All Hands Below (4 page)

A bone-deep weakness settled in her legs. Not sure she could stand, she closed her eyes, lost in a haze of pleasure. It had been ages, too long, since she’d felt like this, and she welcomed this furious awakening of her senses.

As his mouth and hands cleaned up every drop of juice from her pussy and wrung every pleasured sound from her throat, she clutched the rails hard while the most luscious sensations she’d ever known stormed through her body.

Chapter Three

Day 2

1222 hours

Grrring! Grrrang! Grrrong!

Evangeline snuggled into her pillow and ignored the noise.

Bang, bang, bang!

She lifted her head, looked around, patted the blankets, and blinked. Where was the glassy blue sea? The moonlight? Her lover?

The patterned ceiling above her bed looked nothing like the moonglow that had steeped her in fantasy. And that racket!

She squinted at the time on her wristwatch—except she hadn’t brought a watch with her. This trip had been about discovery and dreams, and a watch had no place in them.

Sunlight pierced through her balcony doors and ushered in morning-after reality.

Moisture coated her thighs. Her pussy throbbed with a longing beat for the muscle that had rubbed so slickly, so expertly, against it. Her tongue, laced with the taste of mint, confirmed her still sleepy wanderings. She’d been orally ravished by a man skilled in lovemaking.

The salute of Liam Rossi’s kisses lingered on her lips. He kissed as wonderfully there as he did everywhere else. She sighed. Satisfaction weighted her eyelids, and her cheeks reddened with each explicit memory her mind summoned.

She had not slept that deeply in a long time. It felt good to know a full night’s rest for a change, instead of the hours she typically spent tossing and turning.

If his tongue was the cure for the years of sleep deprivation after her husband’s death, how was she going to manage without his potent form of sleep aid? The man was…unsettling.

More disturbing, he’d also refused to finish what he’d started.

Evangeline—1.

Sexy engineer—?

He’d made her come, noisily, while she’d taken her precious rules and tossed them over the rails, happy to let them sink to the bottom of the sea.

Knowing he wasn’t permitted in her stateroom, she’d begged him to take her back to his. But he’d tugged her panties back up, draped her dress down over her shuddering thighs and, without any kind of warning or reason, he denied her.

“Go back to your stateroom, Evangeline,” he’d growled. “Now.”

“
What?
Come with me, please. Or-Or take me to your cabin if you can’t come to mine. I want more, Liam!
”
she’d pretty much shrieked.

He’d silenced her with a hard kiss, marched her to the nearest elevator, and stuffed her inside.

“Liam?” She didn’t know what to think. Had she done something to turn him off? Did she…not taste quite like the honey he’d anticipated? Humiliation burned in her cheeks.

The fierce, lingering kiss he’d given her told her otherwise. The way he’d lapped up her juices… Yet, what man had the strength to pleasure a woman and not want to put his cock where his mouth had been and finish the job?

She sighed. For whatever reason, he’d said “
no
.” Best not to dwell on the whys. It still hurt and confused her, though.

Bastard.

She gulped in a stabilizing breath and, while she had no time to overthink matters, her heart softened a little. He wasn’t a bastard. A tease maybe…she smiled whimsically.

Shake it off, Evie!

Today? Today was a different story. She had to put herself
out
there. He’d asked for a taste, taken a generous sample, blew her mind in the process, then just—she gulped—shrugged her off.

Be grateful his cock didn’t drop anchor in your pussy. It would have felt unbelievably good, lifted your hopes, made your heart spin, only to have him knock you down anyway.

Thank goodness for small favors, she thought wryly. Oh well. She made a mental note to thank him, if seeing him didn’t set her off first.

No time like the present to move forward.
Roses and forever, roses and forever…

She chanted the words in the shower while listening to the ruckus coming from a nearby stateroom, but the clatter drowned out her ability to distance her mind from last night’s events.

And what kind of masochist was she that his rejection made her body crave what he didn’t give her—his dick? The soap slipped from her hands. Her mind dizzily recalled how lean and long his cock felt, rubbing against her thighs.

Far from relaxed after her shower, Evangeline couldn’t hold her mascara wand still long enough to give her lashes a swipe. The clatter next door made her clumsy, and dwelling on the outcome of her vixenish behavior kept a constant stream of wetness soaking her panties.

“This racket,” she stuffed the wand back into its tube and flung it down on the vanity, “is going to do me in!”

She threw on her robe and stalked out to the passageway. It didn’t take long to isolate the stateroom generating all the noise. She banged on the door. The grinding stopped. Moments later the door swung open.

Dread spread across her chest when she recognized Mr. Delicious stepping into view.

“Good morning.” Hot, handsome Liam Rossi raised his eyebrows. He leaned a muscle-bound shoulder against the doorframe and glanced at the watch on his wrist. “Pardon me. I mean…good afternoon.”

Evangeline clutched at the opening of her robe, rolled the fabric in her grip, and realized she hadn’t put on her robe.

She’d thrown on a thigh-length, cornflower-blue, see-through
thingy
with wisps of skinny satin ribbons that tied around her waist. Those ribbons merely played let’s-pretend-to-cover-the-matching-lace-panty-shorts and push-up bra she wore.

His gaze lowered with interest at the treats peeking back at him.

“Hi Liam.” Her gaze zoned in on his mouth. Damn. Why did he have to be so charismatic? Her breath stilled against the shock waves vibrating throughout her thighs, and greeting the nerve endings in her clit with sexy little booms.

“Miss Spencer,” he murmured. “What can I do for you?”

As her body wasn’t in a thankful or forgiving mood at the moment, she gave him a deadly smile. “Absolutely nothing, Mr. Rossi.” She paused for effect, then added, “You’re being very noisy in there. People are trying to sleep.”

A skeptical brow crawled up his forehead. “At half past noon?”

Her cheeks burned hot.
Crap.
Was it really that late?

“Please accept my apologies. The stateroom attendant thought you’d vacated your room. Most of your fellow passengers went ashore, and my work here was only going to take an hour at most.”

Evangeline frowned. “Where are we?”

“Key West. You didn’t hear the captain announce it over the PA system this morning?”

“I—er, must have been asleep.”

“Did you sleep well?” he asked silkily.

She reached up to flick her hair back over her shoulders, aware of how the movement lifted her breasts and made them bounce.
See them and weep, Liam. You had your chance.

“Oh yes. Very well, indeed,” Evangeline said. “And how about you, Mr. Rossi? Did your hand keep you company last night?”

His mouth flattened against her chilly stare. “Evie, about last night—”

“Oh, please! Just spare me, and we’ll call it good.” She scrunched the flaps of her robe tighter about her body, feeling a lash of satisfaction in the way her words stamped his cheeks with color. “If you’d just stop hammering and buzz-sawing or whatever it is you’re doing, I can go about what is left of my morning.”

His look was wry. “Don’t you mean afternoon?”

“Yes. That.” She turned and stalked back to her stateroom, feeling his molten gaze lock on the swing of her ass.

She reached the doors to her suite without tripping, turned the handle, and groaned. She’d left her card key inside. What to do? What to do?
And Maisy has been waiting for me since noon!
“Dammit.”

“I’ll get your room steward to let you in.”

She looked at him and asked, “Don’t
you
have a master key or something?”

“I do, but that would take away the joy of watching you stand out here and wait.”

“Will you please just unlock my door?” she sputtered, even as she couldn’t help but be drawn to him.

Okay, so his rejection shot her morale to the bottom of the barrel, but he surely had his reasons. Reasons she probably didn’t want to know like…er, what if her taste turned him off? That would be devastating.

“Very well.”

He took his time, sticking the sea pass that doubled as a room key in its slot upside-down, inside and out, backward, and then forward.

“I don’t understand.” He cast her mock-confused looks in between scorching appraisals of her legs, body, and face. “Why is this key not working? Ah! Success. Here you go,” he said.

He held her door open. She strode into her stateroom with two sets of cheeks raging pink for having been so thoroughly plundered by a pair of masculine green eyes.

****

1315 hours

Liam’s phone rang as he stepped out of a cold shower.

He strode into his air-conditioned quarters, his body still soaking wet, to answer the call. Maybe the icy wave of AC hitting his skin could wipe that little husband-hunter out of his head, too, he hoped.

Fail.

His body shivered with excitement just thinking about her, while his brain bucked against his fixation on her. He felt like a grade-school boy crushing on his first love.

Roses and forever. Seriously?

Too bad. Hooked and crooked and a wedding band was the last thing he wanted. If only he could forget her taste. Maybe it would stop him from craving the texture of her skin, the sound of her voice, the taste of her, like honeyed silk.

Fuck yes, he wanted more, just…with boundaries. She was exactly the type who would stick her sexy toes in and muddle up the lines.

Tasting her rain-damp body under a tropical moon wasn’t something he’d predicted. But with her, anything was possible.

It made her dangerous, and it was all he could do not to risk everything he’d worked for. He’d ached to bend her over the nearest chair and ram his cock inside her pussy in a grinding rhythm guaranteed to make her forget about needing anyone else for the rest of the cruise!

He picked up the phone and paused to clear his throat, then struggled to remember his own damn name while at it. “This is Liam.”

“Captain requests your presence in the chief’s lounge,” said one of the junior officers, snapping him briefly from his thoughts as he toweled himself dry.

“I’ll be right up.”

If and when he was ready for marriage and kids, well… He had certain requirements in mind for his wife. For the mother of his children. Christmas Beauty was anything but wife material. A fling? Hell yes. Wife and mother material?
Unnk.

She didn’t wear a watch, and she liked to sleep in. Not crimes by any means, but she also took risks. Like traveling alone without friends or family to keep an eye on her, or to spend time with. No kids tagging along.

Was she a woman of leisure? Did she even have family? Friends? The woman he married would need a supportive network of friends and family. How else would she manage those long months when he’d have to be at sea?

He frowned. His mind churned.
Stop this line of thinking, Rossi.
She’d be gone in a week, this woman who was nothing more than a beautiful stranger. One who showed no fear of being in low-lit and isolated areas on board ship. One who showed no fear of strangers—Christ on a cracker!

He was no better. He’d lusted after and flirted with her. With disaster. What the hell was
he
thinking?

Either she was naïve—or fearless. He wasn’t sure which. One thing he did know—she knew which buttons to push to turn his motor on. All she had to do was look at him with those lustrous blue eyes, give him that rosy-lipped frown, and he’d forget himself. Forget his place. Forget who he was and all he’d worked for.

Everything about her spelled trouble in caps, something Liam did not need on this cruise.

So why was he having such a hard time driving her face and her taste out of his mind? He’d wanted nothing more than to whisk her back to his cabin and sink his cock into her core. To make love to her as long as he wanted and in as many ways possible.

He’d picked a fine time to realize that taking her to bed would let her under his skin, too, as she pleaded with him to take her to his stateroom. He could have, especially with ship’s security due for deck sweeps any second. Thank God, he hadn’t.

He’d worked too hard for the prize that lay ahead. Well aware this woman could mess with him in a major way had launched warning torpedoes straight to his conscience. He’d already thrown caution overboard by burying his face in her succulence as her thighs writhed against his jaw.

She’d taken what he’d offered—what he’d wanted to give. It was enough.

Her savory sweetness tingled across his tongue. Dear God, it had to be enough.

****

Captain Rudolph waved absently in the direction of a pile of papers. “A purse was liberated from its owner in Key West, Liam. Staff managers have been advised and are asked to keep their eyes and ears open. We’ve also beefed up security as we’re sailing full. Let’s see if we can’t test the Sea Sapphire’s advanced security technology, eh?”

“Ah, yes. The automated security screening system, or ASSS for short.” Liam’s dry observation elicited a chuckle from the captain.Liam scanned the reports, aware that the system digitally photographed passengers as they boarded the ship, ate, swam, danced—then migrated those images to a visual database for retrieval.