“Careful when you go grabbing like that, darlin’,” he said when he’d followed her. “You might get hold of something I’ll need later.”
She laughed. “I don’t know, if I were you, I’d worry more about some hungry little fishy thinking it’s a big fat ol’ worm dangling there and taking himself a nibble.”
His teeth gleamed white in a smile that suddenly reminded her of the shark she’d mentioned. “It’s not dangling like a worm right now.”
Taylor ducked back under the water, this time stroking a hand over his belly—oh, those rock-hard abs—as she passed. She was just one beat too slow, though. His hand slid down the length of her back, curving over the taut muscle of her ass. Swiftly it tightened around her ankle, pulling her back toward him.
When his hand slid up over her bare breast, Taylor jolted and reared her head up out of the water, gasping. It felt outrageous. It felt provocative.
It felt right.
Suddenly the mood of play was gone. She let her feet touch the bottom, swaying lightly in the water. Given that it had been years since she’d had sex with anyone but herself in the room, the idea of a man touching her was exciting and more than a little frightening.
The reality of it was simply exciting, period.
Dev’s face tightened and he stepped forward, pulling her against him.
Heat on heat, mouth on mouth, the stroke of hands sending sensation rocketing through her body. Taylor shuddered. God, it had been so long since it had been like this, maybe even never. Surely she’d have remembered this kind of kaleidoscopic physical rush sweeping her along into madness, she thought as Dev crushed her mouth under his. Rough stubble scraped against her skin. Tantalizing, it failed to satisfy but only made her want more.
She clutched at his shoulders. Buoyed by the water, she wrapped her legs around his waist. The smooth, hard heat of his belly tormented her. She wanted him in her, hard and against her. This had nothing to do with tequila or vacation, it had to do with a wanting that went deep into her bones.
Waves slapped softly at the pilings of the dive dock. The palapa fronds rustled in the wind. The brush of hand on skin was slick and silent, the shudders silent and swift.
Dev groaned at the feel of Taylor’s breasts filling his hands, her sleek, soft legs holding him in a slippery grip. He was so hard that he was brushing up against the cleft between her buttocks, the slick touch keeping him on the edge of coming. Not yet, though, he thought. There were places he wanted to take her, things he wanted her to feel before that.
He slid his hands around her back and pulled her toward him, running his tongue tip along the impossibly soft skin of her jawline, down her throat. He’d wondered how she’d tasted. He’d thought about it all day, as they’d sat at dinner, as they’d walked down the beach in the darkness. The combination of smooth softness and sleek strength enthralled him. To have her now, filling his arms, pressed up against him, robbed him of breath, rendered him rock hard with need. He wanted to make her blind with pleasure, immersed in heat, to send her flying over the edge.
“Tell me you want this,” he muttered, running a hand down the flat of her belly.
Taylor gasped and arched against him. “I want you,” she whispered.
He filled his hands with her breasts again, feeling the soft give and the hard tips against his palms. Unable to hold back, he lowered his head to take her nipple into his mouth. The feel of the rough nub against his tongue sent sudden, sharp arousal jolting through him. His fingers slid lower, passing curls of hair to find her wet in a way that had nothing to do with water. Knowing she was right there, accessible, threatened his control, but didn’t break it. Though he ached to drive his cock into her, he held back. Instead he found the hard, tight bud of her clit.
Taylor jolted in shock at the hands of another on that most sensitive of spots. The slight calluses on the ends of his fingers teased a thousand nerve endings with slippery friction. She strained against him with a moan, as the tension coiled in her. His fingers tormented, then teased, then stroked rhythmically, leaving her helpless to do anything but feel.
Pumping her hips to accentuate his touch, she moved against the maddening strokes. His hand tightened on her breast, squeezing the nipple and she climaxed in a rush of sensation that exploded through every cell, crying out and gasping with the intensity, her body bucking helplessly against him.
Taylor clung to him as the shudders ebbed slowly away. Then her eyes met his, and the desire flared up again, hot and immediate. She pulled his head down to hers for a fierce, fast kiss, running her hands down the taut, corrugated muscles of his belly, feeling them raise up against her fingertips. “I think we need to do something to equalize things.” She slid off of him to stand on legs that were still trembling. Reaching out, she wrapped her fingers around his erection, but he stilled her hand.
“I’ve got a better idea. Let’s go back to my room.”
She nipped his lips. “For a bed?”
He wrapped his hand around her neck and pulled her close for a hard kiss. “For a condom.”
THE DOOR SLAMMED BEHIND THEM and Dev pressed Taylor against the wall, feeling the soft spring of her muscles against him.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” he muttered distractedly. “I want you naked and I want to be in you.”
“Mmm.” She kissed him, and reached down for the hem of her dress. “Then maybe we’d better stop wasting time.” She pulled it over her head and dropped it in a pool of pink silk on the tile floor.
Dev slid his hands down the smooth curves of her waist, brushing over her backside for a heady instant before he moved his hands up into her hair and kissed her hard, feeling the soft strands spilling over his fingers. Then he pressed her back to the wall, holding her in place as he knelt down and tormented her with his mouth and tongue.
She writhed against him until he could feel how wet she was, taste how close she was to the edge. And he stopped, wanting, needing to see her face this time in the light, to watch her flush as her orgasm moved through her.
When he stood, it was her hands that tugged feverishly at the drawstring on his pants. When he pushed the cloth down, it was her hands that searched him out where he was heavy and hard, jerking just a little with the force of his arousal. And when he stepped forward, it was her hands that guided him inside, her moans that filled the room when his own voice failed and all he could do was gasp at the tight, hot miracle of her body clenched around him.
RED-GOLD LIGHT STAINED Dev’s eyelids. He moved to roll away from it, to burrow back down into sleep, but he couldn’t move. His arm was numb, held down by a solid weight.
A weight of warm, soft female flesh.
He gathered the bundle against him even as he rose into consciousness, a consciousness laced with sensory snapshots—the maddening moments before they’d reached his room…the yielding heat of her naked body against his…the hot, slick rush as he slid himself into her…the molten explosion of his orgasm into her still shuddering body. And all the times they repeated it in the hours that followed.
Dev pressed a kiss on the tousle of blond hair and Taylor grumbled once in slumber.
“Shhh,” he whispered. “You can go back to sleep, just let me get my arm out.” It felt more like a chunk of wood than an arm, but he moved it nonetheless. Enduring its wake-up promised to be excruciating.
Taylor rolled away from him and burrowed back into the pillow, the sheet falling away from her to reveal an enticingly angular back. Dev looked at it speculatively, but then tingling in his fingertips warned him that the fun was just beginning. Minutes