All Hands Below
Thank you for purchasing this Wild Rose Press, Inc. publication.
All Hands Below
by
Lelani Black
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
All Hands Below
COPYRIGHT © 2013 by Lelani Black
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by
Angela Anderson
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewilderroses.com
Publishing History
First Scarlet Rose Edition, February 2013
Digital ISBN 978-1-61217-810-3
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
To the heroic Italian Coast Guard captain
whose commanding voice was heard
around the world.
To the United States Navy who took me on my first Dependents Cruise. The ship left Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and sailed its short, merry way
to the neighboring island of Maui
with excited families on board.
It was an experience never to be forgotten.
PRAISE FOR AUTHOR
Lelani Black
AND HER BOOKS
GOING GREEK
“…Ms. Black wrote such a good story, I actually couldn’t put this down. Then I went out and bought another of her stories. I loved this one and only had two wishes when I completed reading: I wished it was longer and I wished I had been to Greece.”
~Teresa T., The Romance Studio
PRIVATE DANCER
“…Erotica fans will feel satisfied as the author steams the pages and let the reader sweat.”
~Lady Raven Rave, Romance Novel Junkies
BOSS WITH BENEFITS
#1 Erotic Audio Book Bestseller!
“…There were many times when I did not want to get out of the car because well it was just that good. I was most surprised with the amount of story there really was in the audio book. The idea of a seemingly boring and unattractive secretary inadvertently tricking her boss into thinking she had a HOT sister when it was really her deep dark secret! The narrator on this book was outstanding!”
~Lisa, Lisa’s World of Books
Chapter One
7 Night Western Caribbean Cruise
aboard the Sea Sapphire
Day 1
“Are you sure it’s safe down here?”
Liam Rossi ducked his head out from under a ventilation shaft as the sultry query floated up to his ears. Stuffing his flashlight into the pocket of his coveralls, he scrambled down the vertical ladder and onto a catwalk in the steamy engine room of the Sea Sapphire.
“It’s safe, lovely Evie,” came masculine assurance from down below. “And, perhaps the only place I can have two minutes of peace without interruption.”
Liam rubbed at the kink lodged in his neck and frowned down at the face of his watch. Ah, yes. It was that time again—the twilight hour. The
courting
hour. He peered at the couple standing in the corridor below.
The woman raised sun-kissed arms and curled them around her companion’s neck. Her long throat arched up from an action-packed body whose Christmas-red gown clung to some pretty dangerous curves. Full-sized breasts tanned to a honeyed sheen pillowed up against her companion’s uniform dress whites.
When she tilted her face to gaze up at her partner, Liam stared, arrested by the wide-set eyes, delicate sloping cheekbones, strawberry wine lips, and a pert nose.
Beneath a flare of smoky topaz lashes, blue eyes simmered with a look so full of desire Liam suffered a fierce stab of envy for the other man.
“We could go back to your cabin,” she offered, her voice lilting hopefully.
“I’m on duty. I should not even be here with you.”
“Then come to my cabin later. When you’re off duty.”
“Not allowed, unless it’s official business. But you’re here, I’m here and…I’m on fire for you, Evie. I want what’s between those legs, sweetheart. Here.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. We could have our own cruise ship mile-high club.” Her companion nuzzled her neck. “Where is your sense of adventure, hmm?”
It’s not in her pants, genius.
With a sweep of his finger, the other man coaxed one luscious, quivering breast out from behind its velvet slash.
Hot
damn
! Liam smothered a groan. His taste buds puckered and his mouth watered at the sight.
“Look…at…you. Mm-mm-mmm!” The other man breathed and cupped that golden, buoyant mound in his hand.
Concealed in the shadows, Liam watched him squeeze her breast until its pink peak jutted into a pout. The man fingered the wanton nipple to pudgy elongation till it looked like a plug of cotton candy. Then he guided that tender morsel and its creamy, weighty flesh inside his mouth, deep as it could go, and began sucking.
“Ahh…” The woman’s gasp shot a sexual charge down Liam’s back, but a frown marred the sweet contour of her lips.
What do you think, sweetheart?
Liam mused.
Time to move the party somewhere else?
She sighed, cupped the man’s jaw, and slid a finger inside his mouth to break the rigorous seal his lips had on her tit.
“Evie!” The man protested, pawing at her glistening nipple.
She grabbed her partner’s hand and gazed, exasperated, into his face. “Slow down there, speedy.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to have some fun with you in a
bed
, that’s why. The silk sheets I brought on board are the color of Belgian chocolate. They’ve never been used.” She kissed his fingers.
Liam drank in a pensive breath. Heat sparked from the pit of his stomach and lit into his cock with a sharp, hot singe.
While he struggled to hear what she was saying, his gaze remained fixed on her breast, its rosy innocence rubbing against the officer’s dress whites as she pleaded her case.
“Come to me when you’re ready, Robert. I want to be with you, but—” she winced. Overwhelmed by the roar of marine diesel engines, she yelled louder, “Not here.”
Robert? Chief Security Officer Robert Montero?
Oh
hell
no.
Liam swung out from the shadows and landed on the rubber soles of his boots with a
whump
in front of two startled bodies.
“What the—”
“Officer Montero, how is your wife and baby son these days?”
“Umm…well…”
“Wife?” The rosy flush in Christmas Beauty’s cheeks deepened to an indignant red. “Robert, you’re
fucking
married? With a
baby
?”
“Evangeline, I—”
“Your presence is needed on the bridge, officer.”
“Of course.” The other man tripped over his feet, eager to escape the frosty edge in Liam’s gaze and hotfoot his way to freedom. “Evie, we will talk later.”
“No. We won’t.”
The other man hurried from the engine room, leaving Liam to wade through a taut silence with the other man’s catch of the day. Or night.
“You’re in a restricted area, miss,” Liam said, no stranger to the party’s-over look that crept into her eyes. Her reality ship had just docked, but that usually happened
after
a cruise. This ship had just set sail.
Two engineers came clattering in. She stiffened at the sound of voices drawing near. When he flicked a pointed glance at her breast hanging out in the open, she looked down at herself in dismay.
“Ohh!”
Hastily she restored the hill of flesh behind her gown, but the image of her silky hand tucking her breast behind a swatch of red velvet had already branded his memory cells.
The men strolled by. Liam nodded. They nodded back, then gawked at the woman next to him. As one of them ran into a load-bearing pole, Liam guided her away through a maze of machinery and up a ladder, beyond a door, and out of the engine room.
Once inside the safety of an interior corridor, she sighed. “It seems other things were off limits, too.” She looked up at him as she removed moldable earplugs.
Misty blue lilacs, Liam thought. As he summed up the color of her eyes, muscles deep in his body throbbed with a blistering awareness of this lethally sexy woman.
He took the earplugs from her and stuffed them in one of his pockets, noting with relief how the baggy cut of his coveralls toned down the ramrod salute of his cock.
“Thanks for what you did back there,” she said to him. “You just saved a married man from being naughty, and me from umm…getting…ah…”
“Fucked?”
“Yes. Right. Thanks for sorting that one out for me.”
Liam shrugged. “Do yourself a favor and avoid men in dress whites altogether.”
She studied the blue coveralls he wore. “Why?”
“Ship’s officers meet beautiful women all the time, so you’re out of luck if it’s roses and forever you’re after. Only on a cruise ship do one-night stands last the entire voyage.”
Her mouth quirked up. “Thanks for the warning, but I think I can handle a man in or out of uniform.”
Liam’s gaze narrowed. “Then pick one who isn’t wearing a wedding ring.”
Her long dark lashes flickered. “Robert wasn’t wearing one.”
“Funny things rings,” Liam drawled. “They slide off at the most convenient times.”
“Really? Are you speaking from experience?”
Excitement rioted under Liam’s skin. Even his scalp tingled from the challenge that sparkled in her eyes.
He grazed his fingertips down her arm and drifted closer to her, drawn to the floral notes that misted the air around her.
“Maybe.”
A blend of spring roses and something else, something fragrant like red, oaky wine, ripened his tongue with anticipation. She would taste as good as she smelled. No doubt about that.
Liam’s fingers closed over her hand. He raised it to his mouth and feathered his lips along her silky-soft knuckles. “After all, it does get lonely at sea.”
****
Evangeline Spencer gulped as dribbles of
want
soaked through her panties.
Pleasure raced down her thighs and her fingers trembled against the caress of the sexy mouth belonging to this dark-haired stranger. A man who’d stepped in before she and Robert took things too far.
He’d known Robert was married. Yet he risked the wrath of his superior by reminding the other man of his wife and baby waiting at home. This man’s actions showed a depth of character that intrigued her. What it meant beyond the next five minutes, who knew?
Evie, proceed with caution! So he has a sex-god face, and a voice that turns your legs to stacked marshmallows, but a heart under the pretty red bow is priority number one.
His mouth glided along her skin, and when her eyes met his, dark and cool like mountain moss, she didn’t mistake the glint of humor that flashed in them.
Taking that as a warning flag, she jerked her hand away. It would be a damn shame if he expected some sort of reward for doing the right thing!
“I see.” He straightened and arched a sleek brow. “So, you want an officer and a gentleman, hmm? You know the two aren’t always one and the same?”
“I don’t see an officer or a gentleman anywhere, so I wouldn’t know.”
He looked down at his coveralls and shot her a wicked smile. “I guess you haven’t heard the latest word on engineers. We’ll keep your motor running—all night long.”
“Hmm, I missed that news flash in my Portland paper. Well, it’s been fun but I have to go enjoy the rest of my cruise. Bye-bye.”
She turned to leave, but long fingers closing on her upper arm pre-empted her dash to freedom. The touch of his hand on her skin, the hint of cedar in his aftershave mingling with the scent of leather and diesel fuel, made her hot all over!