Cracking the Dating Code (8 page)

No need to pretend when it came to nervousness—Poppy’s had just kicked in, in full.

‘And just so we’re clear, I’m not a saint, I’ve never been a flirtation mentor before and I have absolutely no idea where all this might end. Just in case you’re still not feeling the terror.’

‘I’m feeling it.’

‘Not sure you are,’ he murmured. ‘But you will. Ask me to dance.’

‘What?’

‘Dance. It involves touch. Touch is part of flirting, and sometimes it can calm a person down and make them focus, like in the water today. And sometimes it can wind a person up. We’re going to practise the wind-up variety. Unless you’d rather not?’

‘No,’ she said, and almost meant it. ‘I want to get the hang of this.’

‘So.’ He inclined his head. ‘Anything I should know before we start?’

‘Like what?’

‘No unpleasant experiences with touch in your past? Something along the lines of the information you could have shared with me
this afternoon
before
I took you snorkelling and scared you half to death?’

‘Oh.’ Poppy offered up a tentative smile. ‘There’s nothing like that.’

‘Because if there is we should stop. That kind of fix is beyond my pay grade.’

‘I don’t need that kind of fix. I just need practice.’

‘Then ask me to dance.’ He shot her a crooked grin and picked up his drink. ‘I’ll be out on the balcony. Whenever you’re ready.’

She wouldn’t do it. Seb was almost sure she wouldn’t follow him outside and ask him to dance. He was calling her bluff. Ending the lesson before it got out of hand. Before he got out of hand and decided that Poppy West was the perfect vehicle of temptation when it came to burying his crisis of confidence and his guilt beneath an avalanche of naked, lust-driven need.

It was dark out here. Nothing but the light from the games room and the stars in the sky to light the way.

Intimate.

She’d never be up for it.

Too wary, and so she should be.

All he had to do now was wait her out and
it would be lesson over. He’d go to bed wanting, but his integrity would be intact.

Teach her to flirt. How the hell did a man teach a woman to flirt without taking ruthless advantage of her relative inexperience?

Answer: he didn’t.

And then the sliding door opened and Seb stifled a silent groan as Poppy the mouse headed his way.

‘Hi,’ she said quietly. ‘I noticed you were alone and it’s a lovely night and there’s music playing. Would you like to dance?’

‘Oh, that was
good
,’ he murmured.

‘Really?’ Her smile spoke of tentative pleasure. ‘I’m winging it.’

Heaven help mankind when she really learned to fly.

She held out her hand and he took it with a suddenly fragile heart. Distraction was one thing. Poppy West was quite another. He’d been a little slow on the uptake in that regard, but realisation was kicking in now and along with it a healthy dose of fear for what might be coming.

Poppy West was vulnerable. And so, right now, was he.

‘So,’ he said, for he was all for at least
trying
to play his part. ‘The trick to dancing with a potential mate is the same trick you’ve
been learning when it comes to conversation. Be attentive and responsive. Make him believe there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.’

Poppy smiled.

‘Good start,’ he muttered. ‘Do ballet dancers waltz?’

‘They can,’ she murmured. But Poppy never had. Not with a man who made her feel like this. ‘You still smell like the sea.’

‘You smell of cinnamon and ginger.’

‘That would be your bath gel.’ If this was a waltz, it was a very slow waltz. Seb took his steps in miniature, barely moving, and soon enough both of his hands were at her waist, and hers were on his shoulders. Shades of this afternoon, while swimming in the sea with him, only he was right about there being more than one type of touch. There was the type that soothed. And then there was this. ‘What do I do next?’

‘Put your arms around my neck.’ Nothing but a husky whisper, but she heard him and she did as she was told and revelled in the contact it brought her. The touch of his hair against her fingers and the brush of her breasts against his chest.

There would be no kissing him unless she stood on tiptoe and he bent his head or lifted her up, but there was plenty else to be going
on with. The rasp of solidly muscled thighs against her slender ones. The hardness in him and the scorching heat. And then he ran his fingers slowly up and down her spine and almost set her to melting.

She gasped, she couldn’t help it, and his eyes took on a slumberous slant. ‘Responsive,’ he murmured. ‘That’s good.’

He was responsive too, as she slid her hands down over his chest, lingering just a little as his nipples hardened beneath her palms. Downwards, after that, and more slowly than before as heat coiled in the pit of her stomach and she tried to remember the lesson to hand. ‘What do I do?’ she whispered when she reached the hem of his T-shirt.

‘Whatever you want,’ came Seb’s low, ragged answer, so she slipped her hands beneath his shirt and put her palms to skin and slid her hands back up his chest. She’d been wanting to do this since the moment they’d first met and finally she had his permission. Even if it was for teaching purposes only.

And then he was hauling his shirt over his head and bringing her back into the circle of his arms and there was very little space between them this time and practically no movement at all beyond Seb’s laboured breathing and hers.

‘You won’t stop me?’ She slid the pad of her thumb over the hard nub of his nipple and felt his indrawn breath more than heard it.

‘Not yet.’ Barely more than a growl. ‘Isn’t that what you’re after? Getting used to a man’s touch?’

‘Yes.’ As she put her lips to the strong column of his neck and felt his big hands slide down over her buttocks and tighten.

She tasted his skin and came away with salt on her tongue. And then she did something else she’d been wanting to do to a man for a very long time and that was set her mouth to his nipple and lave it with her tongue. She grazed him with her teeth and rolled over the nipple again with her tongue and finally she closed her lips around him and sucked.

Things happened in a bit of a blur after that but the end result was effective. Poppy, with her back to the wall and her legs wrapped around Sebastian’s waist and her arms tangled around his neck. His lips nudged hers. Not kisses, not quite, but little rubs, this way and that and no tongue whatsoever as she settled to the feel of his erection pressing tightly against her core.

Poppy wanted never to move again but Seb had no such inclination. He rocked against
her, into her and she closed her eyes and sought a deeper contact with his mouth.

‘Hold still,’ he muttered, and then he kissed her again and this time his mouth remained motionless but his tongue did not and his body did not and the feelings he drew from her were wilder and more intense than she’d ever imagined.

And still not nearly enough.

He’d given her permission to do whatever she wanted. She wanted more and took it, deepening the kiss and pressing helplessly against him as he shifted her against him again, positioning her for maximum friction and explosive effect.

Breathing became a hardship. Undulation became a given for the rhythm he set was an irresistible one.

When breathing became impossible, Poppy wrenched her mouth away from Seb’s with a gasp and let her head fall back against the wall, eyes half closed as she felt her body begin that final climb.

Too soon. She was rushing him. It wouldn’t do to rush him. Not when she still had so very much to learn. Poppy tried to slow down, get her body to relax, but her body had been waiting for a man’s touch for a very long time and as for her mind, well… maybe
her mind had been waiting for this particular man’s touch all along.

Seb’s hands were full, but his lips were free and he dragged them across her cheek and down her neck with the delicacy of a connoisseur and every intention of driving her insane.

‘Don’t stop yet,’ she whimpered. ‘Please, Seb. Not yet.’

He didn’t, just hiked her effortlessly higher and set his lips to her collarbone and she let go of his arms and did what she’d seen him do just moments before, and got rid of her shirt—up and over her head, and it wasn’t smoothly done or sexily done, but done all the same and Seb cursed, but he knew what she wanted without being told and slid her bra strap down her arm and swiped his tongue over the puckered nub of her nipple.

And then he feasted.

Not patient and gentle any more but hard and hungry, hot and wet, and Poppy loved it and cried out her pleasure as her body drew tighter. ‘Don’t stop.’

‘Soon,’ he muttered, and took to her other breast, and she threaded her hand through his hair and kept him there. Soon was not yet. Soon could mean practically anything.

By the time Sebastian decided her breasts
had had enough, Poppy was boneless and brainless, with not a thought in her head besides the chasing of pleasure. He kissed his way back up to her mouth, and sometimes his lips were teasing and gentle and sometimes he forgot.

She loved it best when he forgot.

Loved it even more when he slid his thumb beneath the waistband of her trousers and then the rest of his hand followed and her button popped and her zipper slid down and his thumb found its way beneath her panties.

‘Stop and I’ll kill you,’ she whispered into his mouth and meant it and he grinned briefly and then bestowed upon her another of those motionless, all-consuming kisses even as his thumb found her clitoris and stroked.

That was all it took.

Her climax came fast and boy did it come hard and she clung to him and came for him and he swore and slid his thumb just the tiniest bit inside her and let her ride it out to the end, his lips in her hair and his voice low and rumbly.

‘Guess who forgot to stop?’

H
E’D
wanted her responsive, Seb reminded himself with a tortured groan as he withdrew his hand from Poppy’s slick heat. Responsive and attentive and she’d told him she was a fast learner—somewhere in his desire-clogged brain he recalled that she learned fast—but he hadn’t expected this. Not the abandonment of her response to him, nor the tenderness and care with which he now pulled back.

It was just his hand, no damage done. Nothing she wouldn’t have got years ago at a high-school dance or in the back of some college boy’s car.

Nothing to worry about as he slid the straps of her bra back in place and ran a rough hand across her back by way of comfort.

She’d buried her face in the curve of his shoulder. He could feel her breath on his skin and what he hoped to God was sweat on her
cheeks and not tears. He couldn’t do tears. Surely there was no need for tears?

Her chest heaved as she shuddered against him and then slowly she unlocked her legs from around his waist and set her feet to the floor.

Her face, however, remained hidden from his view.

‘Hey,’ he said as gently as he could. ‘Everything okay down there?’

‘I’m not blushing,’ came the muffled reply.

‘Course you’re not.’

‘And I’m not sorry.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Not tears, then. Defiance. He liked defiance better. ‘I’m thinking no slow dances in public places for you,’ he murmured and loosened his hold around her and let her move away. Not all the way away, mind. He still held her in his arms. His body still ached for release but he had himself under control, after a fashion, and there was still a snowball’s chance he could convince her that what had happened here tonight was nothing to worry about.

Just a perfectly normal expression of wanton sensuality. Happened all the time.

It hadn’t been a revelation at all. Nope.

Say it often enough and he might even begin to believe it.

‘Is there anything you’d like me to do for you?’ she said, still talking to his chest, and he almost dropped her in his haste to retreat.

‘No,’ he barked and took two more giant steps back. ‘I’m fine.’

A man’s self-control would only stretch so far and his was already set to blow.

‘Are you sure?’ She was staring at his crotch again and when her gaze finally met his there was wry amusement aplenty in it along with a hefty dose of concern. For him. ‘You look a little…cramped.’

‘I’ll get over it,’ he muttered. Alone. ‘I’m a little low on self-control at the moment, Ophelia. Probably best if you stay right where you are and I take a couple more steps back.’

‘
You’re
worried about self-control?’ she muttered. ‘How do you think I feel?’

‘Content.’ He nodded hard, willing contentment upon her. ‘Not in the least bit curious to know anything more about flirting.’

She eyed him steadily enough and then went and spoiled it all by chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip.

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ she said mildly.

‘It’d help if you didn’t say anything at all,’ he offered. ‘Here’s the thing, Poppy. You lose control and we both have a good time.
I
lose control and you’re going to pay.’

‘Oh.’

He could almost see the wheels ticking over in that horrifyingly convoluted mind of hers.

‘What if I got you drunk?’ she said at last. ‘I hear that can make a man more inclined to slow down somewhat.’

‘Where the
hell
did you hear that?’

‘So…it’s not true?’

‘There are many stages of drunk. Not one of them is going to help me slow down if I get you naked. Lesson’s over, Poppy.’ He picked up her shirt and handed it to her. Found his and pulled it on. ‘And I really don’t think I can handle another one.’

Poppy was getting used to driving back to the guest house in the dark and with her emotions in turmoil. She hit the turn too fast and skidded and felt the thrill of it. She went through the unlocked front door without a thought for pirates or critters lying in wait for her inside. She wanted a bath and the music on and set about making it happen.

The bathroom in this place had been a glorious surprise.

Sunken bath with floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides. These windows actually had pull-down blinds attached to them; she’d
drawn them down before when bathing but not tonight.

Tonight, she wanted the candles around the bath lit, and the stars shining down on her and a glass of wine by her elbow as she shed her clothes and stepped into the water.

Sensation to replace the memory of Seb’s hands on her, and his mouth. Of her mouth on him, and the gentleness in him and the strength. As far as lessons went it had been a doozy. As far as lovemaking was concerned, it had been a revelation.

She wasn’t a wanton, never had been before.

And, yes, there was probably an element of pent-up longing for a lover’s touch in her response to him. Frustration, even.

But no amount of pent-up longing or frustration had ever driven her to the actions she’d taken on this island. The flirting and the cajoling. The lusting.

The begging.

She reached for the soap gel and began applying it liberally to her arms. Cinnamon and ginger, old-spice and cloves. A masculine scent but she wanted it on her, and she wondered, with the stroke of her fingers along flesh, what Sebastian was doing right now and whether he was showering and what he
might be stroking and how hard and how fast, and she closed her eyes and gave herself over to that image very readily, while the water lapped around her and the smell of cinnamon filled the air.

He would give himself over to a shower with the same pleasure he gave himself to the ocean, and the water would stream down his body and find all the valleys as he’d unerringly found hers.

Experience: she wanted it, craved it, but it wasn’t
just
a desire to get laid that had Poppy coming apart beneath Sebastian’s touch.

It was him.

‘Call her back to London,’ Seb told his brother the minute Tom answered the phone. He’d lifted weights. He’d had a shower. He had a cunning plan.

‘And good morning to you too,’ uttered the wise arse cheerfully. ‘What’s she done now?’

‘She’s driving me insane. And I think she’s a virgin.’

‘What?’

‘Innocent. Untouched.’ Mostly untouched, he amended silently. He still hadn’t broken anything. Yet. ‘You want a dictionary? And do you
have
to sound just like her?’

‘I don’t sound anything like her,’ said
Tomas. ‘Clearly you’re imagining things. Has she finished her work yet?’

‘I don’t
know.
How would I know?’

‘You seem to know plenty about the state of her hymen,’ muttered Tomas. ‘Call it a foolish assumption.’

‘She’s not my type,’ said Seb.

‘You have a type?’

‘Yes, and she’s not it!’

‘In that case, what’s your problem?’

Seb didn’t
know
what his problem was. But he did know it started and ended with Poppy West. ‘Just call her back to work. Make her leave. That’s all I ask.’

‘I can’t. There’s nothing that would make her come back. Not before she finishes with the code she’s running.’

‘No one’s that work driven.’

‘She’s not. This job’s personal. Poppy needs to finish it. For her sake, and for her brother’s.’

Silence from Seb.

‘You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?’ asked Tom.

More silence from Seb.

‘Would it do any good whatsoever to suggest you at least get to
know
Poppy before you bed her?’

‘That’s what I told
her
,’ he replied curtly.

‘Fall in love first, I told her. Not that she
listens.
She does not listen. She’s a terrible student.’

This time the silence belonged to Tom. ‘Student?’ he enquired warily.

‘I’m teaching her how to fish.’

‘Ah.’

Silence from them both.

‘You know, you really could use a break from the island,’ said Tom.

That did it.

‘
Then
get your lily arse over here so I can leave!
’

‘Whatever it is you’re doing, it’s working,’ said Tomas to Poppy on the phone the following morning. ‘You can probably stop now.’

‘What?’ Poppy had just crawled out of the cave in order to answer the phone. Sebastian was nowhere to be seen. He’d been nowhere to be seen all morning. Probably halfway up a cliff face or deep in the belly of a shark by now.

She’d tried telling herself that his prolonged absence didn’t bother her and that it had nothing to do with the events of last night. She’d tried focusing on her work instead. Neither had been very effective.

‘Seb’s ready and willing to leave the
island,’ said Tomas, bringing her back to the present with a thud. ‘Thanks for the motivational push.’

‘It wasn’t intentional.’

‘I don’t care. He’s been there too long. He needs to re-engage. How’s
your
work going?’

‘I’m throwing everything I have at it. Nothing yet.’

‘Have you considered that this might be one code you just aren’t going to break?’ he asked with studied gentleness.

‘In a word? No. Failure is not an option. I just need more time.’ Poppy ran a hand through her hair and would have paced the room as well had the phone allowed her to. ‘As for your brother, if he wants off the island so urgently, can’t he just leave me here and go?’

‘He won’t.’

‘I don’t need a babysitter, Tomas.’

‘It’s a little isolated, Poppy. I’m kinda with Seb on this one.’

‘And if people
do
insist that I need a carer, there’s always the option of asking a friend to come and stay a few days until I’m done. I know plenty of Action-Man types who would happily play hero. All I’d need is your okay to issue the invite.’

‘Don’t ask me,’ muttered Tomas. ‘Ask Seb.’

‘Well, I would if he were
here.
But I haven’t seen him yet today.’

‘Where is he?’ asked Tomas. ‘I’m confused.’

‘Aren’t we all,’ muttered Poppy. ‘Was there anything else?’

The rest of the day passed excruciatingly slowly for Poppy, and it wasn’t just because Seb came back around lunch time and started pacing the outer office like an irritated lion. He made calls and took them. Ordered emails sent and paced some more. Man with an almighty need to be somewhere else, decided Poppy grimly, and whether it was due to circumstance or on her account she didn’t know.

She doubled her efforts when it came to cracking code. She crashed the bat-cave computer—and the household electrical circuits—twice. And she was still no closer to reading Jared’s file—if indeed it even was Jared’s file.

Who knew?

‘I’d ask you what the hell you’re doing,’ muttered Seb as he headed out to reset the generator again, only this time he’d decided to take Poppy with him for her future reference. ‘Only it’s obvious you don’t know. Otherwise you’d stop doing it.’

Poppy spared him a cutting glance, which quelled him not one little bit.

‘You look like Tinkerbell having a tantrum,’ he told her.

‘Don’t you have some fishing to do, Peter? Lost boys to lead?’

‘Fishing’s not ‘til later,’ he said. ‘Fresh is best. And the lost boys are making do without me at the moment and apparently doing just fine. How’s
your
work going?’

‘How do you think it’s going?’ she snapped.

‘That well,’ he murmured. ‘Anything I can help you with? Besides bringing Gotham City’s power grid back online?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘But thank you.’ The thank-you was an afterthought, and he knew it, but he showed her how to reset the power board and crank up the generator, and this time Poppy’s thank-you came faster and far more freely.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said next. ‘I’m not making any progress and Tomas phoned this morning and said you wanted off the island. He also said you didn’t want to leave me here on my own. I hate the thought of you waiting on me to finish when I don’t know how long it’s going to take. But I do have a solution. You
go. I’ll stay. And I’ll get someone to come and stay with me.’

‘Who?’

‘Trig, if he’s around. Another one of Jared’s friends if he’s not. They’re very reliable. Ready for anything. Pirates would not get past them.’

‘No.’

‘Or Lena, my sister.’ Probably not a good time to mention Lena’s injuries. ‘She’s at Damon’s beach house at the moment. She could be here tomorrow.’ Probably.

‘Just do your work, Poppy,’ he said gruffly. ‘Give me an update at the end of each day on how close you are to finishing and I’ll plan around it.’

‘It’s really not that kind of project,’ she said awkwardly. ‘It’ll either come together in an instant or it won’t come together at all. There’s no halfway.’

‘Story of your life,’ he muttered, and Poppy blushed on account of last night and because he was right.

‘I can be quite singular in my thinking at times, it’s true. Sometimes I need reminding about the bigger picture but I am seeing it. I heard what you said last night about not giving me any more lessons, Sebastian. I’m good with that. I understand that having you
mentor me was not a good idea. I’d even go so far as to say it was a really bad idea. Still, I’ve learned a lot and I do thank you for it. Most instructive.’ She nodded vigorously. ‘Plenty to be going on with.’

‘Going on with?’

‘Elsewhere,’ she said.

He stared at her for what seemed like for ever, his mouth set and his eyes guarded. ‘Tom says that if I want to know what you’re doing here that’s so important, I should ask.’

‘Oh.’ What to reveal? ‘Well, it’s, ah…a little convoluted, but the short answer is that I’m trying to find my missing brother.’

‘Well, you won’t find him here.’ Seb’s eyes narrowed on her suspiciously. ‘Who did you say your brother works for?’

‘ASIS.’

‘So he’s a spook.’

‘He really doesn’t say.’

‘ So what do your brother’s employers have to say about his disappearance?’

‘They say they’re looking into it,’ said Poppy quietly. ‘And so am I.’

Seb sighed heavily. ‘The only reassuring thing about that mild-mannered little statement is that you currently don’t have internet access. Or do you?’