Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
I t was just as Michaela had told him all those weeks ago on their hike. There were so many equally amazing kisses in her future. What she hadn’t said was that they were all for him.
The passion in his kiss surpassed all the other kisses they’d shared. She moaned against his mouth, and it only made him delve deeper. It felt like no other kiss that had ever come before between two lovers, a kiss for the ages. He took control of her very soul.
While he seduced her with his lips and his tongue, his hands roamed her body, her shoulders, her back, her belly, and finally her breasts. His touch after all these days apart was so fiery, so intense, she had to pull back just to breathe.
When his thumb caressed the peak of her breast beneath her swimsuit, she gasped. “Troy. Oh God, Troy, please.” She wasn’t sure what she was asking for—just more, more .
He took her mouth again, swallowing her words as if he needed them buried deep inside him. She’d never been ravished before, never wanted anyone this much, never needed a man the way she needed him.
They wore so little that her wrap and bikini and his swim trunks and shirt seemed to fall away beneath his questing fingers. He pinched the tip of her breast lightly, and a jolt of sweet pleasure shot down to her core.
The curtains were closed over the portholes, and the cabin’s air was cool against her skin, but Troy made everything hot, hot, hot.
“I need to taste you,” he whispered, his breath warm and tantalizing. “Every inch of you.”
“Oh God, yes.” Her voice was breathy, her body quivery.
He trailed kisses down her throat, along her collarbone, over her shoulder, and down to a peaked breast. So needy she felt as if she might burst, she cried out, “Please, please.”
His lips closed over her, suckling, licking, tormenting. Just as his fingers tweaked her again and a bolt of lightning shot down to her center, she moaned, tangling her fingers in his thick hair.
She writhed beneath him. Maybe she pushed him, or maybe he knew where she needed him, but he continued his path of kisses down her stomach, licking each hipbone, then pushing her legs apart and falling between them.
The tip of his tongue was a tease, the slide of his finger an inch away from where she needed him. Inside her. Tugging almost mindlessly on his hair, she raised her hips to meet his mouth, rocking against him, begging him.
Then he took her with his lips and his tongue, and a glorious blast of pleasure erupted within her. But it wasn’t enough. It was just the beginning.
He blew a warm breath against her, making her quake, as he whispered, “I’m going to make you come so many times you forget your name.” A wicked glint filled his eyes. “Until the only name you remember is mine.”
She didn’t have the strength to tell him that his name was the only one she remembered even now. The only name she would ever remember.
Then, his mouth on her, he filled her with his fingers, and she arched against him, a cry falling from her lips. So good, so right, so perfect. So not a frog.
He stroked her slowly, already knowing exactly how she liked it. All the while, his tongue circled faster, his lips sucked on her, and the hum in his throat vibrated through her.
His kisses on her most private places rocked her very existence.
Tension built inside her, spreading out, reaching the spots where his fingers filled her and his tongue took her.
Then she shattered, bucking and heaving against him, her hand in his hair pulling him tightly to her as she rode the sunburst he’d created.
She chanted his name, couldn’t remember her own, knew only the feel of his hair beneath her fingers, the touch of him inside her, the texture of his skin against her thighs.
As if he knew her body as well his own, he eased away, his shoulders still spreading her legs, his fingers still inside her, slowly stroking, but giving her a moment’s relief from the relentless pleasure.
She couldn’t even lift her head to meet his gaze. She could only say to the ceiling, “That was crazy.”
“Crazy good?” She heard the smile in his voice.
She nodded, not able to do more than tip her chin toward him.
He laughed softly. “If it was only good , I need to work harder.”
Bending to her again, he shot her faster into the clouds than ever before. God help her, she screamed his name.
He made her come twice more, or maybe it was three times. It seemed to be one long stream of unrelenting ecstasy.
She couldn’t have said where he found the condom he rolled on or even exactly when he filled her with his thick, hard erection. All she knew was how gloriously he took up all the empty places she hadn’t truly known she had.
Then she lost her mind so completely she lost even his name.
There was just the feel of him inside her, shooting her to the moon and the stars and the universe beyond.
Her body squeezed him with another glorious climax.
It was all Troy could do not to let himself go right then.
She was everything he’d never known he wanted, her body like the softest cage pulling him deep inside her.
He hadn’t counted how many times she’d come—he didn’t care.
All he wanted was to give her more pleasure than she’d ever known.
And now he plundered her as if she were treasure, as if she were gold and silver and diamonds.
He braced himself on his arms because he needed to look down at her, to see her flushed skin, her dusky peaks and creamy valleys, her ruby lips, her lush eyelashes, her pleasure written on her face.
Licking his lips, he tasted her again, and a rush of desire raced through him. He had to kiss her, had to gather her into his arms, pulling her tight, tasting her, mingling the flavors of her body and her mouth.
His muscles screamed for him to take her faster, harder, deeper. But his mind wouldn’t obey, and he filled her, taking her slowly, over that sweet spot inside, their joined bodies rubbing right where she needed it.
Her next climax started in her quivering legs wrapped around his waist, the feverish moans rising from her throat, and her fingers suddenly digging into his behind. Then she clamped around him, hard, working him into a near-mindless state.
And finally, he let his body rule, taking her hard and fast, the way she needed, the way she loved, the way she’d begged him to take her on their one and only out-of-this-world night. She strained against him, tossing her head, her hair flying, tears leaking from her closed eyes.
His climax rose with a roar from deep within, and he let it out in a mighty shout of glory and pleasure and love.
He wasn’t sure, but he thought he might have passed out. Maybe she had too. She lay bonelessly atop him; Troy didn’t even remember rolling to his back. But he did remember his arms around her, her scent filling his head, her body still holding him tight inside.
“Are you still alive?” she whispered.
“Barely.” His voice came out as a croak. “Are you?”
She laughed softly. “I might have died and gone to heaven. Because this feels like it.”
“It’s heaven on earth with you.”
She rested her chin on his chest. “I said I think I love you.” She blinked, her eyes a tad misty.
Where he might have felt a twinge a few hours ago, now he felt only joy because he knew what she meant.
“I don’t just think it.” She gazed at him with such beautiful emotion in her eyes.
“I know it. I love you, Troy Harrington.”
He trailed his hands up her back, held her close. “And I love you, Michaela Killian. I have from the moment I saw you, and I always will for the rest of my life.” Then he wrapped his arms around her and took her lips in a kiss that sealed their love.
She whispered against his mouth, “This feels like a forever kiss.”
“It is. Forever and ever. That’s how long I’ll love you.”
He held her tight as she murmured against his chest, “Forever.”
The word forever kept ringing in Michaela’s head. And this time, it didn’t frighten her. It was real. It was how she felt. It was how Troy felt.
The music still played outside as they dressed.
“Will you come home with me tonight?” His voice caressed her like a touch.
There was no question. “I’d love to.” Then she added, “But I need to make sure my mother gets home safely.”
He smirked, followed by a wink. “Walter will make sure your mother is very safe.”
“I want her to find the happiness she deserves. And if her happiness is with Walter, then I couldn’t ask for more.”
Troy pulled her into his arms and whispered against her ear, “I’m so happy you said that. Honestly, I feel good things about the two of them.”
She suddenly wanted to cry. For all the years her mother had been alone and for all the years she wouldn’t have to be anymore. “I do too.”
Before Troy came along, her mother had been the most important person in her world. She still was. But now there was Troy too. Her most important people.
As they climbed the stairs from Troy’s cabin, a lot of foot stomping on the bow shook the entire yacht.
Then a conga line snaked through the lounge.
Michaela glimpsed the beatific smile on her mother’s face as she danced to the conga beat, Walter gripping her hips. She had never seen Flo look happier.
And truly, that meant Michaela could never be happier. Her mother had found a special someone who brought joy into her heart, and Michaela had found Troy.
Beside her, Troy gasped. “Holy hell, is that Fernsby at the end of the line?”
If it hadn’t been attached, Michaela’s jaw would have dropped to the deck. The elegant butler still wore his suit jacket, but his umbrella-adorned tie was flying as he conga-hopped behind Susan Spencer, who was clinging to Bob in front of her.
As he passed, the man grinned like a maniacal clown. “Dearest Mickey, why don’t you join us?”
Troy’s jaw was definitely not attached, and it most certainly hit the deck. He asked in a dazed voice, “Did he just use a nickname?”
“I think he did,” she answered as the conga line disappeared up the stairs to the sundeck.
“He must be drunk.”
“Does he drink?” She hadn’t seen Fernsby with a glass in his hand.
“I don’t know. But there’s no other explanation. Or maybe I had a waking nightmare.” Then Troy visibly shook himself, like a dog shaking off water. “Do you want to join the line?”
“No.” She crooked her finger. “I have something special I want to do with you.”
In the stern, she removed her sarong and climbed onto the diving board. Then she held out her hand. “Jump with me.”
She’d told him that day on the yacht that the ocean was full of too many creepy things, and she would never jump off his diving board. But maybe those creepy things were a symbol of all the fears she’d had roiling inside.
As he stepped up beside her and linked his hand with hers, she said, “I’ve been waiting my whole life for someone like you.
” She squeezed his fingers. “For someone I want to take the leap with. There’re so many scary things out there, but so many beautiful things I’ve missed out on because I’ve been afraid.
Like falling in love. Like letting someone else have control sometimes.
Like trusting someone with all that I am. ”
As she walked backward to the end of the diving board, pulling Troy with her, he whispered, “Trust me.”
Standing side by side on the diving board hanging out over the water, all the creepy ocean things swirling below them, she said softly, “I do trust you.”
Then, hand in hand, they jumped together. Both of them in tune and calling out at the same moment, “I love you.”
Their love, like the ocean, would last forever.