Private Paradise (11 page)

Maybe he really has changed. Maybe he really
has become someone you could depend on.

She shoved the thought aside and went to help
Sam gather the last of the supplies. In addition to the already
packed emergency kits complete with flashlights, shortwave radios,
emergency food, and bottled water, Sam gathered up extra batteries
and several more bottles of drinking water.

“
We should go start the generators in
case the power goes―”

Sam cut her off. “We don't have time,” he
said as he shoved everything into a duffel bag. “We need to move to
the other side of the island where we'll be less exposed.”

Carla nodded. Though she dreaded going back
out into the wind and driving rain, she knew they would be safer on
the leeward side of the island when the main thrust of the storm
hit.

Once again, Sam reached for her hand, and she
didn't hesitate to thread her fingers through his as they stepped
out into the storm.

Carla ran, clutching Sam's hand like a
lifeline as the rain came down in heavy, blinding sheets. The wind
blew so fiercely it snatched the air from her lungs, picking up
anything and everything that wasn't nailed down. A lounge chair
someone forgot to secure went flying by her head as they sprinted
around past the pool deck, down to the path that ran along the
beach around the island.

There was a crack of a tree branch falling.
Sam grunted as it clipped him on the shoulder, but it didn't slow
him a bit, his pace sure and steady, his fingers tightly laced with
hers as they hurried down the hill that led to the beachfront
villas on the leeward side of the island.

Though the rain was still pouring down, here,
partially sheltered by the hills in the center of the island, the
wind wasn't nearly as fierce. Carla followed Sam up the steps to
the closest villa. She brushed her hair out of her face and caught
her breath as she dug in her pockets for the key card.

The door swung open and they hurried inside.
Sam put their bag of supplies on the table in the villa's front
room. After a brief foray outside to make sure all the storm
shutters were secured, he came back inside and disappeared down a
short hallway. He returned seconds later, an armload of towels and
two bathrobes draped over his arms. “We need to get out of this wet
stuff,” he said, already pulling his shirt over his head.

Carla caught the towel he threw at her,
momentarily mesmerized by the sight of his bare chest, all tanned
skin stretched over thick muscle. Her eyes followed the flex and
ripple as he brought a towel up to his head and dried his hair and
face. Then down his arms over his torso before he dropped the towel
to the floor and brought his hands to his waistband.

“
Carla?”

His voice snapped her out of her stupor.

“
You really need to go change.” His
blue eyes met hers, the heat in them bringing an answering rush to
her cheeks.

“
Right,” she mumbled, took the robe he
offered in a shaky hand and went to the bedroom to change. She
peeled off her sodden shirt and shorts but left her bra and
underwear on underneath the thick terrycloth robe.

As she reached for the doorknob of the
bedroom, she noticed her hand was shaking. Scolding herself to pull
herself together, she walked down the short hallway from the
bedroom to the main room. The villa's teak floors were smooth under
her bare feet, the air in the closed up cottage warm and still. Yet
as she reached the living room she found herself shuddering with a
bone deep cold.

“
You okay?” Sam asked. Like her, he'd
wrapped himself in a robe. Because he was so much bigger, his
barely reached past his knees and his shoulders strained at the
seams.

Carla opened her mouth to answer, but
couldn't speak past the violent chattering of her teeth. She
wrapped her arms around herself and tried futilely to stop the
shudders rippling through her body.

Sam hurried to her side and led her over to
the plush cream sofa that dominated the villa's living room. “It's
okay, you're just crashing after the adrenaline rush,” he
explained. He wrapped his arm around her and Carla instinctively
burrowed against him as she sought to absorb the warmth radiating
from his skin.

“
Wh-why c-can't I s-s-stop shaking?”
She stuttered against the bare skin of his chest.

Sam's hands ran soothingly up and down her
back. “It's totally normal. You had a big scare falling off the
boat and then ran through a hurricane. It's just your body's way of
dealing now that the rush has worn off.”

“
Y-you don't seem to be having any
problems,” she said peevishly, annoyed at her weakness in the face
of his strength. She was the boss. She was supposed to take charge,
be calm through the storm. Instead all she could do was burrow
against Sam, greedily absorbing his heat as she struggled to stop
shaking.

Sam's chest rumbled in a laugh that cut
through the cold and sent a ripple of warmth low in Carla's belly.
“I've been through my own share of scary shit. You get used to it
after a while.”

Without thinking, Carla brought her hand up
to Sam's chest and brushed it over the starburst shaped scar
exposed by the wide vee of his robe. She traced the raised knot of
flesh, thinking how it changed the landscape of the body she
remembered.

Thinking of how close he must have come to
dying.

She would probably never know what crazed
impulse compelled her to lean forward and press her lips to the
spot, but before she was even aware of what she was doing her mouth
had replaced her hand. A kiss of thanks for seeing her through the
storm, of gratitude that he'd made it through the last eleven years
alive, all rolled into one.

She heard Sam's swift inhale, felt his body
tense against hers as an electric current seemed to surround them.
Face burning, she lifted her mouth from his chest and met his eyes,
and any lingering chill in her body fled at what she saw in their
depths.

Need, raw and naked, burned in his gaze as he
reached for her.

Alarm bells sounded in her head, trying to
remind her of why giving in to Sam would be a colossal mistake,
resulting in nothing but hurt feelings at best and a broken heart
at worst. As he pressed her back against the cushions, his mouth so
close she could feel the warmth of his breath tease her lips, she
said, her voice still shaking but no longer with cold, “We can't do
this Sam. This will only cause trouble.”

“
I like trouble,” he whispered as he
closed the distance.

Any protest she might have formed disappeared
at the first contact. She didn't know if it was the stress of the
last several months, compounded in the last week of working so
close to Sam, or the primal fear the storm evoked, but she felt the
last fragile thread of her control snap at the feel of Sam's tongue
flicking against the seam of her lips.

She parted hers, sucked his tongue inside,
his spicy taste flooding her senses and making her forget all the
reasons why she needed to stop this before it went any farther. She
felt a tug at her waist and her robe fell open. She settled back
against the cushions as Sam pushed his own robe off his
shoulders.

Unlike her, Sam hadn't kept his underwear on.
Her breath caught at the sight of his naked body, sending a rush of
warmth to the pulsing flesh at the juncture of her thighs. His cock
jutted hugely from between his legs, straining up his abdomen until
it nearly touched his navel. Hair roughened, heavily muscled thighs
parted hers as he settled over her.

She gasped at the first brush of his cock
against the smooth skin of her stomach. He took her mouth with a
groan, kissing her slow and deep until she was arching her hips and
rubbing herself against him like a cat in heat.

“
Do you have any idea,” Sam said as he
nipped and sucked his way down her throat, “how bad I've wanted to
do this from the first second I saw you again?”

Carla's breath caught on a moan as he tugged
a satin cup of her bra aside to reveal a breast. He circled her
nipple with his tongue, took it between his lips to suck her hard.
“All week,” he muttered against the soft fullness, “with you
prancing around in your little dresses,” he yanked the other side
of her bra down and gave her other breast a firm squeeze. “Your
perfect tits spilling over the top,” he groaned.

He sucked and tongued at her nipples as her
hands coursed up and down the smooth hard lines of his back. She
could feel his cock, hard and pulsing against her inner thigh, and
felt an answering pulse as another rush of moisture drenched the
thin silk of her panties.

“
Teasing me with your short skirts,” he
whispered. She shivered as his big, callused palm slid up and down
the outside of her thigh. He leaned up again to deliver another one
of those soul shattering kisses. “All I could think about was
sliding my hand up to see if you feel as good as I
remember.”

His hand slid between her thighs to cup her
through the thin silk of her panties. He slipped his fingers
inside, delving into folds gone slick with desire. “Oh, Jesus,
you're so wet,” he murmured against her lips. “I always loved how
wet you got.”

Carla felt something tug at her heart at the
memory of what they'd once shared...and how it had ended. She
shoved it aside. What was happening here had nothing to do with the
past. It was all about scratching an itch, releasing the tension,
and moving on with no regrets.

###

Sam pressed his fingers into the slick folds
of Carla's pussy, silently marveling at the feeling of touching,
tasting her, being with her again after all these years. He sucked
her tongue into his mouth as he stroked her clit. Oh, God, he'd
forgotten how much he loved the little sounds she made in the back
of her throat when she got turned on. They sent a spark of heat
straight to his dick and he felt his skin stretch even tighter over
his already engorged flesh.

He wanted to rip off her panties, spread her
legs wide and shove himself deep and hard inside her, but he held a
tight rein on the need pounding through him. He needed to go slow,
take his time to remind her of all the pleasure he could give her,
how good he could make her feel.

Do whatever he could to chase away the memory
of how he'd lashed out at her in a rush of fear and self doubt,
even when she was the last person on earth he'd ever meant to
hurt.

He knew he was catching her in a moment of
weakness, her guard eroded by her fear and the storm.

He didn't care. A crack had finally appeared
in her armor, and he wasn't above taking advantage of the situation
to get her to break through the wall she'd built to keep him out.
He would use the undeniable chemistry between them to chip away at
her defenses until she broke down and gave him a chance to prove
that he'd grown into a man who was actually worthy of her love.

A brilliant plan, but only if he kept his own
raging desire under control. He bit back a groan as his dick
stroked against the smooth skin of her stomach, he backed away,
kissing his way down her neck, down her chest, pausing to suck and
lick her nipples. He groaned as he took her into his mouth again,
the sweet taste, the scent of her skin flooding his senses.

He continued down, wet, sucking kisses down
her stomach, sliding off the couch until he was kneeling in front
of it. He took her legs and scooted her until she sat upright
against the cushions. “Take off your bra,” he said, and as she
obeyed with trembling hands, he hooked his own shaking fingers in
the waistband of her panties.

He kept his eyes glued on her face as he
dragged the scrap of silk and lace down her smooth thighs and
calves. She was so damn beautiful, he thought, feeling that
familiar tightness in his throat he got every time he looked at
her.

Her cheeks were flushed, her dark eyes
burning with need, her mouth plump and red from his kisses. With
her dark hair spilling in damp waves over her tanned shoulders and
full breasts she was like sex incarnate, a luscious fruit, ripe and
ready for the taking.

“
God you are so fucking beautiful you
make my chest hurt,” he murmured as he hooked first one, then her
other knee over his shoulders.

Talk about luscious... with her legs spread
to accommodate the span of his chest, she was totally exposed to
his gaze. He'd felt her, tasted her, dozens of times in the past,
but in all the times they'd messed around it had always been under
the cover of darkness.

Now, he felt his mouth water as he gazed at
the hot sweetness between Carla's thighs. Completely smooth except
for a neat patch of curls at the top of her slit. Pink, perfect,
glistening with the evidence of her need. Sam felt his balls pull
tight against his body as another surge of lust coursed through
him, and he suddenly felt like he might actually die if he went
another second without tasting her.

He parted her with a sweep of his thumbs and
took her into his mouth, the sweet, salty taste of her made the
blood roar in his brain as her soft, “ooh” of satisfaction went
straight to his core. “God, you taste even better than I remember,”
he murmured as he circled her clit with his tongue. Slow, firm
strokes, mixed in with soft sucks to get her going.

Sam remembered everything Carla liked.

He moved lower to dip his tongue inside,
groaning at the surge of moisture that bathed his tongue. “Remember
how embarrassed you were the first time I ever did this?” He'd
worked her three nights in a row, pleading, persuading, convincing
her that while getting her off with his fingers while he sucked her
tits got the job done, she wouldn't know the meaning of pleasure
until she let him go down on her.