Chapter 1
Amanda
The resort room was huge. It wasn’t even a honeymoon suite, but it was so nice it could have been. A large whirlpool style tub stood off to the side, so far, unused. The king sized bed they’d slept in the night before was neatly made up, a towel swan perched on the pillow, strewn with red flower petals.
Amanda barely registered the cool temperature of the room, the way the air conditioner chilled her skin after being outside under the unrelenting Colombian sun. The smell of the saltwater remained with them. Maybe it was in their hair or the clothes they wore, her wedding dress or Jason’s shirt, or maybe it was a permanent fixture of the room, ingrained in the very building itself.
“Are you happy?” Jason came up slowly and so quietly behind her that Amanda nearly gasped. His warm, strong fingers brushed away the tendrils of hair from the nape of her neck. The heat of him seeped right through her and she nearly shivered with excitement at the erotic huskiness blatant in his voice.
“Yes. Yes, I’m happier than you could ever know.” She turned into him, expecting his mouth to take hers, but he didn’t bend his head. He wasn’t exactly smiling. His lips were set in their natural firm line. His stormy sea colored eyes searched hers in question. “Could you really not think that I would be happy, today of all days? I’m always happy when you are near. Sometimes I can’t understand why.”
It was a strangely vulnerable thing for him to say. She knew they were not beyond it all. Sometimes she doubted they ever would be. What had happened at their home in the woods would take a very long time to heal. But she knew that Jason was hers. He was her husband.
“Do you have something planned?” She raised a brow, hoping to turn her husband’s mind back to where they had started with their sultry talk on the beach.
The heat that was never truly far flooded back into his eyes. His lips turned up just a little, shadowing a smile. “No. For once… no.”
“Good. Maybe I do.” A surprised chuckle escaped Jason’s throat.
“What?” Amanda pretended to be offended. “You don’t think that I could take the lead?”
“I was hoping you would. Watching you take what you want is sexy as hell.”
The familiar heat suffused her body. Her limbs growing heavy, the heady spooling and the rush of wetness between her thighs. It was intense and all so much sweeter for the fact that she knew this day wasn’t guaranteed.
Their wedding came so close to not happening. They were both left with fresh scars that were there permanently. But they had each other, they had their son and a new life growing inside of her and it was all more than she ever could have dreamed of. She’d never take a single second for granted again.
“We are so blessed,” she whispered as her fingers began working off the buttons on Jason’s shirt. He stilled, for once letting her do all the work.
He didn’t need to respond. The tenderness in his eyes was far more than enough. Amanda’s nimble fingers worked the buttons free and slid Jason’s shirt from his shoulders. It fell, pooling like a whisper of breath on the cool, white tile floor.
She worked his pants off next, his boxers. He stepped out of his clothing, helping her fractionally since he couldn’t resist. She stepped back, her eyes tracing a scalding pattern over the man who was now her husband.
Husband. Wife. She loved those words. In truth, they were always bound together, long before they’d ever taken legal vows, but it just felt so very right.
“I like you this way. Naked. Glorious. The most beautiful man in the world.”
“Beautiful! That’s the word you use to describe your husband?” Jason grinned despite his words.
“Yes.” Amanda decided. “That word is so much more apt than you know.”
Any further protests about words that may or may not be too feminine to describe massive shoulders, granite muscle, carved abs, sculpted arms and legs, were cut off when she dropped to her knees. The tile was cold, not just cool, and the sensation crept into her skin as her dress was too short to offer protection.
Her hand closed around his thick cock, right at the shaft. He groaned, the sound deep and feral, drawn from the deep recess of his throat.
Beautiful. Yes. This is definitely beautiful.
She brought her mouth to him and the first sweet taste of the salty arousal glistening at the tip was the sweetest aphrodisiac. Her body responded instantly, the hard sweep of fires never quite doused, stirring to life.
She slid her lips over the length of him, ran down the shaft, taking him deep to the back of her throat. His hips bucked violently, a motion she could tell he couldn’t control and his fingers tangled in her honeyed hair, bringing her face closer before moving her away.
He guided her sweetly. Her tongue flicked over him, she licked and suckled the tip, collecting and coating her tongue with the sweet, salty droplets that gathered there. She took him to the back of her throat again, swallowing the husky taste of him before pulling back, tantalizing and teasing him with the whisper light flicks of her tongue, the tight wrap of her lips.
She wanted more, so much more, but his hand guided her gently away.
“Jesus, Amanda, this isn’t going to last long if you keep doing that.”
She pulled away, licked her lips in a way that elicited another deep groan from her husband’s throat and looked up into his face. It was a face she loved so very much. A face that held so many secrets, a past she’d known nothing about, pain and fear, but also love. There was so much love there. Shining in his eyes, it was the only thing she could see when he looked back at her.
“We both know that isn’t necessarily true.”
“It isn’t?”
“Would you like me to test my theory?”
“No. What I want is for you to take that dress off before I rip it off.”
“I thought I was the one supposed to be in control.” She rose slowly, seductively, giving him a full view of the way her dress rode up as she stood. She didn’t miss the feral glow sweeping through his eyes.
“You can be in control all you want after you remove that dress…”
“You know, I think that I won’t take it off. Not yet. There’s time for that later. Right now I think I would rather just pull it up…” She hitched her hand in the hem of her dress and slid it slowly, inch by inch up the creamy swell of her thigh, baring the skin to Jason’s heated eyes.
“Minx,” he uttered under his breath.
“Maybe it’s you who should get on the bed.”
She was a little surprised that he didn’t hesitate to obey. It made her head swim, the newness of being the one taking the lead. Normally it was Jason. She loved the way he loved her, made her body come to life. He’d taught her that. He’d taught her how good it could be. She was content to let him teach her. She liked the bolder, more unexpected side of setting the pace.
She climbed onto the bed, moving slowly, letting his eyes devour her body, the natural feminine grace, her beautiful, womanly curves. It was amazing to watch his eyes change, darkening to a deep blue as she looped one leg over both of his, straddling his muscular hips.
Amanda had never felt so utterly wicked as she did in that moment. The daylight of early evening had not yet given way to the darkness of night. Rich gold sunlight streamed into the room through the filmy white curtains that covered the patio doors that led to a balcony just beyond. She hitched up the hem of her dress, revealing a pair of sexy, white lace panties below. She liked her husband’s sharp intake of breath. No, more than that, she craved it.
His hands moved away from his sides to rest firmly on her hips. “So beautiful, wife,” he breathed.
“Say it again,” she begged breathlessly. Tears, happy ones, stung the corners of her eyes.
“Wife?”
“Yes. Tell me that I’m yours.”
“You know you are. Mine. Forever.”