Ship of Dreams (Dreams Come True Series Book 2) (10 page)

Nathan slid his body up hers, abrading her heated skin, eliciting shivers of pleasure. He took her mouth in a scorching kiss as she opened her legs to him.

He
filled her in one smooth thrust, inhaling her gasp of pleasure as his tongue tangled with hers. “God,” he groaned against her mouth. “You feel so good.”

She wrapped her legs around his waist, clutching his hips, urging him to move. But he didn’t. He reveled in the feel of her, focused on her breathy sighs, the sensual feel of her bare breasts against his chest.

“Nathan. You’re killing me. What are you doing?” She bucked her hips against his. “Why aren’t you moving?”

“Shh. All in good time.” He leaned down, took her mouth with his, once, twice, three times. Soft gentle kisses. Then he dove in, and as his hips began to move, his tongue mimicked his movements. Laura released a throaty groan, her tongue caressing his, her fingers grasped his ass and squeezed.

Breathy moans and sighs, whispered naughty endearments, and groans of pleasure filled the room. She raked her fingers up his back, panting with each thrust of his hips, tangling those same fingers in his hair. “Nathan. Nathan.”

His name on her lips was almost his undoing. The heat built into a conflagration as they soared ever higher, his blood a molten river. He grasped her face with his hand. “Laura. Look at me. I want to see you.”

She opened her eyes, dark with desire, and gazed into his, as they reached the pinnacle, a rapture beyond anything, before falling into the abyss.

Laura’
s pants subsided, as her heartbeat returned to normal. Nathan rolled off of her, but drew her with him, settling her head on his shoulder. His hands skimming along her arm to her shoulder and back down again. Drowsiness set in, her body a boneless heap. Safe to say, that was the best sex she’d ever had. Something to be said for Nathan-Time. Slow and sensual. Delicious.

“You alive?” Nathan asked.

Her only response, a nod. Words seemed beyond her at the moment.

He chuckled, a rumble deep in his chest. Then he kissed the top of her head. The tenderness of the gesture wasn’t lost on her.

Pull yourself together, Laura.
She raised up on her elbow and gazed down at his handsome face, looking as relaxed as she felt. Skimming a hand across his chest, she smiled. “Well, Nathan. Seduction complete. What do you have to say for yourself?”

His lips lifted in a cocky grin. “I think my actions spoke louder than words. Much louder. In fact, I think they heard you on the captain’s bridge.”

She tweaked his nipple.

“Ow.”

“Don’t get cocky. Or I might have to show you a thing or two.”

He lifted a brow, intrigued. “Woman, give me a moment to recover, and you can show me anything you want.”

“Careful there, hotshot. Playing with fire will get you burned.”

He tilted her chin up and covered her mouth with his. His other hand glided up her rib cage, across her breast as she nipped at his tongue.

“Are you recovered yet?” She trailed her hand down his abdomen, enjoying the quiver of muscle beneath.

“Yes.”

Her mouth followed the path of her hand. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Burn, baby, burn,” he murmured, as she headed south.

The ship had
docked in St. Tropez, on the French Riviera, sometime between Nathan creeping out of her room around two a.m.—but not before another couple of rounds of slow, sizzling sex—and sunrise. Her dry spell had come to an end. And in a glorious, bone-melting way.

They’d begun their day in St. Tropez with a particularly lame guided tour of the city—something she intended to point out in her report—later ditching it to spend the morning strolling the Quartier de la Ponche, with its maze of streets and its buildings in soft terra-cottas, warm peaches, sun-drenched pinks, accented with the occasional sky-blue, all beneath an endless azure dome.

They’d dined on Provençal beef stew at Le Café, on a terrace overlooking the Place de Lices
,
and sipped on cold French
pastis,
an anise-flavored liqueur. Well, she had at least.

After a sun-drenched day, she and Nathan had parted ways to go to their respective staterooms to dress for dinner.

As she checked her emails, she laughed at the memory of Nathan’s face when he first tasted the licorice-tasting drink. The way he’d squeezed his eyes shut before swallowing like he’d taken foul-tasting medicine. And then grabbed the jug of spring water meant for diluting the
pastis
, and pouring it into an empty glass, before gulping it down. Licorice, as he’d explained once he’d washed the taste from his mouth, wasn’t high on his list of flavors.

They’d tried their hand at
pétanque
, a game similar to bocce, playing against one another, with sexual favors on the line for the winner. Her skin warmed at the thought of paying up tonight. The acts she’d anted up were no hardship to perform on a man that looked . . . and tasted, smelled, and felt like Nathan did.

Laura didn’t know what to make of Nathan’s affectionate gestures. He’d reached out for her hand on more than one occasion, clasping her fingers with his and gently swinging their arms between them. She liked the sweetness of it, but it also made her uncomfortable. To her mind, they were more the actions of a boyfriend, than a fling.

Stepping into her luxurious shower, she turned on the body jets and let them pound away at her while she lathered her hair and tried to put the more troubling aspects of their fling out of her head. She had more . . . charming aspects to focus on. Like Nathan’s mouth. And his hands. And other tantalizing regions below the equator.

After last night, Nathan Maxwell filled her thoughts. She’d managed to tamp down her lust while they lunched, when she’d let her feet do the talking beneath the table. But she had plans for the evening, which didn’t include dining in any of the ship’s fine establishments.

Nathan whistled a cheerful little t
une as he ambled down the corridor, anticipating another evening in the presence of one Laura Danforth. He couldn’t remember when he’d enjoyed someone’s company so much. And he didn’t really know anything about her given Rule Number Four. All he knew was she was a trust-fund baby, by her own admission, she lived in Manhattan, she liked to run her foot up his legs, and she had a sweet spot behind her knee that he wanted to taste more of. Oh, and she served on some sort of fundraising committee.

The only reason he knew that last bit was because while they were enjoying the sites in St. Tropez, she’d received an urgent email from a committee member, she’d said, about a big gala in September. She stepped away for a minute to make a call and returned, stating simply, “Emergency resolved.”

She’d nearly done him in that afternoon, especially at lunch when she’d grazed her foot up his leg, heading north in one of her favorite moves. He’d jumped like a man on a live wire before cuffing a hand around that trim little ankle and halting her erotic ascent.

Still whistling, Nathan knocked on the door to Laura’s stateroom. The whistle died on his lips when she opened the door wearing nothing but a little black silk robe and those hot-pink satin stilettos of hers. Her long, silky hair flowed around her shoulders almost to her waist. “Sugar, you’re, uh, not dressed.”

“Observant, aren’t you?” She propped her hand high on the door, raising the hem of her skimpy robe to just below her pearly gates. He checked the corridor for any unwelcome observers, as he struggled to form something other than a Neanderthal grunt. “Er, are we, uh, going to dinner?”

“I thought you might like a piece of this instead.” She peeled aside her robe to reveal a black and hot pink lace corset and matching panties that left little to the imagination. Her robe whispered down her body to pool at her feet, and all the blood in his body went with it.

As soon as he could get his tongue off the floor, he stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. “I’d like more than a piece of that.” His eyes roamed over her from her beautiful head to her satin-encased toe. “I’m a glutton. I want it all.” His arm snaked out, hauling her firmly against him, as he claimed her mouth with his.

Breaking the kiss, she said, “I thought you might like an evening in with just me and La Perla.”

“As much as I admire, uh, La Perla, I’m afraid three’s a crowd.”

“That’s a crying shame, but if you insist.” She unfastened the hooks at the front of the corset and dropped it to the floor. Her breasts spilled out, making his mouth water.

“Sweet Jesus,” he muttered. He filled his hands with her. She groaned, throwing back her head allowing him easy access to the tender spot below her ear. He took advantage, pressing his lips to the erratic pulse in her neck. He knotted his hands in that long luxurious hair. Breathed it in. She smelled of jasmine and sex. And heaven. Pure heaven.

“It’s my turn to seduce you,” she murmured.

“Sugar, you’re doing a mighty fine job.” He bent, took a taut nipple into his mouth, lathing it with his tongue.

Fisting her hands in his hair, she held him to her.

He released her breast to blaze a trail up her neck to her full lips, where his tongue explored the hot recesses of her mouth.

Yanking his jacket off, she tossed it on the floor, then ripped his tie open and began unbuttoning his shirt, planting hot kisses down his chest to his abdomen.

“Woman, unless you want this to end before we even get started, I’d advise against going where you’re headed.”

She smiled against him, and instead went to work on his belt buckle, making short work of it before unbuttoning his fly and plunging her hands down the front of his pants. His knees buckled.

“I’ve been wanting to touch you like this all day,” she panted.

“Good Lord. You’re trying to kill me.”

She laughed, deep and throaty, sending a shot of heat to his already overheated groin. “I warned you about your insurance.”

He boosted her up, his hands planted on the bare ass revealed by her thong. Wrapping her legs around him, he carried her to the bedroom, his mouth firmly on hers.

She proceeded to undress him, her touch excruciating in its sensuality. Shoving him onto the bed, she crawled atop him, straddling him. She was something to behold. Bare breasted, hair tumbling around her, eyes hooded with desire. And her lips parted, swollen and moist.

“Seduction complete.” He grasped her hips and rolled her beneath him. “Now, I’ll take it from here.”

After dining on room service—lobster, followed by plump cho
colate-covered strawberries, and champagne—Laura sat back in her chair, her black silk robe around her. Replete. The first word that came to mind. Suggesting to Nathan that they have a fling was the best idea she’d had in a long time.

He’d displayed an aptitude in that department. More than a few times. She sucked chocolate off her thumb as she eyed his bare chest across the table from her.

Rising from the table, she swiped her finger in the bowl of chocolate sauce, and straddling him, smeared it across his lips. Diving in, she proceeded to lick and nip the chocolate off.

His hands splayed across her back as he allowed her entrance to his mouth. His fingers laced in her hair. Breaking the kiss, he reached for his glass of champagne, and with a wicked grin tipped it, spilling it across her chest. “Whoops.”

Squealing as the cold bubbly spread, running down her belly and into her belly button, she yanked the wet robe away from her skin. “What the hell?” She stood, stripped off the robe.

“Mission accomplished,” he said.

“If you’d wanted me naked, all you had to do was ask.”

Reaching out, he snagged her around the waist. “What would be the fun in that?” He drew a champagne-soaked nipple into his mouth and suckled it. “Excellent vintage.” Drifting lower, he slurped the pool of champagne out of her belly button, making her giggle.

Lifting her up, he placed her across his lap, legs straddling him, and slipped inside her. She threw her head back in ecstasy.

He always managed to turn the tables on her. Just when she thought she was in control, he flipped the switch. As he drove into her in smooth, solid thrusts, she gladly gave way to him, knowing she would be far from disappointed.

Nathan rested his chin on Laura’s shoulder as they floated back
down to earth, covered in sticky champagne, her hot body pressed to his. What more could a man ask for?

Bedding Laura was the highlight of the trip. No priceless antiquities, no spectacular hilltop views could compare with the feel of her wrapped around him.

He didn’t want the evening to end. He, who never stayed with a woman for the night, preferring to avoid the whole awkward morning-after thing. “How about a bath?”

She lifted her head, her brow furrowed. “What?”

“A bath. You know, bubbles, candlelight. I thought you women craved baths.”

“Not me. I’m a shower kind of gal. Faster.”

“Not tonight.” He lifted her off him, and rose from the chair, heading toward the stateroom’s luxurious bathroom, complete with picture window overlooking the dark Mediterranean. “Shame to waste this pool-sized bathtub. Just wait there, I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

Turning on the tap, he rummaged around and found the complimentary Bulgari bath products. Pouring some beneath the stream of hot water, he tested the temperature. Perfect.

Whistling the same tune he’d started off the evening with, he laid out fresh towels. Catching his reflection in the mirror, he considered the man looking back at him. Bare-chested, hair mussed, lips swollen. Yep. That was the face of a sexually-satisfied man. His mouth spread into a wide grin.

He walked back out to the living room to find Laura standing in all her naked glory, pulling her hair up in that messy twist only women knew how to do.

“Bath’s ready.”

“I don’t know why we don’t just take a sh—”

He planted a kiss on her and, scooping her up, carried her into the bathroom. Stepping into the steamy water, he lowered them into the cloud of bubbles. After situating her in front of him, he pulled her back against his chest and began soaping up her breasts, his hands slipping and sliding along her slick skin, over every delicious curve.