This Year's Black (7 page)

“Oh, I haven
’
t seen her,” said one designer
’
s assistant who couldn
’
t be a day over twenty and had snow white hair that fell in carefully arranged waves across three-fourths of her face. “But she
’
d never miss an Andol Fashion Week, now that she
’
s finally home. From what I hear, she couldn’t wait to come back and be a part of it. The way the locals treat her, this place is like her own little fiefdom.”

“I wonder why that is…” Ryder let the statement hang, betting that, like most people, the woman wouldn
’
t be able to stand the silence.

“I hear her son is some big muckity-muck who owns most of the island. They also own a pineapple farm outside of town.” The woman shot back the last of her champagne. “Did you know pineapples grow on the ground? I always thought they came from trees.”

A slightly-built man with thick-framed glasses and a handlebar mustache leaned forward. “Who cares about pineapple? I hear her son makes his money the old-fashioned way.”

The girl blinked, her blue eyes as sparkly as the walnut-sized diamond pendant around her neck. “He inherited it?”

“No, he steals it.” The man waggled his thick eyebrows like a Saturday morning villain on a bad cartoon show before throwing his head back and roaring with laughter. “God, you two are so gullible.”

Turning away before she clocked the guy, Ryder mingled with the fashionable crowd, chatting with the guests, asking everyone about the last time they
’
d seen Sarah, and if they knew anything about her family. But all the while, she couldn’t help but be aware of every intake of breath and shift in position Devin made next to her. Awareness settled in her belly and tightened her lungs, her destined-to-be-denied anticipation ratcheting up in intensity as the sun settled lower on the horizon. Her brain was all for pretending Devin wasn’t right beside her, but her body wasn’t willing to give up the fight.

“I
’
ve talked to half the people here about Sarah,” Devin grumbled.

“
Well, I
’
ve hit up the other half,” she retorted. “And we both have jack shit. The best I
’
ve got is that she confirmed her attendance at the shows tomorrow, and that her son is the big man on the island who isn
’
t afraid to throw his weight around—possibly in Tony Soprano fashion.”

“
So we
’
re at a dead end.” He rubbed the short hairs of his buzz cut.

Her fingers itched to follow his path. “Only until the shows tomorrow.”

They rose to leave the party, but an older woman stopped them.

“I have something special for you, dear. You must have a taste.” She uncorked a bottle of homemade wine, its clear glass container without a label, and poured Ryder a small amount. “This is for a traditional blessing toast.” She captured Devin’s attention with the snap of her fingers and poured him a glass. “
Salud y amor y tiempo para disfrutarlo
.”

Ryder and Devin clinked glasses and sipped the wine. Dry and warm with an aftertaste she couldn’t quite place, it slid down her throat.

“You must drink the whole glass or it is bad luck.” The woman pushed their glasses back up to their lips.

The rest of Ryder’s wine went down like warm honey laced with a hint of anise. A flush heated her belly and climbed to her tingling breasts. “What’s in the drink?”

“You don’t need to worry about that. It’s just an herbal mixture to help you appreciate all the blessings in your life and to let you see what your heart truly desires.”

“What.” Ryder’s breath hitched.

“Was.” Hot liquid want pooled deep in her belly.

“In.” Her skin itched for Devin’s touch.

“The.” Her thighs buzzed.

“Drink?” Ryder’s heart raced, scattering her thoughts like the flashing lights of a Fourth of July sparkler.

“Damiana for the heart to see better.” The old woman got up from her seat, patted Ryder’s heated cheek with a papery hand, then disappeared into the hotel.

Putting her college botany minor degree to good use, she wracked her brain trying to remember why damiana sounded familiar. Then it hit her. It was a wild shrub said to be an aphrodisiac that gave people a mild, pot-like high.

Pushing away her plate filled with decadent-smelling oysters, lobster, and albacore, Ryder accepted her current reality. She hungered for only one thing: Devin.

Chapter Seven

“
My only interest in women’s clothes is what’s underneath them.”

— Lynda Carter

Ryder couldn’t close the door to the suite fast enough. With her brain screaming “
Escape!
” she’d hightailed it back so fast she’d left her shoes in the courtyard. So what if she wanted to double dip with the hottest man she’d ever had a one-night stand with? That didn’t mean she was going to. The knee-erasing need was just a pre-hangover from some crazy, volcano-blessed ceremony on a tropical island paradise.

And why, exactly, that made her want to cry or punch a wall wasn’t something she wanted to think about right now.

Wanting to get as much space as possible between herself and the evening’s events, she untied the filmy sarong from around her neck. It slid down her body, caressing her taut nipples and narrow hips like the reverent touch of a man’s hands. And damn her black soul, she wished it was Devin’s fingers trailing across her flushed skin.

The material puddled at her feet, trapping her in its mocking, cheerful circle. This was why she only wore black. Because she wasn’t cheerful. Or sweet. She was cold, hard, and calculating. She had to be, and it was about time she remembered that.

Standing in only the gold bracelet and her black satin panties with her hands on her hips, she contemplated burning the stupid dress in the bathroom sink. The smoke detector’s blinking green light called her back from that bit of insanity. Instead, she kicked the yellow fluff into the corner. Back in more familiar sartorial territory, she muttered a quick prayer of gratitude that at least the effects of the blessing-enhancing wine had worn off.

“I didn’t realize you were so eager to get back to our room.” Devin’s voice warmed her like a fur coat in the middle of an August heat wave. “Everyone clapped when I got up to chase after you.”

“Well, they’re not here now.” She whirled around, not caring that she was practically buck naked. It wasn
’
t like he hadn’t seen her completely in the flesh already.

The memory of their night together ratcheted up her body heat to face-of-the-sun levels, and judging by the tent Devin’s cock made in his sarong, she wasn’t alone.

A light sheen of sweat made his hard abs glisten in the dimly-lit room. The urge to lick her way across his six-pack weakened her knees. Maybe that special enhancer hadn’t evaporated from her system, after all.

“God, you’re beautiful.” He uttered the words as soft as a prayer, and her black, strappy sandals slipped from his grip. They hit the floor with a
boom
in the silent room.

Anticipation thickened the air in her lungs, making it hard to breathe…or to think. Feeling, on the other hand, became the only thing she could do. All she wanted to do. And that loss of control scared the shit out of her. She’d been down that road before, and sure as hell wasn’t getting her passport stamped for a return visit.

With deliberate care, she sauntered across the room, her bare feet slapping against the tile floor. “I’m getting my clothes and going to bed. You can take the couch.”

His need was so palpable it practically reached out and touched her as she passed him to grab her black cotton tap pants and threadbare tank top from the tote in the closet. She fished out her pajamas from the stuffed bag. Ignoring the catch in her breath and the want dampening her panties, she kept her back to him and pulled the tank over her head.

“Why?” The simple word, heavy with meaning, hung between them.

“Why what?”

“Why didn’t you return my calls?” Most men would have whined the question or asked with a snide edge. But Devin wasn’t most men.

For the briefest of moments, she considered lying, but the truth was always a more brutal way to stop further inquiries. “Because I wanted to so badly. You were the first person since Heath that had me thinking ‘what if.
’
I promised myself a year without any ‘what ifs’, without any heartbreak. So I don’t sleep with anyone more than once, unless there is a very clear fuck-buddy only understanding.”

“Ever?”

”Not for
another four months. I gave myself a leave of absence from relationships.”

Warm, strong hands gripped her shoulders and spun her around until she was practically nose-to-nose with him. “I hate that someone fucked with your head this much, but I’m not that guy.”

She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, because the end result is the same.”

They stared at each other, their bodies so close his hard cock brushed her thigh. It took everything she had not to reach down, wrap her fingers around its wide base, and stroke him. His head angled downward, his mouth slightly open. One tiny move and those lips would be on hers. A few more, and his thick length would fill her up until she couldn’t take any more and broke apart in his arms.

“Are you saying you’re scared to sleep with me again?” Challenge sparkled in his eyes.

Her heart hitched up. A challenge was something she never let slide. “As I recall, we didn’t do a lot of sleeping.”

“Don’t try to turn the argument around.” He shook his head and placed a palm firmly on the wall beside her head, trapping her on one side but leaving a route for escape. His gold bracelet, the one that matched hers, twinkled in the dim light.

Silly man. Didn’t he realize by now that she relished the battle—because she always found a way to win? She batted her eyelashes and stayed her ground. “Were we fighting?”

He cut the space between them, proof of his arousal rubbing against her slick, panty-covered folds. “There is always make-up sex.”

She
tsk-tsk
ed, and used a single, determined finger to ease him back—before she came just from the casual contact with his cock. “I’m not sleeping with you again.”

“Then you won’t mind just kissing me.” He dragged a knuckle across her bottom lip, setting off electric shocks through her body. “I’ve been dreaming about this sweet mouth for weeks now. Kissing it. Licking it. Watching it open as you moan my name while you come. How it would look wrapped around my dick.”

Her tongue turned to powdered chalk as the rest of her dissolved into molten liquid.

“What’s wrong? You’re not scared of one little kiss, are you?”

She straightened her spine, pushing out her boobs until they grazed his own hard nipples. “I’m not scared of anything.”

His eyes darkened and he raised his other arm, enclosing her between his sinewy, inked biceps. “Prove it.”

Oh, it was on
.

She sucked her bottom lip, drawing her front teeth across it, never losing eye contact with her challenger. The man thought he was ready. He was about to learn how wrong he was.

Her first touch came not from her lips, but from her thumb brushing his slightly parted mouth. He shivered under her fingertips and nipped her thumb. She clenched her thighs together in an effort to maintain control over the desire rushing in waves over her.

“That’s not a kiss.” Gravel infused the honey of his voice.

“No.” She brought her mouth millimeters from his. “This is.”

Giving in to the wicked temptation he offered, she pushed her hands against his shoulders, shoving him against the opposite wall. Her mouth was on his before the shock of her sudden move could possibly register in his brain. This wasn’t just a kiss, it was a full frontal attack. She melded her lips to his, not waiting for an invitation to sink her tongue into his luscious mouth, but instead pushing her way in. He tasted of fruity wine, seafood, and all the deliciously bad things her mother had warned her about with boys. Dragging her hands upward, she relished the coarse texture of his close-cropped hair against her palms. She plastered her hungry body against his muscular frame, rubbing against the steel between his legs.

Riding high on passion, she wanted nothing more in the world than to follow through with her body’s demands, ride him until he couldn’t come any more, fall into a sweaty heap beside him to sleep, and then wake up a few hours later to do it all again. His personal mixture of raw sensuality and almost animalistic single-mindedness was the perfect fit for her own single-minded needs. She’d known it the minute his hands had roamed across her ass on the dance floor the night they first met—Devin was the man who’d make her let down her guard, forget the bitter lesson she’d learned last summer, and lose control.

That couldn’t happen.

Easing back from his throbbing cock and intoxicating kiss, she fought to steady her breathing and get the world back on an even keel.

“Close.” He flipped her around so her back pressed flat against the wall, cupped her ass, and lifted her until she had no choice but to wrap her legs around his narrow waist. “But let me show you how it’s really done.”

His dick rocked against the crotch of her soaked panties, slow and steady, so unlike her heartbeat. He didn’t seek out her kiss-swollen mouth, instead he zeroed in on the base of her throat, sucking and nipping at the sensitive flesh. Her moan escaped before she could even attempt to hold it back, the fire burning through her too fast and hot to deny.

He licked his way up her throat, bringing his mouth against her ear. “You make me so fucking hard.” He ground his cock against her, squeezing her ass cheeks in his firm grip. “This is what you do to me every time I so much as think about you. And if I don’t stop, I’m going to come in my boxers instead of buried deep inside you, which is the only place in the world I want to be right now.”

Reason exploded into a pile of well-intentioned ash. Her body was about to get what it so desperately wanted. “Put me down.”

He stilled against her, their position as intimate as it could be with her still in panties and him in the sarong clinging for dear life to his hips. He knocked his forehead against the wall but released his hold.

She glided down his body until her feet touched the tile, icy cold compared to the heat roiling through her body, and pushed him back several paces so that the back of his knees nearly hit the bed. Not giving him time to recover, she swept her leg behind his and knocked him down onto the pale blue comforter. The air in his lungs
whoosh
ed out. Another man, she might have worried about, but Devin played—and worked out—just as hard as she did.

One hard yank, and his sarong joined hers in the corner. Another tug, and his boxers followed suit. He lay flat on his back, never moving a muscle while she stripped him, but the look in his light brown eyes was anything but docile. He deliberately slid his right hand across the tribal design covering his pecs, over the flat landscape of his abs and stopped only when he wrapped his long fingers around the base of his shaft.

“I think you need more practice to perfect your kissing skills.” The devilish gleam in his eyes dared her to make the next move as he rubbed his cock in long, slow strokes.

Her nipples were hard enough to rip through the thin cotton of her tank top, and the urge to sink to her knees and follow the movement of his hands with her tongue hit with the force of a semi plowing into a plywood derby cart. But a single shred of self-preservation held her back.
Her game. Her way
.

Determined to maintain the upper hand, she strutted to the edge of the bed, lowered herself, and planted her knees on either side of his corded thighs. She wrapped her hands around his wrists and brought them up over his head as she crawled over him.

“Be a good boy and you might get your wish.” She ran her hands down his tattooed arms, keeping herself positioned so that her center hovered directly above his hard cock but didn’t touch it. “I could spend hours just tasting you. The question is, where to lick first?”

She lowered her head to his pecs and traced the round lines of ink that ended like the yellow brick road at his nipple. She lapped at the flat, dusky nub, drawing him into her mouth and sucking.

His moan echoed in the room, and he wriggled beneath her, bringing his dick into direct contact with her.

Releasing him and raising herself higher, she flicked his nipple and then followed her hands as they traveled up his arms and wrapped around his wrists. The position resulted in her still hidden breasts dangling an inch above his panting mouth, his humid breaths pushing the well-worn material against her overheated flesh. Teasing him had become her own torture.

He angled his head up, sucking her breast through the tank top, engulfing the small mound into his mouth. His tongue circled her almost painfully hard nipple.

“You’re not being a very good boy right now.” Her voice shook almost as much as her thighs.

“That”—he broke free of her grasp—”is because”—he gripped her hips, rolled her over, and took up residence between her splayed legs—”I’m not good.” He grasped the thin cotton material of her tank top. “And I’m definitely not a boy.” He yanked the black cloth, ripping it in half and exposing her breasts to his feasting eyes. “Sweet God, woman, you are going to be the death of me.”

The reverence in his eyes as he stared down at her shifted something deep inside, and an emotion as close to shyness as she’d ever experienced tickled up from her toes. Her hands itched to cover herself as she lay open and vulnerable beneath him. Then he lowered his lips to hers, and every thought evaporated.

His tongue swept inside her mouth, teasing her until she was a writhing mix of want and need. She ran her hands up his thighs, the curly, coarse hair springing against her palm, and didn’t stop until she had both hands on his firm ass. Pulling him downward, she refused to stop until his cock lay nestled against her core, the damn panties blocking his entrance.

His hands were everywhere at once, caressing her breasts, skimming across her stomach, and finding their way between her panties and her silky folds. He dipped a finger into her entrance, his thumb circling her attention-starved clit, and her spine bowed so sharply she almost bounced him off the bed.

He regained his balance and his mouth found a home, kissing its way from her right nipple to her belly button.

“I want to rip these silky things off you, too.”

“How about you just take them off, instead?”