by Katee Robert
“Delilah.” He didn’t mean to put so much snap into his voice, but he couldn’t help it. “You live on an island. There are a dozen ways something could go bad in a way that ended with you in the water. If you can’t at least tread water, you’ll drown.” When she still hesitated, he fought down the fear demanding he shake some sense into her. “It’s a stupid fucking way to die when you have someone standing here offering to teach you.”
“You are such an asshole,” she breathed. She took a bracing breath and bobbed a little farther down the slope. So far, so good. Right up until the moment she stopped touching. Her eyes went wide and she went under for a moment. He held was already moving, but Delilah surfaced with a curse.
Good. She had it. She …
Except she didn’t have it. Delilah wasn’t doing the slow movements he’d taught her. She fought the water, the struggle taking her farther into the deep end. She thrashed, splashing him in the face.
By the time he blinked water from his eyes, she went under. “Fuck!”
Ryu lunged forward and grabbed her arms, hauling her up to the air. Delilah let loose a little screech. She was wrapped around him like a spider monkey, her legs around his waist, her arms around his torso, her head tucked down against his chest.
He froze, his body flashing hot and cold and hot again. Too much sensation, too much stimulation, too much. He held his arms away from his body, away from her, and forced himself to take in every detail of this, to hold it up as evidence that he wasn’t back in that room.
Water. So much water. Salt and something briny in the air. Delilah wrapped around him, chanting “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
The pressure in his chest didn’t dissipate, but he managed to clear his throat, to ground himself in the here and now to the point where he wasn’t afraid he’d lose control again. He tentatively touched her hips. “I’ve got you.”
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t loosen her grip in the least. “I can’t let go yet.”
Did she realize she’d clung to him as her safe space? No point in looking into that. He was simply a warm body, a stable piece in the midst of the pool to keep her safe. Ryu ran a hand down her back. “I’ve got you,” he repeated. “You’re safe.”
“Safe.” Delilah let out a surprisingly rough laugh. “I think we both know that’s not the truth.”
Yeah, he guessed they did. “Guess I should have brought you flowers to apologize instead.
“Flowers.” Delilah lifted her head to meet his gaze. She still shook badly enough that he wanted to pull her closer, to hold her tightly until she knew she was safe. Except she wasn’t safe. None of them were. She gave a sad smile. “Flowers are a sweet thought.”
Sweet. He didn’t think he’d ever been called that before. He sure as hell shouldn’t be called it by this woman. “I’m not sweet.”
“No. You’re really not.” She gave a little shrug and there went the lip bite again. Delilah shifted. “I guess we should go back to the shallow spot.”
He immediately started walking them in that direction. As much as he was getting used to the feeling of Delilah in his arms, he wouldn’t keep her stranded out there simply because he didn’t want to let her go. There had to be lines. There fucking had to be.
The fact her swimsuit still covered any part of her after the thrashing was a small miracle, but each ragged breath had her breasts rubbing against his chest and the material shifting a little closer to exposing her nipples. He was a special kind of bastard to want to nudge it aside and see her. To memorize the sight of her in the light of the pool instead of the shadows of the club.
He stopped while they were still waist-deep in the water and studied the way she worked that bottom lip. “Do you want me to put you down?”
“I don’t know.” Delilah shifted again, and this time there was no way it was an accident. Not with her rolling her hips in a way that somehow managed to guide his hands to her ass. Or maybe that was all Ryu. He couldn’t be sure. She shivered. “We really shouldn’t.”
“I know.” But he found himself wading through the water to the edge of the pool anyways. “I’m your boss.”
“Technically Laura is my boss.”
“I’m Laura’s boss.”
They reached the edge and Delilah released him with her arms, though she kept her legs locked around his waist. She leaned back and clamped her hands on the edge of the pool.
So she wouldn’t touch him.
Ryu studied her face, trying to divine her thoughts. He wasn’t the best at people reading—computers made far more sense to him—but he suspected Delilah would confound even the best. Had he really thought every expression played out across her face? Right now, he couldn’t figure out what she wanted at all. “You’re safe.”
“I’m really not.” Her breath hitched. “Touch me, Ryu. Before I realize what a crappy idea this is.”
“You’re not creating a compelling argument.”
“Aren’t I?” She didn’t reach for him. No, she did something significantly more devastating. She pulled the ties of her top. A single tug and they were free. The wet fabric clung to her skin, and she peeled it off her and tossed the top away.
Baring herself to him.
He’d seen her breasts before. Time and time again while sitting in the audience or occupying the private room. This was different. This wasn’t solely watching, not when he had her wrapped around him, not when every shallow breath she took made them rise and fall as if in invitation.
“I stand corrected.” He kept one hand on her ass and pressed the other between her breasts, where he could feel her heart racing against his palm. She looked like some kind of goddess who’d deigned to grant him a favor, her dark hair falling in wet tangles around her shoulders, droplets of water dripping across her skin, her brown nipples pebbled and goosebumps rising on her skin.
He could lift her up and suck one and then the other into his mouth. He could set her on the edge of the pool and draw her swimsuit bottoms off. He could …
Except he couldn’t.
Ryu had little in the way of honor, but there were some lines that couldn’t be crossed. Not with the Horsemen’s people. Especially not with this one.
“This isn’t what I brought you down here for.” Another moment and he’d have himself wrestled back under control. He’d stop thinking about how easy it would be to escalate things, instead of making the right choice.
Just one more moment.
“Ryu,” she breathed his name as if she was just as conflicted as he was. “You’re right. We shouldn’t, …” Delilah arched into his touch. “But I really, really want to.”
He had to stop this.
He had to.
“Delilah,” he murmured. “This wasn’t part of the plan.”
“It wasn’t part of my plan, either.”
Maybe another time, he’d wonder what her plan was. What aspirations she had for the future. How she’d come from a troubled history to end up on the Island. If she was anyone else, if they were in any other position, he would be wondering at it right now. It’s what Ryu did. He tugged at strings of information and followed them back to their inevitable conclusions.
This moment felt like a different kind of inevitable conclusion.
Ryu ran a single finger down the curve of her breast to circle her nipple. He closed his eyes, but it only made the sensation of so much of her pressed against so much of him more acute. Not her hands. She made sure of that. But she was an inferno in the midst of all this water.
He wanted to burn. Just this once. “Let me make you feel good, Delilah.”
She shivered. “You have no idea how sexy it is when you say my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“All rumbly, like you’re thinking about doing half a dozen truly filthy things to me and you can’t figure out which one to start with.”
He leaned down until each inhale had their chests brushing. “I’m thinking I want your taste on my tongue.” God, he wa
nted it more than he wanted his next breath. This was even better than watching her dance. Touching her shorted out something in his brain, leaving his racing thoughts blessedly blank in a way Ryu wasn’t ready to give up. Not yet.
She gave a hoarse laugh. “Then by all means, Ryu … Taste me.”
He immediately moved back enough to turn her around to face the edge of the pool. There were mirrors lining every other wall panel on this side of the room. With one arm banded across her waist, he lifted her high enough that they could both see her breasts but not her hips.
And him?
He looked completely out of control.
“Hands on the ledge. Don’t move them.”
“Okay.” She smiled a little in the mirror at him. “You really do like to watch, don’t you?”
“Yes.” A couple of tugs and the bottoms of her swim suit were gone. He had Delilah Velásquez naked in his arms, and he hadn’t done a single damn thing to deserve the privilege. He spread his hand over her stomach and met her gaze in the mirror. “Are you sure, Delilah?”
CHAPTER 6
Delilah might have laughed if she had the breath for it. Was she sure? No. A thousand times no. Agreeing to learn to swim, for fuck’s sake, had been a ploy to separate Ry from his phone. Full stop. A little peep show to keep him distracted while she stole from him.
Nowhere in the plan was her ending up naked and on the verge of begging. If she was a different woman, she’d coldly use this to further her endgame of saving her sister. If she was a different woman, she’d have spared a single thought for that endgame in the last ten minutes.
Delilah wasn’t that woman.
In the end, she was just as sinful and wanton as her father had always claimed, because she couldn’t concentrate past the pulse of desire between her thighs. She licked her lips, giving herself over to the tableau they created in the mirror. He was so much bigger than she was, his body dwarfing her as easily as he held her in place in the water. The strength in his arms, of his chest against her back, of his legs pressing against hers …
This man was a weapon.
And all he wanted in this moment was to make her feel good.
To taste her.
Power flared, even headier than what she felt when she stepped on stage. She relaxed back against Ryu, letting her head rest against his chest. “I’m sure.” She gripped the side of the pool, the faint pain reminding her not to let go, not to give into the temptation to touch him. “Make me feel good, Ryu.”
He didn’t ask again.
He simply held her gaze as his hand on her stomach descended out of sight beneath the water and cupped her pussy. No hesitation. No careful exploring. He touched her like he already knew her body intimately. Knew what she liked. Knew what would get her off.
Ryu worked two blunt fingers into her, filling her in a way that felt so good but was nowhere near enough, considering the size of his cock pressed against her ass. “I’ve thought about this,” he murmured. “Every time you dance for me in the private room, I think about this.”
There wasn’t enough air in the room. “You think about fingering me?”
“I think about making you come.” He gave her a startlingly rakish grin. “In a number of ways. Not just with my hands.”
Oh god.
She was in so much trouble. So, so much trouble.
Delilah fought to keep her voice even, to not press against his hold on her stomach so she could fuck his hand. “Have you thought about me dancing on your dick?”
“Have you?”
She whimpered and tried to move, to create the friction she needed so desperately. “Ryu, please.”
Just like that, his hand was gone. He lifted her out of the water and followed her onto the concrete floor. Delilah didn’t have a chance to wonder what the hell was going on because Ryu hauled her to the nearest lounge chair and pressed her back onto it. “Hands on the sides.”
He spread her thighs and moved down so he was kneeling on the ground with his upper body on the chair between her legs. It put his mouth perfectly even with her pussy and … She whimpered. “Now you’re really just teasing me.”
“Tell me how it’d go.” He breathed against her clit. “I won’t stop as long as you keep talking.”
It was official. The man was a sadist. She swallowed hard. “It starts off like we normally do … Ah!” She pressed her lips together hard as he licked up her center.
And then he stopped.
Right. Keep talking.
“I, uh, dance for you.” He explored her with his mouth as if he had all the time in the world, as if this fantasy didn’t have some sort of conclusion, as if it was more about his enjoyment than about getting her to come so he could move on to fucking. Delilah gripped the sides of the lounge chair so hard, her wrist spasmed. She ignored it. “I start on the stage, but it’s different this time.”
He paused. “Different, how?”
“You talk to me.”
He leisurely circled her clit with this tongue. “Keep going.”
“You wait until I’m down to my thong and then you crook your finger at me, beckoning me down to you. I’m not supposed to …, but I want to.” She had no business fantasizing about this man, had never had any business fantasizing about him. Because he was her boss. Because he was dangerous in a way she was determined to avoid. Delilah might not have the most boring of jobs, but her life was pretty mundane otherwise. She preferred it that way.
There was absolutely nothing mundane about the man she’d known as Pestilence. She’d realized that even before they started down this path. A path that included him licking her pussy as if she was his favorite flavor of ice cream, his big hands bracketing her thighs, holding her open for him.
“I bend over in front of you … as I take off my panties.” Usually at that point in the fantasy, she touched him. That part didn’t work anymore. She cleared her throat, trying to concentrate on the story she spun, trying to hold off the pleasure building in waves.
Ryu flicked her clit with the tip of his tongue. Not enough pressure to get her over the edge, but just enough to bring her right to it. Delilah gasped. “That feels so good.” She tried to focus. “You take your cock out. A clear invitation.”
Keep talking, keep talking.
Don’t do anything to make him stop.
“I, uh, climb onto your lap. I keep my arms up, hands clasped on the back of my neck. I’m already so turned on from dancing for you that I’m practically dripping. I need you.” She bit back a moan and powered forward, her voice so breathy and low, it sounded like it came from another person. “I hold my breath as you guide your cock into me.”
He lifted his head, his dark eyes gone hazy with wanting her. “Someday, you’re going to do that.”
“It’s against the rules,” she whispered. There was absolutely nothing Delilah wanted more in that moment than to do exactly what she’d described. To ride his cock, to work herself toward coming even as he watched her with the same expression on his face that he had right now.
As if she was the most wondrous gift he’d ever received.
Ryu gave her that same grin, the one that had her whole body clenching. “I think you like it more because it’s against the rules.”
Caught.
She licked her lips. “Maybe.” Ryu released one thigh and pressed two fingers into her. Delilah gave up watching and closed her eyes. “Yes. Definitely."
He fucked her slowly with his fingers, exploring her until he found the spot inside her that made everything go hazy. “There you are.” She opened her eyes as he dipped down and went after her clit again. Ryu experimented with his strokes, his dark gaze on her face all the while. It didn’t take him long to find the right touch there, too.
It was too much. His fingers inside her, his tongue licking her just right, his attention like a living thing against her skin. Delilah’s back bowed and she cried out as she came. He didn’t stop, didn’t slow down, didn’t do anything but keep milking her orgasm
from her. Wave after wave, until she could do nothing more than lie there and shake.
Only then did he slide his fingers from her. She half expected him to move up her body, to push to the main course, but Ryu never ceased to surprise her. He moved away from her clit, but he drew his tongue over her pussy in long, lazy licks, as if he couldn’t get enough.
“Ryu?” she rasped.
“I’m not done yet.” He hesitated. “Do you want me to stop?”
Did she want him to stop? Was that a trick question? Delilah’s whole body had gone languid and disconnected, pleasure beating through her in slow waves. He touched her as if he couldn’t think of anywhere he’d rather be. As if going down on her was the best gift he’d ever been given.
She’d have to wake up soon.
Wake up. Right.
That’s all this was. Some kind of strange fever dream, a detour on her way to a destination she wanted nothing to do with. But reality could wait. Right now she was naked and had Ryu between her thighs, touching her as if she was something to be treasured. In this moment, he wasn’t a man that borderline scared the shit out of her. He was a lover who wanted her pleasure above all else.
They’d go back to that, back to standing on opposite sides of the line. He would become Pestilence again and she’d be the woman on what sometimes felt like a suicide mission. But not right now. Not yet.
She licked her lips. “No, Ryu. I don’t want you to stop.”
His wicked grin made her stomach flip. “Good.”
Her whole world melted in the pleasure he gave out with every slow slide of his tongue. She had no idea how long Ryu kept her there, drawing her close to orgasm again and again, each peak higher than the last, until he finally shoved her over the edge and she came screaming.
Screaming.
Delilah stared at the ceiling, trying to relearn how to breathe, to settle back into her body again. Seconds slid by, one after another, and she finally lifted her head. Ryu had his forehead pressed against her lower stomach and his hands clasped around her thighs tightly enough to anchor her in place. He was so tense, it was a wonder he didn’t explode. “Ryu?”