secret bag, Devon didn’t have a stitch on underneath. The brass zipper was pulled down a dangerous eight inches or so, and he didn’t see anything but flesh underneath where the zipper mated on top of her chest.

Her confident walk and sparkly eyes as she speared him with a look kindled something more than lust. He saw a woman who had come into her own, faced her fears, and could look him straight in the eye as an equal in every way. She had grown up, bloomed in front of him. Even when he rejected her, she’d stood by him. And he could see she always would.

She stopped a foot away from him. Several of the team guys behind him were whistling and shouting rowdy words of encouragement.

“Well, sailor, you look pretty good in blue.” She stepped up to him and he wrapped her in his arms, pulling her in to press along the full length of his body. His hands traveled over her rear and he smiled knowingly.

“You feel real good in red,” he said.

“I follow instructions.”

“Do you? That’s interesting.”

“Well, within reason.” She turned and raised her eyebrows at Christy, who handed her the baseball bat. “Just in case.”

Chapter 34

Devon loved the feel of Nick’s arm on her shoulder as he drove down the Valley of the Moon. The vineyards were awash in color, green leaves turning golden or deep burgundy. The tourists were gone since the harvesting were crush was over for the year. There would be specialized barrel-tasting here and there, but most the wineries were  shifting gears for the fall and winter holidays.

The Waterwheel Inn was a welcome sight. The first time she’d walked down the crushed granite walkways lush with overgrown blooming lilies, her nerves had made it impossible to enjoy the ambiance fully. That evening she had entered the suite a girl, ready to have her first experience with a man she thought she knew. She emerged a woman, but still an innocent. Nick had been patient with her. He had helped her bloom with attention to her smallest detail and walked her through that doorway to womanhood like a gentleman. He’d been so careful to make sure her first experience was a good one. Who wouldn’t love a man like that?

Now she walked beside him as a woman who not only felt passion and lust for this rare breed of warrior, but as someone who could match him stride for stride. She was more than an innocent he needed to protect. She had taken on the role of protecting her man as well.

She could still remember the butterflies in her stomach, the way his fingers slipped over her skin. She’d always wondered what it felt like to have a man touch her in those intimate places. To watch her flame up and meet him halfway. She found herself shivering with anticipation, and need.

“You cold?” he asked as he drew her to his side.

“More like excited, actually.”

The rumble in his chest sent tiny fingers dancing down the back of her neck. “Can hardly wait,” he whispered and kissed the top of her head. His smooth, athletic gait excited her as he led her up a set of brick steps to a special stand-alone suite covered in grapevines. With its own patio, it had a private view of the azure pool below and felt like a cottage in the trees. Lush plants lined the edges of the wet areas, sending their fragrances into the warm night sky filled with stars.

Accompanied by the soothing sound of water spilling into wooden troughs of the giant wheel, they stepped under the rose-colored canvas awning covering the patio, in front of one large hand-hewn door. Nick held her face between his massive palms and whispered to her lips, “No more secrets.”

She spoke between his soft kisses, “No. No more secrets.”

He ran his fingers through the curls at the back of her head and squeezed. His kisses traveled down her neck to the tops of her shoulders, under her ears.

“Devon,” he whispered as he smoothed his lips over her neck, triggering that familiar and enticing dull ache between her legs.

She loved the sound of her name on his tongue, the vibration in his chest. When she opened to him, a soft growl vibrated as he sank his tongue in deep. She felt the rock wall of his torso and the growing need in his pants and pressed herself against him. She would be the softness to his hard. Sweet balance she hoped this man would need forever. She wanted him to depend on her, worship her as much as she worshiped him.

At last, their bodies parted, until only their lips touched.

“Thank you, Nick.”

He nibbled on her bottom lip, with a whispered groan. “Tell me what you are thanking me for.”

“Thank you for coming back, baby. For coming back from the edge of the world.”

“I was lost without you, sweetheart. You found me.”

She laid her cheek against Nick’s chest and listened to his heartbeat as he caressed her shoulders and back, working his hands down lower to trace the curve along her rear, squeezing her ass and pulling her into him again.

Her fingers followed the line under his jaw, over his lips as she touched him, let him lick her fingers, then she kissed him back, kissed her own fingers and pressed them back to his lips. The warmth of his hold on her waist and ass were sweet intimacies she never wanted to be without.

“Tell me all your secrets, Devon.,” he breathed into her ear, tracing the arc with the tip of his tongue. “Tell me what you want me to do to you, sweetheart.”

She smiled, let her hands slide over the front of his pants, and squeezed.

Her breasts began to hurt, seeking attention. Squeezing her elbows together she pressed herself against him again. She rubbed the bone of her sex against his thigh, and felt the dull ache for him intensify.

The sky was getting darker as lights glowed in the bushes and along narrow pathways that snaked all over the property. She loved the flowers, the sounds of the leaves when the breeze rippled across their tips, the steady pulse of the cascading water. She was drunk with the scent of him, the taste of him, the sounds of his voice and his breathing.

“You want to go inside?” he asked as he traced a finger down from her chin to the top of her breasts. The backs of his fingers slid inside as she looked up into his eyes.

“Your skin is—”

“Made for you to touch. Made for you to kiss,” she finished.

He hooked a finger in the brass ring of the front zipper of her dress, and pulled slowly, running his tongue over her lower lip. “Yes,” he said in a sigh. Angling his head down he peeled back one part of the dress and saw her exposed breast with the stubborn nipple peaking.

She stood before him with her shoulders bare, offering her body to him under the moonlight, waiting for him to taste her.

“Oh, my. Miss Devon, you have been a wicked little girl,” he said as he appreciated the view, then leaned forward to suckle and savor her pert nipples. She felt how they puckered and knotted from the stimulation of his tongue. His warm breath on her chest made her sex ache. He held her at the waist and slid up her ribcage, until his thumbs dove into the zippered opening just above her navel.

“These are spectacular,” he said to her as he squeezed her breasts. The dress dropped to the floor. She hooked her thigh around his slightly bent leg, rubbing her need in long strokes until she began to come.

“Tell me.”

“What?” she said as she leaned in and kissed him back.

“I want to know all about you. All your secrets. All your secret fantasies, the things you’ve never told anyone else. I want to know about them. I want to do them to you, honey.”

Devon could feel the moisture pooling between her legs. She crossed her ankles and squeezed, sending the pleasure radiating from her core up into her belly, ending in her nipples, which knotted..

“Does it ache, Devon?” he asked.

“Bad. I got it bad, Nick.”

“Yes, I feel you, baby. Let me take you inside.”

“I want to be outside, under the stars.”

He pulled away and examined her face in the reflected light of the pool.

“Please,” she said as she leaned in to squeeze his groin.

“Baby, anything you want. How could I possibly refuse?”

“I want your hands on me.”

“Where? Show me, baby.”

She held one of his hands by threading her fingers along the back of his palm, and slid it up her thigh.

“You like that?”

She nodded. She moved him closer to her center.

“Use my hand, baby.”

Devon loved the feel of his warm fingers burrowing in the soft tissues between her legs. She pressed his forefinger around her nub in circular fashion, making her jump. She rubbed with firm pressure against his hand, until his hand found her parts all on its own.

She could smell her need and hoped he could too. She went up on tiptoes and said as softly as she could, “taste me.”

He led her over to a padded outdoor chaise and gently guided her down. With her back propped against the back of the lounge chair, he parted her knees, beginning to kiss  down the insides of her thighs. She loved the look of his head buried in her crotch, hearing the lapping sounds, feeling his hot breath on her flesh, the way he sucked and licked and sucked the sensitive divot at the top of her thigh just outside the lips of her labia. That place was so sensitive she began to vibrate.

He licked her slick opening, sucking up her juices, stroking over her clit and running his canines over, coaxing the little nub, making it throb. She laced her fingers in his hair, softly stroking his ears, pressing her thumbs against his forehead and drawing them down to his temples. He rose slightly and penetrated her belly button with his tongue, which sent her in a long guttural groan he matched with one of his own.

“You like that baby?”

“Yes, Oh Nick—” she started to slide off into oblivion.

“Give me what you’ve got, baby. Let me taste it.” He kissed her peach, then slid two fingers over her pubic bone and pushed deep inside her.

Devon arched back, raising her pelvis to him.

God, she needed his mouth and tongue on her. As if she’d commanded it, he went lower and plunged his tongue in deeper, curling it, rubbing it against the insides of her channel and sending her skyward. He looked at her above her flat abdomen. His eyes were dazed as he drank from her. He added his forefinger, and then sucked and pressed into her again.

“You like that, baby?” he asked as he pressed her clit with his thumb, massaging it back and forth.

“Yes.” She could hardly breathe. She felt her moisture coat his fingers as he inserted them, then his tongue and then his fingers again.

“God, I’ve missed you,” she sighed.

“God you’re beautiful.”

She rolled her pelvis back and forth as he tenderly stimulated her sex, sending her into a throbbing state of early orgasm. “Come for me, sweetheart,” he said.

She rocked back and forth on his hand, then arched her way back up to sitting position and pressed her wet peach into his hand, onto his fingers, moving back and forth on him until the little vibration told her she was so close. With just a few more loving strokes she was writhing home, looking into his eyes, watching as the top of his head bent down and her orgasm quivered in his mouth.

“Take me, Nick. Take all of me.”

“Hmmm. Baby, you taste so good. I could just do this all night long, but I desperately want to fuck you. Fuck you hard, honey.”

Devon’s smile glowed under the dark sky. “Yes.”

He helped her up off the chaise, gathering their clothes with his other hand. He unlocked the heavy door and showed her into the special suite. A welcoming fire burned opposite the king four-poster bed, shadows dancing on the black heavy timbers in the ceiling. Nick dropped their clothes where they stood and grabbed her.

“Never wanted anyone, anything in my life as much as I want you. And I never will.”

She blushed, looking down at their toes, which were touching on the hardwood floor.

He raised her chin. “You saved my life, baby.”

“You healed mine, Nick,” she said. She led him to the bed, which sent Nick’s eyebrows up in a tent.

She turned, pulling back the sheets. He reached from behind and brought her back solidly against his chest, kissing her neck under her ear. She felt his hands on her breasts, how the calluses felt delicious as he squeezed. From deep inside him she felt the low rumble of his voice, whispering her name groaning as he explored her body, as he tasted her. She had never felt so loved, so cherished.

Climbing onto the bed, he followed, hands smoothing over her cheeks. Folding her knees under, she sat against the headboard of the bed. Nick joined her there, their thighs entwined, his hands moving down over her chest to reach the space between her legs desperately needing his touch.

He slid down the bed as she pressed against the pillows at her back with her legs parted. He lifted her knees up, slipping her legs over his shoulders, licking her labia, watching her spread before him like a banquet.

“As far as beds go, honey, I think this one sucks too,” he whispered as he kissed her nub.

“Oh, I hope so,” she sighed. “The pillows smell nicer, though.”

She watched the laugh lines at the sides of his eyes emerge, as he rimmed her opening with the tip of his tongue and then sank in to feast. She arched up, giving herself to him. He slid his knees beneath her butt, holding her off the bed.