by Jaycee Clark
“Thought I might join you,” he continued. His hand lay on top of hers. “But you got out. Sorry I scared you.”
Taylor could only sigh. The low light made him seem even more rugged, shadowing his jawline, the hollows of his eyes, highlighting his strong, straight nose.
His hand tightened atop hers. “Don’t you want to join me? It’s cold out there.”
Circles on the inside of her wrist sent another shiver down her spine, just as a breeze, cool from the earlier rains, blew across her wet skin. Cold. Yes, it was cold, and hot, and . . .
“Come on.”
A voice like his should be banned.
Taylor thought about it for less than a second. “Don’t scare me like that again. I hate it.”
A smile flashed again. “Promise.”
This was probably a mistake.
Taylor grasped the edge of the pool and lowered herself back down into the water. Gavin didn’t move. Her leg brushed his chest, his stomach, then his thigh. One of his hands remained on the side of the pool. The other went from her hand up her arm to slide over to her waist.
Another sighing shiver as the water closed back over her. Taylor tried to tread water, but Gavin was too close. She reached out and put her hand on the hard curve of his muscular shoulder.
If the man’s voice did wicked things to her, well, his body . . . His body would make an artist long for a way to capture the essence of pure male. The man had to work out regularly. His sculpted shoulders and chest were visible to her above the water, making her want to run her hands down the taut, chiseled planes. If the water would allow her, which unfortunately it did not, she would probably be able to see a washboard stomach.
“Better?” he asked.
Her tongue darted out to lick the top of her lip. “Umm . . .”
Umm, indeed.
This time she couldn’t keep the sigh to herself.
Gavin watched her and wondered . . .
Her breath breezed against his face, warm and almost moaning. Almost. Gavin wished she had.
Her bathing suit should be illegal. When Gavin had told her to grab a suit, he never banked on this. Black was still the sexiest color. And bikinis were man’s best friend, or worst enemy. Taylor’s suit was all of the above. The midnight material stood out against her skin, reminding him of females of old compared to alabaster.
Taylor in some old-time dress caught his fancy, made his head turn. In jeans or trousers, she brought fantasies storming through his brain. But Taylor, in what was basically three triangles of black spandex, wet and slick, felled him to his knees.
Her stomach curved beneath his palm, smooth, flat and soft as petals. His fingers flexed on her side, catching the breath in the back of her throat. Slowly, so as not to startle her, Gavin pulled her closer and closer to him, until she was a mere inch away.
The moon chose that moment to peek out of its cocoon, and he could see the light reflected in her eyes. Taylor’s top teeth grazed over her lower lip.
Gavin closed the rest of the distance between them, stopping just shy of kissing her. Their breaths mixed and sighed against the other. Taylor’s lids slid down over her eyes.
He smiled as his lips closed over hers, soft and gentle. Fruit. Taylor tasted like fruit. His tongue skimmed the edge of her mouth. Nibbled, until her lips parted, allowing him access. He knew she expected him to dive in and taste her all at once like he had the night before. Hell, he wanted to. But he wouldn’t.
As if he had all the time in the world, his tongue meandered along the curve of her smile, the edge of her teeth, the ridged roof of her mouth. Her quick indrawn breath and grin against his mouth seemed to jolt her out of her passiveness.
With something between a moan and a purr, Taylor’s arms wrapped around his neck as her tongue parried and forayed with his. She half floated, half hung on to him, her body buoyant in the water, feather light against him. Up and down.
Gavin slanted his mouth over hers, deepening the kiss. Her naked stomach slid against his, her breasts brushed against his chest, making him want more. He broke their joined mouths, before he returned to place a chaste peck on her lips. “I’ve thought of kissing you all day today. All last night too.”
“As you can see, kissing you never crossed my mind.” Her words whispered out.
“Didn’t think so.” He cleared his throat. Taylor’s arms still twined around his neck, his one hand holding the edge all that had probably kept them from going under. Madness. Taylor was a madness to his well-ordered life. Gavin inched his hand back a few feet towards the shallow end, or at least where his feet could touch the bottom.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked her, paddling with his other hand to help keep them afloat. Her arms remained around his neck.
Dimples shadowed her cheeks in the low light. “Swimming.”
“Hmm . . .” Gavin searched her eyes, saw the tiredness, the anxiety, the worry. “Why?”
He’d managed to get his feet under him, and jerked her legs around his waist as he kept up his backward trek.
“What are you doing?” she asked, ignoring his question.
Gavin chose not to answer her. Pulling her with him, they made it to the deep steps set into a small cove in the side of the pool. He sat on one, and pulled Taylor across his lap. It wasn’t lost on him that she straddled him. Nor, from her wide-eyed, and probably flushed, expression was it lost on her.
“I can sit beside you,” she said in a voice made for the night.
Gavin draped his arms over her shoulders. “You could.”
Taylor didn’t move. Finally, she shrugged and relaxed.
The water lapped around and between them. Wet hair slicked back from her face accenting her classic beauty. High cheekbones and her patrician nose were highlighted in the shifting moonlight. Her neck was long and smooth. The moonlight glistened off pearl drops of water clinging to her skin. He wanted to kiss them all off.
“So,” he let his gaze roam back up to her face, and asked instead, “why are you out here in the middle of the night swimming?”
Again she shrugged, looked away. “I don’t know.”
“Taylor.” He brought his hand up to cup her chin and turn her face back to him.
After a moment, she answered him. “I just needed to think and the pool seemed like a great place to work off some worry.”
Made sense. “Particular worries, or just your general worries?”
“Both.”
“That’s lots of worry there, gorgeous. Care to share it?” he asked.
A silent moment passed between them. Crickets and cicadas sang in the night, and Gavin caught the throaty sound of frogs down by the creek.
Apparently the woman didn’t like sharing troubles, but he already knew that about her.
“I don’t understand you sometimes,” she whispered to him.
That wasn’t what he was expecting to hear. “What’s not to understand?”
“Everything.” Taylor waved one hand by his head. “One minute I think one thing about you, and the next, another. I just can’t peg you down.”
“And I need to be pegged?”
Taylor shook her wet head. “Yes. For my peace of mind. I don’t know. I just—I don’t know.”
“What are you worried about?”
When all else failed, Gavin had learned to go back to the starting question.
“Everything.”
“Another everything? Taylor, you can’t worry about everything. Most things work themselves out.” One long, wet lock fell forward and he tucked it behind her ear. She shivered as he traced the small shell shape with his finger.
“He didn’t call, Gavin. I tried Lieutenant Morris earlier, but he wasn’t in.”
Ahhh. “I’m certain things are fine, or he would have called by now.”
“Maybe.” She ran a hand absently through her hair.
He didn’t like her worrying like this. Gavin was mad as hell at the fact someone had broken into her house and vandalized her private living s
pace. That Ryan hadn’t talked for almost three hours still infuriated him. But raw fury and yeah, fear, crawled through him at the thought of what could have happened to Taylor. However, there was little Gavin could do about any of it, at present, other than take their minds off of it all.
“You swim like an eel,” he told her, slipping his hands from her shoulders down her back, his forefingers on each side of her spine.
She bowed up, bringing her breasts even closer to him. His gaze dropped to the barely hidden nipples. Not exactly hidden. She was obviously cold, as he could easily see the points of her breasts through the thin black material.
“Exactly how long were you watching?” Her head cocked to the side.
He didn’t raise his gaze, wondered what she’d do if he just leaned in and kissed one. “That’s for me to know.”
“You don’t think I knew you were there?” Taylor wiggled slightly, shifting her position on his lap, and what little blood he had managed to control thus far went racing to his groin.
Gavin grunted and placed his hands on the curve of her waist to keep her still. She hadn’t known he was there in the shadows, watching her slice through the water as though she’d been born in the blue depths. Taylor had remained oblivious for almost fifteen minutes. He knew the moment she felt him watching her. Her strokes had stopped and she jerked up in the water. No, she hadn’t been aware of him, but he had damn sure been aware of her.
“You know, you’re even more sexy all wet,” she murmured, one hand lifting to streak through his hair while the other slid over his shoulder and down to his chest, her nails slightly scraping.
“You think I’m sexy?” Gavin couldn’t keep the smile out of his voice. “Funny. I was thinking the same thing about you.” He pulled her even closer. Her long legs bent on either side of him as he leaned back against the edge of the pool.
Her smile . . . God he loved her smile. Those dimples just tugged at him and made him want to kiss her until neither of them could think.
She pulled her lower lip between her teeth. On a whisper came, “I’m glad you called when you did.” Her head shook and she leaned into him until their chests were almost touching. “I’d thought of you all day long, even though I tried not to. I was really looking forward to our little afternoon.” Her sigh breezed against his mouth. “I’m sorry if I seemed ungrateful earlier, I just— it’s been . . .”
“A bad day?” he supplied, brushing a thumb across her bottom lip.
Her tinkling laugh flirted between them. “Not the worst, granted, but it still ranks among them.”
“I have a prescription for a bad day.”
Her dimples were driving him mad. Russet brows rose in mock fascination. “Oh, Doctor, please tell.”
“Have I told you, I like it when you get all sassy?” White teeth flashed at him and the corners of her eyes narrowed on her smile. Gavin continued, “Why don’t I show you my cure for bad days?”
He leaned into her, closing the distance between them. Their lips met, parted, and tongues tangoed, first meeting in a gentle dance, only to duel in furious abandon. Her breasts grazed his chest. Just three little swatches of cloth separated him from all that he wanted.
Gavin moved his hand, traveling up her stomach, over the triangle of spandex covering one breast. Taylor sucked in a quick breath. His hand continued on to her long smooth column of throat, where he wrapped his fingers around to caress her nape. Her shiver brought a smile to his lips.
Gavin gentled the kiss, drawing it out. He stretched his hand across her waist, rubbing her hipbone until she squirmed against him. She tilted her head to the side and Gavin kissed the pulse, felt it beating beneath her jaw. Dimples. He kissed back to the side of her mouth, where his tongue delved and tasted those curious little dents.
Her whispered giggle had him pulling back.
“No one’s ever kissed my dimples before,” she told him, in her lowered voice made for seducing.
“This is a first for me too. Virgin Dimple Kissing.”
Her chest vibrated against his as her laughter filled the air.
“Shhh,” he warned her. His parents’ bedroom was directly above the pool. He might be over thirty, but he still didn’t relish the thought of his mother looking down on him making out in the pool with a girl. Some things were better for parents not to see, in his opinion.
“Sorry,” she whispered against his mouth before her lips lowered to his.
Gavin was so taken aback that she kissed him, he sat frozen for a moment. Her tongue explored the edge of his lips, before dipping down the side of his neck. At the base, near his collarbone, she gently suckled and Gavin almost came up off the step.
Grabbing her head in his hands, his fingers lost in her hairline, he kissed her as he wanted to all evening. His wasn’t a gentle kiss, or a longing kiss, but one of possessiveness, of expectations, of want, and Taylor returned it stroke for stroke and caress for caress.
Their hands glided over wet, slick skin. Gavin cradled the side of her face in his hand as he kissed her jawline, the length of her neck and her chest, tasting all those little water droplets. His hands followed his mouth to cradle the sides of her breasts. She wasn’t overly endowed, but he didn’t care. She was made perfectly to fit in the palm of his hands. His thumbs flicked out and rubbed their centers, bringing a low moan from Taylor. The sound filled the night air around them.
He no longer cared who looked out a damn window. He leaned close and pulled one nipple into his mouth through the material. She arched, pressing her breast against him as her hips shifted on his.
“You are beautiful,” he whispered.
Her fingers splayed against his head, urging him on. In one deft movement, he untied the string holding up her top and let it fall, the ribbons floating in the water like lazy black snakes. He left the back strap buckled. He’d get to it later—after all, he’d uncovered what he wanted to see. The moon had banished most of the clouds and he could see the creamy paleness of her breasts against the pink softness of their centers.
“Beautiful.” Gavin lowered his head to kiss the valley between her breasts before giving them equal attention with his hands, his mouth, his tongue. He twirled his tongue around her nipple before pulling it into his mouth. Taylor moaned against the back of her throat. He followed the moan up her neck, to catch it in his mouth.
His fingers rippled over her ribs down to her hipbone, and up the curve of her legs to her knees, where he drew circles on them. She shifted on him again, still astride him, her knees bent on either side of his torso. She leaned down and blazed a hot wet trail down his neck, his chest. When her teeth scraped his nipple, he couldn’t remain quiet.
“Taylor.”
He moved his hands down her legs to curve around her muscled calves. Their mouths met again in a hungry dance of passion.
Gavin had to touch her. His fingers trailed up the inside of her legs, over the bony cartilage of her knees to the soft, supple skin of her inner thighs. Her breath shuddered into his mouth.
Teasing her he trailed a single finger on both sides of the edge of her bikini bottoms. Taylor’s breath hitched. Slowly, so very slowly, he slipped his thumbs beneath the elastic. Taylor whimpered into his mouth as he touched her heated core, gently pressing in, then retreating.
“Easy,” he calmed her.
God, he wanted to be inside her. Now. He was so hard, he hurt.
His thumb flicked over the tiny bundle of nerves that he knew could send her over. He slipped another finger under the barrier between them and then another, promising what could come. Taylor’s breath went ragged as she kissed him with as much passion and want as was coursing through him.
When his finger filled her, Taylor arched against him sighing out his name. “Gavin . . .”
She was hot and tight. He worked another digit into her, working his fingers deep, his thumb flicking back and forth over her clitoris. With his other hand, he reached behind her and caressed her bottom, watching her as her head fell bac
k and the moonlight bathed her in its pale glory.
Her hips rocked against his hand, her chest panted in the moonlight and Gavin just watched the beauty take hold.
He pressed and circled his thumb.
“Oh, God, Gavin . . .” When he felt her tighten around his fingers, he pulled her head up to look in her eyes. As the climax ripped through her, she vised around him, and her eyelids slid down.
Gavin pulled her to him and ravaged her mouth.
“I want you out of this damn thing now,” he said into her mouth.
Her throaty chuckle answered him. “I might need some help there.”
Gavin was already working on the drawstring of his swim trunks. Taylor’s arms slid from his shoulder to unhook the back of her bikini top. As she leaned up to remove the rest of her suit, a light from the upstairs window glared down and caught them in its illumination.
Both jerked their heads around, though Taylor was off his lap and now neck deep in the water, looking for her top, no doubt.
Damn.
Just before the light went back out, Gavin thought he saw a man standing at the balcony doors, behind sheer curtains, directly above the pool.
Well, hell.
“Oh, God,” Taylor said, mortification clear in her voice. “Oh. My. God.”
He turned and gave her his attention. She was quickly working herself back into her bikini top. The evening had effectively been doused.
“That was your father!” Her furious whisper was not lost on him. “Oh my God!”
Gavin swam to her, but she ducked out of the way, tying the ribbons back behind her neck. “Taylor.”
“I am almost thirty years old and I will never be able to look either one of your parents in the eye again. Never!” Her voice was so incensed he couldn’t help but laugh.
“You think this is funny?” she fired at him.
“No, actually, I don’t.” He still wanted her, so much he ached, and it was obvious to him that wasn’t going to be happening tonight.
“I have not been this . . . I can’t believe . . . What if they saw us?” Taylor flustered was a sight he had yet to see. This was a new side of her. She swam to the side of the pool and started to get out, but Gavin followed her and gripped an ankle.