Love Me Twice (2 page)

Drew’s fingers found her clit. She couldn’t suppress the moan that rose from her throat to blanket them in a sensual haze. Time stood still. Her nerves stretched tighter than a trip wire. Sean’s fingers dug into her hip, grounding her, as Drew’s finger flicked her swollen nub. Pleasure exploded within. Her inner muscles clenched around her lover’s shafts. A scream rose in her throat as she went into the free fall that would take her to that place where only love existed. Sean pulled her head down and swallowed her cry of ecstasy. His lips devoured hers. She sensed the tension in his body as he too took the dive. A moment later, Drew followed them.

 The explosion stunned her. Drew left her first, pulling out so quickly she thought a part of her soul had been ripped away, and then Sean lifted her to her feet, gaining his almost as quickly. Only then did she realize the explosion had been more than internal. Gunfire erupted, came nearer with each volley. Sean and Drew, working as one, pushed her naked form behind them as the door burst open. Someone produced a sweat stained T-shirt to cover her. They paused long enough for her to don it, and then they were off.

The next hour went by in a blur of running, ducking, and gunfire as the contingent of United States Marines led them from the clutches of death, into a hell they couldn’t yet imagine.

Five years later
. . .

Celeste suppressed the moan that rose unbidden to her lips. Fingertips, strong and gentle massaged her scalp in a slow, sensuous rhythm, coaxing her taut body to release its tight grip on the hectic world she’d left behind. She swallowed the moan, and let the pent-up tension slip away on a silent sigh.

  She drew warm perfumed air into her lungs. The exotic, sweet scent made her think of a tropical paradise, somewhat at odds with the Greek temple motif of the
Lothario’s s
pa. Covered with two thin, soft cotton strips that barely concealed her most private parts, she should have been self-conscious, if not cold. She idly wondered if there had been something in the wine she’d been given when she arrived at the spa. It wasn’t her nature to allow others to touch her. She wasn’t the touchy-feely type, not by a long shot.

Soft music, flutes perhaps, soothed hypnotically. If she was a suspicious person, and she was, she’d think it was deliberate. Amazingly, she didn’t care. So what if she’d been drugged and/or hypnotized? As long as the talented fingertips massaging her scalp, and now her feet, continued, she couldn’t care less. Even that shocking realization couldn’t penetrate the sensual haze that enveloped her.

Since setting foot on the
Lothario
less than four hours ago, Celeste had given little thought to the reason she was there. She’d been warned about the ship, and its erotic theme, but nothing she’d been told came close to preparing her for the reality. Within the first hour, she’d witnessed public sexual acts that would earn you a night in jail in any city in the United States, and a few that would have raised eyebrows in Amsterdam.

The ship’s appointments were surprisingly luxurious, and the Greek Mythology decor was done with an eye for detail. Someone had done their research, and then spared no expense to bring it to life. The spa was no exception. Everything, including the white towels with their exquisitely embroidered edges, fit the theme.

An attendant replaced the cooling rocks on Celeste’s upturned palms with new, warm ones. At first, she’d smirked at the hoity-toity spa therapy. Then soft hands had stroked her arms and wrists, and one by one, her clenched fingers had unfurled. After the most erotic hand massage she’d ever had—admittedly, the first and only hand massage she’d ever had— a smooth pebble had been placed on each open palm. Even though she’d wanted to close her fist around the hard object, its heat had sapped her strength until she lay exposed and vulnerable, and totally without a care for her safety. A first.

She vowed to find the underlying cause of this phenomenon, but later, much, much later. Time ceased to exist. Celeste succumbed to the sensual onslaught, drifting, floating, as if in a sensory deprivation tank, but instead of deprivation, sensations bombarded her body. So much so, her mind shut down in order to process the incoming stimuli, hypnotic that it was. She hadn’t been this close to subspace in years. Not since. . . . She ruthlessly stifled that train of thought.

She’d become accustomed to the fingers roaming over her body, applying pressure in the most delicious places, releasing years of tension, and leaving her muscles nothing more than putty in their wake. She’d need a litter to get back to her cabin, but couldn’t find the energy to care about that, either. Later. She could figure it out later.

It took her brain a few seconds to register the change. What kind of drug could make it seem so real? How did the drug reach into her deepest, most sheltered memories, and dredge up the exact feel of his fingers on her skin? And how did that memory become so alive that she could feel his heat tracing the pulse at her wrist, along the faint blue vein on the soft underside of her arm to her shoulder? The point of heat didn’t stop there. Soft as a whisper, it continued along her collarbone to the small indentations at the base of her throat, and then it dipped lower, and lower, until it slipped beneath the strip of fabric draped over her breasts.

Her nipples hardened as the terrycloth scraped across them. Celeste clawed her way up from the outer edge of subspace. This was no dream, no drug induced hallucination. This was real. She’d know that fingertip anywhere. Sean.

Sean Callahan. The only man she’d ever considered giving up her career for, and the only man capable of making her body want. Everything.

Sean was here. Now.

Cazzo!

It took every bit of control she could muster to remain calm. Fully aware now, she noted the massage had ceased. That could only mean one thing. She was alone with Sean Callahan. Her brain fired on all cylinders. She should have known. Should have anticipated he would be here, after all, his brother Ryan owned the ship. Why hadn’t she checked before she agreed to this ridiculous mission?

Had she hoped he would be here? Of course not. The last she’d heard, Sean had a successful business, providing high-end security for some of the world’s richest people. Not necessarily the most visible people. If you had enough money, you could buy invisibility.

So why was she lying here letting Sean look his fill, and she almost choked on her own spit as Sean tweaked one nipple and sent a flash of red hot need to her vagina—letting  him touch her? Oh God. His big palm curved around her breast and rolled her ample bosom, testing, before moving to the other one and repeating the process. He’d always been a breast man. If he was in the mood, he could amuse himself for a long time with a pair of breasts. He’d driven her mad more times than she could count, driven her to beg.

 
Mère de Dieu.
Mother of God, she was in trouble.

Her fingers curved over the smooth rocks weighting her palms. She should brain him with them. How dare he take liberties with her body? She’d revoked his rights to her person years ago. Her brain knew it, but her body seemed to have forgotten. Her nipples ached for his lost touch, and the smell her own arousal mingled with the heavy floral scent permeating the room.

Sean drew a hot line, the width of a single blunt fingertip, between her breasts, down her sternum. The fevered finger dipped into the concave recess of her navel, mimicked another, more intimate act, before moving on. Lower.

Breathe.

Oh what that man could do with just one finger. It ought to be illegal. Probably was in some states.

His touch was so light he probably wasn’t even leaving a trail of DNA behind. No evidence. Nothing to convict him of the crime. Thanks to the satin blindfold, she couldn’t even claim to be an eyewitness, but her body knew.
The traitorous bitch.

The last bit of cloth protecting her modesty slid away. No need to beg. Sean touched her. There. Firm, yet almost not at all. Her bitch of a body reacted. Her hips rose, forcing the small of her back flat against the table.
Basta cosi! That’s enough!

“Get. Your. Hands. Off. Of. Me.” She forced the words past clenched teeth like bullets through a bent gun barrel. They didn’t want to go, but had no choice in the matter.

“Hello, Celeste.” The single digit remained on her clit. “Long time, no see.”

The deep rumble of his voice, like a long ago caress, sent a fireball of arousal to the nerve endings beneath his fingertip. She fought the instantaneous slide toward subspace. After all these years, that’s all it took. One touch, a few spoken words, and her body submitted.

But not this time. Not now. She was over that, over him.

Celeste curled her fingers around the smooth pebbles in her open palms. She hated that her body betrayed her in every way, including her anger.

 “Get out, Sean.”

He pried her fingers open, took the cooled pebble from one hand and replaced it with a warmed one, and closed her fingers around it.

“I’ll be waiting.”

Without any sensory data to support the knowledge, she knew he was gone.

“
Va t'empaler encule
!” The brave words tumbled from her lips as she rose to a sitting position. “Go fuck yourself, Sean.” Stones clattered to the tiled floor, taking with them any hope of returning to the peace she’d found before Sean arrived. She hooked a thumb under the spa mask and sent it flying. She opened her left hand and studied the stone there. With infinite patience, she twisted her wrist and watched the stone slide off her hand to join the others on the floor.

Celeste took a deep breath and tightened her grip on the stone in her right hand. One by one, she peeled her fingers away until the rock lay flat on her open palm. Black writing on the white pebble stared back at her. His cabin number. As usual, Sean Callahan commanded. She closed her fingers over the solid mass, and with a string of curses a sailor would be proud of, she drew her arm back and threw the rock as hard as she could. It hit the door with a satisfying thud. “Damn you, Sean Callahan.”

* * * * *

She wasn’t here to see him. If she was, she would have come directly to him as soon as she set foot onboard the
Lothario
. That left only two options. She was here to see Drew, or she was on vacation.

He knew she hadn’t contacted Drew since she’d been onboard. That left vacation, an option he wasn’t ready to buy into.

It wasn’t possible to avoid her for an entire week, so confronting her had been necessary. Sean had bided his time, watched and waited for the right opportunity. When she’d checked in at the spa, he knew the time was right. He would confront her, but on his terms, not hers.

What he hadn’t counted on was the tsunami of feelings when he touched her. Hell, he hadn’t planned to touch her. He flexed his fingers. He wouldn’t be surprised if his fingertip was singed, she’d been so damned hot. Her skin was still as smooth as satin, and for brief second, she’d slipped under his control. But, she’d had years to build walls again, and she’d fought her body’s natural inclination.

He’d believed the years since he’d seen her had tempered the need to touch her. He knew different now. Not an eff-ing thing had changed.

Sean grabbed a bottle of orange juice from the refrigerator in his brother’s private kitchen, and kicked the appliance door shut with one foot. He unscrewed the plastic lid and tossed it on the counter, tilting the bottle to his lips. He took a long sip as he crossed to the balcony. With his free hand, he slid his sunglasses from the top of his head to shade his eyes. The warm Caribbean sun did nothing to improve his mood. Three months on the
Lothario
, and he still wasn’t used to the pitch and roll of the monster machine beneath his feet.

And now, this. Celeste.

He dropped into one of the plush chaises and closed his eyes. He should tell Drew she was onboard. But first, he wanted to hear it from her, why she was here? He took another long pull from the bottle and let it swing over the arm of the chair, one long finger crooked in the neck of the bottle. The same finger. The one he’d touched her with.

Damn it all to hell.

* * * * *

Celeste planted her feet in front of Sean’s cabin door. For the hundredth time since she’d come aboard, she cursed the wardrobe provided by the cruise ship. Whose bright idea was it anyway to insist passengers wear what was provided, or nothing at all? As far as she could tell, there wasn’t much difference. She tugged at the wrap, a scrap of white terrycloth trimmed with turquoise satin. If she pulled it low enough to cover what was supposed to be covered below, then things that were supposed to be covered higher up were exposed. Since Sean was a breast man, she pulled the fabric scrap as high as she dared.