Chapter 24
KRISTA
Ifelt like I was floating, and it had nothing to do with being on a yacht in the open sea. My insides felt just as sparkly as the night sky above us. Every nerve ending was alive, humming with joy and excitement. It was like drinking the strongest energy drink but without the jitters.
I didn’t want this night to end. I didn’t want to go back to reality that made him a client. All the boundaries and professional obligations and the reasons this couldn’t work. I wanted to stay in the bubble. Pretend I was a princess who’d found her prince.
But that was a bridge I could cross later. Right now, I was living a once-in-a-lifetime moment with a man who’d somehow managed to see past every wall I’d built and decided I was worth the effort anyway.
The fireworks had ended, but we stayed on the platform, neither of us willing to break the spell.
“Want to hit the hot tub?” he asked quietly.
I lifted my head to look at him. “The hot tub?”
“Yeah. The water’s only a little heated, so it shouldn’t mess with your sunburn. There’s champagne chilling next to it, and the view is going to be incredible.” He grinned. “No more fireworks, though.”
I considered it. The practical part of my brain pointed out that I should probably call it a night, go to my cabin, and maintain whatever shred of professionalism I had left.
The other part of my brain—the part that had been singing and wearing dresses and lying under the stars in a man’s arms—told the practical part to shut the hell up.
“Okay,” I said.
His smile was devastating. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Let me go change. I noticed you were kind enough to leave a swimsuit and a change of clothes for me.”
“I was planning ahead. Just following your example.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Yeah, right.”
We climbed down from the platform and headed below deck. My cabin was closer, so we stopped there first. Dash leaned against the doorframe while I reached for the swimsuit he’d been so kind to provide. Of course, it was one from the new line and absolutely gorgeous.
It was a simple black one-piece, thank God. Nothing too revealing or complicated. But definitely sexier than the one I brought with me on this little excursion.
“Give me five minutes,” I said.
“Take your time.”
He pushed off the doorframe and headed toward his own cabin down the hall. I watched him go, appreciating the view, then shut my door and leaned against it.
What was I doing? This was insane. This was unprofessional. This was everything I’d sworn I wouldn’t do.
And I didn’t care.
I changed quickly, pulling on the swimsuit and wrapping one of the plush robes around myself.
My sunburn didn’t protest at all. The aloe had been doing its job.
I still wasn’t totally sure about the temperature of the hot tub, but I was willing to give it a shot.
An opportunity like this would never come around again.
I would regret it forever if I didn’t at least try.
I grabbed a towel and opened my door, planning to head up to the hot tub deck. Dash was standing in the hallway, also in a robe, also holding a towel.
We looked at each other.
“Hi,” I said stupidly.
“Hi.”
The space between us felt like a single word or movement would have us both bursting into flames.
Like the air before a lightning strike. The energy crackled between us.
I could feel it like a static charge making the hairs on my arms stand up.
His eyes darkened, his jaw tightened, and then he was moving toward me.
He closed the distance and kissed me. It wasn’t even a little tender. The man was ravenous. Or maybe it was me. We were both desperate for each other. His hands grabbed my face like he was afraid I might escape. I grabbed fistfuls of his robe, pulling him closer.
Every thread of restraint I’d been clinging to snapped. His, too. The man had been patient. He had given me ecstasy and had taken nothing in return. He’d been waiting for me.
I walked backward, pulling him with me, until we were in my cabin. He kicked the door shut behind us without breaking the kiss. My robe fell open and his hands slid over the bathing suit and then into my hair.
“Krista,” he breathed against my mouth.
“Don’t talk,” I said.
“Your burn.”
“It’s healed enough. Now I’m on fire on the inside. So don’t fucking stop.”
I didn’t want words. Words would make me think, and thinking would make me stop, and I absolutely did not want to stop. There had been enough waiting and teasing. It had been days of foreplay and my body demanded a hell of a lot more than a couple of fingers.
His robe joined mine on the floor. I ran my hands over his chest, practically moaning and drooling at the feel his hard body under my palms. All that ridiculous muscle I’d been fantasizing about since I first saw him was almost too good to be true.
He walked me backward toward the bed, his mouth never leaving mine. When the backs of my knees hit the mattress, I sat down and he followed me, covering my body with his, careful to keep his weight off my sunburned skin.
His hands slid down my sides, hooking into the straps of my swimsuit. He paused, giving me one last chance to stop this. I didn’t take it. I was ready to tear the thing off my body if he didn’t hurry up and get it off me.
I reached for the waistband of his swim trunks.
He sucked in a sharp breath. “Jesus.”
“Still want to talk?” I asked.
“Fuck no.”
He peeled my swimsuit down, taking his time, kissing every inch of newly exposed skin. By the time he’d worked it off completely, I was trembling.
He kissed his way back up my body. I pulled him up to meet my mouth.
I could feel how much he wanted me. His very hard cock pressed against my hip.
I had been rubbing and touching the damn thing for the last couple of days.
I wanted him. I reached between us and wrapped my hand around him.
He groaned into the kiss, his hips pressing forward involuntarily.
“God, Krista, you have no idea how good that feels.”
“Steel,” I whispered against his lips. “It feels like steel.”
I stroked him slowly, reveling in the feel of his velvety skin. He dropped his forehead to mine, breathing hard through his nose, his eyes squeezed shut. I liked having that power over him. I liked watching the careful control he usually wore so effortlessly come completely undone.
His mouth moved to my throat, then my collarbone, then lower. He took his time with me in a way that made me want to scream. How did he have the patience? And control? He’d been edged for days and now he was returning the favor. I didn’t think I had the same control.
His tongue traced a slow circle around my nipple. I arched into him, fingers threading into his hair, holding him there with my body writhing under him. He moved to the other nipple, sucking and nibbling until my thighs were pressing together with a restless, aching need.
“Please,” I breathed.
He lifted his head just enough to look at me. His eyes were dark, his hair mussed from my hands. He looked wrecked in the best possible way.
“Please what?” His voice was rough.
“You know what.”
The corner of his mouth curved. He kissed down my stomach, unhurried, deliberate, like he had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it.
When his mouth finally found me I made a sound I didn’t recognize as my own voice.
My back bowed off the mattress. His hands pressed down gently on my hips, holding me in place, keeping me exactly where he wanted me.
He seemed like he was “learning” me. That was the only way to describe it.
He paid attention to every sharp intake of breath, every involuntary roll of my hips, every time my fingers tightened in his hair.
He seemed to file it away and use it against me with devastating patience.
I was trembling and incoherent, one hand fisted in the sheets and the other gripping his shoulder.
When I finally came apart it rolled through me in long waves that crested and crashed and then crested again. He worked me through every second of it and didn’t stop until I was pulling at his shoulders, dragging him back up to me.
He rolled away from me and I nearly lost my shit. “What are you doing!”
“Settle down, tiger.” He pulled open a drawer on the nightstand and picked up a box of condoms.
“You thought of everything,” I said.
He was already tearing one open. I watched with my mouth hanging open as he rolled it down what was a very impressive cock. My body shuddered in anticipation of that thing being inside me. I watched him handle himself and nearly exploded again.
He climbed back on the bed, his hands on either side of my head as he stared into my eyes. “I feel like I need to give a little warning.”
“Warning?” I murmured.
“You’ve had me on edge for days. Don’t judge if I can’t last. But trust me when I say one time will not be enough.”
I grinned. “For the love of God, will you please stop talking?”
He pushed into me slowly, inch by glorious inch. I gasped, my fingers digging into his back. He stilled, giving me a moment, his jaw tight with the effort of holding himself there.
“Okay?” he managed.
“More than okay,” I said.
He moved slowly at first, deep and deliberate, his eyes never leaving mine. I felt every movement all the way through me. I turned my face into his neck and bit down lightly and felt him shudder, his rhythm faltering for just a moment before he managed to get even deeper. I moaned against his skin.
I dragged my nails down his back. He sucked in a sharp breath, his hips snapping forward in a way that made me cry out.
He groaned and started moving faster. He found an angle that made my toes curl and my breath come in short, broken gasps.
Once he found it he stayed there, relentless, watching my face with an intensity that should have felt like too much but instead felt like everything.
The man had stamina. He never faltered. Thrust after thrust that moved my body several inches across the bed.
“Dammit,” he growled.
“What’s wrong?”
“This is too good. I want to live inside you. So fucking good.”
Every word was punctuated with a thrust.
And then I was spiraling up, up, and up before I fell over the cliff.
The second time it hit me harder than the first. I pressed my face into his shoulder to muffle the sounds I was making, which were straight out of a nature documentary.
His back bowed, the veins in his neck and biceps bulged as his hips jerked and bucked.
And then he collapsed like someone had switched him off. His body twitched and little grunts and groans escaped his lips.
“Holy fuck,” he breathed into my ear.
My arms wrapped around him. I could feel his heartbeat gradually slowing against my chest. I didn’t want to think yet.
So I didn’t. I just stayed there, warm and wrecked and let the silence be enough.
He took care of the condom and then slid back into bed beside me, cradling me in his arms. I felt his body relax and he passed out.
I smiled and shifted just enough to lean my head against his chest. And then I allowed myself to fall asleep too.