Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
AUSTIN
I led Iris into the cramped, stuffy cabin, a space so private and intrinsically mine that few people other than family had ever set foot in it.
None of them had been a woman I’d just spent the evening falling even harder for.
The thought was a fresh shock to my system.
I flicked on the low cabin lights, and the space immediately became smaller and more intimate with her presence.
I started the modular air-conditioning unit, its quiet hum a welcome buffer against the outside world.
I pulled a bottle of chilled Chardonnay from the tiny onboard fridge, a bottle I’d gotten from a server at Driftwood Grill earlier.
“A man of hidden talents.” Iris’s voice was full of amusement. “I didn’t know you were a wine connoisseur.”
“I’m not,” I admitted with a smile as I worked the corkscrew. “But I know who to ask.”
The cork came out with a soft, satisfying pop. I poured the pale gold liquid into two sturdy, stemless glasses I’d also liberated from the restaurant.
I handed her a glass, our fingers brushing.
The only real place to sit comfortably in the tight quarters was the double bed that took up the forward part of the cabin.
I sat on the edge of the navy blanket, and she settled beside me, her knee just touching mine.
The space was charged, alive with unspoken energy.
“Do you sleep in here much?” Her gaze took in the space—the neatly folded charts on the desk, the single book tucked beside my bunk.
“Not often,” I said, taking a sip of wine. It was crisp, cold, with a hint of oak. “Once in a while. If I need to get away from everything. I’ll take the boat out to one of the outer anchorages and just… be. It’s peaceful out there.”
“I can imagine,” she said softly. She looked at me, her blue eyes searching, serious. “Thank you for showing me this side of you, Austin. The tour, the boat, your world.”
The sincerity in her voice made my chest tighten.
It was hard to breathe, hard to think. I didn’t have the words to tell her what it meant to have her in my space, to explain the feeling of rightness, of peace, that had settled over me while we were out on the water and watching the sunset together.
I settled for the only truth I could manage, a confession as risky and momentous as any deep-water dive.
“It feels different.” I stared into my wine glass, unable to meet her gaze. “Being out there. It’s freeing and honest. I… I liked showing that to you. Experiencing it with you.”
When I finally risked a glance at her, her expression was one of acceptance and understanding. She gave me a soft smile, a look that seemed to see right through all the walls I’d spent years building. In that look, I knew she’d heard everything I couldn’t say.
The silence that followed was a tangible thing, a warm blanket settling over us. Iris held my gaze, her eyes full of a deep awareness that made my skin prickle. Reaching out, she took my wine glass and set it, along with her own, on the desk with a soft click.
The message was unmistakable. The talking was over.
She turned back to me, then leaned in and kissed me. This was a kiss of pure, confident intent—slow, deep, a mutual exploration that spoke of a conscious choice to fall into this together.
My attention was wholly consumed by her.
By the taste of her—wine and sweetness and Iris.
By the soft sigh that escaped her lips and slipped into my mouth.
By the feel of her hands, no longer the tentative touch of a new lover, as they moved from my shoulders to cup my face, her thumbs stroking the rough scruff on my jaw.
When she pulled back just enough to look at me, her eyes were dark and luminous in the low light of the cabin.
She straddled my lap, her knees sinking into the firm mattress on either side of my hips, her body fitting against mine with a rightness that sent a fresh jolt of heat straight to my groin.
“My turn to take charge, Captain.” Her voice was a husky promise that made my pulse hammer.
This confident, assertive Iris was intoxicating. I found myself nodding, my hands settling on her waist, letting her know I was hers to command.
She undressed me. Slowly. Deliberately. Her gaze never left mine as her nimble fingers worked the buttons of my shirt, pushing the fabric aside. Her touch was light and inquisitive, tracing the lines of my collarbone, the curve of my shoulder, before she pushed the shirt off.
I was mesmerized, a willing captive. This slow, deliberate act of claiming me was a new kind of intimacy, a new power she held over me. I didn’t want to fight it. At all.
I was already so hard it was painful. I didn’t want this to end, yet I yearned for release.
She slid gracefully from my lap to kneel on the fiberglass floor in front of me.
The light caught in her hair, creating a messy, beautiful halo.
Her eyes, full of sultry confidence I’d never seen before, lifted to meet mine as she reached for the button of my jeans.
“Let me,” she whispered, and the command in her soft voice made my shaft twitch.
Her gaze held me pinned as she slid the zipper down, her knuckles a deliberate, searing brand against my straining length.
She hooked her fingers into the waistband of my jeans, then my briefs, and slowly, inch by excruciating inch, pulled them down my legs and off, tossing them aside into the shadows.
I was completely exposed to her, physically and emotionally. She sat back on her heels, her eyes drinking me in. The way she looked at me—like I was something she wanted to devour—nearly undid me.
“You’re beautiful,” she said simply, and then she leaned forward and took me in her mouth.
A sharp, ragged breath tore from my lungs. The sensation was immediate, overwhelming, a bolt of pure, white-hot pleasure that obliterated all thought. Her mouth was hot, wet, and impossibly soft, her tongue a masterful torment.
And her eyes… she never broke eye contact.
She watched me, her eyes dark with concentration and a fierce, feminine power, as she gave me long, slow, deliberate sweeps. Her tongue traced, tasted, teased. The sight of her lips wrapped around me, the feel of her taking me deeper, was almost more arousing than the physical act itself.
My hands, acting on their own volition, came up to gently cup her head, my fingers tangling in the soft silk of her hair. A silent communication.
Yes.
Like that.
More.
A low, guttural groan tore from my throat, a sound of absolute surrender.
“Christ, Iris,” I managed to rasp. “You’re killing me.”
She hummed around me, the vibration sending shockwaves through my body, and I had to bite back a curse. The pressure built inside me, coiling tighter and tighter, an urgent climb. I was close. Too close.
Gritting my teeth, I tightened my fingers gently in her hair and pulled her back.
“No.” My voice was a raw, strained whisper I barely recognized. “Not yet. Your turn now.”
She looked up at me with slick, swollen lips, her eyes dazed with arousal. She just nodded, a slow, sensual dip of her chin, and allowed me to pull her to her feet.
I had to tilt my head to keep from hitting the low cabin ceiling, a familiar motion, but everything else was brand new.
I undressed her with a reverence that felt foreign, almost holy.
My hands, which had spent a lifetime wrestling with nets and lines and boat engines, were gentle as I opened the buttons on her blouse, peeling it from her shoulders to reveal the simple, pretty lace of her bra.
I kissed the warm, smooth skin of her shoulder, then the hollow of her throat, tasting her, breathing her in.
Her dress pooled at her feet in a whisper of soft fabric.
I knelt before her, my mouth tracing a path down her stomach, swirling my tongue around her navel and earning a sharp, hitched breath from her.
I pressed her gently back onto the bed, the cool air from the A/C unit blowing over my back as I tugged her panties down her long, shapely legs.
I parted her thighs, revealing the flesh at her center.
The scent of her was the most intoxicating thing I had ever known.
And then I took my turn.
I tasted her with focus and dedication, my tongue finding all the places that made her gasp and arch beneath me.
I loved the shape of her, the taste of her, the involuntary sounds she made when I found a particularly sensitive spot.
I listened to her body—to the way she gasped, her moans growing deeper, the way her muscles tensed beneath my hands as I held her hips.
I experienced her pleasure as if it were my own, a rising tide of sensation that I was both controlling and at the mercy of.
“Austin,” she gasped, her fingers fisting in the bedsheets. “Oh God.”
I answered by increasing the pressure, the rhythm of my tongue quickening. She was close. I could feel it in the way her body began to tremble, in the sharp, staccato rhythm of her breathing. I pushed her farther, higher, determined to give her everything.
And then she shattered.
Her back arched off the bed, a sharp, piercing cry tearing from her throat as a wave of pure, convulsive pleasure ripped through her. Her release was a victory, a powerful, stunning moment of connection that left me feeling tremendously possessive.
I moved up onto the bed beside her as the aftershocks of her orgasm still trembled through her body. Her skin was flushed, her eyes dazed and unfocused, her lips parted on soft, ragged breaths. She looked completely unraveled, utterly beautiful, and entirely mine.
She turned her head on the pillow, her gaze finding mine as she reached for me. “I need you now.”
I found my wallet and retrieved a condom. As I tore open the packet, Iris took it from me. Her fingers were deft and sure as she slowly, deliberately rolled it on, her warm touch a silken torment that nearly sent me over the edge.
“Easy,” she whispered, her voice thick with desire. “I want to feel every second of this.”
I was throbbing so fiercely I could barely think, a raw, aching need that was a physical pain.
We fell back onto the berth together, a blending of limbs and urgent need in the cool, conditioned air of the cabin.
She parted her legs, welcoming me as I positioned myself between them.
I looked down at her face, at the trust and undisguised desire there, and pushed into her in one deep, slow thrust.
Her gasp was a soft, breathy sound against my ear. The feeling of being inside her, so hot, so impossibly right, obliterated every coherent thought. There was no past, no future. No Heron House, no Line Dancer. There was only this. Only her.
The rhythm we found was slow and deep. Deliberate.
I pushed in.
She met me, her hips rising from the mattress.
Deep. Slow. Again.
Each movement was a conversation, a nonverbal confirmation of everything that had passed between us. Then she shifted, her hands on my shoulders. With a lithe movement, she rolled me onto my back, the mattress groaning in protest, and straddled me, taking me inside her again.
The sight of her above me, in control, sent a bolt of pure lust through my system. This was what I’d been craving without knowing it. Her confidence, her power, her complete ownership of the moment.
She sat up, her back arching, her hands threading through her wild, blonde hair and lifting it off her neck. The low light of the cabin sculpted the curves of her breasts, the flat plane of her stomach, the gentle flare of her hips.
And I was lost.
The sight of her, so confident and beautiful, was the most arousing thing I had ever seen. She was a siren in the low light of my cabin, claiming me. I was powerless to resist. I had no desire to resist.
“You like this,” she said, her voice husky with satisfaction as she watched my face. “You like me taking charge.”
“Yes,” I managed to rasp, my hands gripping her hips. “God, yes.”
She began to move, a slow, sensual rhythm that was pure, exquisite torture.
My hands came up to grip her hips, my thumbs pressing into the soft skin, helping to guide her, to increase the friction, the pleasure, for both of us.
But she was setting the pace, controlling the depth, the angle, everything.
“Faster?” she asked, her voice breathless but commanding.
“Whatever you want,” I groaned. “You’re in control.”
The admission seemed to ignite something in her. She leaned forward, her hands braced on my chest, and began to move with more urgency. The pace quickened, her movements becoming more demanding, her breaths coming in sharp, ragged gasps that matched my own.
I watched her face, saw the moment she found the angle that made her cry out, saw her eyes flutter closed as she chased her pleasure. She was magnificent—wild and uninhibited and mine.
The wave built between us, a shared, rising tide. The coil of pleasure inside me spooled, past the point of bearing.
“Iris,” I gasped out, my control shattering. “I’m—”
“Yes,” she breathed, her movements becoming frantic. “Now.”
She threw her head back, a cry tearing from her throat as her climax hit. It was that—her complete and total surrender in the midst of her dominance—that sent me over the edge. A deep, ragged groan ripped from my throat as my world exploded into a wave of white-hot, blinding release.
I don’t know how long we lay there afterward, her body a welcome weight on top of mine.
The only sounds were our harsh, ragged breathing slowly returning to normal.
Her head was tucked into the curve of my neck, her hair tickling my chin.
I held her, my arms wrapped tightly around her, my hand stroking her sweat-slicked back as the whirring A/C slowly dried it.
In the breathless aftermath, with the gentle rocking of the boat a soothing rhythm beneath us, the wall inside me cracked. I sensed the shift, a tectonic movement deep in my soul. This was a terrifying, undeniable connection to another human being.
Whether I wanted it or not, whether I was ready for it or not, this woman was a part of me now. She had burrowed her way past years of defenses, past all the warning signs and tripwires I’d so carefully laid. She was here, in my arms, in my sanctuary, in my head.
Most of all, I could no longer deny that she was deeply lodged in my heart.