A boldness she didn’t know she possessed surfaced and she reached for the waistband of his pants. Chris’s stomach contracted at her touch, giving her room to release the button and slide the zipper over the bulge, causing her thighs to clench in anticipation.
“My turn.” Chris stopped her hands and lifted them over her head before he grabbed the cotton sundress and tugged it off in one smooth movement.
For one brief moment, she felt exposed and uncomfortable, but that feeling was soon chased away as Chris tumbled her to the bed. An acre of bronze skin loomed before the hot weight of him covered her and blocked out any thoughts beyond the screaming need his hands were creating as they moved over her skin.
One toe-curling kiss melded into the next as Chris’s tongue flicked against hers like a promise. But when his mouth moved lower, trailing moist heat along the swell of her breasts, she nearly arched off the bed in response. The loss of her bra vaguely registered, followed by the whispery slide of her panties down her thighs.
The featherlight kisses across her stomach were driving her mad. She reached for him, but his fingers locked around her wrist and pulled it over her head. Her other wrist soon followed, and Chris wrapped her fingers around the iron rails of the headboard.
His chest pressed against hers, the crisp hairs tickling sensitive skin, as she savored the feel of him against her from breasts to toes. Blue eyes locked into hers as he held her wrists in place.
“I told you I’d do all the work. That all you had to do was lie back and enjoy.”
“I thought we were talking about sailing.” Lord, was that whispery voice hers?
Even in the shadows of the room, she saw his grin. “No, you didn’t.” Then his head dropped to capture her nipple between his lips.
Yesss, she thought, and then she wasn’t able to think anymore.
“This is amazing. Really wonderful.” After an hour of worrying she’d fall off the boat—yacht, catamaran, whatever it was called—she was finally growing used to the feeling and began to understand the attraction sailing held.
“Then could you quit white-knuckling the edge of the tramp? You’re doing serious damage to my ego.”
“Your ego is in no danger at all.” Sure enough, though, she was still gripping the edge of the trampoline suspended between the two hulls as though her life depended on it. With a great show, she let go of the edge and stretched her arms out to catch the wind.
“That’s better.” He leaned over to give her a quick kiss.
Ah, yes, sailing was becoming more attractive by the minute. Or at least sailing with Chris was. Completely in his element, he controlled the boat with ease as the wind ruffled his hair.
She had vague memories of Chris kissing her goodbye in the small hours of the morning, saying he had some things to do before they set sail. She’d half expected never to see him again and had gone back to sleep with a touch of regret. Not about sleeping with him—oh, no, that topped her list of best decisions ever made—but that she didn’t have the guts to ask him to stay.
So when he’d shown up around ten that morning with a heart-stopping smile and a picnic basket, Ally had had to fight the urge to pull him straight back into bed and spend the rest of her trip there.
But this was good, too. She had a great view of his gift-from-the-gods body as he pulled on ropes and adjusted sails. Blue shorts rode low on his hips, and now that she no longer needed a death grip on the trampoline, she itched to touch him again.
She still couldn’t believe she’d actually…well, not to put too fine a point on it, that she’d had the most amazing sex of her life with this man. He was too good to be true. But, oh, Lord, the things he’d done to her. She hadn’t known, never even dreamed of the possibilities. Even now, her nipples tightened with need, and a fire burned low in her belly.
The little Beach-Cat, as Chris had called it, had one major flaw: zero privacy. The open design of the boat meant anyone could see what they were doing. Not that there were many folks in sight…
She resigned herself to just putting her hand on his leg instead and looked forward to getting back to shore as soon as possible.
“Are we headed someplace specific?”
Chris adjusted the sails again and the little boat leaped forward as it caught the wind. “There’s a little cove just around the point of the island I thought we could explore. I understand it’s pretty secluded.”
Her stomach flipped over at the thought. Maybe Chris’s thoughts were headed in the same direction as hers.
“But we have a little while before we get there. Why don’t you tell me that long story of how you came to be on Tortola alone.”
Ugh. Her blissful fantasy was torpedoed by the thought of home. “In a nutshell, I was supposed to come with someone, but that was canceled months ago. The trip was prepaid, and I didn’t want it to go to waste, even if none of my friends could come with me.”
“Let me guess. That ‘someone’ is an ex.”
Gerry’s blond good looks and petulant pout flashed into her mind. Why had she been willing to settle for someone so shallow? “Very much an ex. Thank goodness.”
“Agreed. His loss is my gain.”
Looking for a way to change the subject before Gerry could spoil her good mood, she went back to sailing. “Does the Circe go this fast?”
“We’re not going all that fast. Three or four knots, maybe. You could probably get out and run faster than this. And the Circe will go a lot faster than four knots.”
Pride filled his voice every time he mentioned the Circe. “That ship—”
“Yacht.”
“Sorry, that ‘yacht’ means a lot to you, doesn’t she?”
“I’ve been wanting to buy her for a long time, so yeah, I’m pretty pleased she’s now mine. But, as you saw, she needs a lot of work. A couple of my friends came by today to work on her, in fact.”
A tiny twinge of guilt nagged at her that he’d ditched his repairs of the Circe for her. At the same time, she was very glad he had. She stretched out on the trampoline, belatedly realizing she must be getting used to sailing to want to get comfortable. Or maybe it was just the matter-of-fact way Chris handled the cat that put her at ease. The man was born to be on the water, which led her to wonder what he did when he wasn’t.
“Where’s home for you?”
Chris ran a hand down her side and over the curve of her hip, where his thumb slid under the string of her bikini bottom. “I guess you could now say it’s wherever the Circe is.”
“Really?” She hadn’t thought about that possibility. She’d just assumed…well, she wasn’t sure what she’d assumed. “But you are American. In fact, with that accent I’d say you grew up somewhere on the southern East Coast.”
“South Carolina.”
“I’m a Georgia girl myself.”
“Let me guess. Savannah.”
“You’re good.”
“At many things.” He wagged his eyebrows suggestively at her, and the hand at her hip moved promisingly.
“Oh, I fully agree with that.” And she smoothed her hand across his thigh and felt the muscle jump. Chris wanted her. She reveled in the feeling; just a couple of days ago, she had believed she was a boring, plain-Jane loser magnet, but here she was. It couldn’t be real: Ally Smith, Femme Fatale. Oh,