Neither spoke until they reached a trellised archway where countless couples had exchanged vows over the years. Within the shadowed confines of the archway, Adam turned to her. He wrapped his hands around the back of her neck, tugging her closer with a tender urgency. She’d never guessed such an innocuous spot could be so rich in sensory nerves. She felt his touch all the way to her toes.
Even as she slid her hands around his waist and met his lips with her own, Olivia realized she’d never felt more alive than at this moment. Her eyes drifted closed. His mouth tasted faintly of lime. Was it seconds or hours that they stood wrapped in one another? Olivia had no idea, she only knew it hadn’t been long enough when the kiss ended. She leaned back against the latticed wall of the trellis, seeking support. Give Adam a pirate costume and he became a different man.
Adam leaned down and rested his forehead against hers. Just that simple contact and his proximity, and her knees threatened to buckle. It was as if some magic thread bound them together.
“Olivia, I need to tell you something—”
She quieted him with a finger against his lips. “Shh. Tonight’s magic.” She traced the firm line of his mouth with her fingertip and felt his shuddered response. A thrill shot through her that she affected him as deeply as he affected her. And much like a tiny piece of rich, dark chocolate melting against her tongue, his kisses were sinfully delicious but gone so quickly, she merely craved more.
“But, I’m—”
“Please.” She leaned against him and teased her tongue against his lips. “When you…when I…I’ve never felt that way before when we kissed.” Olivia summoned all her courage. “I don’t want to talk, I just want to feel like that again.”
With a groan, he swooped down and captured her mouth. Forget feeling that way again—this was even better. His lips probed, fierce yet tender. She opened her mouth to him, eager for the thrust of his tongue against hers. Heat scorched her, from the inside out. He splayed his broad hands against her back to pull her closer, and she arched into him. Her breasts welcomed the hard wall of his chest. She moaned her pleasure into his mouth and felt him swell, hard and fast, against her belly.
A sense of destiny shook her.
He dragged his mouth away from hers. Their breathing rasped into the quiet of the garden. Before she could protest his abandonment, he scattered kisses along her jawline. Olivia dropped her head back to allow him fuller access to her neck. Quick study, her pirate. As he lavished her with kisses, his breath warm and moist against the chill of her exposed skin, she quivered and her body tightened.
He slid her dress off of one shoulder, baring it to his mouth. “So…very…very…sweet.” Nibbles punctuated his words and drove her further out of her mind, into a state of blissful sensation. “So…beautiful.” His tongue swirled against the exposed slope of her breast. Desire flashed through her, like a rampaging river swollen by torrential rains.
He slipped his thumb inside her bodice and brushed against her pearled tip. Olivia whimpered. A faint scrape of his thumbnail against her nipple and her hips undulated against him in supplication. He pushed aside the starched material and freed her breast to the nip of the night air.
She felt vulnerable. She also experienced a peculiar sense of belonging and shelter in his arms. Exposed, yet safe. It was an intoxicating combination.
“You…” he cupped her breast in his hand “…are…” he bent forward until his breath warmed her tight bud “…mine?” Part declaration, part question.
“Yes.” Part answer, part demand.
He suckled her deep into his mouth, then released her to tug at her nipple with his lips. Pleasure pulsed from her breast to her thighs. She clutched at the lattice behind her, bruising the delicate vine twining around it, and whimpered.
The sharp sound of crunching gravel nearby interrupted. Teasing laughter floated over the flowers and shrubs, as another couple sought the enchantment of a garden stroll.
Olivia froze, acutely aware of her semidressed state in the shadow of the trellis. Before she summoned the wherewithal, Adam restored her clothing with unsteady hands.
Instead of anticipated embarrassment, mild annoyance at the interruption stirred in her breast—and other parts farther south.
The night air carried a woman’s voice. “It’s cold out here. Let’s go back to your house.” A man murmured indistinctly, but retreating footsteps left Olivia and Adam alone once again.
Olivia had no intention of squandering even a minute of this night out of time. She smoothed her palms over the flat plane of his belly up to his chest. Standing on tiptoe, she whispered into his ear, “I don’t think it’s cold at all. In fact, I think it’s very, very hot.”
His wig, gathered at his nape with a leather strap in true pirate fashion, tickled against her nose, surprisingly silky and real. Tonight Adam had abandoned his hair gel with the annoying odor. She infinitely preferred the clean scent of sandalwood present beneath the wig.
“Honey, you are killing me.” His low murmur stirred her hair and her feminine self-esteem.
“Am I really?” Go figure. She, Olivia Cooper, a femme fatale? From the time she’d donned her costume and mask, it was as if she’d slid through the rabbit hole—Olivia in Sensual Wonderland.
He brushed his groin against her, the thick ridge of his erection apparent. “Really.”
Her thighs quivered and clenched in response. “Oh, my. Is that a sword in your pocket or are you just glad to see me, Captain Hook?” And now she was glib and flirtatious. Really, altogether too strange.
She sensed his smile in the dark as his thumb played against the hollow of her cheek. “Baby, I’m so glad to see you, there’s no damn way I can go inside now.”
Up until now Adam had always addressed her in a formal manner. His earthy sensuality struck a chord within her.
Where such boldness came from she would always wonder, but she reached between them and palmed him. He pulsed at her touch. “We could go to my house.”
“Are you propositioning me, Olivia?” Was that a hopeful note underlaying his incredulity?
She knew she’d stepped—make that leaped—beyond her self-imposed boundaries. But one night. For one night her mask and the shadows offered a measure of anonymity. She drew a fortifying breath and seized the opportunity. “Yes. I believe I am.”
“Thank God.” He wrapped her in his arms. “Pillage and plunder?”
“Hmmm.” Instinct took over. She licked at the base of his throat. He shuddered in response.
“Let’s go.” The strain in his voice and the fact she’d put it there, excited her.
She traced her tongue against the pulse hammering in his neck. He groaned and set her from him. “Let’s go now. No more of that.”
Compelled to seek one more touch, Olivia kissed the strong column of his throat. The slight chafing of his beard aroused her unbearably.
“Olivia, you’ve got to stop.” His voice echoed his harsh breathing. “We’re about one kiss away from the point when I won’t care if fifty people are inside that building. Before I prop you against the lattice, raise your skirts, and slip inside you while you wrap your legs around me.”
His words inflamed her. Moisture slicked her. Her nipples further tightened to hard points of want. She teetered dangerously close to the edge of not caring herself. The ten-minute car trip to her house loomed like an eternity.
She couldn’t get him home fast enough. “Let’s go. You can follow me.”
He twined his fingers through hers and tugged her along, leaving the privacy of their hidden corner behind. She sensed his urgent need matched hers. As they reached the front steps of the club, Adam tossed his ticket at the snoozing teenager