Chapter Fifteen
“This is your idea of a beach day?”
Quinn extended her arms and straightened her legs until she stood on the bike pedals. The position gained her enough leverage to continue her slow ascent up the millionth steep hill. She could see the beach—seen plenty of it, in fact, during their meandering, three-and-a-half-mile run around the resort to get to the bike rental place, and plenty more during their bicycle trek to the other side of the island. Stupid her, assuming a beach day meant parking her ass on a towel and sticking her toes in sun-warmed sand.
Luke looked back at her, his eyes unreadable behind dark sunglasses, but something in the set of his brows told her he was laughing at her. “This is part of it.”
“The worst part,” she muttered under her breath, and struggled to maintain enough speed to stay upright.
“Keep pedaling. We’re almost there.”
“There? It’s an island,” she argued. “We’re surrounded by seashore. The resort has its very own beach right on the property. Chilled drinks, full-service cabanas, and best of all, no bike ride required.”
“I don’t think you really want a bunch of resort guests and staff underfoot when I peel you out of your bikini and apply sunscreen to all your hard-to-reach places.”
Oh. Well, maybe not.
“Besides, the view is worth the trip.” He faced forward again, and she had to admit the current view did not suck. Late morning sun played over a mouthwatering arrangement of bulging delts, angled traps, and strong scapulae before tapering down long, lean lats partially obscured by the dark-blue backpack strapped to his shoulders. The bulk of it shaded the lower half of his back, casting shadows into twin dimples at the base of his spine. Then he raised his body higher on his bike as well, treating her to an eyeful of rock-hard glutes bunching and flexing under a thin veil of blue and white hibiscus print swim trunks. Sweat darkened the waistband just below the small of his back. She had a quick, naughty urge to tug the damp fabric down and lick the salty skin. Licking and licking so the taste coated her mouth, and then spearing her tongue into the tight crevice at the top of his ass until he cursed and threatened her with toe-curling…consequences.
She was so lost in the fantasy, she almost didn’t notice they were cresting the hill. Her speed picked up as she followed Luke down a slight decline, and then squeezed the brake when he said, “This way.” He leaned his body into a turn in the absently graceful way of someone accustomed to riding, and disappeared into what looked like a wall of jungle. Seconds later, she coasted to the same spot and saw he’d steered his bike down a dirt path. She followed, clutching the brakes with white-knuckled intensity as greenery whipped by on either side of the narrow, rutted path. Trees and vines formed a canopy above them. The ocean breeze gave way to thicker air, and thicker scents—rain-soaked soil overlaid with a steaming perfume of wild growing fruits, exotic flowers, and an invisible zoo of animals and insects.
Just as her ponderings about the animals and insects part of the equation started to freak her out, the vegetation ended. They shot into sunlight so bright and startling, she blinked behind her polarized sunglasses. Drifts of sand encroached on the path, shushing her tires. She sort of stalled to a stop beside where Luke stood straddling his bike. He took hold of her handlebar in a caretaker move that wasn’t necessary, but made her heart stutter anyway.
“What do you think?”
She forced herself to relinquish the sight of his big, masculine hand wrapped around her bike handle, tendons raised in an unconscious show of strength, and looked at her surroundings. The curtain of green they’d traveled through surrounded a small cove. The beach slanted gently down to where knee-high waves foamed out to an iridescent sheen on pearly white sand. Beyond, blue-green water stretched all the way to the horizon. Puffy white clouds sailed there like a distant regatta.
“Breathtaking.”
“Yeah.”
She turned to find him looking at her, his dark glasses pushed to the top of his head so she couldn’t mistake the fact that she was the object of his attention. He was calling her beautiful, and it was nothing she hadn’t heard hundreds of times from hundreds of people, but from him, it went beyond an acknowledgment of lucky genetics, or even a compliment. It meant something. Or she wanted it to, at least. Swagger was her only defense against that stare of his—the one that saw so much more than she’d ever shown anyone. She dismounted and walked her bike toward an outcrop of rocks. “If you’re trying to make me forget you dragged me through the better part of an Ironman under the pretenses of a beach day, you’re going to have to try harder.”
He walked his bike over and parked it beside hers. The corner of his mouth lifted. “What’d you have in mind?”
“Dance with me.” The request flew out of her mouth before she realized what she’d intended to say.
He looked as startled by the request as she was. The breeze rustled through the palms while he shrugged off the backpack. The waves lapped the sand. From the depths of the trees came the warble of birds. “We don’t have any music,” he finally said, as he unzipped the center compartment and busied himself digging around inside.
“Are you blushing?” Delighted at the thought, she moved closer.
“No.” Without looking up, he handed her a towel.
She tossed it to the sand. Her sunglasses and slouchy tank top followed. “I’ve got at least twenty different playlists on my phone.” She didn’t give a damn about music. It suddenly occurred to her that she hadn’t really danced in months—not since the knee sprain—and she missed it. She felt like dancing, and she wanted his arms around her when she did it. “What’s the matter, Luke? Afraid to dance with me? Worried you can’t keep up?”
She kicked off her shorts and twirled away, loving the sheer freedom of the movement, knowing her hard-won shape made the most of the little black bikini she’d chosen. Thanks to Luke’s coaching…browbeating…whatever, and her own determination, her body had returned to the slender, camera-ready condition she’d taken for granted most of her life. Experimenting, she did a fluid turn and took it into a leap. The familiar weightlessness left her giddy. She landed ankle deep in a wave and sucked in a quick breath as tiny droplets of cool water splashed her.
Deciding to deal with the painful part sooner than later, she leaned over, scooped up handfuls of water, and poured them on her arms, chest, and middle. In the process, she couldn’t help noting with satisfaction that five weeks of work and sacrifice were definitely paying off in the form of lean limbs, a flat stomach, and an ass tight enough to star in its own close-up. Weight training had put new definition in her arms and torso. She’d always had dancer’s legs, and at this moment, she wanted to use them.
Her chosen partner, however, stood barefoot at the waterline, arms folded across his superhero chest. “Seems like a partner would only get in your way. How about I be the audience?”
He needed convincing? She could be convincing. Especially since she’d caught the admiration in his eyes, not just for her body, but her ability. She wanted more of that. Because they had the spot all to themselves, she did another twirl, whipped off her bikini top in the process, and covered herself with her arm. Aware of his eyes now locked on her partially hidden breasts, she flung the top at his feet. “I prefer audience participation.” She skimmed a foot through the surf and kicked water at him.
“Careful what you ask for.”
“I don’t think I need to be careful.” To prove it, she turned her back on him, stretched up onto her toes, and twined her arms behind her head, lifting her hair and letting it tumble down her back. “You know what I do think?”
“If you’re smart, you’ll think about how fast you can run.”
“Ha. I think big, bad Luke McLean doesn’t know how to dance.”
The next instant quick hands spun her around. She found herself caught in strong arms and pulled against unyielding contours of an unmistakably male frame.
A hot, hard ridge carved space for itself along her fluttering stomach. Very male.
Her limbs turned leaden and heat dripped like melted caramel from low in her abdomen to a place between her thighs.
“This is how I dance,” he murmured.
A burly hand sank into the back of her bikini bottoms, cupped her ass, and lifted her. Stranded her against him. “Dirty dancing?” she panted.
His mouth nuzzled her ear. “I guess that’s one name for it.”
“Okay. I can work with your skillset.”
He hitched her higher and let her slide down the length of his cock. “Good to know.” His teeth sank into her earlobe.
Her eyelids threatened to close, but she mustered up some willpower and squirmed out of his hold. “Uh-uh. I meant dancing. This is my area of expertise, so I’m in charge. I get to be the trainer. You’re the trainee.”
The look he gave her told her he was about three seconds from throwing her over his shoulder, carrying her up the beach, and showing her who was in charge. She slapped a hand to the center of his chest and aimed her best nobody-puts-Baby-in-a-corner look at him. “Or are you afraid to put all these big, strong muscles at my mercy?”
He lowered his brows in a scowl. “Quinn, I’ve got two left feet and a dick as hard and heavy as a ten-pound free weight throbbing in my shorts. You really think you’ve got what it takes to turn me into Patrick Swayze?”
“You bet your two left feet I do. Now take your ten-pound dick and go stand over there.”
…
Luke waded knee deep into the surf and stood where Quinn indicated. “Here?”
“Face me.”
“Never turn your back to the ocean,” he grumbled, but did as she asked. Nothing the Caribbean threw at him could be more dangerous than Quinn standing ten feet away on the sand, wearing a reckless smile and a tiny black scrap of a bikini bottom. Sunlight bathed her, turning her skin luminous, and shimmering off her blond hair like a halo. His chest tightened just looking at her. Words he’d promised himself he wouldn’t say yet echoed in his mind. He shook his head to silence them.
“When I say ‘up,’ I want you to plant your feet, bend your knees a little, and put your arms up like this,” Quinn instructed, and raised her hands over her head, palms up, about shoulder width apart. The move lifted her breasts like an offering. His cock jerked so hard, he nearly groaned.
“Like this?”
She nodded. “Perfect.” She lowered her arms and backed up several steps, moving diagonally as she went.
Instinctively he turned to keep them head-on. “No, don’t move,” she said, and waved her hand at him to indicate he should resume his original position. He did. When she was about ten feet away and to his right, she stopped. “Ready?”
“I have no idea.”
Her laugh held absolutely no concern. “Just do the thing when I say the word. You’ll be fine.” With that, she lifted her arms above her head in a graceful arc. Then she was in motion, her moves practiced but easy, like LeBron making a layup. First a small step, followed by a big step, and then she leaped into the air—front leg straight, back leg bent so her toes grazed the ends of her hair.
She stole his breath.
Every line of her body flowed with agile power. The one-legged landing involved some kind of pivot, and next thing he knew she was running straight at him, hair flying, chest bouncing, lips forming a word over and over again, and through a hazy buzz of lust it almost sounded like…
Uuuuuup!
Fuck. He bent his knees and raised his arms as she closed the distance between them. The wave retreated, giving her more runway, and then—holy shit—she flew. Literally flew over his head. He caught her by the hips, extended his arms to lock his elbows and stop her forward trajectory. Momentum forced him to take a step back, and then he had her, really had her. Five feet four inches of surprisingly strong, lithe woman balanced like a statue above him.
Triumphant laughter rang in his ears—hers and his—and to keep hers going, he reinforced his grip and spun her in a slow circle. “Oh my God,” she shouted, and wrapped her hands around his forearms. “You’re a natural.”
They hadn’t worked on a dismount, but when she let her back relax and lowered her legs, he levered his arms down, tipped his head, and kissed the black triangle covering her sex.
The move wrung a long, indulgent sigh from her.
“You haven’t seen the full extent of my talent.” Keeping one hand on her hip, he splayed the other along the back of her thigh, and shifted her around until he hitched her leg over his shoulder.
She shrieked and clung to his neck, enveloping his head in a full body hug.
He staggered, then caught himself, and mumbled, “Other leg,” against her thigh. “I’ve got you.”
It took her a second to find her balance, but then she leaned back into the hands he had braced under her ass and slung her other leg over his shoulder. He lifted her hips until he could bury his face at the apex of her thighs.
She draped over him, her chin digging into his skull, her arms clasped behind his neck. His lips met damp swimsuit. “Your bikini is soaked. Do I have the ocean to thank for that, or you?”
“Luke…”
He flattened his tongue against the fabric stretched snug over her sex and took a long taste. “You. All you.” He tongued her through the suit, his fingers digging into her fleshiest parts when she started to squirm.
Her voice murmured his name in a steady soundtrack of need. A hand fisted in his hair. Legs hooked around his body until the tops of her feet pressed against his ribs. She bucked against his face.
He shoved her closer. Held her there and flayed her relentlessly, until her body stiffened, until he felt that little quiver against his tongue…until her taste flooded his mouth and her scream filled his ears.
A few staggering steps were all he could manage. The lining of his swim trunks threatened to saw his balls off. With a groan of warning, he dropped to his knees in the receding surf, and lowered her to the wet sand.
She rolled over and started crawling the rest of the way out of the water. He caught a handful of her bikini and dragged it down. Her startled breath only heightened the fever. When she looked over her shoulder, the picture she made would have brought him to his knees if he hadn’t already been there. Her hair hung in damp tendrils around her orgasm-flushed face and cascaded down her elegant back. The tip of one nipple peeked out from beside her arm. Her soggy swimsuit dangled between her knees, leaving her ass bare save for a dusting of sand low on one cheek where the bottoms hadn’t offered any protection.
“Fuck me,” someone growled. Him. That tortured animal would be him.
She blinked, and then, as if she had no concern whatsoever for how close he was to losing his mind, she lowered onto her forearms and angled her hips higher. “No, Luke.” Her lips curved into an unrepentant smile. “Fuck me.”
The pose twisted a fuse inside him, but the smile lit it, and now this slow burn ended only one way—consuming him from the inside out. He wanted to see her sly smile go slack and her blue eyes blur when he pulled her into the fire. He wanted to cover her lips with his, feel every quiver, and taste every sigh as she surrendered to the heat of them. Only chivalry stopped him from flipping her over and driving into her, which would be tantamount to power sanding her backside. Instead he hooked an arm around her waist and rolled, so she ended up sprawled over him.
“Fuck me,” he said again, and used his foot to tug her bottoms off. He reached around, shoved his trunks down, and gripped his cock. As he nudged it along her cleft, she bit her lip and squirmed.
“Any way you want it, Trouble. Feeling lazy? No problem. Just rest your head on my chest and spread your legs. I’ll do all the work to get us both off. Prefer a more active role? Climb on up there and ride me straight into oblivion. Looking for the middle ground? Turn around, hug my knees, and show me how you work that ass. Your choice, but choose fast.”
She braced a hand on his chest and pushed herself up so she leaned over him. The position sent her hair falling forward like a silky curtain, and nestled the head of his cock in her folds. With a sweep of her arm, she moved her hair away from her face and locked her eyes on his. “What if I choose all three?”
“You’re not going to last through all three.” He definitely wasn’t. He felt huge to the point of abusive against her softness. Still holding himself at the base, he lifted his hips. She came up higher on her knees, and then sank down slowly, her head tipping back as she took him in to the halfway point.
It was his vision that went blurry. He blinked it clear and forced himself to wait like a gentleman, hands supporting her thighs while she rocked back and forth, working him in deeper by increments. When she’d seated herself fully, he let out a breath and prepared himself for a long, easy ride.
He should have known better. Nothing about Quinn was ever easy. She bore down hard and fast, sending a twisted bolt of pain-laced pleasure straight to his balls. His shaft throbbed inside her, brutally thick. The curse on his lips turned into a low groan as she slowly leaned forward, relinquishing half his cock by the time she braced herself on her hands on either side of his head. Her breasts swung forward.
Instinct had him clasping her waist, urging her lower. “Give it to me,” he grunted.
“I’m fucking you, remember?” She wiggled her hips. “Any way I want—”
He crunched his abs and raised himself up to capture her breast in his mouth.
“Ohhhh…” Her moan went guttural as he opened wide, drawing her in as deep as possible, scouring the underside of one generous curve with his teeth.
When her moans became whimpers, he allowed her to ease back, letting his teeth rake her tight nipple as she slid free. She automatically brought her hand up to cup the tender flesh. He covered hers with his and squeezed.
Her lips parted. Her breath escaped in pants. Her interior muscles hugged his shaft in quick flutters.
“More,” he said, unable to get enough of her, and suddenly, painfully aware the urgency wasn’t just physical. He wanted her spark. Her fire. All of her. Promises and commitments—which took them to places he’d sworn he wouldn’t go under their current dynamic, because tearing up a contract didn’t automatically change his underlying obligations to her. There was a limit to what he could demand from her right now. But he’d go right up to that limit.
“I’m yours,” she whispered. “All yours. Take me.”
He guided her forward again, bending her lower so her hips lifted and those flutters concentrated on the head of his cock. She fought herself a little, trying to push her hips back and take him deeper at the same time she stretched to offer him her other breast. He devoured this time, with his whole mouth—his teeth, his tongue—and kept it up until her hips jerked in restless desperation and the flutters turned to hungry clenches.
She speared a hand in his hair, holding his head to her breast, as the clenches turned to spasms and her hips rocked in frantic abandon. “Forever, Luke. Take me forever.”
“Don’t.” But he levered up and captured her mouth, plunged his tongue inside to claim the offer it wasn’t fair to accept as her body took him over. He came in a firestorm of need—to take, possess…to keep. All of it burned through him, searing away his resolve and laying him bare. He broke away, pressed his forehead to her jaw, and begged, “Don’t say forever unless you mean it, Trouble. I want to hear it too goddamn much.”