Must Be Magic (Spellbound) (13 page)

She splashed him once more then drew a deep breath and surveyed her drenched state. “Good thing we already did our little garter show or this would have been hard to explain.”

“We could have blamed it on Riley.”

She laughed and tipped her head back, studying the star-filled sky with unmasked awe. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”

It was more of a rhetorical question, but he answered anyway. “Yeah.” He probably should have kept his mouth shut since the word came out like he’d tried too hard to hold on to it.

She gave him a speculative look that she might have followed up with a question if he hadn’t motioned toward the sky.

He leaned closer, pointing out a constellation overhead. “That’s Canis Minor and the bright one is Procyon, the eighth brightest star in the night sky. There’s a story behind that one.”

“Isn’t there always?”

He grinned. “A princess was captured by enemy forces while trying to lead a rebellion to save her people. To coerce her into giving up the location of the rebel base, they threatened to destroy her home.”

Darby turned her attention from the stars to him.

“The princess gave them the information they needed, but they destroyed her home anyway and kept her prisoner.”

Her brows scrunched together thoughtfully. “And that was before she met Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, right?”

“Smart-ass.”

She gazed up at the sky once more. “Don’t stop now. I want to know which constellation represents the part in the trilogy when Luke finds out Darth Vader is his father.”

Bryce pushed himself up, and when he got his feet under him, he scooped her up and over his shoulder. He waded in deeper.

“Don’t—”

He dumped her in, laughing when she came up sputtering.

She smoothed her hair back from her face. “What happened to not going into the water?”

“Had to risk it.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering.

He tugged her closer. “Cold?”

“Not really.”

He ran his hands up her arms, forgetting the reason he’d plunged into the water to begin with. “Good.” He slanted his mouth across hers, tasting the salt water on her lips.

She moaned into his mouth, the hungry sound making him hard all over again. So much for the water cooling him off. Breathing hard, he pulled back.

“Open to renegotiating our truce?” He couldn’t get his mouth open fast enough to answer before she shook her head and added, “I have terms, Councilor.”

“I’m listening.”

“One night. No talking about the past and we keep it just between us.”

“Is that it?”

She shook her head, her smile much too innocent. She was setting him up for something. “First you have to catch me.”

Another rogue wave slammed him backward, giving her enough of a head start to make it to shore well ahead of him.

She didn’t get that far down the beach before he caught up with her, but she danced out of reach at the last second. Laughing over her shoulder, she scooped up her sandals and flowers and darted down the path in the same direction as the bungalows.

When he could see his up ahead, he sprinted across a flowerbed and cut her off around the next bend, taking the brunt of the impact when they collided.

“I guess this means we have a deal.”

“I guess we do.” Her smile faltered as she glanced past him. “Shit.”

She cursed again under her breath and shoved him off the path.

Bryce craned his neck to see who or what had spooked her, but she pushed him into a thick section of vegetation, staying right on his heels. She didn’t stop until they were out of immediate sight of anyone passing by—assuming whoever it was hadn’t seen them ducking off the path.

If Darby hadn’t slipped off her sandals earlier, she likely would have tripped on the uneven ground already. He hadn’t met anyone as cursed as she was to trip on the only obstacle in a room. If someone dropped or spilled something, Darby was destined not to notice until it was too late. And that wasn’t counting the times her own wardrobe sabotaged her.

So it was no real surprise when he turned just as she finally stumbled forward.

She fell into him. “Dante and Riley,” she hissed.

“And you were more worried about them than snakes?” he teased.

Even in the shadows he could make out the look of horror that crossed her face. She launched herself into his arms, wrapping her legs around him, which couldn’t have been as effortless as she made it seem with a wet dress clinging to her skin.

Unprepared for it, he staggered sideways and then forward to compensate, pressing Darby’s back up against two palm trees twined together.

The maneuver actually couldn’t have gone better if he’d planned it. Her arms tightened around him, and he fit snug between her legs.

She made a soft sound, but he didn’t know whether it was from the unexpected impact or the hard length of his cock nestled against her. He sure as hell knew which one had triggered the harsh groan he released.

She pressed her finger to his lips, and he heard Dante and Riley reach the place where they’d left the path. Darby glanced in their direction as if she could see them through the trees, and in the process exposed her throat.

He couldn’t stop himself from running his mouth down the slender column, any more than he could hold back from rocking his hips and rubbing against her.

“Will you stop being such a mother hen,” Riley complained. “She’s fine.”

“We don’t know that.”

The pair stopped as if they’d noticed Bryce and Darby standing there moments ago and couldn’t figure out where they’d gone.

“Yes, we do. Unless she was abducted by modern-day pirates.”

Bryce arched a brow and mouthed, “Pirates?” at Darby.

She rolled her eyes.

“It’s not pirates I’m worried about,” Dante clarified.

“She can handle herself and she can handle Bryce.”

“You didn’t see her this morning. He’s getting to her.”

“She’s a big girl, Dante.”

“That doesn’t mean her heart can’t be crushed a second time, and I’ll be damned if he puts her through that again.” Their voices faded as they finally moved on.

Of course it would be the one time Bryce actually wanted Dante to stick around.

Darby had gone completely still in his arms and avoided looking at him long after Dante and Riley were gone.

“What—”

She didn’t let him get any further than that. “No talking about the past.”

He tried to take it as a positive sign that she was reminding him of their terms, except she looked like she was thinking even harder about what Dante had said than Bryce was.

And that wasn’t good.

Not good for him getting her out of her wet clothes and into his bed. And not if he stood a chance at finding out how he was getting to her, and if what Dante had said about her heart was true.

All of which left him with exactly one move.

With one hand planted on the tree and his arm locked across her lower back, he bent his head and touched his lips to hers. Although he half expected it, she didn’t try to squirm away, but melted into him slowly.

Slow was exactly what he had in mind in the beginning. A lazy kind of seduction fueled by taking her mouth, savoring it, dragging out every pass of their lips until her head fell back in sweet surrender.

Their first kiss had been like that. As horny as he’d been at twenty-one, he’d been both stunned that he hadn’t immediately shoved his tongue down her throat and just plain blown away by how close he came to losing his mind to a kiss. She’d been right there with him, looking at him like he’d just turned her whole world upside down when they’d broken apart.

The second Darby made the same breathless sigh, the whisper of it catching between them, his only thought was…
Fuck slow.

He pushed his tongue into her mouth and his aching shaft to the sweet spot he suddenly remembered was no longer covered by underwear. If his body had been rigid with need before, now it strained to the breaking point.

Darby moaned, sinking her fingers into his hair. She tugged at his bottom lip, sucking it into her mouth, and he knew he was done. If he didn’t pull back now he’d never make it out of the trees keeping them in shadow, let alone as far as his bungalow before he’d need to be inside her.

He carefully lowered her to the ground. He didn’t ask if she’d changed her mind or had second thoughts, because the moment she laced their fingers together, he knew all he needed to.

Tonight she was his.

He bent down to grab her shoes before he spent another second thinking about staying exactly where they were, only to feel her hand brush his zipper.

She tugged on his hand. “Leave them. We have all night to spend in a bed, right?” She unbuttoned his pants and slipped her hand inside.

He didn’t try to stop her this time. Not when her thumb teased the tip of his cock, circling slowly. So damn slowly.

He braced one hand on the tree, digging into the rough bark. In the last twenty-four hours alone, this—her hands on him—had crossed his mind more times than he could count. Each time sinking a little deeper into his brain, tugging at memories he’d buried long ago.

And now he was drowning in them. As good as he remembered it being, experiencing it all over again might have dropped him where he stood if not for the exquisite hold she had on him.

His eyes slid shut, every part of him concentrating on the tips of her fingers exploring him, torturing him in the best fucking way possible. With one slow pump of her fist after another he shot closer to the release he could already feel building.

Her hand was gone between one harsh breath and the next, traveling up his abdomen—the exact opposite direction from where he craved her touch.

“You enjoy punishing me, don’t you?”

She laughed, the sound sexy and hypnotic. “Is that your way of telling me you hate what I’m doing to you?” She worked at the buttons on his shirt.

“Despise every—”

She slid her hands up his chest.

“—second,” he finished, shivering at the warmth of her palms on his skin.

He wanted them everywhere, wanted to watch her rediscover him with all the heat and desire in her eyes. Nothing hidden from him. Neither of them had ever shied away from revealing what they were feeling when it came to sex, and he had missed that. The less they had on, the less he had to guess what was going through her mind.

“Cold?”

“Not even close.” He was pretty sure he’d never felt so hot. The more she touched him, the hotter his blood pounded through his veins. The moment she angled her face up and he took fierce possession of her mouth, he knew he was only going to get hotter.

And that was before she curled her fingers around his shaft, slowly sliding them from base to tip and back again. The rough sound of pleasure that rushed from his lips to hers made her grin. Her confidence was sexy as hell to begin with, but moved to a whole new level when she knew the power she held over him.

He sacrificed his grip on the tree in favor of running his hands down her arms, to her waist. From there he gathered her dress in his hands and tugged it up.

He didn’t need to look to know Darby still had a first-class ass and he promised himself he’d enjoy a proper eyeful later. There wasn’t anything stopping him from slipping his hand between her legs.

Already she was warm and damp where he circled his palm. She released her hold on him to run her finger along his cock.

He groaned. “Don’t stop.”

“Or?”

Grinning against her lips, he answered, “I actually wasn’t thinking far enough ahead to back that up.”

“Having an off day, Councilor?”

“Yeah, but the rest of my night is looking more promising.” Whatever else he might have said was lost the second he grazed her clit and she instinctively gave the base of his cock a squeeze.

Christ.
He wanted her to explore so much more of him but knew it would have to wait until later.

Like when he was done touching her.

“Bryce.”

Damn, he loved the way she said his name. Loved it even more when she said it while he parted her damp folds and slid just a bit lower to her slick opening.

It crossed his mind to tease her the way he had on the beach, but the second he felt how wet she was, he pushed two fingers inside her.

Her moan was caught between their mouths, then swallowed entirely as he deepened the kiss. Deepened the thrust of his fingers. He wanted to watch her come again, watch it play across her face as the pleasure built inside her.

She arched into him, her hips moving in slow rocking thrusts that made it so easy to enjoy every second.

It was like watching a storm move in. A catch of her breath, a shiver that raced across her skin, a slide of her bottom lip between her teeth. And then the intensity went from F1 to F5. Her breath coming in fast pants, broken by words he could barely make out.