White Hot (23 page)

The hilt of his dive knife prodded her palm. “Hurry,” he urged in that same seductive murmur.

She needed no urging. Quickly she sliced up through the cords on one shoulder, then the other. The straps snapped apart, leaving his broad, masculine shoulders bare.
Finally.

He took the knife, tossed it to the deck, and reached for her again.

“No. My turn,” she murmured, blocking his hand. She brushed her fingers reverently over the muscular ball of his shoulder, lingered on his rock-hard bicep. He felt so incredibly good. So buff…and male. His were muscles honestly earned. Such a turn-on. She had no use for a man afraid of hard work.

And yet, he was so damned beautiful. Despite the flaws—or maybe because of them. She trailed her fingers down to the jagged slice on his bronze forearm, stopping
just short.
There’d be a scar.
And it wouldn’t be alone. “This has to—”

“There must be more interesting places to touch me,” he suggested darkly, reaching up to draw his thumb over her pebbled nipple.

She inhaled sharply, a piercing pleasure zinging through her breasts. God, he could lay her down right now and she’d be hot putty beneath him. “Yeah? Like where?” she managed to say past her desire-tightened throat.

“Shall I show you?” He drew his thumb back again.

She quivered all over. In a good way. “And spoil my fun?” She pushed his hand away, as much to get control of herself as him. She was so aroused she could already feel the slick moisture pooled between her legs.

But she wanted him as desperate for her as she was for him.

She caressed the beautiful wolf inked on his perfectly sculpted bicep. Then ran the backs of her knuckles over the eagle and anchor navy tattoo on his pec. She’d never been into tattoos before, but on Clint they were incredibly sexy.

And speaking of sexy…She dragged her nails down to the flat male nipple below. It sprang to attention. She couldn’t resist; she leaned down and licked it, then gave it a little bite. Just one. Any more, and she’d be all over him.

He didn’t make a sound, or move a millimeter, but something changed. A subtle shift charged the atmosphere around them. It sizzled, giving her another shower of goose bumps.

She straightened and met his dark, hooded gaze. His mahogany eyes bored into her. Hot, potent, hungry. The eyes of a dangerous predator.
Making an even more dangerous promise.

She shivered—an electric, full-body shiver of anticipation. She knew what that gaze meant.

It was the look of a man who knew what he wanted, and meant to have it.

Her.

Helpless.

Naked under him.

And she was going to like it.

He stepped closer, crowding her. Her pulse sped, but she didn’t back away. In a single, unyielding motion, he hooked her sweatpants and panties and sent them down to her ankles. He lifted her out of them, then kicked them aside.

Slowly he set her down. His predator’s gaze traveled over her naked body. Focused on it with single-minded intent.

A shuddering chill of desire burst through her. She was ready for him.
So ready.

“Cold?” His strong, steady fingers returned to her achingly tight nipple. He toyed with her lightly. Then pinched.

She nearly detonated.

“No,” she gasped as he squeezed harder and rolled the burning tip between his fingers. “Hot.”

He thumbed the other one. “How hot?”

She hesitated, and he squeezed them both. She cried out as a shock of pleasure-pain streaked through her breasts and straight between her legs like a lit fuse.

“Wh—” She was suddenly so close to coming she could barely speak. She shut her eyes tight. As if that would stop the tidal wave. “Wh-white hot.”

A zipper rasped. “The hottest flame of all,” he murmured, as though expecting no less.

She felt his cock bump against her belly, thick and hard. “Hotter,” she whispered, opening her eyes to look.

He’d peeled the wetsuit down to his hips, spreading it open to free his sex. It was big. And long. And fully erect. She couldn’t take her eyes off him—his perfect body or his smoldering gaze.

She licked her lips and waited breathlessly for him to move. She wanted him. No, needed him.
Now.

He stood for a tense moment regarding her, then turned his attention outward and did a careful scan of the vehicles on the deck around them, then glanced up for several seconds at the companionway, crew deck, and quarterdeck landing at the other end of the ship. Apparently satisfied, he turned back to her.

He grasped her arms and pulled her against the solid wall of his body. “I want to be inside you,” he said, his voice low with intent.

She swallowed. “Then take me.”

His mouth descended on hers, demanding her surrender. She gave in to him willingly. She no longer felt a need to be the strong one, the one in charge. Not with Clint. It was a strange sensation. One she didn’t entirely understand. But it felt good. Liberating. And intensely arousing.

He kissed her hard, and she opened for him, reveling in the dark taste of his desire for her. His hands molded her backside, then his fingers slid between her legs. A very male growl vibrated up his throat. “God, you’re wet.”

“Your fault,” she breathed.

He touched her clit, and she almost came.

With a whimper of acute need, she wriggled away from his hand and groped for the wetsuit, shoving it farther down his thighs. “I want you naked.”

She went to her knees and made short work of pulling it off him, raw need fueling the effort. She looked up when he was as naked as she. His cock pulsed inches from her lips. Her position before him felt erotic and insanely arousing. She’d tasted him yesterday—more than once—and knew that he liked it. She liked it, too.

Her pulse pounded. She moved her body forward and put her lips to his cock. Then took him into her mouth.

After three seconds, he gave a harsh, guttural curse, and his hands were gripping her, lifting her off. His arms banded tight around her, and before she could think, he’d taken several swift steps, and suddenly she was on her back on the hard deck, lying between the treads of a giant orange vehicle. Blinking up into his unsmiling face.

She could feel her pulse thundering in her throat.

He parted her legs with a knee and lowered himself between them. She swallowed heavily, more aroused than she’d ever been in her life. My God, what the man did to her!

He stared down at her as he gripped the backs of her
knees, lifted, and spread them wide apart. His cock prodded her slick flesh. She moaned softly. Her center blossomed. Her blood raced.

When he didn’t move, she clung to his shoulders and tried to wriggle herself onto him.

“Please,” she begged. She was on the very edge.

He rocked his hips back, regarded her for a breathless moment, then began to thrust. “Scream,” he demanded, and scythed hard and deep, to the very hilt.

She cried out, a keen of pure carnal pleasure. Before it passed her lips, he sealed her mouth with his and captured the sound, swallowing her cry like succor.

He even tasted different now. Darker. Hot and musky, like liquid bliss.

Holding perfectly still within her, he deepened the kiss. Deliberately…provocatively…his tongue penetrated her mouth, full and bold, just as his cock was doing. Marking her with his essence, laying claim to her with the dominance of his body in hers.

The power of his seduction took her breath. She trembled, and wrapped her legs around his waist, helplessly trapped in his erotic spell. She felt taken as never before, and totally possessed.

She should be terrified.

Instead she felt profoundly wanted.

And with a flare of insight, she knew she’d never been truly wanted before. Not by any man. Not like this.

He took her jaw in his hand and held her fast for his kiss, demanding her complete attention, and the thought was gone.

Sheltered from reflection by the sheer force of his passion, her shaking body was coiled and throbbing with need for him, her mind blank of anything but Clint. Never had she felt so totally…visceral…with a man.

Or vulnerable.

Somehow, her unheeding heart had opened wide and let him in, ready to surrender to a deluge of feelings and emotions she’d been starving for all her life.

It was exhilarating. And not a little frightening.

Especially when a quiet voice inside her head whispered,
Careful! Love always leads to betrayal by those you love….

She stilled. Wait.

Love?

Who said anything about love? She tried to push the thought aside and back to Clint’s heated kisses.

But the quiet warning in her mind grew to a dull roar. She felt dizzy with the overwhelming sensation of being poised on the brink of a treacherous precipice.

Because of another blinding insight.

She was about to fall for this man, and fall hard.

A soft noise of desperation escaped her at an even worse realization.

It may already be too late.

She was already hurtling off that cliff, falling at the speed of light. And there’d be no one at the bottom to catch her. Certainly not a man on a mission, a spy who lived halfway around the world.

Clint must have heard her soft mewl of panic and sensed some measure of her sudden inner chaos.

He broke their stalled kiss, his hand still wrapped around her jaw. “Samantha, look at me.”

She shook her head.

She couldn’t face him. Not yet.

What was she
doing
, so vulnerable in this man’s arms? Offering her heart to him on a platter, like some lovesick fool? Had she not learned the painful lessons taught to her by an indifferent father and faithless husband?

She couldn’t bear it if Clint turned out the same. And how could he not? He’d never pretended this was anything but temporary.

“Samantha.”

She heard the steely command in his even tone and wanted to bristle against it, but couldn’t summon the will.

His body stirred within her, urging her to forget the past. And, oh, how she wanted to!

She was a such a fool!

Because even now, after her fateful realization, she still wanted him. She craved him with such an overpowering need that her body didn’t give a damn that his brand of macho was all wrong for her. Or that he would surely break her heart when he walked off the ship.

“Look at me.”

She touched her lips with her tongue, and the taste of him flooded through her. It was like a drug that robbed her mind of all sense, and her body of its willpower.

She looked up at him.

His shadowed eyes were nearly black. They pinned her like a butterfly, watching her with lethal intensity.

He shifted his hips and slowly withdrew his cock from her. Inch by slow inch, he pulled out until only the rigid flare of the tip remained. Leaving her cold and empty, inside and out.

This was worse than a broken heart. Far worse. She couldn’t stand the thought of being without him here and now, regardless of future consequences.

Besides, he might never walk off the ship.

Neither of them might survive long enough to do that. Or to have a future at all.

She’d be an even bigger fool to push him away. She’d deal with the heartache if and when it came.

“Don’t,” she whispered, and tightened her arms around him.

For a long moment he studied her. She could feel the barely leashed strength in his tall frame, his muscles taut and corded. And sense the weight of his decision.

“Give me a reason,” he said at length, his voice low.

In the set of his mouth she saw his own need for her, and for this overwhelming connection between them to continue. For now, anyway. And yet…his need seemed equal to hers in strength and vulnerability…as well as in reluctance.

He needed her, too.

Could it be true? Not just for now?

It didn’t seem possible. And yet…there was something in the tightness around his eyes. He seemed…hurt.

Or was it an illusion…just wishful thinking on her part? Could she really trust what she was seeing?

Could she trust
him
?

She touched his face, smoothed the lines between his brows.

Did it really even matter? Either way, her heart was his.

“A reason?” She swallowed. And admitted the frightening truth. “I don’t want you to let me go.”

Ever.

His eyes didn’t soften, but his forehead lowered to hers. His nose flared as he jetted a sigh through it.

He needed her, too.

That’s what she chose to believe.

For now.

She lifted her lips and kissed him. Slid her arms up around his neck and pulled his mouth to hers, enticing him back to her with long drugging strokes of her tongue. He smelled of the cold, crisp sea and tasted like heaven. She subtly rubbed her breasts back and forth against his chest, drowning in the starbursts of pleasure in the friction. Loving the groans she was finally able to coax from his throat, and the quivers she sent through his limbs when she touched him.

Until they were both back in the fever, breathing hard and fast as their tongues did battle.

To her sublime frustration, he would not thrust, but kept his cock poised just at her entrance. Waiting for…what?

She reached down to touch him. To urge him—

“No.”

He clamped a hand over her wrist and brought it up over her head. He held it pinioned against the deck.

“But—”

“You’ll do as I say.”

Taken aback by the growled reprimand, she opened her mouth to retort, but the words became an “Oh!” of surprise when his hand slipped between their legs. His fingertips went to the place of their joining, sliding around the neck
of his cock, touching, exploring, his own flesh as well as hers.

And turning her on even more.

Her cheeks flushed. The man liked an edge to his sex. Yesterday, he’d done things like this, too. Not exactly dirty. Not even kinky or weird. Just…slightly naughty. Enough so to make her blush. And usually come. Immediately.

His fingers brushed over her clit. He watched her face as she writhed at his silken touch. He knew exactly what he was doing to her. He’d touched her there enough times yesterday with hands and tongue to be a goddamn expert.