Satisfaction Guaranteed (12 page)

And he was big. At least six feet four, with a well-muscled proportionate build. He'd filled the little conference room where they met, making the space around her seem too small. The height difference between them was noticeable, even sitting. His shoulders were easily twice as broad as hers. He lounged beside her, dropped her a wink, and said, "Arrrrr," in his best pirate voice.

Sabrina had burst into laughter and relaxed. She'd known then she didn't need to meet any of the other candidates on her match list. Kane might have been larger than she'd expected, but he didn't use his size to intimidate, and he had a playful sense of humor.

They'd arranged the date. She'd agreed to come to him this morning, board his yacht, and then, well, probably spend a lot of time in his cabin. Who knew what a pirate would demand of her?

She felt warm in spite of the winter chill as she imagined the possibilities. Maybe he'd start with finding out if she'd met his condition. In fact, she'd gone one step further. She felt her inner muscles tighten in anticipation and knew that she'd done the right thing for herself, no matter how silly it might be.

She felt alive. Excited. The frustration she'd been fighting for months had evaporated as soon as she held the Capture Agency's brochure in her hand. She'd known it was what she needed to do. After the Richard fiasco, she'd given up on finding what she wanted in a relationship. She wasn't about to set herself up for that kind of rejection again. The agency offered her another option—everything she wanted with no emotional risk.

It was a little unorthodox, true. But she'd always known she was a little bit different. One of these things is not like the others, she thought, looking at the group of ferry passengers. Students and businesspeople, some with books, some working on laptops, some using their BlackBerrys as they maximized their time during the half-hour ferry crossing.

Maybe she wasn't cut out for the traditional happily ever after of life in the suburbs playing soccer mom, but she could be a pirate's captive for a day. Kane's captive.

A shudder went through the ferry as it docked. Sabrina headed toward the stairs, joined the line of foot passengers, and disembarked.

"Permission to come aboard."

Kane Woods heard the pert voice and smiled to himself. So, she hadn't changed her mind. Sabrina was here.

It wasn't hard to picture her waiting on the dock. She'd
made a vivid impression on his memory with her stylish fringe of dark hair that just brushed the curve of her shoulders, gamine features, and doe eyes that had lit several times with mischief while they'd talked.

Her kissable bow of a mouth had captivated him. And while she was slender and petite, even her conservative business attire couldn't hide the fact that she curved sweetly in all the right places. A little pocket Venus. And today this treasure was his for the taking.

After a lifetime of denial, he was about to experience his ultimate sexual fantasy, and he owed it all to his agent and an unusual dating agency.

"You're holding back, Kane," Maddie had informed him after he'd turned in his last book. "Your books are solid, but writing at this level, you'll stay in midlist. You'll never break out as long as you're keeping a leash on your passion. If you want to take your career to the next level, you have to let loose. Do the thing you've never let yourself do but always wanted to. Stop holding back in life, and you'll stop holding back in your work."

Maddie was right. He knew she was right. But by the time he'd reached puberty with the typical teenage hormonal overload, he was already too tall, too big, too intimidating. He'd had to be so careful just to get a girl to talk to him, forget anything else. In college, he'd gained enough experience to know what he wanted sexually. He'd also known that it was off-limits. If he'd told any of his dates his true desires, they would have run screaming. So he'd harnessed his sex drive and practiced restraint his entire adult life. Now that habit of rigid self-control was interfering with his goals.

He was more than ready to unleash his desires on a
willing woman. But where could he find one who wanted to be made passion's captive, who wouldn't be unnerved by his size and superior strength, who wanted the fantasy as much as he did? He'd also needed a woman who wouldn't expect commitment or emotional entanglement. He could hardly use a woman he was dating for research. But an anonymous fling who'd never know, let alone be hurt by his motives? That would fit the bill.

Some determined Web searching and investigation had uncovered the Capture Agency. The solution he needed and the experience he craved. Anticipation shot through him at the thought of acting out his every forbidden desire on the woman who was waiting for him now.

Kane swung his feet off the bench they'd been resting on and went to greet Sabrina. She had her hands buried in the pockets of a wool coat that made her look even smaller than he remembered, and he felt a momentary twinge of misgiving. She looked young and defenseless, in need of protection. Why wasn't somebody protecting her from the big bad wolf?

He held out his hand, and she slid hers into his without hesitating. He gripped her fingers and steadied her as she joined him on the deck.

"Hello, Kane. May I say you're looking very able." She grinned at him, full of mischief and excitement, and he felt old and debauched just looking at her.

"I should send you home," he said, staring down at her. She wasn't wearing any makeup today, and in the sunlight she looked impossibly young and vulnerable. She didn't even come up to his shoulder. Use this woman for sexual excess and experimentation? What the hell had he been thinking?

"But I met your requirement." She batted her eyelashes at him. "Want to check?"

He should. He should show her what she was in for, what he wanted from her, and then watch her run away. Let her find out what it was going to be like to have his hands on her now, while she was free to change her mind and leave.

Kane let go of her hand to unbutton her coat, starting from the top. Nothing but bare skin waited for him underneath it, and he almost gaped in disbelief as he continued to open buttons down to her waist. At least he knew she'd worn pants, he could see blue denim covering her from the knees down.

"I said no underwear," he said, his voice coming out like a low growl. "I didn't say freeze your ass off in the middle of winter."

"My ass is fine." She smiled up at him, and he wondered how she could look so damn happy to be in the clutches of a stranger who intended to make her his captive to passion. Did she have any idea what he wanted to do to her? She was tiny and fragile, and he felt like a huge brute with his hand on the button of her pants.

More so because he wanted to undo those jeans and make certain she really wasn't wearing any underwear. The thought of looking at her and touching her like that made him grind his teeth. "You're too young to be doing something like this," Kane informed her.

Her bow mouth drew down in a stubborn line. "Am not." Then she switched tactics and opened the coat, flashing him with twin peaks of naked perfection, her pink
nipples drawn into hard little buttons from the cold air. "Do these look underage to you?"

"No," Kane was forced to admit. "You're still just a kitten. What are you, twenty?"

"Twenty-nine, as you know perfectly well. And what are you, the Ancient Mariner?" She rolled her eyes at him and planted her hand on his crotch before he could guess her intention. Her hand felt far too good on him, and his reaction showed it. She gave him a triumphant look and slid her palm up and down his hard shaft. "Either you're not too old for this or you've got Viagra."

"Mouthy woman." He shook his head at her.

"The better to kiss you with." She wiggled her eyebrows at him and leaned forward to add, "The better to suck this very hard cock with, too."

"Jesus."

"Tell me you don't want to find out what my mouth wrapped around you would feel like," Sabrina said.

"You are determined to go through with this, aren't you?" Kane asked her.

"Yes, and I'm not going to let you get cold feet." She moved closer to him. Her coat hid her from view from anybody but him, and the open sides of it hid his hand on her button, her hand on his crotch. "Don't you want to see if I'm wearing anything under these pants, Kane?"

"I don't have cold feet." He scowled down at her. "I'm trying to be a gentleman now, because once I have you naked I can't promise I'll be capable of it. And then what will you do, kitten?"

"Enjoy myself." She gave him a wide, feline smile and
wiggled her hips seductively. "You're not too old for me, Kane. You're forty-two, which is a long ways from over the hill. And I appreciate the gentlemanly streak, but I don't need it. Now, are you going to answer my question?"

"Yes." Kane undid the button, feeling doomed. She wasn't wearing any panties. He would be willing to bet his boat on it. "I want to find out what's inside your jeans."

"Please do." She shifted her stance so that her feet were slightly apart, making herself accessible to him as he opened her pants and slid his hand inside. Nothing but smooth, bare skin greeted him. His fingertips brushed a tiny landing strip of carefully trimmed pubic hair and slid lower to find her sex completely hairless, bare, slick, and ready for his touch.

"Hell." He stared at her, and she looked back in brazen interest, her lids lowering slightly in pure seduction. She traced the tip of her tongue along the curve of her lower lip, and Kane wanted to take her right there. Instead, he cupped his hand over her bare sex inside her pants and considered his options.

"No underwear, Kane." Her voice was low and throaty. "Just like you demanded. I'm here for you, and you can feel how willing I am. I even got a Brazilian wax for the occasion. Why are you being stubborn and trying to ruin everything?"

"You didn't look so young in that office." He stroked a fingertip along her soft, slick folds. "You look young now. Small and helpless." And her sex was totally bare. His cock throbbed just thinking about that. Waxed smooth. Was she trying to make him insane?

"Isn't that what you wanted?" She tilted her pelvis, making his fingertip press lightly into her. "A helpless captive for the pirate in you to carry off and ravish?"

"I don't want to hurt you."

She tipped her head to one side, considering him. "If I were ten years older, six inches taller, and weighed another thirty pounds, I bet we'd still be having this conversation. I bet you've held back all your life, convinced no woman could take everything you wanted to unleash, because you're big and strong and you want to do such very politically incorrect things in bed."

Sabrina placed her hand over his, between her legs, pressing him into her. "I want you to do those things to me, Kane. I'm stronger than I look. I promise you I won't break. And I can take a little pain. If you don't believe me, try waxing
your
privates."

She was right about the first part. Was she right about the rest? Kane slid his hand out of her pants, taking his time about it and giving her sex a lingering stroke in the process, then gripped the lapels of her coat in each hand, pulling it shut and protecting her from the cold air. "Why don't you come down into the galley, have a cup of hot cocoa, and we'll talk about it."

She snorted. "I'm old enough to drink, grandpa."

"If I'm going to take advantage of you, you're going to be sober while I do it." Kane kissed the tip of her nose because she charmed him and led her below by his grip on her coat.

He settled her on the seat he'd abandoned when she came aboard and turned to the kettle on the little stove. Steam came from the tip of the spout. The water was hot enough. As Kane pulled out two mugs and two packets of hot cocoa, he tried not to think about anything but the task at hand. When he turned back to her, he found Sabrina sitting with
her coat still on but hanging open, one breast fully exposed to him. He could see a seemingly endless expanse of bare skin from her throat to her belly. He curled his hands around the mugs to keep himself from putting them on her and then set her cup in front of her. "Here."

"Thank you." She took a sip and then stretched like the kitten he'd called her. "Pretty warm in here." She shrugged off her coat and sat there, naked to the waist, her jeans still unfastened, sipping her cocoa in blithe unconcern.

"Sabrina."

"Hmm?" She blinked up at him, all innocence.

"You won't distract me by flashing skin at me."

"Damn." She pouted. "I was hoping you'd forget about talking, fall on me, and rip my pants off all the way."

"Bad girl." He shook his head and sat across from her, stretching out his long legs. They bumped into hers, and she took the opportunity to insinuate one leg between his.

"Very." She gave him a wide-eyed look. "What happens to bad little girls on this boat?"

"Hard to say. You're the first."

"You haven't had any women here?" Her brows shot up. "Why not?"

"I didn't say no women."

"Ah." She nodded. "So it's bad girls you draw the line at."

He took a sip from his own mug before he answered her. "Never said I drew the line. Just that you're the first."

She gave him a bright, happy smile. "That makes me feel special."

Kane found himself shaking his head at her, smiling in spite of himself. "You are relentless."