Windswept (13 page)

“Closer,” she insisted, leaning against the solid wood and wrapping one leg around his waist. She still had her shorts on, but that didn’t stop her from grinding against his cock. “Closer, Ryan.” Her hands slid down his rear and pulled him in.

“Mia.” His voice was husky.

Her shorts and panties were the only things keeping them apart, but an onlooker might have overlooked that, the way his hips started thumping against hers.

“God, Mia. You kill me,” he murmured. His eyes were at half-mast, his jaw clenched.

“Kill you?”

“In the best possible way,” he added, nuzzling her with his grizzly chin.

He hitched her up enough for her left foot to leave the ground, and she snaked that leg up beside the other, making him groan her name again. “Mia.”

No one said her name that way. Achy and needy and greedy, too.

He kissed her neck and scraped his teeth against the bare skin, and she tipped her head back for more.

“Lean back,” he whispered.

“Back?”

“I got you.”

He slid his hands to her back and leaned in, pressing her toward the table.

“Trust me,” he whispered.

Trust him? An hour ago, she would have scoffed. Now, she closed her eyes and let him guide her back. Back and back until she thought she’d missed the table, but then it was there, thick and solid behind her shoulders.

“Did I ever tell you how beautiful you are?” he murmured, dropping his head to her breast.

She didn’t get an answer out other than a husky moan. He consumed her, sucking in her nipple, letting it pop out, and tugging it with his lips while his hands scooped and molded the yielding flesh and his chin scraped her skin in deliciously rough strokes.

Did I ever tell you how beautiful you make me feel?
She tried, but the only sounds she managed were a series of moans and sighs. Topless on the chart table shouldn’t feel this good. Too bad she hadn’t shed her shorts before she got there.

He thrust against her, and her whole body slid across the chart beneath her. She traveled across it, covering hundreds of miles of open water with one quick slide.

Ryan pulled her hips closer, then pushed forward again, and there she went, skidding from the curve of Central America over to the Antilles. Colombia was under her rear, Jamaica under her right shoulder, and maybe if she let him screw her, hard and hot and searing the way her body begged for him to do, she’d end up with a Caribbean tattoo etched into her skin, complete with islands, lighthouses, and reefs.

She giggled at the image and let her fingers tangle in his hair.

His head popped up. “What?”

“This,” she answered, grinning at him.

His eyes flicked over her chest and down her belly. “What?”

“You screwing me on my grandfather’s chart table.”

His eyebrow jumped up, then curved into a wicked look. “Me about to screw you on your grandfather’s chart table, except for two things.” He pulled back a little and ran both hands up and down her belly, wrapping his fingers around her ribcage.

“Except what?”

He kissed her belly button, and she thrust her hips up.

“Except you still have your shorts on.”

“Easy to fix, officer.”

He grinned, and her heart soared. God, a smile looked good on him, erasing the serious for a change.

“That, and the table’s a little too high.”

“Maybe you’re a little too low.”

He silenced her with another thrust that rocked her bones.

“I’m not saying it won’t work,” he said, taking on a cocky little drawl and thrusting again. “What I’m saying is…” He punctuated each phrase with a push of his hips that had her so close to orgasm, she could scream. “But…” He leaned over her and spoke right into her ear, “it won’t be just how you like it.”

“It won’t?” she squeaked. Because what he was doing right now was definitely working for her.

“Not hard enough,” he grunted, pushing her into the Atlantic again. His hands grasped her knees and hitched them higher around his waist. “Not deep enough.” His cock hammered at her entrance, but he was right. The angle was a little off, their alignment not quite right. “Not the way you need it right now.”

“And you know just what I need?” she managed, trying to keep some semblance of control.

He growled his answer. “I do, because I need the same thing.”

She tried cocking an eyebrow, but it was hard to do
vixen
from flat on her back.

He straightened, pulled her upright, and tilted his head toward the forward cabin.

“Follow me,” he whispered, and the words sparked up and down her spine. “Follow me.”

As it turned out, Ryan followed Mia, but that suited him just fine. Because the sight of her, beckoning him along the narrow hallway of the boat toward the front cabin, worked on more than just his cock. It worked on his soul.

She wanted him. Needed him in a way that went beyond ascents from crazy depths and death-defying escapes and what they were about to do in that bunk tonight. She forgave him, even if he had a lot of apologizing left to do. Which he had a plan for, but that would come later, when the time was right.

This part, this touching and feeling, he hadn’t been planning for. Hoping for, sure, but not planning, because he was flying by the seat of his pants, and miracle of miracles, not screwing up for a change. Maybe the moon was playing Cyrano, because he’d actually said a couple of things that came out right. Maybe there was poetry in the plain truth. She really was beautiful, and he really did need Mia more than his next breath of air.

“Right this way, officer,” she cooed, waving him along.

He grinned. Maybe he should have told her about his job earlier. This was kind of fun.

“Yes, ma’am,” he rumbled, and that wasn’t a calculated effect at all. That was Mia, turning him upside down. Again.

She was something, his mermaid-sailor-diving queen. So trim and toned, it would be easy to picture her body tapering into a tail. Her bare breasts were pert and tight, the nipples sweeping up at an angle that begged for his lips. He was already a goner, like he’d been from the very start.

She stopped in the open doorway by the cabin and slid her hands down her sides, finally stripping out of those running shorts. Nice shorts, especially on Mia, but he’d seen enough of them that day. He’d seen enough of all the layers covering her up, in fact. His eyes followed as she slid the shorts down, inch by luscious inch, flipping every switch in him to full steam ahead.

He stepped forward, closing the distance, and Mia stepped back into the cabin, opening the gap up again. One step forward for him, another step back for her. Forward. Back. He had to stoop because the ceiling was lower in the bow. She retreated right against the high captain’s bunk that took up the entire cabin and scooted onto it, butt first, legs following, knees apart. His cock twitched, taking in that view.

“You kill me,” he muttered, shaking his head.

“In the best possible way, right?”

Even in the darkness of the cabin, he could see her eyes sparkle. The moonlight shone in through an overhead hatch, lighting different parts of her as she slid back. When her face retreated into the dimmer part of the cabin, the moonlight danced over her nipples. When she edged back, it shone on the checkerboard of her taut middle in a bold show of sheer feminine power. She was muscled inside, too, and the thought of her tight sheath clenching down over his cock…

He’d been holding back, stretching the anticipation out, but something in him cracked, and suddenly he was prowling into that den of a cabin after her, climbing over her body in one quick move. He crushed his mouth to hers, swallowing her up. His chest squeezed against the soft pillow of her chest, his legs found their way between hers, and his cock honed in on home.

“No condom,” he muttered, hoping to hell it didn’t matter. She was on the pill, and they had both checked out clean, so they’d taken to going without condoms in New York.

“No problem,” she breathed, wrapping her arms and legs around him. Her fingers roamed, setting off sparks like a test sequence of every one of his nerves. “Ryan…”

One little push, and he’d be in heaven, because she was wide open and slick and ready for him. A roaming finger told him as much, but he held back, using his last strand of self-restraint.

“Ryan,” she moaned, shoving her hips up. “Don’t play with me.”

“I’m not playing,” he grunted. “I want to be in you. Need to be in you, but I need this, too.”

This
was the sight of her, stretched willingly beneath him, ready to come undone.
This
was her eyes and her voice and her body, straining for him.
This
was the assurance that it wasn’t just about tonight.

A thousand words backed up in his throat, but none of them had worked up the nerve to venture out first.

“Mia…”

She slipped her arms off his back and cupped his face with both hands, pulling him down slowly until they were nose-to-nose.

“I get it, Ryan,” she whispered. “I get it.”

He got stuck on his next breath because his heart and lungs were so busy tap-dancing that everything else went by the wayside for a second. Maybe the two of them didn’t need fist bumps or dolphin squeaks. Maybe they just needed to shut up and let that natural harmony that sprang out of nowhere do the talking, the way it always did when they got close.

A good thing Mia kissed him then, because it helped loosen the choked-up feeling in his throat. When she let him go, she wriggled her hands overhead, a signal for him to pin them down, and arched her back, raising her body against his.

He gave himself a mental shake. Right. Sex. He supposed to be fucking her, not admiring and loving and marveling at the crazy ideas she sent careening through his mind. Like having lots of Sunday mornings together and lots of weekend walks. A lifetime of them.

“Ryan,” she breathed.

He let himself admire for one more second. Then, with one smooth slide, he was in. In her; in heaven. Same thing.

“Yes!” Her voice wavered as he plunged in.

He slid good and deep and stayed rooted for a long minute, breathing her in. Then he withdrew all the way to her entrance, where the tip of his cock burned and begged and pleaded before he gave in and dipped back in.

“Ryan…” Her fingers tightened around his.

He found a rhythm, sliding in and out, faster and faster until even Mia was breathing in little pants and grunts that were a lot more caveman than elite swimmer. She hitched her feet higher until they were planted on the low ceiling so she could meet his strokes with little thrusts of her own.

“That’s so good,” she breathed, twisting her head from side to side. “So good.”

He was pretty sure that line had featured in his dreams during those lonely weeks they’d spent apart. He made that his quest: to see Mia writhing and moaning and totally undone, all because of him. And if it meant he’d also be writhing and moaning and coming totally undone, well, that was just fine, because this was one of those win-win deals where everyone came out ahead.

When she clenched her inner muscles around him, he just about howled. Just about let it all go right there, but he managed to channel it into an urgent series of sharp thrusts that built on each other until he was hammering both of them right up to the blurry edge of pleasure and pain.

Mia threw her head to the side and cried out his name, God’s name, and a whole lot of other gratifying sounds. He rode an out of control wave that built and built until there was no holding back. His balls pinched just as Mia contracted under him.

“Yes!” she cried, clutching his shoulders, squeezing inside.

He was going, going, gone, possibly making a few caveman noises himself. He shook, he spilled, he sighed, and then sank down over her, totally spent.

He huffed and puffed into her neck for an eternity, stroking her collarbone, murmuring something unintelligible in her ear, or her chest, or whatever part that was pillowing his head. It didn’t seem to matter, what with him floating next to her in a glowing neon bubble of bliss. His limbs were warm and leaden and tired in a satisfyingly boneless way. His arms felt thick, his thoughts muddled. Time slowed down along with his breath until even that didn’t matter any more. There was just her, warm and soft and snuggly, and him.

A light zephyr spun the boat in a lazy circle, and it turned gracefully on its tether. Nodding. Humming, almost. Whispering him to sleep.

There was a certain kind of magic to sleeping on a boat. A feeling of disconnecting from the rush and fuss and mess of humanity. Of seeking comfort in the lap of the earth. The water, the wind, the fresh air; it made a person feel alive.

And never so alive, despite the sore muscles, than this morning, Mia decided.

She’d slept the best kind of sleep: deep and dreamless. She might have slept forever had it not been for the gentle tap of morning light on her cheek. The sun rose and set every day, but on a boat, it felt like a miracle every time — even more so the morning after she’d nearly been killed twice.

She cracked an eye open, then let it slide shut and slowly, slowly took stock.

Ryan’s breath came in warm little puffs against her shoulder, deep and regular with the serenity of sleep. His arm was looped over her side, his hand loose at her belly, giving her space but hanging on just tight enough to keep her near.

She curled her fingers through his — slowly, carefully, so as not to wake him up — and squeezed just enough to assure the last of her fluttering nerves that everything was all right. He was all right. There’d been that terrifying moment after they’d been run down in the dinghy when she couldn’t tell if he was breathing. So she listened and counted his breaths and sent a little prayer to heaven for every one.

Too many near misses. Too much had gone wrong. It was like a malicious wind had set in, determined to sweep her away. Seeing Ryan, then running out of air, then being run down…

She should have been shaking, but the calm of morning and the calm of the man lying at her side made everything seem all right. A yawn and an irrepressible stretch took over her body, rippling through her from head to toe. Then she sighed and settled back against Ryan, stroking his hand.